newt5996.bsky.social
Trumpet player, Doctor Who fan, actual scientist I guess, and Cyclops. Has a comics podcast. He/him.
https://linktr.ee/newt5996
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The Last Wish by: Andrzej Sapkowski and translated by: Danusia Stok: The Witcher Saga began with two short story collections and the first one has always been the stronger of the two. Much of the series has always been takes on fairy tales, and this short story collection has perhaps the best of
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style? It also kind of feels like Sapkowski (or at least Stok’s translation) works better being read based on the fairy tale nature of the tales.
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least as presented in the books. His Yennifer in The Last Wish is also really good as well. His Dandelion is also surprisingly close to Joey Barry, several years earlier. Who knows maybe I’ll actually have a better opinion of Sword of Destiny when I do it on audio with Kenny’s almost effortless
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That’s mainly because it is a frame story and almost has too much obvious lead in that you can hear the flashback strings at points. Peter Kenny narrates this and he’s actually really good, I particularly like how funny he makes Geralt who is a character I think is underrated for his humor, at
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the bunch. A Grain of Truth, A Question of Price, and The Last Wish are the real standouts here, though The Edge of the World I found myself appreciating just a little bit more here (the last time I read it in 2019 I thought it just kind of fine), making the frame story the weakest of the bunch.
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The Last Wish by: Andrzej Sapkowski and translated by: Danusia Stok: The Witcher Saga began with two short story collections and the first one has always been the stronger of the two. Much of the series has always been takes on fairy tales, and this short story collection has perhaps the best of
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The French Dispatch (2021) - Anderson tributing journalism isn’t quite as good as his anti-fascist masterpiece but it’s still about how to make society work.
boxd.it/91S8wD
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The French Dispatch (2021) - Anderson tributing journalism isn’t quite as good as his anti-fascist masterpiece but it’s still about how to make society work.
boxd.it/91S8wD
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The Fearmonger by: Jonathan Blum: And here we have the first fantastic story Big Finish did and sadly the only one by Jonathan Blum who like his wife Kate Orman is a perfect writer for the Seventh Doctor. This is all a look at the general political machine and how the right manipulates it to their
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as not representative of the political machine stoking fear, but the unrest and listlessness of trying to go against that and how far that can go. It’s Blum at his best.
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Harper and she is just as dramatic and impactful as you’d expect. There are a couple of weird moments in the edit, especially with the Part Three cliffhanger, but Gary Russell is a great director for this. The big twist as to where the creature is always gets to me because it reframes the creature
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advantage of stoking fear in the masses to push people further to the right. Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred as the Doctor and Ace immediately click back into their characters as Blum draws on the New Adventures for characterization. Jacqueline Pearce plays the right wing party leader Sherilyn
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The Fearmonger by: Jonathan Blum: And here we have the first fantastic story Big Finish did and sadly the only one by Jonathan Blum who like his wife Kate Orman is a perfect writer for the Seventh Doctor. This is all a look at the general political machine and how the right manipulates it to their
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The Land of the Dead by: Stephen Cole: And after one good story it’s back to probably the weakest Monthly Range installment thus far. This one was written in a weekend and you can tell, it’s incredibly underdeveloped. The idea of prehistoric aliens coming to life and adapting should work well, but
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and the rest of the supporting cast are nothing. There’s an archeologist who is a discount and flimsier Tegan who is really there to be told exposition while Brett is a villain that just kind of is there. He descends into madness but Christopher Scott is no Simon Rouse.
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a need to tell this story. I will say listening to it this time hearing Neil Roberts as Tulung was a surprise. Cole also struggles with the characters, they’re all basically one-dimensional. Nyssa at this point at least only had her TV stuff for characterization, but the Doctor is also just there
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Stephen Cole doesn’t ever really do anything with it and connecting it to the beliefs of indigenous people is at best uncomfortable, made worse by the fact that this is an all white cast. Yes it would have been difficult to get Inuit actors in Britain in late 1999/early 2000, but there also wasn’t
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The Land of the Dead by: Stephen Cole: And after one good story it’s back to probably the weakest Monthly Range installment thus far. This one was written in a weekend and you can tell, it’s incredibly underdeveloped. The idea of prehistoric aliens coming to life and adapting should work well, but
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Whispers of Terror by: Justin Richards: The first Doctor Who Big Finish audio that actually really works. The sound design is a bit bare but Richard’s actually is paying attention to the audio medium. The story is a murder mystery involving a politician who had all of his speeches recorded. They
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hear, and Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant just slip back into the roles of the Doctor and Peri. Richards as a writer likes to make them bicker but enough time has passed so the bickering is more like friends bantering than the over aggressive.
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are being altered and a creature made of sound is slowly killing others. Okay so the creature isn’t well defined by the sound design but it is quite good at imitating people. The cast also just clicks for the first time, Lisa Bowerman is excellent as Pernell, Peter Miles is always a delight to
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Whispers of Terror by: Justin Richards: The first Doctor Who Big Finish audio that actually really works. The sound design is a bit bare but Richard’s actually is paying attention to the audio medium. The story is a murder mystery involving a politician who had all of his speeches recorded. They
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Phantasmagoria by: Mark Gatiss: First main range Fifth Doctor Adventure proper and oddly enough like The Sirens of Time it doesn’t really get started until the final episode, the first three being particularly short and the fourth being a regular length for a TV episode. Gatiss doesn’t really do
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in the story. Yes they’re still finding their feet but this is one of many Big Finish releases that are just plain forgettable, I’ve listened to it numerous times and yet it takes no time to really forget most of it.
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much with the Doctor or Turlough, they both stumble into things to discover what can be only described as a dull alien conspiracy. The Part Three cliffhanger is particularly ridiculous as it’s the reveal that Hannah has been secretly an alien in disguise who has also been several other characters
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Phantasmagoria by: Mark Gatiss: First main range Fifth Doctor Adventure proper and oddly enough like The Sirens of Time it doesn’t really get started until the final episode, the first three being particularly short and the fourth being a regular length for a TV episode. Gatiss doesn’t really do
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Now I am kind of annoyed Saldaña took home Best Supporting Actress, every other nominated performance in that category was better.
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Ah but you see the Oscar’s for it were one of the better outcomes…it lost nearly everything.
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The Sirens of Time by: Nicholas Briggs: So my great Main Range listen through begins and I’m just gonna say it, this has always been a messy story. The format is essentially 3 Part One’s that crossover with each other in a single Part Two, built upon the idea of having the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh
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Sirens themselves feeding off time has potential, Briggs does have a supporting cast that is interesting enough especially Anthony Keetch’s Coordinator Vansell, but this is very much a first effort.
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where Briggs has clearly thought about who the Fifth Doctor is and what would tempt him into a trap while the weakest is the first. Sylvester McCoy and Peter Davison haven’t quite adjusted to audio as a medium while Colin Baker is the one that has. The plot involving the Knights of Valesha and the
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Doctors interacting which is certainly a fun idea just not wrapped in a particularly interesting plot. The final episode is where Briggs actually tries to tell the story and we don’t just have three episodes of the same setup. The strongest individual episode is probably the second, it’s the one
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The Sirens of Time by: Nicholas Briggs: So my great Main Range listen through begins and I’m just gonna say it, this has always been a messy story. The format is essentially 3 Part One’s that crossover with each other in a single Part Two, built upon the idea of having the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh
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The Wiz (1978) - Gonna say this is underrated and Sidney Lumet is a great director not suited to this project.
boxd.it/90xxqp
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The Wiz (1978) - Gonna say this is underrated and Sidney Lumet is a great director not suited to this project.
boxd.it/90xxqp
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Let’s be fair, 60%, DC Fontana was also incredibly significant in that department.
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I’d argue that even for the 1960s Roddenberry wasn’t a very good screenwriter. The best episodes to share his credits were usually the ones cowritten (or completely written) by other people.
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Call Me Master: Inner Demons: The second Big Finish Chibnall era set while not quite as strong as the Fugitive Doctor set, really shines in allowing Sacha Dhawan to unleash his performance as the Master and lays some groundwork for actually exploring what this incarnation of the Master is really
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Call Me Master: The Good Life by: Una McCormack: Maybe they’re trying out different tones for each story to see what sticks? This one is closer to a War Master style story which I think actually works really well with what Dhawan is doing in the role of the Master. Bethany Antonia is the viewpoint
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motivated by sort of this split in who he is. The set is playing on the uncertainty generated by the character’s previous incarnation and the snap back to evil is particularly interesting.
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Call Me Master: Inner Demons: The second Big Finish Chibnall era set while not quite as strong as the Fugitive Doctor set, really shines in allowing Sacha Dhawan to unleash his performance as the Master and lays some groundwork for actually exploring what this incarnation of the Master is really
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character here and that really works to see this Master from the outside looking in with how manic the portrayal is. It’s also actually connected nicely to the previous episode close enough to make the set feel as the whole having a point.
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Call Me Master: The Good Life by: Una McCormack: Maybe they’re trying out different tones for each story to see what sticks? This one is closer to a War Master style story which I think actually works really well with what Dhawan is doing in the role of the Master. Bethany Antonia is the viewpoint
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Call Me Master: The Clockwork Swan by: Georgia Cook: This set is clearly being mostly an anthology. This second installment is a quite fun pastiche of Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot films which I’ve got the feeling Cook isn’t a big fan of. The Master is trapped on a theater amusement park
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less fun than what had come before but it works as a conclusion. Definitely a step up from the first episode in terms of giving us an identity for the range.
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planet and pretending to be a detective as he’s going around murdering people. Cook has intentionally written a bad murder mystery, but it’s very fun to see the Master come up with these theories as to who the murderer could be. The last act becomes a horror film style chase for survival which is