Theatre of War and Other Things

Drabbles for the audiodrama version of the Seventh Doctor/Ace/Benny story "Theatre of War" are now online. Originally the story was a novel in the Virgin New Adventures range, and it's my favorite of that series so far. I've been in a bit of a Bernice Summerfield kick lately since listening to and writing for "The Eighth of March" set. I don't dislike Benny, but she's not a favorite of mine either, which is why I haven't written much for her previously. But I hate having only one or two drabbles featuring a companion in a set; it feels vaguely disingenuous to list them among the characters in those situations. So I've been listening to a few audios featuring her to bulk up her representation in the drabbles. Probably no one but me notices or cares about things like that, but like I said, it bothers me.

Work on "Hill House Eight" continues. I've done a bit of plotting today and working through character sketches to iron out some things I need to figure out to move forward in the story.

On the audiobook side of things, I've listened to almost all of the Lord Peter Wimsey radio dramas. Having just finished Busman’s Honeymoon, I'm now going back to the beginning to listen to the radio drama versions of the first stories. I'm also continuing with Dracula and beginning Doctor Who: Scratchman written by Tom Baker. Yes, the Fourth Doctor wrote a Fourth Doctor story. So far it's...interesting, also idiosyncratic and a bit scary. But it features one of my favorite Fourth Doctor teams (Four/Sarah Jane Smith/Harry Sullivan), so I couldn't resist giving it a try.

Coming Soon at Big Finish

There are a lot of interesting sounding audios coming out this month, so I'm going to squee at you a bit about them.

Doctor Who: Ravenous 3 - This one comes out Monday (MONDAY!!!!) and its the audio I'm most excited abut. It's a continuation of the current Eighth Doctor/Liv/Helen storyline and features three villains: the deliciously evil the Eleven, an earlier version of the same Time Lord (called the Nine), and the Ravenous. The Eleven and all of his (or her) previous and future incarnations have regenerative dissonance, meaning all of their previous selves exist in their head simultaneously with their current self. It's an interesting take on regeneration and the ways it could go wrong. We're still learning about the Ravenous, but what we know so far is that they are monsters from Time Lord fairy tales who eat temporal energy and whose preferred diet includes Time Lords. As a result, most Time Lords (the Eleven and the Eighth Doctor included) have a nearly uncontrollable fear of the Ravenous. Fairy tales are very much the theme for this storyline; the previous volume included a two-part story featuring the Krampus and this one has an intergalactic version of the Brothers Grimm. On top of all that, there's an episode where Liv and Helen team up with future and past Eighth Doctor companions Charley Pollard, Bliss, and River Song.

UNIT: Incursions - The big draw for this one is River Song, but there's also evidently multiple versions of Kate Stewart, a dinosaur, and a return to one of UNIT's dirty little secrets, Abbey Marston.

Torchwood: The Green Life - I don't generally listen to Big Finish's Torchwood audios (I was never a fan of the series when it was on the air), but this one has Captain Jack teaming up with Jo Jones (previously Jo Grant, one of the Third Doctor's companions). Jo on the TV series isn't one of my favorite companions, but I love Big Finish's version of Jo. They've just fleshed out her character so much more and Katy Manning, who plays her, is fantastic.

Doctor Who - Short Trips: Year of the Drex Olympics - The Second Doctor learns Venusian aikido from a group of nuns! (Or so they've teased in other stories. We'll see if that's really what this one is about.)

Doctor Who: The Monsters of Gokroth - This is the first of a trio of stories featuring the Seventh Doctor and a relatively minor character from one of his TV serials, Mags from "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy." I watched that story for the first time recently and wasn't impressed. That said, Mags was an interesting character. I'm cautiously optimistic that these stories will do for her what the previous Fifth Doctor stories did for Kamelion.


Things that I have so far resisted the siren song of:

Dark Shadows: Bloodline - I grew up a HUGE Dark Shadows fan, which is probably the most on-brand thing ever for me. I mean, come on - vampires, werewolves, ghosts, witches, curses, time travel, creepy houses on windswept cliffs overlooking the ocean, and low production values all wrapped up in a vaguely nonsensical, campy soap opera. I've listened to a few of Big Finish's Dark Shadows audios and they're a mixed bag as far as quality. However, the series that preceded this one, Bloodlust, was very enjoyable. This series picks up not too long after that one, with the Collins family's resident dumpster fire of a descendant, David Collins, marrying his childhood sweetheart, Amy Jennings. All the Collinsport regulars will be there, including the supernatural ones, and I'm sure the whole thing will go off the rails in no time. :-)

Gallifrey: Time War 2 - This one was released last month but I'm including it here so I can talk about it. On the pro side of the ledger, I enjoyed the previous set in this series. I also have a Time War drabble collection I'd love to add to and in this set they're bringing back Rassilon, who I love to hate. There's also a story by Una McCormack, who is one of my favorite Doctor Who writers. On the con side, I'm not a big Gallifrey fan. Most of the characters I really cared about (Ace, Leela, Brax, and the War Master) exited in the previous set of audios in dramatic, if not permanent, fashion. The only regulars left are Romana and Narvin and I don't feel overly compelled to find out what happens to either of them.