beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth journal

That was quite good :-)
I recommend watching it without spoilers. I think it would have been better if I had not forgotten what time it was and looked on tumblr before viewing. I think the first watch version where it is all Surprise Twists would be even better than the version Oh It's That Bit Cool.
It seemed clever and fun and Doctor Who.

I do not have very detailed thoughts on it this week. I woke up in the middle of my sleep because the food delivery slots were odd this week. I am thinking mostly that more sleep might be quite nice.

I relistened House of Blue Fire, which introduced Sally Morgan. https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/doctor-who-house-of-blue-fire-320
It has its good points but I feel like it interrupted its own momentum to tell a different story, and ( Read more... )

Pretty okay adventure but it gave me the writer feel where you want to unplait it and use it for parts.

It's Christmas themed but blurs into New Year a bit so I timed listening to it just right.
Ace and Mr Colchester tell each other ghost stories by firelight.
By Joseph Lidster, and you can tell.
( Read more... )
I don't want to say much about the plot(s) because this is an excellent piece, tense and personal.
It fits well with what we know of them already but isn't predictable. It expands on Torchwood, the Institute, and what they have been like. And then it ends on an excellent note.

I give it 5/5 stars.

I watched the Christmas Doctor Who
many feels in one story, lots of whoosh and characters sketched in fast, connecting then going, the Doctor having some feelings too
then it made me cry

I think I hated the ending

then I thought about every other ending in the Whoniverse I hated so now I am having feelings of a non festive sort.

not sure that is a useful reaction or a useful review.

Today I listened to Big Finish's final part of their 60th anniversary audios
Doctor Who: Once and Future: Coda - The Final Act
(a title I went and cooied from their website because long yet similar to many things)

It features the Fugitive Doctor and the War Doctor, and I liked it plenty. ( Read more... )

After I finished the Constance monthly adventures I went back and listened to Flip, slightly out of order. I haven't listened (or relistened, not sure which) Vortex Ice Cortex Fire but I've listened the rest.
Some interesting and consistent creative choices were made.
But they're a bit... worrying? Like, at the same time, Flip should not be travelling without a bunch of therapy, and, the idea that the Doctor wouldn't want her travelling with him is part of why she maybe needs a bunch of therapy.
( Read more... )

I know where her story is going because I accidentally started my relisten there, but just at the minute I don't quite see how it meets up in the middle.



But since there's only one monthly adventure with her left, I guess I can find out today.

6 and Constance.
The chatty bits say it was recorded in lockdown so they could only use actors who had their own recording studio, and CB says they lost a day because he had to invest in better equipment when the first day made a bad noise, so, interesting limits.

It's a base under seige story made of Consequences, with the Doctor having a Secret, even from himself.
I think it forgot that if the Doctor doesn't know something his first assumption is it hasn't happened yet. There should have been a line assuming he was crossing his own timeline. If there was I missed it.
Constance doesn't know about regeneration yet so she doesn't know what she's seeing in security footage, and she has faith in the Doctor that the story deliberately questions.

( Read more... )


I don't think this one brought me along with it emotionally, I'm feeling niggly and annoyed instead.

That may well not be the story's fault. I'll give it another go later.

6, Flip and Constance in two new to me adventures.

I don't have much to say about Cry of the Vultriss. Standard adventure vs Ice Warriors, a bunch of complicated local politics that I thought was made weaker by putting so much blame on the one ice warrior, and some old Time Lord sins. But it felt like it could happen to any set of Doctor and Companions, so it didn't feel as strong as it could.

Scorched Earth was *very* specific. Leading Wren Constance Clarke sees the end of her war, and it's properly complicated. It's about the persistence of hate past the end of the circumstances that caused it, and how people we've come to like can still be carrying that around with them. Because nazis. But the war ends, so then what?
It's also got a suitably Doctor Who spin to it. Not just the locals involved.
The solution though... I can see how it fits, I can see how the Doctor thought of it, I can see how it seemed appropriate, and yet, it still seems like the kind of mistake the story was about. I want to think later Doctors wouldn't do the same thing, but some of them would do it harder and with bells on, so it's proper complicated.
Every character vivid and distinct, a believable situation, and a very strong story. I'm giving it 5 out of 5.

6, Constance and Flip

I didn't remember this audio at all even though I've rated it before.
Turns out there's a very stressful to listen to bit where ( Read more... )

Solid storytelling, but more stressful than standard death threats or horrible dooms.



I have been relistining to all the Constance stories in a row, because I have a few I didn't listen yet, and there's some absolutely solid characterisation and character arc going on. She's sort of archetypal and has the stiff upper lip thing going on and also she's dealing with a whole bunch of feelings stuff while feeling like she shouldn't feelings. Is good stuff.


I did not however listen to the Flip audios yet so I am going to have to double back and listen them as flashbacks after I'm done.

I like the contrast. There's no getting them muddled up in voice or behaviour. Good story generator potential there.

Yesterday I listened to the first part of BFA DW Once and Future
and I didn't have much to say about it, because it was a lot of setup interspersed with running around.

It also had all the elements to get you meditating on time and mortality, appropriately for an anniversary story, with aliens dying of old age, and characters and actors that were the children of characters or actors from before, and the 4th Doctor, but. There was. A lot of running.

There was also a bit where Sarah Jane saw Osgood's collection of pictures of the Doctor and mistook them for futuristic rock stars, which, yes, but. Um. But funny.

I think if all the episodes are this packed with mixy uppy eras, which is the Thing but which also takes a lot of story space, then these might be a set of listen once.

But tis cool they exist.

I had a dream where I was at a convention and I lost my name badge and they made me a new name badge that said 'writer of the episode School' and that was how I found out I got a Doctor Who script accepted.

Which is a much better convention queue dream than usual, even if the next bit was having to go do Gladiators to actually get in.

But when I woke up I thiught what School could be about, and I reckon I had a pretty good plot bunny, specifically for knows they're adopted Doctor. ( Read more... )

I think that is a pretty good plot bunny, as bunnies go. It is not an outline yet and has a few places that need a bunch of work, but as a bunny, pretty good.

And bunnies are free to a good home, because it is not like any two of us would write the same story anyway.




I did not exactly have a wrap up to that idea though, triumphant ending where, like The Teacher is revealed or something. It's just a bunch of character in a light sci fi wrapper.



Then I got distracted by wanting this older disabled companion to meet silver hair Jack who is having to deal with ageing? But like, by running around in the background of his younger self's life, because it isn't like the him living linear can have aged that much yet. So we get some old footage of classic Jack laughing or something ordinary, mix it with a lot of stunt men being Jack, and then have now silver Jack doing the talking, but it turns into a Doctor lite episode because the Doctor and young Jack can Run, but the disabled companion and silver Jack have slightly different problems with keeping up, possibly involving the bloody stairs. Jack likes to be tall but getting up there is going to get more challenging. And once he is old he is going to be old a very, very, long time. So he is not going to want to admit to the ageing thing, but time travel as a device can give him a side by side comparison. And a disabled person ageing at the usual pace can gently challenge him on the whole 'it'll get better, it always does' attitude. And ask if hels seen a doctor this century. Which could get a very sad wistful face actually, should use that exact phrasing.

I have no idea what the plot is doing, I just want to have this chat with silver Jack.

Because in the books he expressed a terror of ageing and becoming dependent, and that is a Conversation, that can include pointing out that when he found someone like that he helped them, and he isn't the only one. I get by with a little help from my friends, reprise.

Reframe Jack from action hero to *very reluctant* mentor leader organiser. ... he would absolutely hate having others be the ones charging into danger, but if he can no longer get there in time...

Useful story, just needs, like, an entire plot and a place to live in the verse.

Or young!Jack needs sent away conveniently, and sliver edition is only now getting back to Earth.

Something though. Where the story isn't only the spectacle of not dying. Jack can have layers.




Two bunnies, no waiting.

5, Tegan and Turlough.
I think I liked this one. The story rolled out from its initial premise solidly, the new characters worked, everyone got something to do. It just leaves me with a niggle of unmet potential: the nightmares weren't those of team TARDIS, which seems like the slightly less fun way to do it.

I'll delete it for space because so many I still haven't listened, but I'll relisten it another time.

Today's Doctor Who: Three's a Crowd
5, Peri and Erimem
(I like the end where 5 says 3s a crew)

Adventure setting is a planet where everyone is agoraphobic and nobody leaves their room
and I was expecting to resemble that, and not feeling great about it,
but it turns out they were raised that way to keep them under control
which is the boring version
and not really relatable.

Also, their fears are treated as irrational, albeit kindly,
but when they go out of their rooms lizard men literally try and eat them
so the story is not saying what it thinks it is saying.
( Read more... )
I have listened this one before but had no memory of it, and that about sums up my reaction this time too.

Ah well.