Doctor Who: Too Hot For TV
Doctor Who: Too Hot For TV
S7 E06 - A Doomed Romantic and Hitler
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In the final episode of MayGann Dylan is joined by Frazer Gregory to discuss two Big Finish audios, 'The Stones of Venice' by Paul Margs and 'The Time You Never Had' by Tim Foley.
Welcome back to Doctor Who Too Hot for TV. We are the podcast that looks at all things expanded universe, Doctor Who. It's the end of May, or May Gan, as we're calling it, and this is my final episode on a run of eighth Doctor stories in spin-off media, and I'm joined by Fraser Gregory. Fraser, welcome. Well, hello. Thank you for having me. What a pleasure to be seeing the end of me again. Exactly. We've got to finish with a bang, and Paul McGann himself wasn't available, so I I opted for you.
SPEAKER_02Finish with a m M'kbang? Mkbang? No, it doesn't work.
SPEAKER_01Go with it. I'm with it. Fraser, I've had you here before, but you're on with Joe Ford, so I didn't ask my normal question that I usually open up with, which is how did you become a Doctor Who fan?
SPEAKER_02Back in 1988, um a Dalek flew up some stairs threatening Sylvester McCoy, scared the shit out of me, and I've been a fan ever since, is the is the short version.
SPEAKER_01So does that mean Daleks always flew for you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, you know, growing up in the 80s, Dalek's was something that was very, you know, zeitgeisty, everyone knew what a Dalek was, and it was scary. So I remember, you know, Wednesday evening in October, um sitting down to watching Wogan, because there's nowhere else on the telly, with my grandma, because my mum was out of Brownie, so my grandma would come out uh to babysitters, you know, doctor who was announced after Wogan. I think, oh, yeah, I'll probably enjoy that, I'll give that a watch. Sat through the first, you know, twenty-three and a half minutes of of Remembrance of the Daleks part one. The Dalek starts to ascend the sk the stairs, shouting exterminate and exterminate, exterminate and doing anything but Sylvester McCoy as the doctor gets very scared by this and so do I. To the point where I get banned from watching next week's episode by my grandma.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_02Because it was too scary. So what she made me do is she made me video it and watch it the following day when my mum was home. So my mum, you know, came home from from work, she was a teacher, so she came home about half past five on the following Thursday, so that's when I got to see the the resolution of that cliffhanger, but it just kind of stuck with us ever since, you know. And I had season 25, I had season 26, watched live, um the show went away, but my enthusiasm didn't, and it just kind of grew and grew through Doctor Who magazine, through collecting VHS, the odd target that I'd picked up in the library. It just you know, just that that one moment, you know, sunk it's closing to us to never let go.
SPEAKER_01And so what is your relationship with expanded media? So you mentioned targets, but like new adventures, big finish, things like that.
SPEAKER_02Up until recently, when you know people have asked us to start coming out on podcasts at podcasts and talk about the expanded media, um it's been it's been very slight. Even stuff like the targets, you know. When I was getting into the show, VHSs were starting to get released, so I didn't have to go to the targets if I wanted to, you know, get a fix of Doctor Who. I'd go to HMV or Our Price as it was back in those days, and I'd spend my money on a VHS where I could actually watch the show. Really, you know, when I got into Doctor Who magazine, I remember being very aware of the new adventures coming out, but they'd already started by the time I'd picked up on that. And me having a sort of very sort of innerly retentive mind said, you know, you can't just jump in at this, you've got to start from the beginning, you know, you would you know if you're gonna do it, you've got to start with the first one and wait your way through. And it that just never happened, that never took off. Big Finish again was just something that by that point I just don't think I could afford. I don't think I was particularly interested in in affording um by the time Big Finish came out, but when I was that would have been that was around the 2000s, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was ninety-nine, I think, was their first re release.
SPEAKER_02So I would have been a student there down in in Manchester, you know, um cleverly avoiding Toby Haydock as he was setting out on his um stand-up career. You know, I was in halls just opposite where he was setting up his first comedy club, but I never went. But yeah, I had other things to spend the money on, so you know, it just it never stuck with us. I remember getting storm warning from from Doctor Who magazine, they they give I think it was the first episode out free. Yeah. So kind of listen to that and say, Oh well, that's cool, but you know, you know, I'm I'm going to the pub now. So fair. Yeah. So it's it's it's been really interesting to kind of come back into these things more recently. You know, again, Joe's been wanting us to pick up some some of the novels and read through them, not just like the the the new adventures, but the past adventures and the um you know the eighth doctor adventures. And it gets to a point, I think, where there's just that much you just don't know where to start. Certainly I feel, you know, there's there's that much, that many books, there's that many big finish ranges and lines and box sets. It's kind of like, you know, where do you start? Where do you actually so you I think you do need sometimes someone just to take you by the scuff of the neck a little bit and say, right, listen to this one. This one's really good. Read this one and tell us what you think about it. Do the you know, otherwise I'm just gonna sit there on the periphery and just go.
SPEAKER_01There's too much of it. It's too scary. It's too scary. So then what is your relationship with the eighth Doctor Beyond the TV movie? Have you experienced many of his adventures in books, comics, or audios?
SPEAKER_02Comics, definitely, because Doctor Who magazine is something that I've never given up on. Um that has you know, that really was my my source of absolutely the fire of my fandom that really fuelled that in the mid to late nineties. So the the Eighth Doctor's comic strips were fantastic. You know, sometimes that would be the only thing I'd read in the magazine was just be like, flick through that and uh read the comic book, read the comic strip and go, those were brilliant. So um, you know, Izzy and Destry and um The Threshold and all of that. You know, I still remember vividly when he regenerated into Nick Briggs, not knowing that it was Nick Briggs at the time.
SPEAKER_01It's better that way.
SPEAKER_02Yes, probably.
SPEAKER_01Not not to slag off Nick Briggs, but like it was I think it's just a bizarre face, whereas Doctor Who fans are like bloody Nick Briggs again. Like Nick Briggs showed up and did it. Let's just like it was an in-joke.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. But no, I I I remember that just being being a really mm, like mind-blowing thing to do. It's like, oh my god, they've actually went and regenerated the Doctor, you know. Yeah. How how do they have the right? How bloody dare they? You know, and then you know, a couple of episodes, a couple of months later, you you kind of, oh no, that haven't. Oh well, okay, I'll get more. I get more with the doctor, and and then obviously, yeah. So though those comics were just really, you know, fantastic. That's probably the extent of what I've had externally up until legacy of the last few months.
SPEAKER_01The first thing we're going to jump into today is The Stones of Venice, written by Paul Mars, directed by Gary Russell, produced by Jason Hay Gallery and Gary Russell. It was recorded on the 15th and 16th of May 2000 in unnamed studios in Bristol, and it was released on the 19th of March 2001. News at the time. BBC Books Doctor Who Range have just announced a new title from Paul Mars entitled Mad Dogs and Englishmen, and it was apparently written into his contract that a fluffy poodle with a pink collar should appear on the book cover, which ultimately it did. Death Comes to Time, the pilot made for Radio 4, which was not commissioned, was picked up by BBCI, who commissioned the other episodes and were going to put it out the following year. And the team behind last year's fringe play, Doctor Who Hellblossom, are returning with a new Doctor and a new monster called The Vox Day at the new Theatre Royal Guild Hall Walk, Portsmouth, running from Wednesday, the 18th of April to Saturday, the 21st of April. And that is all that is there. There's a little picture of their Doctor, their TARDIS, and their monster. And lost to time, one of those weird Doctor Who things that happened for a week and then is no more.
SPEAKER_02Well, this this needs to be the the open call then to anyone who ever witnessed Doctor Who in the what's it, the Vox Deer?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Anyone that witnessed Doctor Who in the Vox Deer back in the day. Well, please get in contact. We want to hear from you. We want to know what that was about, what it was like, good lord.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And also what Hellblossom was like.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_01Clearly it was successful enough that they mounted a second. Second performance, yeah. Second sure. So one of my favourite things about doing this podcast is going through old DWMs and finding things like that, where you're just like, they did what? And it's just like nobody cares about the brand at that point. They're just like, oh, some guys in Plymouth want to make a play. Can they have the license? Yeah, give them 50 quid. That'll do it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Releases at the time. From BBC Books, we had Earthworld featuring the Eighth Doctor, Fitz and Angie, Rags featuring the Third Doctor and Joe. On VHS, we had Delta and the Banner Men, and the comic strip was Aphidious featuring the Eighth Doctor and Izzy. I remember Earth World. I can't remember a thing about it, but I know it's got a big sexy dinosaur on the front cover.
SPEAKER_02It has, and you've you've probably picked the the only other Doctor Who Eighth Doctor book I could I could talk about, because that's one I have covered with Joe on the Hamstad Book Club. So yes, that is um the Doctor and Angie's first trip out together. She gets introduced in the book before, but this is like our first trip in the TARDIS as a as a companion. I remember Joe sent me a voice message, a voice note, explaining the background of the story of what I'd I'd need to know about the Eighth Doctor to be up to speed at that point. And it was three minutes long, and there was about three of them. So I've I very much went, you know what, I'm I'm I'm just gonna go into this a little bit cold, a little bit not knowing exactly what's going on, and say, you know, is this the sort of book? You can do what I've you know said at the start I didn't want to do and just jump straight in and pick up. Um but yeah, there's a big sixty dinosaur on the front, there's lots of running around, there's a little bit of nonseness. It doesn't quite sit well in the Doctor Who book for me, but not yet. It's a fun little it's very Douglas Adams-y and a bit Paul Marsey as well.
SPEAKER_01Oh nice. Maybe uh maybe I'll I'll dip back into that one, who knows? And Rags is something we've covered on this podcast before. It is a dark and violent take on Doctor Who. It's really, really not the show that you know. No. But it's quite interesting. The Doctor and Charlie attempt to take a holiday, only for the TARDIS to land them in a far future Venice on the eve of its final disruption, as the city prepares to sink beneath the sea. What begins as a melancholic visit quickly becomes complicated by a tangled web of local intrigue, a grieving aristocrat obsessed with his lost love, a fanatical cult awaiting her return, and a secretive, amphibious underclass plotting rebellion. As the Doctor investigates, strange events, including a missing corpse and rumours of an ancient curse, suggest that the city's fate is tied to something far more complex than the simple legend. Separated during their investigations, the Doctor and Charlie become entangled in different aspects of the mystery, uncovering the truth behind the supposed curse and the identity of the long-dead woman at its centre. The Doctor ultimately reveals that the events afflicting Venice are the result of advanced alien intervention rather than supernatural forces. With the aristocrat and his lost love reunited, they sacrifice themselves to avert the city's destruction, and Venice lives on. So, Stones of Venice, basically, I picked both of these today. I wanted to get something for early on in the Paul McGann release range, and this is the earliest one that we haven't covered before. And I wanted to get something fairly recent, and so we've gone for one of the Audacity audios that we'll talk about later. But Stones of Venice, is it one that you've heard of before or heard before? Are you aware of its reputation? Anything like that?
SPEAKER_02Um no, absolutely not. Um, you know, I've I've I've dabbled a little bit in Big Finish. I think you can get all these on Spotify. Uh we used to, you know. So I did start going through some random ones on Spotify. Things like Jubilee and the Chains of Bidnight I have s sought out and and listened to just on the basis of reputation. And um, I think Rob Sheerman's a an excellent writer, but this is one I had no clue about whatsoever, other than you know, it was Eighth Doc Down was early on.
SPEAKER_01So this is one I remember listening to at the time. I must have heard it a couple of times since it's got a reputation of being, you know, a bit of a banger, and I think it's it's it's one that's that's earned. But it was the first one that Paul McGann recorded, even though if it's it's not the first one in the series. So I'm wondering, does this to you, who's heard a few bits here and there, does this feel like the same show and the same doctor that is in the TV movie?
SPEAKER_02Very much so. I think Paul Mars has has really written The Ifth Doctor very well here. You get that real sense of the the ability to sort of like pivot from the sensibleness to the the absurd, you know, really well. It's the whole these shoes fit perfectly moment, but stretched out across four episodes, he really hammers that, you know, you you get this lovely sense of the doctor being someone who, you know, just is casually strolling through his life of crazy paving, you know, mad things happening, he's just taking it all any stride, and he's just like, la la la, oh this is happening now, oh isn't this wonderful? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you also get, you know, the that sense of you know sarcasm behind him as well. Um there's there's a lot of lines there where I felt skipping ahead to sort of like the night of the doctor where it's like, you know, I've got five minutes. Anything can happen there, I get I get bored, bring me knitting. I got really got a sense of that sight of him as well. Um but you know, it really did just feel like you know this is this is a guy who's just walked you know into his TARDIS in San Francisco at the turn of the century and walked out on you know into Venice. Obviously, you haven't had a little stop-off on a way to pick someone else up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's interesting, the eighth doctor goes through so many different versions of himself, both in the audios and the books and the comic strips. But this it's interesting they revert for type, and perhaps we'll get onto this a bit later, but it feels like that same doctor when you jump back into the range 30 odd years later for the audacity stuff, but I mean that's possibly a conscious decision. But he's such a magical character, this version of the Doctor, and like he's such a refreshing change from the sixth doctor and the seventh doctor, not not to shit on them in any way, but you really feel like, oh, this is the Doctor sort of he's got a new lease of life, but also like it's almost like the weight behind the character's been stripped away, uh, and it's it's really, really present here. Having said that, this script wasn't originally written for the Eighth Doctor. I think, I don't know for certain, but I think they turned around this season of audios fairly quickly when Paul McGann had a window, because the first one is the only one that's a new script, all the others have been repurposed from other places. This was written as in an attempt to tempt Tom Baker into do big finish at the time when he wasn't gonna do it, and he just didn't respond well to the script at all.
SPEAKER_02So I I can't imagine the fourth doctor in this, to be honest. I can't imagine you know, Tom certainly having the same having any sort of fun.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Or I think you would have fun, but you wouldn't have the fun that way you want him to have. He would be very much like, okay, I've got this script, it's not what I want to do with it, so I'm just gonna come along and I'm gonna turn up on the record and I'm just gonna shit things up a bit and I'm gonna start ad libbing and I'm gonna start changing it in behbe.
SPEAKER_01I can see why they chose this script and why inevitably when Tom does first return to the role for the Nest Cottage stuff, it's Paul Mars that writes it. Because it's not your typical Doctor Who, which, you know, Tom just at that point wasn't interested in doing anything that was sort of remotely typical. Although I would say I I do feel like Mark Gatis, who appears in the thing, certainly feels like he's in the Tom Baker era because he comes across as a right mask of Mandrager, a sort of villain.
SPEAKER_02He he does, rather, doesn't he? And I think you know the the that's one of the strengths of Paul Morris is he's so steeped in in that sort of era, the sort of Pertway Baker era, the 70s, when he writes for that era, he the love for the show comes out really strong, but it comes out in a very specific way in as in as much as how much he takes the piss out of it. You know, he's he's got that very sort of I I mock the thing I love the most, and the more I love it, the more I mock it. So in things like um Verdigree, you know, where you get a two-dimensional Captain Yates, quite literally. He turns them into a sheet of paper and they fold him up, you know, it's stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01And he does a chapter told in telesnaps, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_02And that's the Yes, yes, he does. So, you know, y you can you know he's got that that love of it, and that there was some there was a a part in this as well, wasn't there, where the doctor gets locked up and he's like, Oh, I always seem to get locked up in these things, but you know, I never stress about it because somehow or other it always turns out well. So you you you can get that that sense coming out, but this was very atypical, it was very sort of it was almost as if Bourmers has written just a generic sort of science fiction story, and he's he's had to put a bit of science fiction in it. It's more that he's trying to write sort of like a gothic horror. Yeah. More than anything, but because it's Doctor Who, he then has to put a little bit of sci-fi in, so you get at the end, it's like, oh yeah, by the way, um, she's an alien, that's why everything's happening. It's not magic, it's not magic, it's the in alien, and she's got some alien tech, and that's why all this is happening. Sorry, sorry, I did try and mention that at the start, but it didn't, but yeah, just that's what's happening.
SPEAKER_01It's more of a gothic romance, to be perfectly honest. You know, it's a story of lost loves and bizarre cults and things like that, but there isn't a lot of horror to it. I think Paul Mars is very good at he's decided what his story is, as you say, but someone's on it maybe even the script editor's gone. Could you add a bit more sci-fi to this? Yes. But it doesn't matter because I just think he paints such a vivid world. It's set in this apocalyptic Venice, and every character just is so well rounded, and like the environment and the story, like the setting, it just works so well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's it's definitely gothic. I mean, in terms of the horror, you know, you've got the characters sort of creeping around halfway through in a crypt trying to crack open the sarcophagus of the missing Estella. So, you know, the the that that's where the sort of the horror element came in for me. I was getting real Edgar Allan Poe vibes. Right. And especially a sort of like the end of the third episode where we're sort of counting down to this this clock's counting down and Estella's gonna rise from the from the sarcophagus, rise from the crypt. That was like pure, like this is the fall of the house of Usher, yeah, you know, in Venice. So I think the really clever thing he did was was set it in the future so he could he could have this uh apocalyptic Venice. You should say, like, you know, Venice is falling into the sea, and you know, you weren't kind of thinking, well, Venice doesn't fall into the sea. Yeah. I know that doesn't, I know Venice, I know how it's gonna end, I know it's gonna end up absolutely fine. Obviously, he does press the reset button at the end, but you know, by saying, right, this is Venice in the 23rd century, I can make it just like Venice in the 18th century and say this is just what it's like in the future, and I can do whatever I want with it because no one's gonna think, well, this is old Venice, you can't do that because you can't knock down this building because that building's still there. You can't so that was a really clever move on his part.
SPEAKER_01No, it it's it's really good because there are points in it where I'm like you you kind of forget and you're like, I could be in a Heartnell historical here almost.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely, it's like a future historical. It's like, you know, if you took, like I say, if you took that little element of sci-fi away, it would just be a it could just be like a pure historical. Just it's just set. It's not our history, it's set set in the future.
SPEAKER_01And I do think it's not just Mark Gates' performance, but there is like a real tone of mascot from Matt Andragora for me.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I I I started listening to it and you know, I thought, I'm a bit hungry, so I'm gonna nip the fridge and try and make myself a harm sandwich.
SPEAKER_04There is no harm left in my fridge, it's all in this.
SPEAKER_02It's all in this. It's like I don't know if I'm so used to India Fisher describing food to us on a weekly basis through Master Chef. But I start listening now, I was like, now I have heard a few, a few other ones. I say, why is she playing it so posh? Why is she why has Charlie just been the poshest person you could possibly imagine this? And then Miss Lavisham comes along and say, that's why she's gotta keep up with everyone else in this. Churchwell.
SPEAKER_01She's a posh Victorian adventurer, what more do you need? Edwardian, sorry, Edwardian.
SPEAKER_02Edwardian, yeah. So it's kinda like, you know, you've got Michael She had poshing it up and being melodramatic. You've got I forget who it is, playing Churchwell, but these are all just Scoville, who Yes.
SPEAKER_01Doctor Who fans may know as another stage Doctor Who. He played the Doctor in a couple of stage plays remaking like Fury from the Deep and Web A Fear and then in that the the fan film that the BBC has to be took down of power of the Daleks. Sorry, carry on.
SPEAKER_02And Mr. Lavisham, she's um Martha from Stones of Blood.
SPEAKER_03Is she?
SPEAKER_02Yes. Oh but it's it's glorious, you know? It's it's it's absolutely glorious. It's this whole sort of gothic romance. It's blended with Dickens, so Dickenzian, I mean Estella in a wedding dress. Yeah. You might as well call her Havisham rather than Levisham or whatever she's called. And it's just so overplayed, but it works, it really works. You know, the the lines that um that Mars has given them all, you know, when you've got Michael Sheard shouting, You decrepit Harriden You've got her, you troublesome fop. It's such brilliant dialogue, you know, you can't do anything else with it, and you know, you can't blame India Fisher on because it must be her first run out as well if it's if it's Paul McGann's first run out. Yeah. So you can't you can't really blame her for like mm hitting that level and maybe she does kind of bring it down a smidge for later ones after this. But you know, it's it's perfectly understandable when you see what the rest of the cast are doing.
SPEAKER_01It's an interesting mix of, as I said, there's elements of a Hartnell historical, there's elements of Mask of Mandragara. There's a poetry to the dialogue in places that is unlike classic Doctor Who in many ways, and unlike modern Doctor Who. And the performances are quite interestingly pitched. Like, as you say, like they are hammy, but they're nobody sending it up. So it's a bit more like it feels more like classic Doctor Who, but the story itself is something you would never guess in classic Doctor Who as well. So it's this weird mishmash of tones and genres of the show. Yeah. But it just all works.
SPEAKER_02It does. And it's it's it's what Big Finish would would would do in then. It's it's what a lot of people are doing at the time. They're saying, you know, we'll we're making the Doctor Who that you can't make on the television. Your comic books, you know, you you don't have a budget. You don't have a budget for that comic strip, so you can have fish people and you can swap their bodies into fish people, and um, you know, the um the books, you know, you don't even have to have an artist for that. It's all just in your imagination, so you can, you know, the the the breaks are really further off then going into the big finish when they first started, you know, the first ones that they're doing are all sort of um, you know, multi-doctor adventures. It's it's like from the start, it's sandbox stuff. It's kind of like, well, yeah, what what happens if I do put an older doctor so like a seventh or the sixth doctor, what happens if I do put them in a first doctor story? You know, if I put them in a hot null historical and you know, because we never got it on screen, but we can do it now, we can we can take them back. I think there's there's elements where it it shows that they are still quite new at this. You know, you you listen to s some of the first episodes or some of the action scenes, you know, there's a lot of people describing what we're not seeing. Yeah. Oh, the gondolias, they're all swarming out the river now and they're heading towards us with their spears and they're going to attack us, you know, that sort of thing where you think, well, this is just a little bit of not a naivety, a little bit of immaturity, maybe is the word, you know, of just you're gonna get better at this, you're gonna get better at at writing and editing your script to show, not tell without e without being able to show us, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01And fair play to the sound design and the performers for sometimes selling those cliffhangers where they're like, as you say, the gondoliers, they're attacking us, you know. That you hear that dialogue in radio drama all the time, and it's a testament to big finish that they've got better at avoiding those stereotypes over the years. And I can see why they led with this one, because I feel like it's the best script. So if you've got someone like Paul McGann who's a little bit wary of doing big finish, yeah, which he was.
SPEAKER_02At that point, he's not quite, and again, no disrespect to you know his three predecessors, but he's not quite, you know, did Peter Davison Colin Beat as Sylvester McCroy, where the perhaps need the work a bit more, you know. He is still quite you know, quite an in-demand. I still is quite, you know, in demand. He can, you know, pick up his roles. Yeah. You know, like I say, they've they've they've had to wait for a window for him to come in and do this. So if he doesn't want to do it, he doesn't have to. So yeah, it's good that he's enjoying himself with this.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. One of the things that that really interests me about this story is that there isn't an out and out villain. Like, sure, there's a mad cult. Sure, there's these mutated fish people essentially, the the the gondolers. And then, you know, we've got Michael Sheard's character of Count Orsino and his long-lost love, Estella, aka Miss Lavish. But it's a bunch of people with their own selfish m motives, but it's not like invasion of these monsters this week, and I think that really just adds to it.
SPEAKER_02It does, it does, and you get as a result, you get a few sort of those little pivots. You know, it's it's interesting discussing this at the time when we've just had Brett Vyon come back in two episodes where you know you have that that same sort of character who starts off as an antagonist, but then becomes, you know, an ally later on. So you have like Brett Vion, you know, trying to steal the TARDIS, but you know, five minutes later, you know, he's give Stephen an antibiotic, and five minutes after that he's fine, you know. Sarah Kingdom shoots him down, and then you just go, but Darek Sarah, and she goes, Oh shit, okay, right. Where do we go? You know, so you have that sort of pivot with Pietro. Now Pietro essentially, you know, try Roofy's Charlie. Essentially, you know, you know, it's like, oh you you've you've been nice to us, but we need a pretty blonde, um you fit the dress, so I'm gonna slip you some some kettlesum it to coerce you into marrying this thing, you know. And you know, obviously by the end we've kind of all forgotten this and you know he's he's a merry gondolier again. Um but yeah, the there's not out and out villains, but the the good guys uh aren't that good either. Uh you know, Miss Miss Labisham is an artist and uh, you know, she's kind of doomed Or Sini with his you know hundred years of extra life at the cost of Venice, so that's you know a little bit harsh. Or Sini himself doesn't come across as a very noble character, you know. Michael Shiard plays these doomed characters so well though, doesn't he? These these desperately longing characters.
SPEAKER_01I think it's because it's the final days of Venice, and they say like the boats have long gone.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So everybody that's left there is sort of an undesirable, rightly or wrongly, and there's no law, and it's the last days. So I get the impression that these people aren't always like this, but when everybody's going to die anyway, they they just I mean the cult definitely is, but everything's amped up, so actually the undesirables of society are on their final days, just and they just go, fuck it, we'll do whatever it takes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, pretty much, and that's with Orsi in he, because he's kind of like, you know, he comes across as this sort of like, you know, doomed romantic to start with, you know. He's like, Oh, I'm church. Well, I've lost my Estella, she's not going to come back. Will she love me? Will she still love me? And then he gets to his ball and he's just like, You're a horrendous old woman, you're a Tory fish man, get out my sights.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I want I want to party now, you know.
SPEAKER_02So you you get the sense that you know that's kind of the real or scene, you know, he is still this hundred-year-old gambling, shagging, whatever, drinking whatever aristocrat.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think Michael Sheard was a brilliant bit of casting for this role because he he is he's very melodramatic, but I think he it works so well. And it's a brilliant bit of casting.
SPEAKER_02It's it's it's Scarman again, but you know, that that sort of melancholy, but the doomed side of him. Yeah, you know, the I can't think of the right word for it. I've been trying all week to think about the right word to describe that s that that that type of character that he brings where it's just that that scene, is it, where he meets meets Lawrence again and it's just like he does it so so well. Yeah, well you're right, inspired bit of castrum.
SPEAKER_01There's like a weakness or almost patheticness to his his Skarman and indeed his character here. And I don't mean that that is not a criticism, it's it's how the character's written, but it's it's what he brings to the performance. Yeah. Definitely there's a flawedness, and too often in classic Doctor Who, characters can be a bit 2D and aren't intricate because Skarman is a likable character, but he is naive and he is a bit pathetic, and he has all these all these things. And this is that character just sort of amped up a bit, I guess you'd say, because actually this one's not very likable, but also kind of likable at the same time.
SPEAKER_02It's that sort of like doomed romantic, isn't it? You know, you you want a um a nervous, nerdy scientist, you get civil shaps. You want a doomed romantic, you get Michael Scheidin. And Hitler as well. If you want a Hitler, he's available for that.
SPEAKER_01Uh it was his only appearance, a big finish. I don't know, I think he didn't die too long after this, but it's nice to have him meet another doctor, especially when in the days where there was only a few of them. Yeah. What do you think then of Charlie and the eighth doctor, Paul McGann and India Fisher, their relationship in this in this first story?
SPEAKER_02In the first one, yeah, it's I think it's really good. You know, you you get a good sense of Charlie as yes, she is, you know, the Edwardian toff, as it were. You know, she she's a bit of an aristocrat, but she, you know, she's the adventurer as well, and you you don't get the s the princess thing with her, which could have been so easy, so you do get the sense that she is a a suitable companion, as it were, you know, she's she's obviously got got her mouths right, you know, despite being aristocracy, you know, she's looking after the little you know, she's got a an eye on on on the little men, as it were, and the lower classes. So having someone from that time, you could have so easily, you know, got that quite wrong, but it it works well, and obviously there is a lot of chemistry, there's a lot of work going on there between you know India Fisher and and Paul McGahn as well, which really really brings it to life. So it's it it's a good one. It's a one that I think because they've already introduced Evelyn Smythe by this point, haven't this? Yeah, this is sort of like the second setting goal they've had at creating their own bespoke companion, as it were, and I think credit done, fair player, they've they've really really done a good job with it.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, and it yeah, you could not tell that this was their first time recording together in a way that when you watch perhaps Fort of Doomsday, you're aware this is a lot of people doing it for the first time. Yes. And I think that's a testament to both the cast members and the writing that their relationship feels so fun and like it's working. And what you get with Charlie, I think is something that is sorely missing from a lot of 80s Doctor Who of just somebody that wants to be on an adventure with the Doctor. You don't really get it in the 80s until Mel shows up, like who actually wants to be there and isn't a bit of a dick. Like Adric wants to be there, but he fucking hates everybody. And everyone hates it. Yeah. Turlo wants to be there, but he's a Saki twat who's trying to kill the Doctor for three stories. So it's you it's Mel and Ace who are suddenly like, brilliant, let's go on some adventures.
SPEAKER_02And then of course, with Mel, they just turn that up far too much.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and then with Ace, the doctor's basically torturing her. So, you know. Yes. This is like an another go, a bit more of a trad companion of like, oh, what would it be like touring the universe with this amazing man? Oh, it'd be pretty fucking great, actually.
SPEAKER_02But you know, at the same time bringing that sort of you know, 21st century sensibility to her, you know, in the sort of post-buffy year thing, and you know, she's not the damsel, you know, she is not in any way, shape or form, needing you know, saving or anything. Um she is very much just as equal part of this this story as as the doctor, you know. Um it's notable, you know, they get split off very quickly, you know, uh into their own separate stories. And you know, if it was you know that the that dep drug that she's given, it's because you know, we need to have her in that role, you know. If if she is too assertive, you know, and got her own agency, then that's that bit that the plot needs her to do doesn't happen. So you can say, oh well, I'm gonna have to I'm gonna either knock her out or hypnotise her or whatever. So we'll stick a stick something, I tell you and some magic potion or whatever, and that'll that'll do. Yeah. But so it's it's notable that that that's had to be done because I think she does really stand on her own two feet.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, absolutely. Um I think she's a a brilliant addition to the pantheon of Doctor Who companions. And now there's so many of them, and that's not to belittle the Big Finish companions, because Big Finish has been going for decades now, yeah nearly 30 years. Um so of course they're gonna create new companions and do new things. But there was something about the first few that f that felt very special because we'd not seen it before.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there's I mean obviously it's you know partly a necessity because Paul McGann left that show without a companion, you know. Obviously there's there's one's been introduced in in the books, you know, you know, once been interested in the comics, but unless you're gonna start messing on with the rights to each of one of these and bringing them over and then casting them, you know, you are gonna have to make make your own. So, you know, we we kind of forget that, you know, big finishes made by fans for fans. So again, there could have been a very easy route for them to go down of, oh well, we'll just, you know, I really like Sarah Jane, so I'm just gonna make a Sarah Jane calling. I'm I quite like, you know, I I quite like Perry, so let's have another Perry. Yeah. But no making, you know, obviously writing writing her as you know, her own unique character, but also, you know, India Fisher, you know, bringing her to life as the person that she is.
SPEAKER_01What did you think of the music and sound design by Andy Hardwick?
SPEAKER_02This is the kind of thing that I don't really pick up on, to be honest. That's probably a good thing. Yeah. Because, you know, I didn't you know, th there was nothing you know, obtrusive s sticking out and that's the way I like it. Yeah. You know, I don't like I don't like it when I'm when I can, you know, necessarily when I can hear the the incidental music. Sometimes it's great, you know, if you give us like Dudley Simpson's Ambassadors of Death score, I'll sit and listen to that all day. But you know, the the sound design, there was there's a few points where I did think, ooh, that's a bit Paddy Kingsland, isn't it? That's nice. But I think me main sort of gripe, and I hate doing this because I hate you know, picking a fault with people who have worked really hard on something and can do something a lot better than I ever can, is the theme tune.
SPEAKER_01You're not a bit like David Arnold's theme tune. Bond composer David Arnold.
SPEAKER_02It's like he's never heard the theme tune before, and the versions that they gave him to build his from was Kef's and the Delaware theme.
SPEAKER_01You say that like that's a bad thing. I'm very nostalgic about that theme tune, but in later years I have gone a bit like, oh, what's that? And I think what he's shy to do is, you know, with the original theme tune, when you first hear it, you're like, I can't tell what instrument that is that's making that. And I feel like he's tried to do that of like make it sound alien and go, I can't quite identify it. But it's a weird bassy mess, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02It's but it you know, it gets to the point where we're sort of 60 years down the line now, where you know, Maurice Gold must just sit there and go, I've got to do the same tune different. I've gotta make it different somehow, but keep it exactly the same. How how okay, I'm gonna chuck a choir on the end, I'll stick there. How many instruments? Ah fuck it, all of them.
SPEAKER_01There we'll go. Somebody get the kazoo.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. At some point we're just gonna have a ukulele theme thing. I'm here.
SPEAKER_01I said, I'm nostalgic about the theme tune. In terms of the incidental music here, there's a very ethereal, sort of floaty vibe for it, and it's quite different to most big finish stories, and I think it works really well for this. But you're right, it's not a big bombastic score that you're gonna be humming the next day. Yeah. Like I couldn't hum a single thing from it, but I just kept thinking, oh, this is lovely, and it's really added into sort of tone of it all.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, so that's that's what you want your incidental music to be. Like that's what you want. Yeah. You know, in terms of the sound design, you know, you're getting we've got underground cellars, crypts, we've got palaces that we need to go into. You know, you you get that sense. But you know, at certain points where you think, well, are they really on a boat? Are we on a you know, maybe there was a little bit lacking there. But other than that, yeah, spot on.
SPEAKER_01I think sound design only really becomes noticeable when it's done badly. So I think you're you're right, it is one of those things of like unless you're listening to like something super immersive where it's like the sound design is almost a character in it. But for me, in audio, it's when it isn't clear what's going on, or the sounds are really weird and off-putting that it takes you out of the story, but this is I'm just going along with the story and I'm not considering it too much.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Like I said, it's it probably adds more than anything, except a couple of points. Bit Paddy Kings, and he, but yeah, that's that's the sort of thing you want for a story like this. You want that little bit of you know, etherealism, like you say. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Um, do you have much more to say on this one?
SPEAKER_02I think the only thing I would say is, you know, I love Michael Shead, you know, it took us a little while to think, oh I know that voice, where's that from? And that was a great bit of casting. I was kind of left the second time I ran through just thinking, I wish Jack and Pias had been available for this. You know, I wish, you know, the maybe's had the money, you know, the gumption had been a bit further down the line where they could have picked up the phone and said, you know, you know what, I've got the perfect role for you. And you know, putting her as a Stella or um Miss Lavish, I think she would have brought that right level of melodrama and camp and D.Va to the role.
SPEAKER_01Do you know now you say that because I think Elaine Ives Cameron, who plays the role, is great, but there is something weirdly more believable about Michael Sheard and Jacqueline Pierce being in those roles and being madly in love, and the sort of couple that one of them would gamble the other one away. Yes. So I see what you're saying. I mean, I think all the support casts do a great job. It's the early days of Big Finish, so you know, there's a couple of guest casts. Nick Scovel's a fan, but a professional actor. Barnaby Edwards is a fan, but a professional actor, Mark Gate is the same. Like they're they're very much part of their repertory theatre of supporting actors, and then they they get in a few guest casts like Michael Sheard and uh Elaine. I think they all just work so well. Um it's a it's a very well-cast audio for for what it is.
SPEAKER_02No, definitely, definitely. That's just a main sort of what if sort of thought.
SPEAKER_01Overall, I just think it's a lovely, lovely story. It takes a lot now, I think, for me to be really engrossed in a two-hour Doctor Who story because we're so we're so used to 45, 50 minutes, be it on audio or on TV, that two hours can drag somewhat, but it doesn't drag. I think it's a lovely poetic story, and I will dip into it again at some point in the future.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Definitely a lovely sort of gothic iromantic Dickensian tale with a little sprinkle of sci-fi.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, a little sprinkle. There's a little tiny apocalypse and a little tiny alien twist, but that's it.
SPEAKER_02That's it.
SPEAKER_01Then we must rate it. Is it a clanger, a banger, or an average meander? For me, it is a banger, what say you?
SPEAKER_02I would I I say banger as well, yes. Excellent. I think, you know, this is one I say I've listened to it twice already. I think I would, you know, give us another couple of weeks for what I'm quite happy to go back and listen to and enjoy again.
SPEAKER_01Amazing. So the next thing we're looking at is The Time You Never Had, which is part of a box set called Causeway. It was written by Tim Foley, directed by Ken Bentley, produced by David Richardson, and was released on the 18th of November 2025. News at the time. A broadcast date and a trailer landed for War Between the Land and the Sea. The Sea Devils was getting a new edit and new music and being put on BBC 4 and Doctor Who will return at Christmas 2026. But the Disney deal is over. Nobody was surprised. No, no one at all.
SPEAKER_02Did you enjoy The War Between the Land and the Sea? I did. I did. It was um it wasn't what I expected to be, um, which is sometimes a good thing and sometimes not a good thing. But overall, you know, sitting for was it three weeks rather, four weeks? Yeah, it was it was enjoyable. I liked it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was a diminishing returns. I started off really enjoying it, and by the end I was a little bit like but you know.
SPEAKER_02No, I was a bit the opposite. I was, you know, I think this is started off, hmm, okay. But then, you know, when you got through it, and you know, certainly by the time they were going down the diving bell and killing off all the sea devils with a Monjo job.
SPEAKER_01Then The Monjock. Yeah. In the middle of the night. Fair, fair. So other releases at the time, we had Bernie Summerfield, the Dalek Eternity 3, Torchwood, The Flawless Man. From BBC Books, we had The Moon Cruise featuring the 15th Doctor and Belinda. Also from Big Finish, we had The Lioness in Winter with the 13th Doctor in Yaz. BBC Audio, we had Mission to Magnus, the audiobook, and the comic strip was Field Day featuring the 15th Doctor and Belinda. The only one of those I have had anything to do with is the Lioness. In winter, which uh is another bit of Thirteenth Doctor, which I love.
SPEAKER_02I will have read that comic, but I can't remember.
SPEAKER_01Are you are you still with the comic strip when you're you buy the mouse? Oh yeah, yeah. Look at that.
SPEAKER_02Flick through. What I tend to do now is is flick through, see if I recognise anyone's name anywhere, and then read that bit, and then go back and read the comic, and then if there's anything else.
SPEAKER_01Nice.
SPEAKER_02Um interesting.
SPEAKER_01I'm afraid I'm not a subscriber anymore, but uh, you know.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's really annoying because I've been a subscriber for y decade, no probably not dec well, potentially, yeah. Certainly a long time, and they've never put the price up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I cancelled mine just because I was not reading it, and I I was getting twelve issues for about forty quid or something like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. But they've um they've caught up with us now and they've They up your prices. Yep, I got a letter. We noticed that you've not paid the full price for some time now, so we're gonna start charting.
SPEAKER_03Fair. Bastards.
SPEAKER_02But it's it's one of these things where it's like I've I've still got them all. You know, I think I've got five or six in you know, maybe it's a a dozen gaps, but other than that I've got the full a full set since like 1994. So if I stop it now, that's like no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01Does not compute.
SPEAKER_02No. It's like taking the ravens out of the tower. Nope, can't be done.
SPEAKER_01I moved to London twenty years ago, and about six or seven years ago, I'd got every issue that I bought since I moved to London, and they would j they'd just sit in boxes and boxes and boxes, and one day I just put a thing on Twitter going, Does anybody want these? I can't bear to bin them, but somebody take them, and some guy was like, I'll do it, and he showed up and I just handed him them all. Sad times. What a score that was, yeah. But I wasn't going to try and sell them because I didn't want to be like, because some of them were knackered, some of them were in good condition, and you know, like, what am I gonna do? Go through 200 magazines and go, this one's got a slight crease on page two. So it was just easier to say free to a good home.
SPEAKER_02Free to a good home, absolutely. No, they're all in the loft, to be honest. Um I keep taking, you know, a box up every now and again into the loft, but they're all up in there. Um yeah, good run, that man. Good run. Gathering dust. Well, like I say, it's it's such a they went through spells, you know, where it's kind of like, well, uh there's nothing I'd interested in here. But I didn't know what I didn't know at that point.
SPEAKER_04You know, if I'll go back now and be like, oh my god, there's an interview with the cameraman that shot the quarks or whatever, you know, and I'll be like, get in.
SPEAKER_02But at the time, you know, you're just like, but at the same time, it's like, you know, when you're doing your archaeology on the show and you haven't got the internet or you haven't got a iPlayer, and you, you know, you're wanting to find out about these stories, then, you know, something like Doctor Who magazine where they're doing, oh, these are the 30 greatest moments in order to Doctor Who. And that sort of stuff was like absolute mana, mana from heaven for me.
SPEAKER_01When I was ten years old, the idea of what of like reading an interview with Barry Newbury or something was the most boring thing in the world. Now I'm like, there's an interview with Barry Newbury. Someone's had an obstacle getting it. The Dr. Charlie and Audacity's travels are violently disrupted by a time anomaly that nearly tears the TARDIS apart and almost kills Audacity. They arrive in Copenhagen in 1997, where they discover the Causeway Corporation, a powerful secretive group that has appeared from nowhere and is developing time travel for the masses, using a time fissure under the sea caused by a timeship crash in May 1996. Causeway inexplicably knows a great deal about the Doctor, heightening his suspicions, while Audacity, still traumatized by her recent near-death experience, begins sympathizing with Causeway's ideals of democratizing time travel. This ideological clash strains her relationship with the Doctor, and Charlie tries to mediate. A new temporal surge then strikes, splitting Audacity into two divergent versions. One remains with the Doctor and Charlie, the other is hurled into an alternate dimension called the Oculus, where the Silurians, not humans, became Earth's dominant species and mastered time travel. In this parallel world, Audacity is rescued by the Silurian scientist adventurer Mr. Barabus, a Doctor-like figure with whom she spends several years exploring the Oculus and ultimately accepting this new reality as her home. Meanwhile, in the Doctor's universe, Causeway's escalating experiments cause the Fisher to threaten both realities. As the two Audacity's timelines begin to merge, it becomes clear one timeline must be sacrificed to restore temporal stability. Because of his love for Audacity, Barabus pilots his time vessel into the crash timeship beneath Copenhagen, sealing the breach at the cost of Barabus' life and the Oculus itself. The parallel universe collapses, but its Audacity's memories fuse into the surviving Audacity, who returns to the TARDIS profoundly changed, carrying five years of experiences with Barabus. Copenhagen is restored, Causeway's work is apparently wiped from history, yet hints of their mysterious supervisor still linger in the shadows, and the Doctor finds a number eight symbol burned into his hand, ominously foreshadowing future events. So, the time you never had. I'm presuming you've not heard this before. Nope. Nope, this was brand new as well. Neither have I. As I said, I wanted to do something new. This has got a fairly good reputation. Certainly I remember Joe, Mark, and Luke raving about it in a in a in a group somewhere saying how great it was.
SPEAKER_02Well, a pinch of salt, but there was very dubious tastes.
SPEAKER_01So I wanted to do something relatively new, and I had heard Audacity in a couple of other stories before this and thought she was an interesting addition to the team. But also, why I wanted to do this is because it's 25 odd years later. Yep. But it's set this is set in between seasons one and two of the McGag audios. So I wanted to, especially for you, I wanted to know like it's the same team plus one.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Does it feel any different, whether it's their voices or whether it's how they're playing the role? Like, is it is it still the same people as last time?
SPEAKER_02I think there's a definite difference. You've got to kind of look and see, well, how much of that is going to be the rating and how much isn't. Um because, like I say, Paul Mars in Stones of Venice is giving Paul McGann lots of Paul McGannish lines, um, which I I don't quite get as much in this one. This, you know, you you don't get that that sense, like I say, of this this childish wonder of the doctor just skipping through life and you know, embracing the madness that happens. In this one, there was a very much more focused and serious side to him. India Fisher, I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two, but Paul McGahn I do think sounds a bit more jowly. Yeah. So you can kind of tell, yeah, he's he's a bit older now. It happens to everyone, it's like, you know, the fourth doctor ones, I'm pretty sure I mentioned it when we did the the Dominator one, you know. You can really tell with with Tom Tom Baker now that he is not the same that he was.
SPEAKER_01But you know, w if we're all lucky enough to live that long, you know, we won't be sounding the same. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, you know, but you know, all that means is you've just got to kind of tune yourself a little bit, you've got to tune into that voice, that Kane's. I didn't necessarily have to do that with this one, but I could tell, you know, this is this is different. It's really interesting to say this is plonked in between the two of them because I just thought this must be a lot later on, and you know, he's either ran around with Charlie a bit more or he's dropped her off and picked her up again and whatnot, so again never heard heard Audacity before, so um but it didn't take anything out. Um the writing as well though, but the the style of it is is so much more modern series now. You know, we've went from you know, th they're both sort of like two hour stories, but obviously you've got one that's split into four very classically structured parts, and you've got a very new structured um two-party. Yeah, it's it's classic RTD for Nolly. Yeah. It really is. To the point where it's pr it's pretty much doomsday.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they exactly. Just without the the big monsters, you know? Yeah. They've got they've gone for a slightly more character-based thing. But you're right, it it's a writer, a younger writer who's totally informed and probably came to the series via the new series. Yeah. Even though these stories in the story world are like three stories apart. Here, you know, twenty-five years later it's a completely different style of storytelling.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it's it's it's got everything that we expect from the new series now, so you've got an arc, you know, you've got, like you say, it's a lot more character-based, so there's a lot of, you know, the thing that everyone shits on chipman for. We'll sit in a cafe and we'll talk about stuff. You know, we'll talk about, you know, quite literally we'll have a lemonade and we'll have a fizzy pop and we'll talk about the plot a bit. That sort of sight of it, apart from like the structure of it, the feel of it, the feel of the writing, very much more um away from from the first one.
SPEAKER_01So it's part of a box set, and as you say, it's part of an ongoing series and there is an arc. Was it accessible? Was there anything in there that you were like, eh, what's that about?
SPEAKER_02There's a few few bits of just massive like info dump where it's like, well, I've I've I've I've come across the Causeway before because they've left me like uh a calling card in the TARDIS, and you're kinda like, okay, I'll take your word for that. And I've, you know, this person mentioned it, and this person mentioned it, and that person mentioned it. It didn't take anything away, but it kind of did feel uh feels even a little bit like, well, you know, there's obviously more going on. There's there's been a run-up to this. You know, there's been quite a sort of bad wolfy sort of run-up, which is you know, it's it's it's spelled out, isn't it? Because it's it's like, it's funny Audacity, but ever since I've met you, this Causeway thing has just been copied up. It's almost it's it's it's like that time in my future where, you know, I'm I'm gonna run into someone called Rose, and Bad Wolf will appear everywhere.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there is a bit of that. And again, I've not heard all the stories, and certainly the ones I have heard, I don't think I've heard any of the ones that tie into the Causeway stuff. It makes me go, oh, I've missed something, but then also like my mind and my wallet isn't in a place now where I'll be like, well, I'm not I must buy the other six stories and catch up with them because they're essential, Doctor Who.
SPEAKER_02This is it. It's it's not like you know, I didn't like pause and go, okay, so I need to go back and find this this story where the um you know the card gets left in the tortoise. Um the the the back end, so when you get to the end and when he's he's sitting talking to the receptionist for his second round of fizzy pop uh exposition, you know, and she's saying, Oh, there's there's loads of people that you've you've met, and you're not gonna meet in like it's Torchwood and it's the Forge and and all this again. I was kind of like, Well, I know that one, never heard of this one, that one seems to ring a bell. Yeah, you know, how engaged am I to kind of go off and go, well, okay, I now want to go and find out these. Probably not. I did feel though, it's like, okay, so this is gonna go somewhere else. Yeah. You know, this isn't the end of it. It's not done. This is you know, but for all this feels like very much like a season, like a season two finale. You know, season three is gonna kick off and we're gonna get more of the same, we're gonna get more of this causeway, and it is gonna become a a bigger thing. Um, obviously there's a little pre-credit, post-credits scene where the doctor's got something written on the back of his hand, and is that you know, that is that gonna lead into something? Is that you know I know it's got an eight on the back of his hand, so is that an eight because he's the eighth doctor, or is that the silence and he's been marking off his you know, his Roman numerals, and you know, because he's the eighth doctor and he is is there's just this sort of like childish wonder, I was just like, oh, I don't care about that. Whatever it's gonna be will be. Yeah. That was really intriguing as well. So I think I would be interested, I'd be more interested in finding out what happens next than going back and finding out what's already happened.
SPEAKER_01I'm exactly the same because ultimately I understood the story without those references. So it would have to take someone going, you need to listen to this one because it's amazing, rather than oh, I need to fill in those gaps and go, oh, that's where the business card happened. But I think it does a good job, with it's always said that you can't buy all of Big Finish unless you're all absolutely loaded. That if you buy this release, I think you come away going, That was a cracking good story, and perhaps I want more. It's a good jumping on point, which the Big Finish often say, and it's not, but this one you can just perfectly jump in. And I was when I was thinking about which ones to do, I did ask Joe and Mark and Luke. I said, I'm thinking of this one. Will me or Fraser need any particular knowledge? And they were like, No, everything's explained in the story, and I think I think it is, so you know, it's it's a good choice in that respect.
SPEAKER_02You know, definitely it's not like you know, it it it is very much sort of like RTD one vibe where you know Bard Wolf gets mentioned in a story and that's it. You don't need anything else about it. I can I can perfectly imagine all these other stories where it's kind of like, yeah, I'm Colonel Decker and I work for you know Causeway trying to track down the A team, or you know, something like that where it's just so coincidental it doesn't matter until one mention becomes two, becomes four, becomes eight, becomes something bigger. It's not like I now need to go and watch a story from you know 40 years ago to explain why there's a big dog sitting on top of the TARDIS.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. So this is a story by Tim Foley. Tim Foley is somebody that people say that he's one of the the top writers for Big Finish at this stage. And so how do you feel about the story that he delivers?
SPEAKER_02It's a good story, you know. It was I mean, like I say, um if I if I want to quibble, I'll say this is you know pretty much beat-for-beat Doomsday and Army Ghosts, you know, you've got the secret organisation in a skyscraper doing shit with time. You've got the cliffhanger, which is a sphere appears and something comes out of the sphere, and you know, so you know it's one of these ones where you you enjoy it and you go back and you go, Oh alright, yeah, actually. But the ri the first ride was brilliant, you know. You I was we've got this story in Copenhagen, so you're kind of going through there, and that was a really you know a strong story again. You know, what's gonna come out of this sphere? You you're kind of expecting it to be anything, you you're going, oh, it's gonna be the master, it's gonna be, you know, the six and a half, or the seven or eleven or whatever big finisher made up, and you know, the loom yeah, it could be anyone coming out of this, and then it turns out to be Audacity, and you're like, oh, okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Wasn't expecting that. The really clever thing he does is then spend twenty, thirty minutes of the part two showing you the story from the alternate uh audacity's point of view, rather than just you know, jumping straight back in, you know, you get such a good chunk of the other side of that, you know. Obviously she's she's split in half at the start of the story, but our uh audacity, if you want to call it, that goes through the Copenhagen bit. The other one has this um ride in the in the temple with Mr. Barackas or whatever he's called. Mr. Barabus. How about I prefer Barackas? Pity the fool. Pity the fool. To have that, that was just brilliant. It takes me back to I did when me, Joe and Sai did a company on the two doctors, way back when I first started podcasting. We did one on the two doctors, and I said then, you know, how awesome would it be if part one of the two doctors was all from from the second doctor's point of view, or the sixth doctor's point of view, part two was all from the the other other doctors, and then part three is where they meet up and go forward from there. So I was like, oh I'm getting that, I'm getting that ideal sort of sort of story. You know, it it gets wrapped up, it goes into you know the the end bit, but all throughout I just thought it was just such a a good mix of sort of action stuff and character stuff. You know, I got a real for this is the first time I've I've heard Audacity, I got such a good handle on on that character, you get such a good handle on um Mr. Barabas as well. You know, it it's it's just like The Stones of Venice where we haven't necessarily got a big bad. Yeah. You know, you he comes out and you think or you know, the person that's coming out of the sphere, he's pretending to be nice, he's not gonna be, ha, lo and behold, he's now knocking people out with his big lizard tongue. You expect him to be the classic villain, but then he you have that half an hour, you say he's not, he's just he's the lizard doctor. Yeah. And yeah, he he kind of falls off the cliff a little bit by by the end, but and then you have these these other two, this this this Peter Mansfield and um and his his wife to be, who are again, you know, they're they're kind of set up as as sort of like the torchwood baddie types. By the end, you kind of we've done that pivot again of of saying, well, these aren't nice, nasty people, let's let's let them have a nice romantic. Happy ending, yeah. What a chat up line, let's go for drinky.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it subverts your expectations slightly with the characters, and I do think the lizard doctor of Mr. Barabus is such a brilliant addition because it's not where you're expected to go. Part of me is a little bit like, oh, what's coming out of the ship? And I'm like, it's gonna be fucking Daleks, isn't it? And then when it's a Silurian, I'm like, oh, of course it's a Silurian. I don't know what I'm expecting, but it's just a Silurian from an alternative dimension who can travel in time and space, and it feels like in that timeline, most people evolve from lizards rather than from apes, and as a result, you just get this lovely little and you I keep expecting him to turn bad, and you then you're just like, No, he's brilliant. Like, give me a series with Mr. Barabus and Audacity, please.
SPEAKER_02I'm sure you'll get one too.
SPEAKER_01But overall, it's a really solid series finale for a series that I haven't seen, and it got as I said, it got me hyped up. I was like, Oh, I'd like more of this. My biggest niggle, and there's an episode of this that you won't have heard, but we've recorded, and it's another Audacity one called uh The Doctor and Pacini, and there's a much more emphasis in both in this story and that story of Charlie being in love with the Doctor. Yeah. Now, this is something that eventually comes up in the original run, but uh, it's not seeded very well, but that's what makes it more interesting when she finally does decide to go. So I'm I'm kind of a little annoyed at like there's these odd things of like, you know, in this they're about to die, and again and the doctor goes, What? She's like, Oh, well, if we're going to die, I should tell you, and then the doctor goes, What were you going to tell me? And actually, I just didn't I didn't need that. That I bumped on that a little bit, but I think that's because it's my fan brain going, Well, that doesn't happen in series one and two of the Paul McGann audios. So why is it suddenly happening in that timeline?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01And I think the unrequited love stuff works better when it believe it or not, when it came out of nowhere.
SPEAKER_02It's it's a very sort of modern thing, isn't it? And I think when when Russell brought the show back with Billy Pipe and Chris Ferleston, that needed to be part of it. You know, you couldn't just have this show turn up in 2004, 2005, where this utterly fantastic man runs all-in-time space with a young pretty companion, and then not to be anything between them. Yeah. You know, how we managed to get away with it for as long as we did, you know, s someone got rid of the doctor being a grandfather figure. We got away through the 80s without anyone, you know, thinking, well, you know, why why Yeah. So, you know, in terms of of that, that didn't feel necessarily bad. I don't know if it's because I'm kind of used to Izzy more than Charlie from the comics, you know, I was kind of thinking, well, what's you know, is something gonna go on between Audacity and Charlie here? Is this where we're we might be heading with that? But you know, what you've said there, there is a whole unrequited love story between Charlie and the eighth doctor. That makes perfect sense, so that didn't feel incongruous at all. The romance plot that did was actually between Mansfield and the professor was just like, nah, that doesn't work, you know, there's there's nothing here being sold in any way, shape, or form to tell me that this, you know, professor of theoretical physics is gonna is madly in love with this.
SPEAKER_04Did I mention I'm from Yorkshire?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like that happens very quickly, but I kind of wanted them to have their happy ending in the end, but it felt a little clumsy. So, what do you think then of Audacity, this new addition to the team?
SPEAKER_02Audacity struck me as Madame Du Pompadour, if Chris Tribunal wrote her. Fair, I think that works. You know, you take the girl in the five place, you take Madame de Pompadour, you take all the sex out of it, all the the flirting and the dancing and the rest of it, you're left with this really impressive character who is beyond their time. Yeah. This this person is not thrown by any of the the sci-fi, the one the space travel, anything like that. And I think that that was you know what struck me about Audacity. This don't even know what period she's from, really, but it's obviously some sometime whether you've flintlock swords around that sort of time. You know, to have her there and just taking everything in a stride. The real bit where you get the handle on it is is in the second part where she is flying off with Barabus, you know, and you get this this sense of this is who she is. You know, it doesn't matter if she's with the doctor or with the Saidou, and she is just someone she is an adventurer, she goes out you know, again, the person that wants to be on the adventure, she loses her voice, you know, she has her you know, nearly dies and has her throat replaced by a uh a voice box, and that doesn't hold her back. And I think that could Have been a very sort of trite moment of like, well, I'm still up for the adventure, Doctor. Um, but you know, the the writing and again the performance, Jay Griffiths. I mean, how lovely is it to have Jay Griffith back in Doctor Who in a proper role? You know, she is yeah, you you're getting what you pay for for her with her 100%. Really really strong performance of again bringing this character so well to life.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, she's brilliant and she fits into that TARDIS team so well. And she's from the Regency era. So you've got Charlie from the 40s, Audacity from the Regency era, and then the eighth doctor, who is a man from all the space and time, but has a certain, you know, it's a cliche, but that sort of Byronic feel. They're almost these three people out of time wherever they land. And I think sticking them in the middle of 90s Copenhagen is such a nice thing to do. And I know you don't get the visuals and stuff like that, but it's just the the writer going, that classic thing that Doctor Who does, why does it always land in Cardiff or London? Yeah. And it's just going, There's no reason for it to be Copenhagen, but let's just do it because we can.
SPEAKER_02It's we can, you know, it's it's it's not like the producer's wanting a jolly on this occasion. It is just, yeah, pick a town, we'll go for it. You know, again, you know, you're moving away from that limitation of of the TV series, and yeah, I can set this anyway as long as I get uh a Danish actor in uh player the local happy days.
SPEAKER_01I think you can guess a lot of the time what's going to happen, except for the cliffhanger. But even then I was a bit like, oh, it's gonna be Audacity, isn't it? Because you hear a lady's voice come through the thing. Yeah. But I buy the journey that all the characters go on, even if the romance between Mansfield and his colleague is a little ham fisted. The romance or the unspoken love between Audacity and Mr. Barabus is is quite interesting.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And their adventure sound. And it's just a night like I like the fact that she comes back to the doctor and isn't immediately like, well, let's get on with our adventures. She really mourns the loss of him and what mourns the loss of a life that she well, a time she never had.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that was that was such a a sweet thing. It was like, you know, the the audacity that's spent five years with Barackus, you know, comes out and she she isn't instantly, Oh, I'm back in my time. Isn't this wonderful? Oh, let's pick away left or she is very much like, well, you know, I've had five years with this guy, I'm not coming back to you, you know. I don't need you know, I've moved on, as it were, if you know the story being written slightly different, where it's it's it's quite clear that each timeline's gonna survive, you know. You can say, Well, I'm just gonna go back off with him because I'm having such a great time with this guy, yeah. He he's just a lizard doctor, that's all. And I love him as well.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, so I just think all in all, there are I have a few more niggles with this story than the first one, but overall I had a great, great time with it.
SPEAKER_02What were your other niggles?
SPEAKER_01It was Mansfield's romance, it was the similarities to Doomsday, and it was the Charlie unrequited love thing. Yeah. They're minor. All in all, I listened to it in two goes, an hour one day, an hour the next. Yeah. I had a bloody great time.
SPEAKER_02Had a great time as well. I think my my niggles would I think um the actor that's done Mansfield again is just too, as you might have suggested, he's a Yorkshire man. You know, it's a it's it's too high up, you know. It's kind of like again, I was I was thinking Bernard Hornsville. Bernard Horseful just the entire time, in proper like Gulliver mood. Yeah. So that that kind of took us out a little bit. I just needed him to to bring it down a little bit. I th the the accent of the receptionist was a little bit, oh, is this is this your best go to Danish accent? And I've looked her up, she is actually Danish, so shows what I know. That's a genuine accent. Fair. Unless she's been totally like deign it up a bit by McFench. Like, no, can we have a bit more Danish please? Or what you call it? Henrietta Wolf Mountain. What a name. It's fresh from Toast to London, but it is a banger bang on name there. But there was a little bit of the the sound design as well, which I did notice in this, there's there's the bit where they're kind of like jump in a car. It's like clip every trip. And that's the only sense you get they're actually in a car. There's no sort of like traffic noise or anything, there's no sort of like you know, screeching around a corner or the sound of an engine or anything, where you kind of think this is just two people sitting in a chair, not a car. Other than that, like like you say, I think, um, really good story, really well written, lots of character stuff, but you know, some good action as well. And that improvement from when I said last time, you know, what we're having the action explained was, you know, things where like um Audacity gets shot, you know, there was none of that. There was none of like, oh my god, you've killed Audacity, you bastard. Although I'm getting the sense she dies quite a lot. Is that is that right? She died.
SPEAKER_01I've got no idea. She's shooting you roaring.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, she like died last week. She died this week.
SPEAKER_01It happens when you travel this time and space. Do you have anything else you want to say on the time you never had?
SPEAKER_02No, I think we've covered everything. It's it's strange, you know, you you get the good ones, and you sometimes you don't have as much to say as the ones that you haven't enjoyed.
SPEAKER_01No, absolutely, but I mean for me it was just nice to hear a new bit of that doctor with a new companion and an old favourite. And to know that you can still have exciting adventures when you do jump into them is always good.
SPEAKER_02Definitely, definitely. And like I say, more than anything, uh it has actually made us go, ooh, actually, I might want to listen to the next few. I might want to be see what see where this goes.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. I think I will be checking out the next box set whenever that materialises. So we must rate this a clanger, a banger, or an average meander.
SPEAKER_02I'm going with banger for this one, definitely. Like you say, two hours flew by, quite happy to sit and listen to her again.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, me too. It nails most of the character stuff. It's a good plot, it's a good timey whimey story. It doesn't always go in places you expect it to go, and uh just a su a really good bit of Doctor Who with season finale vibes. So we've we've reached the end of our trip through May Gan. If people want to find you on the internet, Fraser, where can they find you?
SPEAKER_02Well, if they're daft enough to want to find us after all that, then you can find me on Twitter with at Felix Fraser or all one word, Fraser spelt with a Z, um just like Mr. Hines. Um likewise on Blue Sky. Um Blue Sky's probably the best place to go because I post a lot more on Blue Sky than I do on Twitter nowadays for obvious reasons. If you're a Blake Seven fan, then you might want to head over to box of flashing lights.wordpress.com, where I'm currently reviewing all of Blake Seven in order. At the time of recording, I've just finished episode four of series B. So heading to Pressure Point this week. Doctor Who Wise, you'll find me on lots of other podcasts because people are daft enough to keep having us on. So places like Trap One, Doctor Who Literature, Library Impossible Things, I've done one of those. If you want to hear more of my introduction story to Doctor Who, you can hear that on that. Most of all, you'll find us on Trap One and a Hamster with a Blunt Penknife.
SPEAKER_01Excellent. Well, as I said, this is the end of May GAN. I hope you enjoyed this short run of episodes in terms of what's happening for the rest of the year. As you know, To Hot for TV, the podcast that looks at the expanded universe of other franchises, is now a bi-weekly podcast that will run up until probably October, something like that. But fear not, there will be plenty more Doctor Who to Hot for TV. I'm not doing quite as many as I did last year. That was very special circumstances. I was trapped and alone in another country all by myself, and my only socializing was recording hours and hours of podcasts. But I will be back next month with a brand new episode featuring John Arnold, and we're gonna take a look at the Big Finish audio Static and the BBV audio punchline. From there I'll probably roll out a monthly episode for the next few months, and then I have a couple more themed months coming up. I don't know exactly when they're gonna drop, but there'll definitely be one before September and another couple after then too. So plenty of Doctor Who Too Hot for TV coming up, just not quite the weekly format that it was for one year only. But until next time, I've been Dylan. I've been Fraser, and this has been Doctor Who Too Hot for TV.
SPEAKER_03We could be in Nah, lost it. Nope. Um so yeah.