Times that Big Finish really made me love the audio medium

I’ve been thinking lately about how much I love Big Finish. I can thank Big Finish for really catapulting me into Old Who. Cause I listened to the One Doctor and had no clue what the hell was going on, but I knew I liked it. I knew I wanted to know who the hell these people were any why they were so fantastic. So I listened to Seasons of Fear which did nothing to relieve my confusion. It did inspire me to get more dedicated in my Who viewing though. And my wiki reading.

But there are a couple of audios that made me sit up and go wow. There are audios that made me realize just how fantastic the audio medium can be. These are those audios. They may not be my favorites (although some of them are) but they all made quite good use of the fact that they only way I was interacting with the story was with my ears.

In release order:

03: Whispers of Terror

I wasn’t sure whether or not to include Whispers of Terror or not. It’s a pretty forgettable story. Overall it’s not that great. What it did though was have the enemy be sound. The Doctor (Six) and Peri end up in the Museum of Aural Antiquities. A museum of sound. The enemy is the ultimate earwig and they have to stop it. Like I said not a very good story, but a really interesting enemy. This was made all the more effective because I was listening to it.

35: …ish

…ish is once again with the Sixth Doctor and Peri. It’s a celebration of language. They arrive at a conference for lexicographers and find the Doctor’s old friend dead. While discovering the murder there is a pure joy in the use of language. The murder is a word. The Ish. They defeat it with words. Like Whispers of Terror this one probably could have been done just as well on tv, a bit less well in a book, but was quite good as an audio. I’d highly recommend it to anyone looking for something to get them into the Sixth Doctor. I just find the use of language as it was in …ish to be particularly suited to the audio medium.

39: Bang-bang-a-boom!

Bang-bang-a-boom! gets included because it a) takes place on Deep Space 8 (yes that is a bit of a parody of both Babylon 5 and Deep Space 9) which is hosting the Intergalactic Song Contest. As a result parts of the story are told via the announcer for the contest during his segments and other parts are told with personal log entries from the Chief Medical Officer. Both of which are purely audio mediums as the announcer is doing his job via radio. Which is just a cleaver use of the audio medium to convey a story. Also it is damn funny and has the Seventh Doctor and Mel being awesome.

52: Scherzo

Sherzo has the Eighth Doctor and Charley in almost complete sensory deprivation. The only sense they have available to them through most of the audio is their hearing. Big Finish did a fantastic job of conveying that through the story. This is the first audio that Big Finish did that just would not work as a tv episode. It just wouldn’t. Book form could work, but do to the nature of the story it would never work on tv. They have no sight and part of the brilliance of the audio is that you can go along with them on that part of the journey.

54: The Natural History of Fear

The Natural History of Fear is pure audio joy. The most I will say about this (to avoid spoiling it) is that it simply would not work in any other medium. Not one bit. So go buy it. Find a download because for some reason Big Finish isn’t offering a download. Just listen to it.

74: Live 34

Live 34 is the Seventh Doctor, Ace, and Hex. It’s the next step up from Bang-bang-a-boom! in that the story is told entirely from a radio show, Live 34. Everything that happens is being broadcast from the show. The entire story is told there. It’s brilliant and fantastic and one of the best uses of the audio medium. It’s the story of a revolution as it’s happening from the perspective of a radio announcer. Brilliance.

94.5: Urgent Calls

Urgent Calls is one part story that comes with ID. It’s the Sixth Doctor making a series of phone calls. It’s way better then the premise sounds. Honest. But it’s a story told through a series of phone calls and how awesome is that? It’s pretty awesome.

And those are the Big Finish stories that I think made the best use of the audio medium. They range from clever use of enemies to pure perfection on the use of the audio medium. I just thought I’d share. Please feel free to share your favorite uses of the audio medium.

Oh and I kept this with the main Doctor Who line, but if you wanna discuss something else feel free.

The Reaping

Wasn’t as good as The Gathering as there was no Tegan.

It was still quite good though. Even without Tegan. And I think I listened to these backwards as I listened to the Gathering months ago and had a hard time finding a copy of the Reaping. So I spent a good portion of the audio waiting for the horrible thing to happen to Nat and for Kathy to go evil.

Also at the beginning I suddenly got the Six/Peri stuff and my mind hurt. Quite a bit and that’s all I will say on it.

Although they do have a rather fantastic friendship yes? They argue and insult each other but there is such a nice bit of underlying love for each other that it’s all of the good.

On to the story. I rather liked this as it was a way of showing why Peri never goes back home on the show. By the end of the story she doesn’t have a home to go to. And that is sad. But at the same time makes her never going home understandable because old Who never really thought of these things. And her pain at her mom’s death and the Doctor coming back for her. It was all very sad. I did really like the decision to have Peri decide to stay with her family. It was the only thing that was going to make sense by the end. And the way that Six was utterly shocked by it was fun. He really didn’t think that she would ever leave him. Especially like that.

And then he went to go see what happened to her and came running back. That was the part that almost made me cry. He went back and gave her a hug and let her cry on him and then took her off into the TARDIS again. Cause he’s her best friend.

I just have this sudden love for the Six and Peri dynamic. It’s kinda weird.

And the Cybermen story made very little sense, overall. It was way too convoluted and not with the making of sense. It almost felt tacked on at the end. Like the writer went, oh shit I only have twenty minutes to resolve this *throws stuff together* ‘eh it’s good enough. I think if the Cybermen part had been a bit better done it would have been a very good story. I still liked it, but more as a character study then as a story.

Also ear disk things=ear pods y/y? Rusty do you have any original ideas? At all?

Son of the Dragon

I liked it. I like pure historicals, things that give Erimem a chance to be the ruler type, and things where Five gets confused for the court jester. So those were all there and thus it was good. Peri rather annoyed me with her instance in believing that all of the legends about Dracula were true though. She was worried about her girlfriendErimem so that gets a pass.

Although I am left confused by all the people who think it would have been great for Erimem to have run off with Dracula and had this be her exit story. Umm…no. Sure he wasn’t as bad as the myths claim, but he was still called Vlad the Impaler for a reason. Also the part where he tried to kill Erimem, several times. And basically forced her to agree to marry him. Honestly, not as bad as previously claimed, but not really good enough for Erimem.

Overall I liked that it had the overall lesson that no one was really the good guy in the situation and the even Dracula had reasons behind impaling 10,000 people. Also killing all those other people. I also liked the message that Rado wasn’t that different and everyone was a product of their times and upbrining.

It kinda felt like going a bit backwards in Erimem’s character arc though. She’s been going in the direction of leaving behind all of the Pharaoh stuff while still maintaining her basic outlook on life and this felt like it was going back to the Pharaoh stuff. Erimem is a leader, but I think she has the potential to become the kind leader who doesn’t agree with impaling people on spikes. Or marring a guy that thinks impaling people on spikes is a good plan. But maybe that’s just me.

Overall I liked it. Can’t understand the squee for Erimem/Dracula. Although that’s a pairing made in crack heaven.