DOCTOR WHO S08E05 ‘Time Heist’ Reader Reaction Begins Now!! + HornOrSilk’s ‘Domain Of The Voord’ Big Finish Audio Review, Synopses For Upcoming S8 Eps, And More!! UPDATE RE: UPCOMING UK TIME CHANGE!!
Published at: Sept. 19, 2014, 8:56 a.m. CST by merrick
…opening a Docback for Time Heist, the fifth episode of DOCTOR WHO Season/Series 8. This one finds the Doctor, Clara, and a carefully selected strike team infiltrating a high-security, otherworldly bank. They don’t know why they’re doing it, and they don’t know who’s sending them to do it; resolving such mysteries proves almost as challenging as breaking into the establishment itself.
This one is fast, fun, and sports a nice payoff. It also features Keeley Hawes, who is officious and stern here, and sexy as hell in a ‘I’ve been a very bad boy, please punish me maam’ sorta way.
VARIOUS SYNOPSES FOR KILL THE MOON AND MUMMY ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS APPEAR
This is episode seven of the Season/Series.
BBC’s official characterization reads thusly:
In the near future, the Doctor and Clara find themselves on a space shuttle making a suicide mission to the Moon. Crash-landing on the lunar surface, they find a mining base full of corpses, vicious spider-like creatures poised to attack, and a terrible dilemma. When Clara turns to the Doctor for help, she gets the shock of her life.
DOCTOR WHO Magazine describes it as well:
The Moon has changed – and now it’s threatening to wipe out all life on Earth. But when the Doctor uncovers its secrets, he realises the situation is graver than anyone thought. Can he stand by and let humanity destroy the Moon? [via DWTV]
The same issue goes on to describe episode 8, Mummy on the Orient express. An episode I’m hearing is a bit darker than it’s nutty title might suggest.
The famous Orient Express, thundering along on its journey across space, came to a sudden stop. The hyperspace ribbons under its wheels faded and it began to float, engines dead. Everything was deathly quiet. “And the facade drops away,” murmured the Doctor, delighted. Upon which, he found himself very much wanted. For on the Orient Express murder had been committed. And the murderer was still on board! The Doctor investigates. He raises his mighty eyebrows and thinks – with his little grey cells…
2014 CHRISTMAS SPECIAL GUESTS CONFIRMED …via this photo…
Troughton is son of 2nd Doctor Patrick Troughton, although a highly accomplished actor in his own right. Nathan McMullen may be best known to viewers by his appearances in Finn Samson in the MISFITS television series. Nick Frost, is, well, NICK FROST (SHAUN OF THE DEAD, HOT FUZZ, THE WORLD’S END, and ATTACK THE BLOCK - a film I truly love).
Presuming a previously established pattern holds, the DOCTOR WHO Christmas Special will transmit on Christmas Day.
DOCTOR WHO SHIFTING TRANSMIT TIMES IN UK - HOW WILL THIS EFFECT THE SHOW?
Doctor Who is set to move to its latest regular time slot ever, with the BBC's draft schedules currently indicating that from Saturday 27th September the show could start as late as 8:30pm for the remainder of its current run.
That would mean an end time of 9:15pm – a quarter of an hour past the watershed and much later than many young Doctor Who fans' bedtimes.
[EDIT]
The planned later slot is due to the return of Strictly Come Dancing, together with Doctor Who's new summer start. The sci-fi series has traditionally kicked off in the spring but the decision to give Capaldi his full debut on 23rd August means Doctor Who will now follow Strictly, currently pencilled in for 7pm, when it begins a week on Saturday.
It’ll be interesting to see how this move impacts DOCTOR WHO’s ratings…positively or more likely negatively. I’ll post a reminder about this time shift in next week’s Docback.
HORNORSILK REVIEWS THE DOMAIN OF THE VOORD BIG FINISH AUDIO
Big Finish has graciously provided review copies of a few current and upcoming audio releases - we’re honored and ecstatic to be working with them in such a capacity at long last. Domain of the Voord is the first of said batch.
=================
Doctor Who: The Early Adventures 1.1 Domain of the Voord
By: Andrew Smith Directed By: Ken Bentley
William Russell (Ian Chesterton), Carole Ann Ford (Susan), Daisy Ashford (Amyra), Andrew Dickens (Jonas Kaan/Tarlak), Andrew Bone (Pan Vexel/Nebrin)
With Domain of the Voord, we have a new series of Big Finish audios, giving us stories for early, pre-Big Finish Doctors. They continue, in many respects, where the Companion Chronicles left off, but there are differences. Like the Companion Chronicles, the story is not a full cast audio drama. But it is something more than what we had with the Companion Chronicles. The format lies somewhere between a regular Big Finish audio drama and the Companion Chronicles (which was more like a book being read), with it being somewhat more on the side of an audio drama than most of the Companion Chronicles (or at least those I heard). The difference between this and a normal full cast adventure is easy to spot: no one has been recast for the parts of the Doctor and Barbara (for this adventure). William Russell and Carole Anne Ford play both the Doctor and Barbara respectively, often with them telling us what the Doctor and Barbara said and did (giving them their own unique voice while doing so, allowing them to act out the part of the Doctor and Barbara). What distinguishes this from the Companion Chronicles is that the tale is not being told from the perspective of a companion and the length of the story is greater, allowing for a more complex story.
The story itself: The Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara land on the planet of Hydra. The planet has one large continent surrounded by ocean; the continent has been taken over by the Voord, alien invaders which the TARDIS crew first encountered in The Keys of Marinus. There is a group of rebels who have taken to the ocean with a fleet of ships, led by Admiral Kaan and his daughter. The TARDIS landed on one of their ships, and the Doctor and crew are taken by the rebels, first as spies, and later as allies as the Doctor tries to find a way to free Hydra from the tyranny of the Voord.
As this story continues with the Voord, a classic first Doctor villain, it’s important to see this is done: through an expansion of the Voord and their ideals. We are given a bigger glimpse of who they are, and so they are shown to be in their own way on a search for peace, a peace established by war. They think there should be one culture, one ideal, which runs throughout the universe, so that when conflicting ideals are stamped out, peace will reign. This means they have a good desire, however corrupted it is by the means they want to achieve it, and it is their actions and willingness to go to extremes which make them evil. They do not want to destroy if they do not have to. The Voord encourage people to join with them, to become one with them, to help establish their universal peace (but if people do not do so, they are to be enslaved). There is a sense of the Daleks and of the Cybermen in the Voord, though they are far more human than either of them. This is shown by how they can be in conflict with each other (proving false their claims for peace). We also see many of them with concerns over the well being of those they conquer (at least some of them). Conflicts exist because different Voord have different levels of goodness remaining within them (we are talking about pure Voord here, not those who join with their cause), showing that, unlike the Daleks or Cybermen, individualization remains within their species.
I was not sure of what to expect from this story. Early on, I found it a little difficult to get into the adventure because of how old William Russell sounded. This should not be seen as a complaint: I was glad that he was actively involved with the story, but it took more getting used to how he sounds. This did give William Russell to give a bit more to give when he portrayed the Doctor. Nonetheless, as the story progressed, while the aged character of his voice remains, its distraction became a bare minimum and is of no fault of his or Big Finish. But I think this is in part because of how interesting I thought the story became.
Even though I prefer full cast audio stories, instead of adventures told in this fashion, the story itself is able to come through, and it was as good as we should expect from a good sequel for Keys if it had been done with the original TARDIS crew. It improves upon the characterization of the Voord, and gives meat for Carole Anne Ford to use unlike what she often had in her time, making Susan quite pivotal to the story. This is in part because Ian and Susan are played by their original actors instead of having their part of the story narrated by someone else: in this audio story, at least, this led to the Doctor and Barbara being “taken out” for a good part of the story while never neglecting them and their importance to the tale itself. Perhaps how this was done was a little weak (making Ian and Susan fear the worst, when we know that could not have happened) but the way they respectively came back to the story more than overcame any difficulties here.
I really appreciated the effort and work done with this story. I feel Big Finish went all out to offer a good start with this line. The production values are great. And while I was not entirely certain what to expect, I thought we would be in for something more like the Companion Chronicles, with rather short stories, but instead, we have the equivalent of a four-part story, with each part better than the one which preceded it. The story might have started off slowly, but it quickly picked up and sustained itself throughout. I really liked what we got with it, and I thought the way the Doctor is used here was heroic, and mirrors in some ways his activity in The War Machines. The Doctor certainly has grown beyond his early experiences with Ian and Barbara, and the first TARDIS crew is at its tightest in this story. We also see Hartnell’s Doctor is best when he directs others, perhaps showing us how quick the Doctor was able to take on that role for himself.
Andrew Dickens and Andrew Bone both are given double-duty roles, and, thanks to the distinct voice of the Voord, they are more than successful at this task. I especially enjoyed the Voord, and the differing interests the two major leaders had with Susan, with one trying to get her to join their side because of his idealism and the other for the sake of victory. This would not have been effective if their parts were not voiced so well to allow us to see and experience their distinct differences; there is a bit of the 60s villain feel to their characters, but yet, there is something more, as we get well rounded characterizations, as can be seen in the differing ways Susan interacts with them.
I find it difficult to give this story a rating, in part, because the format is somewhat new, and different from my preferred style (full cast audio dramas). It took me a good portion of the first episode to get into the story, but once I got that far, I found it difficult to stop listening. The story is complex, full of drama and dark moments, but yet it feels like it comes from the 60s instead of modern times, so the complexity is with a plot that puts everything out instead of leaving the audience guessing and arguing with what happened (as in the case with the excellent Listen, where I expect no one will have the exact same interpretation of the events). Nonetheless, I will say this is good, and give it at least a 7/10, but think if the style is more your cup of tea, it should rise to an 8 – 8.5.
Doctor Who: The Early Adventures 1.1 Domain of the Voord can be found HERE.
1) a Docback should be about completely open and free discourse regarding all things WHO with, obviously, some variation on subject matter from time to time - the real world intervenes, discussions of other shows are inevitable, etc....
2) converse, agree, disagree, and question as much as you want - but the freedom to do so is NOT a license to be rude, crass, disrespectful, or uncivilized in any way. Not remaining courteous and civil, as well as TROLLING or undertaking sensational efforts to ignite controversy, will result in banning. Lack of courtesy may receive one (1) warning before a ban is instigated. Obvious Trolling or Spamming will result in summary banning with no warning.
