I suppose I should put the fannish thing in a seperate post... [stunt

Decided to take a bit of a study break about an hour ago and watch an episode of Who. Was going to listen to part of the Power of the Daleks audio track, but I find that no matter what I do listening to audio-only tracks with nothing to look at makes me sleepy. And then I get caught off-guard when something explodes and I jump about three feet.

I'm loving Power thus far (I'm two episodes in, and damn Troughton but you're an awesome thing), but I'm used to episodes, or at least recons with still images; audio-only tracks are taking me some time to get used to. Any suggestions, for those of you more familiar with the audio-only tracks than myself? I've listened to a few already (even if it took me about a month to finally get through the entirety of The Daleks' Master Plan), but if I'm going to move on to the Big Finish catalogue I need to start getting a little better about not stopping in the middle or trying to multitask too much. What should I do while listening? Is it better to just listen to an audio all in one go, or put it on one's iPod and listen to it gradually, when one gets the chance?

I also realized that I'm running out of Troughton serials. I've already seen all the extant serials, save for the last episode of The War Games (which depresses me too much to watch), and I've seen the surviving episodes of all the burninated serials. Once I get through the audios I have left (I've still got most of Victoria's and all of Zoe's to go) I will have no more new Troughton. And that thought makes me very sad. :(

Anyway, because sleepyness was a bad thing, I decided for the first episode of Day of the Daleks, because while it's not supposed to be particularly good it does, so I'm told, contain things like bondage and motortrikes and dodgy architecture OF THE FUTURE.

Bondage and motortrikes have yet to make an appearance, but we've got the dodgy architecture right here, complete with spinning plastic chairs that don't actually spin. Also, is it just me going crazy, or do the Daleks sound wierdly...sedate in this one? Their voices sound positively calm compared to their usual shrieking hysteria (which is back by Planet of the Daleks, she noted), which on the one hand is sort of a nice change but on the other hand makes mass cries of "EX-TER-MIN-ATE." sound really weird.

More thorough thoughts later, because I'm tired, but I just have to note that there's a bit where the Doctor and Jo spend the night in a supposedly-haunted mansion. The Doctor, because he's sort of twelve years old like that, immediately breaks out the wine and cheese.

And my very first thought, no lie, was "There's a drunk!fic to be had in here somewhere."

I think I may have reached some sort of fannish event horizon, ~~not at least because I may have written a little tiny bit of it even though I refuse to dignify it by actually saving the thing.~~ :(

To bed, to bed. Next exam tomorrow afternoon; here's hoping I can remember which one's Surrey by then.

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Do you mean just audio show episodes, or including Big Finish? Because I've listened to three of the show's stories in audio, Fury from the Deep, Power of the Daleks, and The Wheel in Space, and I would deeply recommend Power and Wheel. Fury has little to recommend it beyond Jamie and Victoria's personal conversations, and I feel like that'd be true even in visual form. Even the Doctor was a bore in it.

Now, if you want BF recommendations...heh. Just specify and I'll rattle some off.

I only have THREE Two stories left. When the hell did that happen, man?! The Abominable Snowman, The Ice Warriors, and The Space Pirates. That's it. I'm closer to finishing Two than a few of the Doctors who actually have intact episodes.

I love Day of the Daleks! It's all funny and UNITful and has a timey wimey plot revelation! And Three getting drunk on someone else's wine stock while Jo looks on, bewildered! XD And Mike and Benton being adorably sneakypants fraternal, and and and.

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Right now, I only mean the show's episodes in audio; I haven't graduated to Big Finish yet. I've listened to most of Ben and Polly's stories in audio (except for Power, which I keep putting off for some reason - maybe because I actually own it, and thus am not in a hurry to delete it and save hard drive space? Anyway, I'm working through Victoria's at the moment; I've listened to Evil of the Daleks and am moving on to...whichever one comes next (Abominable Snowmen?) after I'm done with Power.

It's a shame, because Fury from the Deep looks like it was such an amazing, atmospheric, creepy episode. Maybe it just doesn't translate very well to audio? The creepiness of Mr. Oak and Mr. Quill and the killer seaweed doesn't really work if you can't see the thing.

Oh, don't worry, I'll be asking around for Big Finish recs soon enough. :) But not quite yet. My hard drive needs a serious reformat before I have that kind of room on it.

I'm actually rather mad at Mike after that first episode! He was a sneaky, smug little cheese thief and I was very upset with him. >:( And I love that the Doctor has a very liberal definition of personal property - namely, if nobody's going to actually stop him from taking it, it's his. And and and that whole bit where he flips the guerrilla guy one-handed and then takes another totally casual sip from his wineglass before wandering over at a leisurely pace to pin him down? Dude. It's like he secretly wants to be a Hong Kong action hero but knows he shouldn't.

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Oak and Quill's creepiness sounded cool, and it would've been interesting to see the seaweed, but it was still plodding, I thought (or maybe atmospheric doesn't work without image and with the necessity of narration filling the silent moments to clarify what's going on), and I really headdesked mighty hard at the resolution. (A gas that responds negatively to opposing gases is defeated by SOUND? Why couldn't it be defeated by excessive gas emitted by the scream instead?)

I cracked up at the cheese-stealing, because its just...Mike and Benton and the sneaky brother thing and...I cracked up. IT'S DO OR DIE: I HAVEN'T EATEN.

Oh, the Doctor and his skewed perception of the personal. And yes. XD And Jo's *sigh* "He's rattling on like a one man wine and cheese society." Or something. And eeeeeeeeeee.

BF audios really aren't anything like listening to serials without the visuals. I live for BF but can barely get through a burned serial that has no visual recon to it. For the recons, I suggest stopping after each episode. That generally works better for me because it's easier to stay focused in short chunks. With BF, I've never had a problem paying attention because they are made for the audio medium. No narration to fill in the gaps that makes the serials so difficult. But usually I play mindless games while listening. Popcap kinda shit. Or card games.

Is that what you were asking?

Oh, good - I was worried that my short attention span with the audio tracks was a bad sign for my potential future with Big Finish audios. And yeah, I was pretty much what I was asking - I figured I should be doing something mindless while I was listening. Thanks!

I'm not sure why, but other than "Power of the Daleks" itself (which I liiked) I actually found the First Doctor's audio recons much easier to follow than the Second Doctor's. "The Macra Terror" particularly is just really badly done, and they don't do any of the "bridge" narrative work over the visual bits like they did in One's recons so there are whole silent segments where you're sitting there going, "And?" So for Two I've been looking for more of the visual recons so I can actually figure out what's going on at any given moment! (As far as listening to them, I would put them on my iPod and listen to bits every day while exercising until finished; I can't picture doing, say, all of "The Daleks' Master Plan" in one go.)

I've only listened to two of One's audio recons (The Daleks' Master Plan and The Smugglers), but so far they're working much better for me than the Two recons were. Part of it is just that a lot of the later Ben and Polly episodes just don't translate well to audio - a big chunk of the plot of The Faceless Ones doesn't make a whole lot of sense with no visuals, and The Macra Terror...yeah, I noticed the lack of narration, too, and it just puzzled me, since all the others have it. Perhaps looking for the rest of the Victoria episodes in screencap recon would be a better plan.

One's, though they're obviously recons, play more like actual audio plays (it helps that Peter Purves makes a great bridge narrator, IMO). Two's, though, without either the actual visuals or any decent bridge audio they're just confusing and muddled.

One's stories had a very theatre vibe to them, very grounded in quiet character moments and musings. I haven't listened to any One yet, but even thinking about totally intact episodes I've seen, I can imagine they'd work as audios.

Yes, this. The problems with Two's audios really demonstrate the shift to a more cinematic approach in his era (though they still managed to narrate the very visual Dalek assembly line bits perfectly well in "Power," so I don't know why they fell down on the job for the rest of them).

I've only heard three and out of that I've liked two of them, but I think my focus was mostly on stuff being said for the purposes and Power and Wheel did consistently better than Fury in that department.

stunt_muppet

I suppose I should put the fannish thing in a seperate post...

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July