good morning!
I have no idea what to do today...
I ended up spending most of today working on a web page for when I get around to recommending doctor who audio dramas
after 3 days of work, I've built a page with all 1000-ish doctor who audio dramas, that I can relatively easily update to provide recommendations.
I'm just trying to work out exactly how I'm going to recommend things (because the audio dramas are very different to the tv stories), whether or not I should write reviews, and how to write my introduction post.
I want to point out that the reason this took so long is the file I made for this is 5300 lines long, most of which was manually entered.
request for feedback
I've got a first draft of this up on my site, if you have a minute, I'd like to hear your thoughts:
...I should probably not leave the placeholder recommendation of "Land of the Dead" in, especially since I'm considering saying you shouldn't listen to it...
doing a bad thing, web programming
I know I shouldn't, but... I decided I wanted the rows of the tables to be coloured according to what I think of the story. But because my source file is markdown, doing that directly would be super ugly, so instead.... I generate the colours of the tables with Javascript
doing a bad thing, web programming
and now I'm doing a worse thing... I'm generating content with CSS
doing a bad thing, web programming
I've fixed this second part with a filter.
...and just realised I can probably fix the first one with a filter too, removing my dependency on JS
doing a bad thing, web programming
wait, no, I can't.
dang...
doctor who audio dramas
I'm... 6 stories in to Big Finish's "Main Range", and I'm starting to consider the very real possibility that the audio dramas are like the TV show, but *significantly* better on average
doctor who audio dramas
@lizardsquid *laughing* Do tell. :)
doctor who audio dramas
@beadsland they're enrapturing, and exciting, and they tell more interesting stories than what you usually get on TV, like a story about a homicidal creature made of pure sound (Whispers of Terror), or a story about a fear-eating creature using a right-wing electoral candidate to stir up fear and then feed (The Fearmonger).
They're 100% Doctor Who, the writing is great, and the production quality is incredibly good.
doctor who audio dramas
@lizardsquid 3) Working at Big Finish's studio, from what the behind-the-scenes interviews of actors would suggest, is just consistently a whole lot of fun. Also, the lunches.
That said, Whispers of Terror and ...Ish, both, are painfully meta in their self-aware prodding of hanging lanterns suspended from the proscenium arch of the fourth wall. Of course, that tweaking of the audiences's collective noses, "Yes, this audio drama knows it's audio media." is part of the fun.
doctor who audio dramas
@lizardsquid As for Fearmonger. Yeah, The Masque of Mandragora has nothing on the Big Finish take on the same idea.
doctor who audio dramas
@beadsland yeah, definitely a major part of it is "everyone involved in this *wants* to be there"
doctor who audio dramas
@lizardsquid I think there might be three factors weighing in their favor:
1) They don't have to worry about set or costume design, so they can focus on story, and the elements thereof (acting, pacing, etc.)
2) They can do scenes where two or more actors might have been on camera in TV, but can mix in alternate line readings much more freely than just taking the best combined effort of everyone in shot.