brief thoughts on some Who audios

[kindkit]

Unusually for me, I've been listening to Big Finish audios. It's unusual not because I don't like them, but because I have real difficulty sitting still and concentrating when it's just sound (I can also never just listen to music). But if I play solitaire on the computer, it keeps the restless part of my brain occupied enough that I can listen.

Below the cut are brief, non-spoilery reactions to "Phantasmagoria" (Fifth Doctor and Turlough), "Loups Garoux" (Fifth Doctor and Turlough), "Singularity" (Fifth Doctor and Turlough), "Ringpullworld" (Turlough Companion Chronicle), and "The Glorious Revolution" (Jamie Companion Chronicle).



"Phantasmagoria"

My favorite of the Five-and-Turlough audios. There's lots of silly fun here, with nice bantery/bickery interaction between the guys and some vivid secondary characters. I like the early-18th century English setting, too.


"Loups Garoux"

I might have liked this one better if I hadn't heard in various places that it was extremely slashy, which set me up for a major disappointment since the story features het romances for both Turlough and the Doctor, not to mention the bizarre spectacle of the Doctor asking Turlough for advice about women. The werewolf story felt too mystical for Doctor Who, and the environmental messages were anvilicious in the extreme. Also, skeevy gender politics that reminded me of all those awful "werewolf pack dynamics" fanfics in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.


"Singularity"

A decent story, although it would have been more compelling if the guest actors hadn't kept tripping over their Russian accents. There was a bit too much "Turlough grows and changes" for my taste--not that I don't want characters to develop, but I don't like being hit over the head with it.


"Ringpullworld"

I loved this SO MUCH. Great characterization, sharp and funny dialogue (I laughed out loud more than once), and glorious metafictional fun. Partway through, I thought to myself, "This is so much like one of Paul Magrs's Who novels, yay!" And then just now I checked to see who wrote it, and lo and behold, it was Paul Magrs! Which, I'll admit, means that Magrs had a somewhat predictable set of interests that he brings to his Who writing (notably the nature of storytelling), but I like those interests and I think Magrs always writes with great panache. I highly recommend this audio to everyone.


"The Glorious Revolution"

I have mixed feelings about this one. It's always wonderful to get a new Two-and-Jamie (and in this case Victoria) adventure, and Frazer Hines's imitation of Patrick Troughton here is even more uncanny than it was in "Helicon Prime." Initially I loved the story, too, with its focus on the deposition of James II, a history that will deeply affect Jamie's own life. And Jonathan Morris, the writer, got on my good side by talking about the persecution of English Catholics, which tends to be glossed over like crazy in historical fiction set between the Henrician Reformation and Catholic Emancipation. But the story didn't ultimately hang together very well, and some of Morris's choices had me torn between headscratching and headdesking (especially at the end).

Comments

[damned_colonial]

You sound like someone who needs to take up knitting!

[kindkit]

Yes, I think so. It would certainly be better than solitaire.

[damned_colonial]

I have an internet radio thingy on my back porch and use it to listen to NPR-like radio-type-stuff (handwave... actually I'm listening to Australia's Radio National) and I knit to it. It's great.

[st_aurafina]

Loups Garoux was very WTF, I didn't like it at all. That conversation with Turlough set off my embarrassment squick something dreadful. *shudders*

I listen while I cook - generally a good thing, occasionally have set things on fire. But while I'm peeling a billion garlic cloves or something relatively safe, it's a good way to keep occupied while getting my Who fix.

I wish I'd had the audio adventures while I still had a long commute - they would have been excellent company in the car or on the train.

[kindkit]

Loups Garoux made me realize how much I'm attached to the classic Doctor not having any canonical romances. Because of course when he's given romances in any kind of official tie-in, it's always het, just as all the Doctor's official or implied romances in the new series have been het. Similarly, Turlough is easily readable as gay in telly canon, but of course the audios (LG, but also that moment in "Singularity" when he complains that he never gets to go anywhere tropical with pretty girls), when they imply a sexuality, imply a straight one.

Thus the het romances in LG are, to me, the loss of something I value a lot. (Not that I think the audios are canon or bind my imagination in any way, but the possibility is lost for the duration of the story, and that's bad enough.)