Sound only
Aug. 20th, 2006 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyphomandraStorm Warning – the first of the Paul McGann Doctor Who audios. I’ve held the same view as Vince and Stuart on the 8th Doctor since the tv movie, and although I liked bits of this it hasn’t strongly convinced me the other way. It has some nice ideas (the aliens), some good radio bits (taming the vortisaur, exploring the airship) and then a remarkably unlikely resolution, which had me protesting out loud at the unlikelihood of it all plus some irritating colonial stereotypes and dialogue. Charlie hasn’t grabbed me yet, either. I’d probably listen to another one but, alas, the library has only seen fit to stock the first one, and I don’t think I’ll be paying full price for them just yet.
Phantasmagoria – first Peter Davison audio, written by Mark Gatiss. I loved The League of Gentlemen TV series, albeit with a wary faith that I would be traumatised Yet Again by every episode, disliked or didn’t care for the movie; liked The Unquiet Dead a lot (especially Dickens), didn’t care for The Vesuvius Club (for those following along, the first is a Doctor Who episode from the Ninth Doctor’s season, the second a book). He’s quite good as Gold in the first Sapphire & Steel audio, and certainly the character he plays here isn’t a problem – but, sadly, the plot is obvious and threadbare, and either Mark Gatiss can’t write the Fifth Doctor or Peter Davison is way out of practice. Or I’m irrationally biased, but I choose to ignore this possibility.
The Doctor in this is written as a calm, reasonable person, who analyses the situation, strokes his fingers together a lot while intoning, “I see,” (I am almost certainly making this quote up) and is undistressed by the intermittent absence of Turlough. I can buy the last – he does the same thing in The King’s Demons – and certainly this Holmesian inscrutability works for some doctors, but what I like about the Fifth Doctor is his enthusiasm and his vulnerability, and I’m not getting either here. Turlough, also, comes across as out of character (overt nobleness and willingness to risk life and limb on behalf of others, neither particularly defining traits on the show). His dialogue involves a lot of stating the obvious, and at times he really does sound like he’s fighting the lines, trying to make himself into an actual character rather than a caricature.
The plot is, as I said, obvious, particularly the denouement. I have no reason to believe Nikolas Valentine has taken off his gloves by this stage, nor do I believe he would have no idea how to negate his most frequent weapon. I liked Hannah, but her sacrifice doesn’t really work for me because it seems so unnecessary – why can’t the ghosts destroy Valentine without her? (possibly, she’s meant to be dying already. I had trouble with some of the blocking in this scene).
There are good bits – the language is often great, either in idiom or imagery (I particularly liked the description of Valentine’s ship as having “walls like wet liver,” and the Doctor’s “I could murder a cup of tea.”), the sound good (particularly the slippery, tearing noises as Hannah changes form) – and I might listen to it again, once. And I won’t give up on Mark Gatiss or the Doctor Who audio dramas, either, but these two audios really aren’t anywhere near as good as the two Sapphire and Steel ones I’ve listened to.
Phantasmagoria – first Peter Davison audio, written by Mark Gatiss. I loved The League of Gentlemen TV series, albeit with a wary faith that I would be traumatised Yet Again by every episode, disliked or didn’t care for the movie; liked The Unquiet Dead a lot (especially Dickens), didn’t care for The Vesuvius Club (for those following along, the first is a Doctor Who episode from the Ninth Doctor’s season, the second a book). He’s quite good as Gold in the first Sapphire & Steel audio, and certainly the character he plays here isn’t a problem – but, sadly, the plot is obvious and threadbare, and either Mark Gatiss can’t write the Fifth Doctor or Peter Davison is way out of practice. Or I’m irrationally biased, but I choose to ignore this possibility.
The Doctor in this is written as a calm, reasonable person, who analyses the situation, strokes his fingers together a lot while intoning, “I see,” (I am almost certainly making this quote up) and is undistressed by the intermittent absence of Turlough. I can buy the last – he does the same thing in The King’s Demons – and certainly this Holmesian inscrutability works for some doctors, but what I like about the Fifth Doctor is his enthusiasm and his vulnerability, and I’m not getting either here. Turlough, also, comes across as out of character (overt nobleness and willingness to risk life and limb on behalf of others, neither particularly defining traits on the show). His dialogue involves a lot of stating the obvious, and at times he really does sound like he’s fighting the lines, trying to make himself into an actual character rather than a caricature.
The plot is, as I said, obvious, particularly the denouement. I have no reason to believe Nikolas Valentine has taken off his gloves by this stage, nor do I believe he would have no idea how to negate his most frequent weapon. I liked Hannah, but her sacrifice doesn’t really work for me because it seems so unnecessary – why can’t the ghosts destroy Valentine without her? (possibly, she’s meant to be dying already. I had trouble with some of the blocking in this scene).
There are good bits – the language is often great, either in idiom or imagery (I particularly liked the description of Valentine’s ship as having “walls like wet liver,” and the Doctor’s “I could murder a cup of tea.”), the sound good (particularly the slippery, tearing noises as Hannah changes form) – and I might listen to it again, once. And I won’t give up on Mark Gatiss or the Doctor Who audio dramas, either, but these two audios really aren’t anywhere near as good as the two Sapphire and Steel ones I’ve listened to.
