and the last half:

I wish the cover of Just War had less nazi symbols on it.
In the story, they're unambiguously the bad guys (from everything I know about it), but....

it's still really weird to buy a product that literally has nazi stuff right on the front of it.

I've now listened to the first 2 dramas.

[ Oh No It Isn't! ] — I didn't like it much... it''s centred around Bernice falling into a world of pantomime, which means it's very silly and not very sci-fi.

[ Beyond the Sun ] — really good! I loved the characters, and I loved the explorations into the different worldviews they had.

I was a bit worried after listening to Oh No It Isn't!... I wondered if buying these dramas was a mistake.

But the second one turned out to be good, and I hope the rest are good too...

Walking to Babylon is good, and (the first half of) Birthright is good too.

This was a good choice.

But now I have to make another choice: The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield, a 2014 follow up series, is currently on sale.

So I have to choose: do I spend $50 now, and get audio dramas from 15 years after what I'm currently listening to, or do I wait and spend $95 on them when I get to that point in the series?

I should link to the sale, I guess:
https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/happy-birthday-lisa-bowerman1

I think I'm going to get it.

Worst case: I don't listen to The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield until I get up to them in my listening order, and by that time (in the distant future) they're discounted to this price already.

(and I have some spare money right now – I set aside some money over the past few months to get a Thing™, and then didn't get the thing.)

I've really enjoyed the middle part of Series 1.

Story 1 (Oh No It Isn't!) wasn't that engaging in the first half.

But stories 2–5 have been really good. The one I listened to today (Just War) made me cry, and was really... human.

gosh darnit.

Dragon's Wrath was a really good story... but the drama had a bunch of audio and post-production problems, and you can really hear it – there's times when the music makes it impossible to hear the dialogue, some of the characters sound like they've been recorded from the other side of the room...

It's not enough to make it unlistenable, but it is enough to be frustrating, especially since the story is good and an interesting change.

But, on the other hand: I've now finished all* of segment 5!

https://averylychee.neocities.org/doctor-who/audio-guide/#segment-5

*not actually all, because in the middle of it there are 2 special releases which are really hard to find.

And because I skipped ahead and listened to segment 6 already, I'm now moving on to segment 7, which contains the Doctor again! It's been almost a month since I listened to a drama with the Doctor in it, there's been a lot of spin off stuff.

hmmm..... maybe I *should* add the original-to-audio audiobooks to this list...

Which should I do:

option 1: Add the audiobooks to the list, thus meaning I have to re-do all the segment numbers

option 2: Add the audiobooks to a seperate page, with notes about which segments they should be in

option 3: do nothing

I'm going to be doing option 2 – the situation with audiobooks is much simpler than the situation with audio dramas.

Plus: if I'm in the mood for listening to an audio drama, I'm not necessarily in the mood for an audiobook, and I think that probably applies to other people too.

Plus plus: I can also make a list for the novels this way, without making it difficult for people to also find the audiobooks.

I've finished a few more audio dramas since I last posted an update, 2 of which (The Holy Terror and The Mutant Phase) were very good.

But, exciting news: the next audio dramas in the list are ones starring Paul McGann as the 8th Doctor.

I'm really looking forward to these, I love (what little I've seen of) Paul McGann's portrayal of the Doctor, and I'm eager to see where this series takes the character.

What makes these especially interesting is that the writers have free reign: with the other Doctors, all the stories have to somehow fit in with the established timeline shown on TV, but the only 8th Doctor TV story was the movie, which showed the first few hours of his life, and ended with him leaving alone in the TARDIS. There's no sequence of companions to deal with, and there's no difficulty adding in an essentially infinite number of adventures set after the movie

I say that there's nothing to deal with, but that's an over simplification. Prior to the audio dramas starting, there were:

• 40 books published featuring the 8th doctor's adventures, set directly after the TV movie
• Two *separate* series of comic strips, a total of 20 stories.

But for the most part you can just say that the order of the stories is:

1. The Movie
2. Books
3. Comics
4. Audio Dramas

and each of those is completely separate

For International Women's day, Big Finish is releasing a box set of new stories that are lead by women, written by women, directed by women, AND produced by a woman.

https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/the-eighth-of-march

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Paul McGann is... really good!

I don't know what else to say except aaaa

Sword of Orion is really hecking good.

It's the first Big Finish story to feature the cybermen, and I'm glad they didn't just go with the "foiling an invasion" plotline – this one is jam-packed with human drama and intrigue (much like my favourite classic series cyberman story, Tomb of the Cybermen).

I listened to The Stones of Venice today, and I liked it.

It's very gloomy, though...

I'm considering changing the page so that instead of each entry listing the featured companions and enemies, it lists the author.

Looking at this as though I'm a casual Doctor Who fan who wants to figure out what to listen to, I wouldn't find this useful.

Knowing who wrote a story is (sadly) far less intriguing than knowing who is in it.

I didn't like this one as much, and even though it's not the *worst*, it did have several themes that made me uncomfortable.

I did like that they had Nicholas Briggs playing a man who had been caught up in a time vortex malfunction and was convinced that he was The Doctor
(Briggs had previously played the Doctor in some fan audio dramas several years earlier.)

Speaking of Nicholas Briggs, he just answered a question of mine in the latest Big Finish podcast:

https://www.bigfinish.com/podcasts/v/2019-02-24-the-avengers-and-listeners-emails

(at around the 9 minute mark)

Thinking about Minuet in Hell again, and there are so many elements that I like:

• it features the Brigadier alongside the 8th Doctor, for the first time
• it's set on Earth, but not in London
• there are 3 seemingly separate plot-lines happening at once, and the ways they weave into each other are amazing

But I don't like how edgy it is.

(continued)

and I especially don't like that the 8th Doctor has such a diminished role in this story.

I usually like stories where the Doctor is absent/barely there (like Blink, Turn Left, and The Crimson Horror), but in this case I'm not too sure.

Especially since we have the Brigadier here! The Brigadier and the 8th Doctor only properly meet up in Part 4, and it feels like somewhat wasted potential.

Also I'm getting an increasing sense of "the audio dramas like to make paranormal things real or have creatures that feed on emotions"

MR 2: Phantasmagoria
features an occultist and seemingly supernatural phenomenon

MR 4: The Land of the Dead
features ancient creatures from Koyukon mythology

MR 5: The Fearmonger
features a creature which feeds on fear.

MR 9: The Spectre of Lanyon Moor
features a Spectre/imp

(cont)

MR 10: Winter for the Adept
features a poltergeist

MR 13: The Shadow of the Scourge
features creatures from another dimension which feed on dark thoughts

MR 19: Minuet in Hell
features "demons" who feed off fear and anger.

That's 37%.

37% of the main range stories so far feature either paranormal themes or emotion eating psychic creatures.

and the next one?
it features a werewolf.

It looks like they stop doing paranormal stories after Main Range 26: Primeval

thank goodness for that... I think the oversaturation of the audio dramas with Supernatural Nonsense That Turns Out To Be Aliens is starting to get a little draining.

Every time there's a gap between BBV stories, I forget that they can actually be good.

Race Memory is really good (and is somewhat of a sequel to the TV story "Ark in Space")

I've now listened to all of Segment 8!

https://averylychee.neocities.org/doctor-who/audio-guide/

Currently I'm debating whether my reviews should be visible right away, or if they should be hidden by default. Let me know what you think!

Currently, my favourites list at the top of the page includes:

2 seventh doctor stories
1 sixth doctor story that I've not even actually listened to and keep intending on replacing
1 eighth doctor story

Maybe I should try to have one favourite for each doctor?

I'm not sure...

I think part of my problem is that (in my mind at least) "favourite" is a different category to "definitely recommended"

So even though I definitely recommend The Marian Conspiracy and The Holy Terror (6th Doctor stories), I don't consider either to be my favourite. And even if I did, The Holy Terror isn't neccessarily the best introduction point for someone new to big finish, and The Marian Conspiracy is purely historical, which makes it sound less appealing.

it's better to not have a 6th doctor story in the favourites list for now, than to have a list full of lies

I *was* enjoying this.

And then there's this really unnecessary scene where the Doctor goes to Turlough and awkwardly asks about dating and says stuff on the lines of "I don't really understand women".

And.... arg... it's so frustrating, because it humanises the Doctor in exactly the worst possible way — it makes him seem like an awkward school boy who has never had girls for friends, when the Doctor has had plenty of girls as companions.

The doctor is a several century old alien who has had all sorts of different friends and experiences.

Clueless about dating? yes, that makes sense - the Doctor never seems particularly interested in romance until their 8th incarnation.
But clueless about women???? that's nonsense.

Well, I finished listening to it and enjoyed all of it except that one scene, so I've put it in the "Yes" pile.

And thankfully: this is the last paranormal one until Main Range 26!

And then (as far as I can tell) there aren't any paranormal ones for yonks after that!

I'm so glad that they escaped the storytelling rut they were in, because I think I would stop listening if there were more.