Wednesday 17 July 2013

Big Finish episode 2: the hiatus

Time for another roundup of my Big Finish listening habits. I said I'd do the next one when I'd listened to 50 plays, but in fact I've heard 38. However, with the school term ending - and given that it's the journeys to and from work when I listen - I'm on hiatus and will listen to play no.39 in September.

What should that play be? Advice welcome. The next batch I'm listening to run from November 2003 (immediately after "Zagreus", which was story 50) up until December 2004 (with the end of Paul McGann's Divergent Universe saga - The Next Life is story 64). I'm also including all the Excelis and Unbound audios.

To see my Top 10 of the first 25 I listened to, go here: http://chapwithwings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/beginning-big-finish.html

*some spoilers below*
The most recent 13 have included a fair few that...well, were a little disappointing or unmemorable. Too many of them don't really seem to be about anything and end up resolving themselves too neatly,. which doesn't matter because nothing that happened made sense anyway. "The Time of the Daleks" is a particular culprit in this regard, but the other Dalek plays - "The Apocalypse Element" and "The Mutant Phase" - were also noisy but empty. Two of these plays are peculiarly well-suited to audio, but "Embrace the Darkness" was more interesting in the end than "Whispers of Terror". "Project Twilight" and "Project Lazarus" promise much, but deliver less: and the Forge just reminds me of the Initiative from Buffy.

Then there are a whole batch of plays that see "Doctor Who" disappear up its own arsehole. "The Sirens of Time" could be forgiven if it were only written a little better. "Auld Mortality" operates by different rules anyway, as the first in the Unbound series with a whole new actor playing the Doctor and it does have a talking elephant in it.  Most interesting are the two plays which bring the Eighth Doctor's second run to a close, resolve the Charley Paradox and celebrate the show's 40th birthday.

In the run-up to the 50th on TV, it's interesting to see how Gary Russell, Alan Barnes and everyone behind the scenes chose to celebrate ten years ago. The Eighth Doctor audios had proved they were best with one-off atmospheric stories with the arc in the background - "Seasons of Fear", "Chimes of Midnight" and "Minuet in Hell" are the best examples. So to "Neverland", which is, essentially, a series of very long conversations in almost unimaginable locations (the Matrix, the Time Station, the Planetoid-cum-TARDIS, the void-like place where the antagonists hang out). Charley transmogrifies into a CVE (or something), Rassilon is reimagined, the web of time becomes almost incomprehensible and the ending is good.

"Zagreus" doesn't really follow through on that cliffhanger, which promises an evil Doctor but instead gives us a confused one. We hear a lot about how powerful Zagreus is, but he never really does anything. There's a lot more guff about Rassilon and anti-time and stuff. Crucially, for the largest part of the story, nothing is really happening. The Brigadier (but not really) and Charley pop in and out of other people's stories while the Doctor talks to a cat.

Of course, I loved it. It's there to push fannish buttons. The gimmick is that almost every part is played by an actor better knows for other roles, from Elisabeth Sladen and Sarah Sutton to Maggie Stables and Conrad Westmaas. Infamously, old clips of Jon Pertwee play the Third Doctor, although with so much production that I couldn't understand half of it. These pieces of stunt casting successfully mask the fact that some of these will become important later in the story, and also made me wish Steven Moffat had adopted something similar for the most recent season. Just imagine - Colin Baker instead of David Warner, Sylvester McCoy instead of Jason Watkins, Peter Davison instead of Dougray Scott.

There's also a great bit where several of the characters realise they're in a location familiar to us through 1980s Who. The moment they say so, I'm begging for a familiar incidental music sting. Then - after a few seconds' tease - it arrives. Cue end of episode. Punch the air, big smiles.

Anyway. I listened to two which enter my top rank. Of these, "Bang-Bang-a-Boom" was constantly entertaining and plays a great trick with the end of episode 4. It is now at No.8 in my chart, between "The Marian Conspiracy" and "Minuet in Hell". Better yet is "Omega" - those three "Classic Villains" audios really were top notch. Not quite as good as "Davros" or "Master", nonetheless it's very clever and contains a genuinely surprising twist. Now at no.6, between "Chimes of Midnight" and "Marian".

OK, see you in September. Please suggest plays for me to buy!

Sunday 19 May 2013

Beginning Big Finish

In 1999, Big Finish started releasing original Doctor Who stories on CD. In 2012, I started listening to them.

A little late to the party? Perhaps, but in 1999 I had no money. At all. I eventually bought The Genocide Machine in 2001, didn't get much into it for the price and gave up on the franchise there and then.

But now, although I'm not exactly flush, I do at least have a job and - more to the point - a 90 minute journey to and from work every day. Suddenly, I realised I had a couple of hundred audio plays just waiting for me.

So I started with Spare Parts. After about 10 stories, I got stuck. I'd decided to limit my listening to the first 50 stories (1999-2003), ending with Zagreus. This seems like the first "wave". So I asked Twitter what to buy next. @BigFinish retweeted me and a zillion people gave their opinions.

The result is that, after 25 listens, I still have at least 10 to go before I feel ready to move beyond this initial comfort zone. But I have attained the quarter century, so here's my top 10 out of the 25 I've heard to date:

10. DUST BREEDING
Fantastic work from Geoffrey Beevers but even better from Sylvester McCoy, who is brilliant in all his audios.

9. THE FIRES OF VULCAN
I wasn't expecting much from this, but Bonnie Langford is unexpectedly listenable-to-able and it's far better than The Fires of Pompeii.

8. THE ONE DOCTOR
Comedy wasn't high on my list, but I listened to persuasion. And enlightenment. It's not so much Christopher Biggins who makes this one such a delight - it's the regulars and it's Matt Lucas waiting for a parcel.

7. MINUET IN HELL
The Hellfire Club stuff is off putting, but the villains, the Brig and the two Doctors are what make this work.

6. THE MARIAN CONSPIRACY
Historical works well on audio. Big Finish are also very strong on cliffhangers which rely on plot-related intrigue and there's a humdinger here.

5. THE CHIMES OF MIDNIGHT
The point at which The Space Museum meets Ghost Light, only good. Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a few murders and a great deal of repetition.

4. SEASONS OF FEAR
Why isn't this better known? An epic spanning the Roman Empire and two other historical periods with a sense of fun and a satisfying denouement, plus great monsters.

3. MASTER
Beevers again, in a psychological drama which doesn't go where you'd expect. Philip Madoc is in it, being wonderful as usual.

2. DAVROS
I was about three-quarters of the way through this tour de force before I realised - The Daleks Aren't In It! Terry Molloy's Davros holds this together by himself while Colin Baker is also fantastic. Unswitchoffable.

1. THE HOLY TERROR
Moffat or a future showrunner should mend bridges with Rob Shearman. This is something of an oddball - Robert Jezek stars as Frobisher the Penguin; the scenario is off-beat and mind-boggling; and it's got Sam Kelly from 'Allo 'Allo in a pivotal role. So far, this is my favourite story.

I'm starting on the next 25 now...first up will be The Apocalypse Element. Since I'm not planning on listening to every single story (some don't appeal at all), I'll be past Zagreus and into the next phase by the time I hit the big 5-0. Which may or may not be before the Doctor manages the same feat...

Saturday 11 May 2013

What is the Name of the Doctor?

Here is my list of suggestions for what the Name of the Doctor will be revealed to be in next week's season finale. Which do you think is the most likely?

  • "Doctor". Or "Dok-torr" or something similar.
  • "Doctor Who"
  • "Doctor Foreman"
  • Something depressingly ordinary like "Alan" or "Simon"
  • "John Smith"
  • "Theta Sigma"
  • A Gallifreyan/alien sounding name like "Morpak" or "Parabia"
  • A Time Lord name we already know like "Rassilon" or "Omega"
  • Another old-series name we already know like "Davros" or "Sutekh" or "Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart" or "Za"
  • A new-series name we already know like "Rory" or "The Moxx of Balhoon"
  • "River Song" / "Melody Pond"
  • "Clara"
  • "The Face of Boe"
  • "Captain Jack Harkness"
  • A name we know from Earth history like "Hannibal" or "Leonardo"
  • A name from fiction like "Hamlet" or "Beowulf" or "Jabberwocky"
  • A Biblical name like "Adam" or "Abraham"
  • "Jesus"
  • Nothing at all - revelations will be dangled in front of us then snatched away, like they were 25 years ago.
I think the last one is the most likely...but probably even more likely is that Steven Moffat will present us with an official Name of the Doctor unrelated to anything I've said above.

I just hope we're not disappointed by it.

Which of these names would you least/most like to see?

Monday 29 April 2013

"Whoever he or she may be..."

Recently, I was discussing with a Doctor Who fan on Twitter that old chestnut of whether or not the Doctor should ever be played by a woman. The difference was that, today, this is a whole different discussion. In the 21st century, this is a thornier issue regarding equality and prejudice.

When Tom Baker came out with that line for a laugh in 1980, no-one had seriously considered it before. It seems extraordinary in a way that whilst the world had accepted a Time Lord who could regenerate into an entirely new body, the idea that a male Time Lord could regenerate and become a female Time Lord seemed somehow a step too far. The general consensus - I believe (I was only four) - was that this would constitute a whole new character, rather than the continuation of his essence that existed from William Hartnell through to the current incumbent.

Why is this? Why would the world have found this so hard in the eighties? It's not as if we were talking about JR Ewing or Kerr Avon - it was well established that the Doctor could be played by a variety of actors. However, it seems that only 50% of the population were eligible.

What I don't recall, during the 20th century, is any discussion of a possible female Doctor which referenced the very real issue of the trans* community. Possibly it's because those words would have been as meaningless as Courtney Pine to a Cyberleader. At school in the 80s, I'd heard of transsexuals. They were men who felt they were women trapped in men's bodies (or vice versa). To solve this, they needed a sex change operation. This was my primitive understanding and not just because I was young - this seemed to be the prevailing wisdom amongst the adults I knew too.

The world has moved on and become more enlightened. Television up to the 80s was very slow to embrace what would become known as political correctness - or its less maligned twin, equality. When Doctor Who returned in 2005, there was a scramble to right wrongs. Finally, the Doctor could sound Northern, Jack could be gay, Martha could be black and so on.

I don't think there's anything to stop the BBC from including a trans* character in Doctor Who except fear. It wouldn't be uncontroversial; the recent sad case of the schoolteacher hounded by sections of the media and subsequently taking her own life shows that some people remain jittery about children being exposed to the concept of trans* people. This is their problem, but given Doctor Who's status as a children's programme, the Littlejohns of this world would be bound to get all Westboro on us. On the other hand, Waterloo Road have managed it.

Back to my original point, though. Perhaps a companion could be trans* - but the Doctor?

One needs to define gender. The notion that genitalia are a giveaway is now prehistoric; gender is generally held to be a question of identity which can only be decided by the person in question. (This makes those "It's a boy!" balloons a bit questionable. Suggested alternative: "It's a penis!")

When a person identifies as trans (or indeed anything under the trans* banner) they consciously come to this conclusion in their own heads, then choose what to do about this. If these values are applied to the Doctor, does that help us understand how regeneration fits in here? Can we imagine a situation when he looks within himself and realises he wants to live as a woman? Being a Time Lord, he would have no need even to consider gender reassignment surgery - he can just regenerate.

But since when are decisions involved in the Doctor's regenerations? "You never quite know what you're going to get." Say he did regenerate (accidentally, just as he accidentally became the non-ginger Matt Smith) into Emma Thompson or Olivia Colman - would that make him trans? The two processes are not equivalent - only the symptom (surface gender) is the same.

The Doctor's regenerations may be arbitrary and chaotic but this isn't true for everyone. Just because he always becomes a white male, as do Borusa and the Master, it proves nothing. His dying ninth self suggests he could have two heads or no head. The possibilities have not had their limits drawn up.

(There's certainly nothing wedding him to a race as Paterson Joseph's agent might agree. Romana proved this in Destiny of the Daleks by briefly turning blue...although frankly this opens up a whole can of worms. Even if a future incarnation is non-white, the show's still being racist towards blue people.)

So, If Time Lords are able to switch gender on a whim (or by chance) - and the anecdotal evidence of The Corsair proves it is possible - then can they even be said to have a gender? A trans person decides on a definite identity at odds with their body; a Time Lord could transition back and forth willy nilly. If you'll pardon the phrase.

Could the Doctor be a transsexual? In theory, yes, although with some scripting difficulties: I don't know the figures on how many people at and beyond middle age discover this about themselves, but it would take a very good writer to persuade the audience that after hundreds of years the Doctor has finally made this leap.

Could the Doctor regenerate into a female body? Yes, in theory. My contention is that these two questions are entirely distinct from each other. The first concerns the soul (or other concept of your choice); the last, merely the body.

-----

P.S. I'm not an expert. If you are, and you can see that I've made a faux pas with terminology in this blog, please tell me and, assuming you're right, I'll adjust it. I certainly have no wish to offend anyone (except those who deserve to be offended).
If you simply disagree with me, I'm happy to debate that. Please don't confuse an honest mistake with an accidental fluff, though. Let's keep this friendly.