Doctor Who Tie-Ins Discussion Thread, Books, Audios, Etc.

My memory is vague, but I thought that last scene felt like Evelyn sulkily getting a quasi-concession she doesn't exactly deserve because she lost the actual argument. (Not a million miles removed from the bit in "Planet of the Ood" where the Doctor apologizes to Donna for pointing out how blinkered she is.)

I think the workings of history here aren't noticeably different from how it's conceived in lots of other changing-the-past stories, but I've finally argued myself hoarse on this story.

In some essay or post somewhere, Lance Parkin mentioned that he thought the audios should take advantage of the fact that the Doctors involved were older than they'd been onscreen, instead of ignoring it. Have Peter Davison play a fifty-ish Doctor instead of pretending he's still 29. I thought that was a fascinating idea, if way too rad for Big Finish.

Yes. We'll just agree that I'm right.

Also a bit hard to market, surely; as weird as it is that 1986 Colin Baker is always turning up on covers alongside 2009 India Fisher, it'd be even weirder to have 2009 Colin Baker there as well.

Listened to "The Word Lord" today to finish the whole thing off. What a gem. I really hope Steve Hall does another audio, either bringing back Nobody No One for a full rematch or even a new concept entirely.

Is there a place to get Celestial Omnibus that's not Obverse itself? $30 is a bit much...

Unless someone's put copies on eBay, no. The book doesn't even have a barcode and ISBN, which would be a problem for any major online retailers.

It's well worth it, though. I can only think of one story that I didn't really like, and the others were all superb, if you like crude humour and entire scenes about time-travelling dildos. (Which I do.)

So, I'm listening to Doctor Who: The Company of Friends. Seriously, how bloody hard would it have been to reinstate the David Arnold theme music? My ears cannae take the Nick Briggs version any more.

It's permeated to the main-line releases!? NOOOOOO.

Mind you, they'd dropped the superior Darlington remix of the Arnold theme since the first NEDA season for some reason anyway.

It has, YEEEEEES.

Would I be overdoing it if, in my review, I complained once for each of the four stories?

Not if it helps Nick see sense!

Bit concerned he might punch me next time I'm at Moat, though.

You know, if these Tom Baker audios had featured the fourth Doctor and the Brigadier, I'd have been there like a shot... but the fourth Doctor and Captain Yates? Who the crap cares?

On the other hand, the news that Janet Fielding will be reprising Tegan in a Big Finish mini-season in 2010 has me disproportionately excited!!

I really need to revisit some Tegan episodes. I honestly don't remember liking her all that much.

She suffers from bad writing from time to time, but what companion doesn't in the Davison Era? She's certainly my favorite of all the ones he traveled with.

Man, Nick Briggs is lucky I didn't listen to Wirrn Dawn more than once before reviewing it; it's shaping up as godawful on a second listen.

At least he's got that extensive television career playing good guys to fall back on...

I quite like his early BF work, but his recent stuff has just not done a thing for me.

A Lance Parkin interview -- Part One and Part Two.

Room With a Deja Vu.

Right on the first page, this story tells you that you'll need to read part of the story back-to-front. There's a point in the story where the Doctor meets a creature whose consciousness flows backward in time, a creature that has been charged with murder, and only the Doctor can interrogate the creature to find out what happened.

And yes, it does make sense to read that passage forward, then come back to it and read it backwards. It's clever.

It's unfortunate that the rest of the story isn't particularly good.

The artwork isn't great. Despite reading the comic twice, I really have no idea what I read. I'm not sure what the mystery was, or why it was important. The story feels like the Doctor is dropped into the middle of someone else's story, and then he buggers off before it's done.

It's average at best. Notable for the narrative conceit in the center, and mundane and uninteresting on the ends.

Through Time and Space, IDW's one-shot collection, is coming January 6th.

I'm going to see if I can get them to fix the solicit text; they have Room with a Deja Vu listed as "Just a Theory."

Oh Nick Briggs, why had I foresaken you!? Anyone reading my Unreality SF reviews will know that I think Cyberman is fantastic. (Got to listen to Telos soon.) Though admittedly that's from 2005. But so was Patient Zero! Especially Part One.

Other news: The Company of Friends is interesting.
- "Benny's Story" just doesn't sparkle like it should. There's lots of scenes that should generate sexual tension (Benny strips down in front of the Doctor), but it doesn't seem to actually happen. But I did recall my desire to marry Lisa Bowerman. The story is pretty old hat too; I'm tired of the ancient-animals-appearing-in-the-present-thanks-to-time-distortion trope.
- "Fitz's Story" is amusing. More amusing than I actually ever remember Fitz being. It does cause a bit of a continuity gubbins; Anji is in the TARDIS unseen, placing it during the Amnesia Period, but the Doctor remembers visiting this planet with Sam in the pre-Fitz era. Whoops!
- If that was amusing, then "Izzy's Story" is flat-out hilarious. Alan Barnes kicks this so far out of the park, it's amazing. Barely a wasted line, and tons of good ideas. Jemima Rooper nails it!
- I'm still listening to "Mary's Story", but the Doctor mumbles "Gemma", "Compassion", and "Destrii" under his breath which means that the eighth Doctor timeline is a little more stable, but also nonsensical. Samson and Gemma's tenure leads straight into Charley's, but the Doctor mentions Mary in the Charley stories. And I guess the comics and the novels all precede the audios? I don't buy it.

Ah, I spoke too soon, and there were things going on I did not understand. But Mary's tenure does take place during Samson/Gemma's.

Charley gets name-checked in the third issue of Tony Lee's ongoing Doctor Who series.

Allyn, in "The Spindle of Necessity", who is the thief who called the philosophers a moron? It's on page 412 in Re:Collections.

That's the reference to The Princess Bride.

During the "battle of wits" between Vizzini and the Dread Pirate Roberts, Vizzini says, "Plato? Aristotle? Socrates?" Dramatic pause. "Morons."

So, the Doctor knows Vizzini.

Page 405 has a reference to my favorite short story, Fritz Leiber's "Lean Times in Lankhmar." Plato and Eudemus mention Iseek the Jug, though not by name.

Ohhhhhhhh. I was wracking my brains for the Who reference.

Very good story, by the by (you'll read about it on my blog in full soon enough I expect), though it contained far too much dialogue for any Socratic dialogue I've ever read!

I've been reading Mission: Impractical, but to get Frobisher's voice right in my head, I decided to give The Maltese Penguin a spin. It worked great, in that I now hear all of Frobisher's lines in Robert Jezek's voice... but now I hear all of the sixth Doctor's lines in Colin Baker's north Atlantic accent!

I would read that.

Wow, DWM #414 was just a Dan Berry spectacular, wasn't it? I especially liked the India Fisher interview.

Mind you, Dreamland looks terrible.

Did you like the David Tennant interview? Lengthy and revealing, I felt.

(Dreamland's first and second episodes are on YouTube. I really like it, but that might partly be because it was the first new series thing I saw taking shape... *shrug*)

All I've seen is the preview clip, which seemed kind of stilted. I'm going to wait until the whole thing is out to watch it.