Big Finish Audio Dramas

[Blencathra]

That is another story that is on my Christmas List.

I've been a bit busy lately & haven't been able to listen to anything for a little while, hopefully I can make some time this weekend & fit some listening time in.

Nice little interview with Colin Baker.

[Flyboy]

That is another story that is on my Christmas List.

I've been a bit busy lately & haven't been able to listen to anything for a little while, hopefully I can make some time this weekend & fit some listening time in.

Nice little interview with Colin Baker.

Understandable - I've sorta been cheating in how I listen to mine. Listen to them every morning and evening driving between the HQ and the accommodation, in the gym (and locker room), as well as last 30 mins before I sleep following a Skype session with the other half... Never get time to just fully devote to them though, which is a shame!

I listened to the second 1963 offering today and last night: '1963: The Space Race' with the 6th Doctor.

Not as good as Fanfare for the Common Men, but still - very good!

I'll admit, for the first episode, I was a little bored. Seemed very routine, not particularly interesting or exceptional.... but then the cliffhanger came and WOW! Episode 2 was just pure intrigue, and I was absolutely hooked. Episode 3 was even better and by this point in time the story has become a full on Sci-Fi political thriller against the back drop of the Cold War - exceptional, and with a part 4 and ending that actually delivers. I would highly recommend! Much like with Fanfare, the links to not just 1963 but the origins of Doctor Who are really nicely included!

[Flyboy]

Dark Eyes 2 - ZOMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111111

'nuff said.

[DigiFluid]

Heh...

Gave 'The Shadow Heart' a re-listen a few days ago, I'd forgotten how much I liked it. One of the best audios I've heard so far; twisty turney spinny timey wimeyness to put even Stephen Moffat to shame.

In truth though I listened to it again because I decided to check out Vienna. So I gave 'The Memory Box' a try. It was...entertaining, but not as good as I was hoping. Its ending/resolution was just a bit too neat and tidy somehow. Now debating whether I want to try out the Series 1 stories.

In the meantime I grabbed (digital) the 'I, Davros' set. It's quite different to what I'm used to, but I'm liking it so far. I finished part 2 on my way home from work this afternoon.

[Flyboy]

Heh...

Gave 'The Shadow Heart' a re-listen a few days ago, I'd forgotten how much I liked it. One of the best audios I've heard so far; twisty turney spinny timey wimeyness to put even Stephen Moffat to shame.

In truth though I listened to it again because I decided to check out Vienna. So I gave 'The Memory Box' a try. It was...entertaining, but not as good as I was hoping. Its ending/resolution was just a bit too neat and tidy somehow. Now debating whether I want to try out the Series 1 stories.

In the meantime I grabbed (digital) the 'I, Davros' set. It's quite different to what I'm used to, but I'm liking it so far. I finished part 2 on my way home from work this afternoon.

Ooo! Davros! Great series that one. I absolutely loved it!

I hear your thoughts about Memory Box, I'm just starting Vienna S1... so I'll let you know how that goes...

Did you listen to Cyberman in the end? did you like?

[Blencathra]

Ive just finished listening to one of the Lost Stories, The Hollows of Time, with the Sixth Doctor and Peri. I've really enjoyed it. It must have been so difficult to transfer to audio as the script must have been very heavy on visuals, but they have adapted it very well. It starts off in a little English village, and I love those sorts of stories as they remind me of my favourites when I was a child, The Auton Invasion, Image of the Fendahl etc.

I think that so far, bearing mind that I haven't listened to as many audios as you guys, that the Sixth Doctor and the Eighth Doctor are my favourites on audio so far.

[Flyboy]

Ive just finished listening to one of the Lost Stories, The Hollows of Time, with the Sixth Doctor and Peri. I've really enjoyed it. It must have been so difficult to transfer to audio as the script must have been very heavy on visuals, but they have adapted it very well. It starts off in a little English village, and I love those sorts of stories as they remind me of my favourites when I was a child, The Auton Invasion, Image of the Fendahl etc.

I think that so far, bearing mind that I haven't listened to as many audios as you guys, that the Sixth Doctor and the Eighth Doctor are my favourites on audio so far.

I look forward to getting round to the Lost Stories, I'll be jumping onto them shortly... although, in truth, it's the Seventh Doctor Lost Stories that I'm most interested in...

I definitely agree with you on the Eighth, his stories are great - especially Dark Eyes 2. Dark Eyes 1 was alright, but it seemed to be a bit of a slip from the NEDA range... DE2 on the other hand is all manner of perfection, particularly with the McQueen Master... I can't WAIT until DE3.

On the subject of Six... I don't know. I definitely don't dislike him to the extent that a lot of people do, he *is* a very good Doctor... but... unfortunately I almost find myself a little dissapointed when his audios are next on my list. For me it's definitely Seven and Eight that are my favourite Doctor audios.... Seven just seems so... intricate and well thought out. If you haven't given Seven a look yet, I'd highly reccomend - but you'd be best working through his in order as for the most part, they're very serialised.

[Blencathra]

I've only listened to two of the 7th Doctor so far, The Fearmonger and The Genocide Machine. The Genocide Machine I really enjoyed (Daleks and libraries!), but The Fearmonger not so much, despite it having Jacqueline Pearce in it (Servalan from Blake's 7). I'm not that keen on more modern day political stories. But I have more 7th Doctor stories lined up & hope to get round to them shortly.

Oh and I forgot about the 4th Doctor. Again I've not listened to that many but I've absolutely loved the ones I have listened to so far.

A quick question. I'm just about to start The Apocalypse Element and on the CD case it says it is "Dalek Empire - Part Two". Was Part One The Genocide Machine? Or is it one of these? http://www.bigfinish.com/ranges/released/dalek-empire I'm confused!

[Flyboy]

I've only listened to two of the 7th Doctor so far, The Fearmonger and The Genocide Machine. The Genocide Machine I really enjoyed (Daleks and libraries!), but The Fearmonger not so much, despite it having Jacqueline Pearce in it (Servalan from Blake's 7). I'm not that keen on more modern day political stories. But I have more 7th Doctor stories lined up & hope to get round to them shortly.

Oh and I forgot about the 4th Doctor. Again I've not listened to that many but I've absolutely loved the ones I have listened to so far.

A quick question. I'm just about to start The Apocalypse Element and on the CD case it says it is "Dalek Empire - Part Two". Was Part One The Genocide Machine? Or is it one of these? http://www.bigfinish.com/ranges/released/dalek-empire I'm confused!

Yeah... for some strange reason Big Finish decided to label up four of their main range stories as Dalek Empire.... which is daft.

Only The Apocalypse Element has any direct connection to the Dalek Empire series (acting as a prelude). The rest could PROBABLY linked in somehow... but aren't directly connected. I wouldn't worry. Dalek Empire Part 4 (Time of the Daleks) is completely out there, and, at best, serves as an epilogue to the Dalek Empire Series.... It is referenced in the Gallifrey Saga... which has ties to Apocalypse Element as well, however....

Fearmonger isn't great... Try Colditz - one of THE best 7th Doctor audios, and also stars David Tennant as a villiain

[Blencathra]

Big Finish's 15th Anniversary of Doctor Who releases

http://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/big-...r-who-releases

Fifteen years ago, we released Doctor Who: The Sirens of Time, starting a tradition of audio storytelling for the worlds of Doctor Who and beyond. To celebrate the events of 1999, we've got some quotes from our friends, and some special offers for our listeners...

Spoiler:

"Huge congratulations to Big Finish. I remember attending one of the first meetings about the projected Who audios, and I'm afraid I left early, dubious that it would work, and convinced that my Doctor Who obsession would never be allowed anywhere near my professional life. Even I am not usually that wrong twice in one evening. So here's to 15 years of Doctor Who brilliance, made by a team who genuinely love the TARDIS and want to keep her flying. I'm so glad I was so wrong, and so happy that I've been proved wronger with every passing year. Don't stop now!"

Steven Moffat, Producer Doctor Who 2009 – Present Day


"Big Finish is undoubtedly unique, in the whole world of fiction. Who else can take actors and stories and ideas you have loved, and bring them to life again, as good as they ever were, and sometimes, dare I say, even better? No one else is this lucky! Other shows get left in the dust. What could be better than Doctor Who, made by people who love Doctor Who, played by people who ARE Doctor Who? Happy birthday, Big Finish!"

Russell T Davies, Producer, Doctor Who 2005 – 2009


"Big Finish are cool! Congratulations on your 15th Birthday. Such a lovely bunch of talented people who care deeply about creating imaginative, thrilling and above all, authentic adventures for world of Doctor Who. Long may they continue!"

Marcus Wilson, Producer, Doctor Who 2011-2013


"When Gary Russell and I first sat down in a restaurant to plot asking the BBC for the rights to Doctor Who on audio, we hoped that we might get away with producing six productions a year for three years. Eighteen productions seemed like a huge new catalogue of adventures, and we’d have been happy to have had a good go and achieved something close to our hearts – a continuing original series of Doctor Who adventures at a time when it seemed that the show had run its course and no new productions would ever be made again. Gary would work as producer on the series part time and I would look after the business side and distribution after hours. Looking back now, it’s easy to forget that the new audio adventures of Doctor Who was greeted with such euphoria by a starving fandom. So much so, that within two months we had ramped up to one release a month and started to establish a proper production office.

And here we are fifteen years later. We’ve made new friends, and sadly lost a few along the way. Worked with a plethora of Doctors and companions. Created our own Doctors and companions. Won a BBC Audio Drama Award (how did that happen!). But above all, we’ve just had the time of our lives making Doctor Who. Thanks to the BBC for trusting in us and to you for sticking with us all these years."

Jason Haigh-Ellery, Big Finish MD


"Fifteen years ago I had my first job at the BBC. It was very exciting, but what was strange was that you could see the ruins of Doctor Who everywhere. On your way to lunch you'd pass a forlorn TARDIS in the proper store. Wobbly desks were propped up with Doctor Who books. Dalek toys gathered dust in the BBC Shop. It all felt terribly sad. Doctor Who just wasn't cool any more.

I remember when The Sirens Of Time came out. There was a two-page spread about Big Finish in a newspaper. I know this because it was left open on a coffee table. People kept walking past, stopping and reading it and nodding. Perhaps they were reading about Geri Halliwell's diet in the newly-launched Heat Magazine. But I knew they were really reading about The Sirens Of Time and speculating. Imagine if Big Finish ran for a year - that would mean there would be almost ten Doctor Who audio adventures in total.

At lunchtime I went to the BBC Shop at Television Centre. There was a little display of The Sirens of Time and they'd dusted out their Dalek toys for the occasion. My copy still has the sticker on it. Which is sad really, as the BBC Shop, and incredibly, even Television Centre are no more. But Big Finish is still going strong."

James Goss, Producer at beeb.com. It was the BBC's first proper website, and he jumped ship before it was dismantled and replaced by BBC Online, where he ran the BBC's Doctor Who website to much mockery and derision up until 2007 by which time everyone loved Doctor Who again and he considered his work was done...

Big Finish's Doctor Who at 15 - Day 1

To mark the first day of our celebration, we're making the download of the first story - Doctor Who: The Sirens of Time available for £1.

Thanks to our friends at Doctor Who Magazine, we can also make available Talkin' 'Bout My Regeneration as a download - 1999's hour-long audio documentary about the making of the story.

Also never available through the Big Finish website before are two more free stories on download as MP3 and Audiobook formats: No Place Like Home and The Ratings War, featuring the Fifth and Sixth Doctors respectively.

To mark our first three Big Finish Doctors, you can also get more recent titles in a special offer: The Fifth Doctor's The Butcher of Brisbane, the Sixth Doctor's The Fourth Wall, and the Seventh Doctor's Protect & Survive - each available for £5 on Download or CD.

And lastly, for those wondering how it all began, or wanting a glimpse behind the scenes, both volumes of comprehensive and informative The Big Finish Companion book can be bought for £20 each, or as a bundle for £35.

All these special offers (apart from the free stories) last only 24 hours.

And we'll see you tomorrow for Day 2...

[DigiFluid]

^^ Yeah. When I was doing my Dalek Empire listen-thru, I took the time to do the Main Range titles first (before doing the actual 'Dalek Empire' standalone lines). They really don't connect much at all. There are a couple of passing references to place names and maybe one or two events from the Main Range, but for all intents and purposes you could ignore them entirely and not miss out on anything in the Dalek Empire standalone range.



Also hm I will have to check and see which stories are on sale that I may not already own

[DigiFluid]

I've only listened to two of the 7th Doctor so far, The Fearmonger and The Genocide Machine. The Genocide Machine I really enjoyed (Daleks and libraries!), but The Fearmonger not so much, despite it having Jacqueline Pearce in it (Servalan from Blake's 7). I'm not that keen on more modern day political stories. But I have more 7th Doctor stories lined up & hope to get round to them shortly

If you haven't given Seven a look yet, I'd highly reccomend - but you'd be best working through his in order as for the most part, they're very serialised.

Yeah Blen, Seven's stories are....convoluted to say the least. Remember how confused everyone was during the Eleven/Silencio/Silence TV season? There's a good chunk of the Seventh Doctor's stories that are so convoluted, they make that TV season look like a children's book. (Which I do not mean as a slight against Moffat or the TV show--it's just that the BF stories are astonishingly well-thought out and told).

Fortunately (as I discovered much later on), the vast majority of the BF stories involving the Doctor are actually labeled with production codes which are done in identical nomenclature to how the production codes for the TV series were laid out. This makes it a breeze to figure out where the BF stories sit relative both to the TV show and to each other.

For instance, the Seventh Doctor's TV seasons, meshed with the BF stories:

Spoiler:

Code Episode Title
7D 24.01 Time and the Rani
7DA BF 70 Unregenerate!
7DB BF 85 Red
7E 24.02 Paradise Towers
7EA BF 39 Bang-Bang-a-Boom!
7EB BF 46 Flip-Flop
7F 24.03 Delta and the Bannermen
7FA BF 12 The Fires of Vulcan
7G 24.04 Dragonfire

7H 25.01 Remembrance of the Daleks
7L 25.02 The Happiness Patrol
7K 25.03 Silver Nemesis
7J 25.04 The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
7JA BF 180 1963: The Assassination Games

7N 26.01 Battlefield
7Q 26.02 Ghost Light
7M 26.03 The Curse of Fenric
7P 26.04 Survival

I know that's a little messy looking; that'll be because I organized it in a spreadsheet and c/p'd it here. But you get the idea I'm sure.

Needless to say, I felt a little daft when I figured it out

[DigiFluid]

Without burdening you with all that numbering (though I can email the xls if anyone likes), the Seventh Doctor's chronology--by Big Finish-provided production code numbering--runs thus:

TV + Audio

Spoiler:

Time and the Rani
Unregenerate!
Red
Paradise Towers
Bang-Bang-a-Boom!
Flip-Flop
Delta and the Bannermen
The Fires of Vulcan
Dragonfire
Remembrance of the Daleks
The Happiness Patrol
Silver Nemesis
The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
1963: The Assassination Games
Battlefield
Ghost Light
The Curse of Fenric
Survival

"Season 28" / The Lost Stories

Spoiler:

Thin Ice
Crime of the Century
Animal
Earth Aid

Travels with Ace

Spoiler:

The Fearmonger
The Genocide Machine
Dust Breeding
Colditz
The Rapture

Early travels with Ace & Hex

Spoiler:

The Harvest
Dreamtime
LIVE 34
Night Thoughts
The Veiled Leopard (this is a DWM story rather than BF proper; which is quite difficult to come by 'legitimately.' It's not strictly necessary)
Thicker Than Water (this is actually a 6th Doctor story, but 7 makes an uncredited appearance in the last episode)
The Settling
No Man's Land
Nocturne
The Dark Husband

Black & White / later Ace & Hex travels (this is where things get convoluted and need to be heard in order if you're to make any sense of it)

Spoiler:

Forty Five
The Magic Mousetrap
Enemy of the Daleks
The Angel of Scutari
Project: Destiny
A Death in the Family
Lurkers at Sunlight's Edge
Robophobia
The Doomsday Quatrain
House of Blue Fire
Project: Nirvana (Companion Chronicles episode 7.3)
Protect and Survive
Black and White
Gods and Monsters
Afterlife
Revenge of the Swarm (not yet released)
Mask of Tragedy (not yet released)
Signs and Wonders (not yet released)

Travelling alone

Spoiler:

Excelis Decays (part of the Excelis line, not the Main Range)
Project: Lazarus
Master
Return of the Daleks (speculative placement)
The Sirens of Time
Valhalla
Frozen Time
The Death Collectors + Spider's Shadow
Kingdom of Silver + Keepsake

Old Klein

Spoiler:

A Thousand Tiny Wings
Survival of the Fittest + Klein's Story
The Architects of History
The Four Doctors (Big Finish special release)
The Shadow Heart

New Klein

Spoiler:

UNIT: Dominion (standalone box set, but fits here in Doctor's timeline)
Persuasion
Starlight Robbery
Daleks Among Us

And ending, of course, with his extended cameo in the 1996 film.

[DigiFluid]

I hear your thoughts about Memory Box, I'm just starting Vienna S1... so I'll let you know how that goes...

Please do, I'm a little on the fence at the moment

Did you listen to Cyberman in the end? did you like?

I did listen, yes, to both seasons. I quite enjoyed both, even if I had a few niggling complaints (such as the Cybermen being a bit difficult to understand at times, even with it playing through my car's sound system/speakers). Series 1 was definitely better than 2 (IMO), but I was still satisfied with 2--and that they actually resolved this one (unlike a certain imperialist pepperpot series that shall go un-named )




BOOM, three consecutive replies!

[Flyboy]

Digi, I'm on the verge of asking you to marry me right now (for the love of God don't tell my partner I said that!).

I absolutely LOVE your chronologisation (new word) of Who - absolute mission, and absolute awesomeness. You should do it for ALL of their dramas, including Spin Offs, and email it to Big Finish so they can put it on their website!


(though I DID find a flaw in your Star Trek chronology )


I agree with you about the Cyberman Series on all points... however I can see why Dalek Empire went unresolved... the entire Dalek empire itself is largely open in the Whoniverse...