Audio and radio plays

An archive of entries about audio and radio plays, including reviews

UK TV

“Blake!” Or alternatively, “Mutos!”

25 June 2007 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Blake's 7

Anyone else been sticking with the Blake’s 7 audio adventures over on the SciFi Channel? It’s by a bunch of ex-Doctor Who writers (from the glorious (?) Sylvester McCoy era) and stars none of the original cast. You’re probably not, because you have to listen to every episode via the cocking useless Flash player on their web site.

However, through the miracle of technology, I’ve been listening to it on my iPod, where it’s a tad more accessible. We’re up to episode 21 now. After a shaky first four or five episodes – there are 36 in all and they’re about five minutes each – it sort of settled down and is actually quite listenable.

There have been changes though, some of which will probably annoy fans and some of which are just rubbish or change for change’s sake. Blake and Servalan are both Scottish for one thing, Jenna’s American and Avon’s from South London apparently. Servalan’s coming across more like a slightly over-ambitious branch manager of Rumbelow’s, office partying her way to the top, than a space commander and Avon doesn’t sound like he’s even passed GCSE Computing yet. We’ve also lost all the good dialogue that characterised Blake’s 7 when it was really hitting its stride and there are no proper allowances for description: the Liberator may have used to have looked like a mosque on its side in the TV series but it might be a two-kilometre long tangerine by now for all we know.

We’ve also had a bit of a line-up upheaval, with Cally the crap telepath swapped out in favour of an equally crap Federation commander (no, not Tarrant, although it could have been him from that description) played by the omnipresent vocal talents of India Fisher. And horror of horrors, there’s no teleport or force wall and the Liberator has to do hyperspace jumps to get anywhere. Sacrilege!

Still, there have been some plot changes for the good. Blake and co haven’t had the easiest time of getting the Liberator and the still-unnamed Zen to do their bidding. Thanks to the mystery of why the Liberator was abandoned in the first place actually being explored this time, it’s also all quite eerie on that repossessed alien starship, which is a welcome change.

The episodes are kind of diverting, though, more because you keep wondering when they’re going to occasionally intersect with the TV series again rather than because it’s a great piece of work. And they haven’t really got cracking at the terrorism thing yet, which could make it all worthwhile. I’m going to stick with it and let you know whether to buy the inevitable CD set once it’s finished.

Audio and radio play reviews

Doctor Who: A potted eighth Doctor guide

21 June 2007 Rob Buckley 8 Comments

Paul McGann as the Eighth DoctorWell, Poly asked for it so here’s the definite but brief guide to the televised/audioised adventures of the Eighth Doctor. Basically, the TV movie and the Big Finish stories. I’m steering clear of novels, web animations, et al.

I’ll try to keep the reviews very brief, and hopefully you’ll all benefit from knowing the peaks and troughs of the first and only Scouse Doctor Who’s adventures.

I’ll start off with the TV movie as an example: don’t bother unless you watch it with the sound down, you’re drunk, you just want to see Sylvestor McCoy shot or you want to watch fanboys froth as they try to explain how the Doctor is/isn’t half-human.

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Review: Sapphire and Steel – Perfect Day

15 June 2007 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Perfect DayOn the face of it, writing a Sapphire and Steel story shouldn’t be that hard. You can more or less make it up since there are no real rules. The less you say about what’s going on, the spookier and more interesting it gets. The more alien you make the heroes, the better. Ideally, you should make it a four-hander involving Sapphire and Steel, maybe a five-hander if you bring in another element. And the plot should be about regular humans doing something more or less normal and then time deciding to pick on them for no reason.

Simple, huh? (Well, probably not. Cf Adventure Five, the only TV story that wasn’t written by PJ Hammond).

And yet the Big Finish team never do it. Instead of following those simple guidelines, they always populate them with half a dozen extra characters, and have to have some moral tale in which time decides to break in because gay people are forced to hide in the closet or someone doesn’t realise that death is inevitable and can’t be wished away. And, like some “very special episode” of Blossom, Sapphire and Steel have to learn something about “what it is to be human”.

Have a guess what happens in Perfect Day.

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Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Doctor Who – Urban Myths

11 June 2007 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Nicola Bryant and Peter Davison

In keeping with the new Big Finish policy of pairing up audio plays, Exotron comes with Urban Myths, an entertaining little piece of fluff of no real import. As the Big Finish site describes it, “In an expensive restaurant somewhere on Earth, three gourmets plan their evening. First item on the menu: the death of the Doctor.”

It’s really just an excuse for Peter Davison and Nicola Bryant to play different versions of their characters, as Rashomon-style, the assembled Time Lord assassins recall with less than perfect memories the events that caused them to believe that the Doctor needs to be killed.

As time moves on, events become clearer. It’s evident from the outset more or less what’s happening, so there aren’t any huge surprises. All the same, it’s entertaining and good for a laugh, particularly when Nicola Bryant’s doing a deep-voiced, evil Peri. A nice accompaniment to Exotron, but not worth buying the CD set for if you weren’t sold on the idea of Exotron.

Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Doctor Who – Exotron

11 June 2007 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

ExotronThat’s odd. Two Big Finish plays in a row, I.D. and Exotron, and they’re both about robots that have human personalities uploaded into them. Did we really need two of them? Certainly, if it were a choice between I.D. or Exotron, Exotron would win hands down, and not just because it’s got Peri in it.

Exotron is, for one thing, a far more interesting play. It’s not outstanding, you’ll guess what’s going on before the end of part one, and the whole idea of giant hyenas fighting a bunch of Transformers really doesn’t work as an audio play. But it’s still more entertaining than the load of computer code that was I.D.

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