You're listening to a podcast of spurious morality. For the first time in a while.
We're back and it's about time.
Yeah, sorry guys, Connor's back as well.
There's no escaping me. Yeah, we're back. We're back. Series three. Series three.
Series three. We're very back. Like what didn't get a third series? What stopped at series two?
I mean, class didn't even get a series two.
I was going to say class didn't even get that far. So we're doing a little class.
Class barely got a series one.
Do you think the war between the land and the sea will get a second series?
Doctor Who? Doctor Who might not get a third series.
I mean, yeah, that's true. We might actually have had more series than Doctor Who.
That was mean. That was very mean of us.
I really think we should leave that bit there. Get on with the episode.
Hello and welcome back to a podcast of spurious morality. I'm Johnston and bringing back this
podcast with me is Connor. Hello, Connor. Hello. And we genuinely haven't done this for quite a
long time. Like we've recorded podcast episodes and kind of banked them and you're going to hear
them over the next sort of few months. But we've not sat down and recorded an episode with the
intention of putting it online within the next couple of weeks for quite some time now.
The last one, genuinely the last one I did was the Jodie Whittaker one. I haven't recorded since
we did the Jodie Whittaker online special. And that was the last one we put online.
We have got some stuff stashed away that we record season by season quite a bit in advance. And we've
done some other things we've had a guest on. We've recorded an episode with a guest, a returning
guest. So that should be online in the next few weeks. And that guest has promised to share it
all over social media, including Blue Sky. We are on Blue Sky now. We are not on Twitter or whatever
the idiots calling it these days, but we are on Blue Sky. So do hop over there to find us.
We're still on Instagram. We're still on threads. We're still on Facebook. There's probably a few
that I've forgotten and need to kind of log back into after having a six month break from podcasting.
But yeah, find us on Blue Sky. We're there with podcast.bluesky.social, whatever the system is on
there with that. So let's put a link in the description to this. That's the best way of
doing it, isn't it? Probably. Anyway, yeah, let's do that. But yeah, the point is it's been quite
a long time since we've done this and it's absolutely great to be back. And it feels like
an awful lot has happened. I mean, just around the Who universe, there's so many other things
I want to talk about. I've got like 25 coffee bars worth of not really Doctor Who materials
to discuss, but I think we're keeping it to the worlds of Doctor Who and Big Finish for
just these first couple of episodes back. So we've been away since April. We kind of did
a couple of specials for series one. So we're not going to talk too much about sort of new
Telly Doctor Who, but from a Big Finish point of view, there's tons to discuss.
Give us some of your highlights since April, Connor. Go ahead.
So I've just been clicking through the app here. I didn't realize that this came out after we
stopped recording, but the Ninth Doctor and River Song had a box set together, which was pretty big.
And it was Christopher Eccleston's last box set for the time being anyway. He has said it's an
au revoir to Big Finish and not a goodbye. So hopefully it'll be back at some stage. But for
now, that is the end of the Ninth Doctor adventures. And I know I wax quite lyrical about those,
you know, on this podcast all the time, anytime I come up. But I just want to say again, how
utterly special it was to have Christopher Eccleston, my doctor, back on playing the
role again every three months on a regular basis. That was wonderful. It was said over the years,
if he even came back to do one box set, that would be enough for me. And we got three full
series out of them. So I cannot fault him for taking a step away from the role again,
because I've got more than I ever could have possibly hoped for. And I thought it was a pretty
good set to end on. I thought it was a really nice, particularly that last episode Archipelago by Tim
Foley. That was brilliant. And, you know, to actually get the River Song meeting with them,
not just once, but three times. I'm glad they were able to pull that off. And it was such a good set.
We also had Lost Stories. We had Death World and Operation Werewolf. I think out of the two,
Operation Werewolf definitely was my highlight. It was just really flipping good to get a proper
second Doctor story with Michael Troughton and Fraser Hines and Wendy Padbury. You know, like a
set during the original run. Michael Troughton is just brilliant. I think he's one of the best
recasts they've done, full stop. So that was excellent. That was fantastic. Really enjoyed
Trial of a Time Lord and the stuff of legend as well. And I'm also, I was also quite a fan of the
Quintessence, which is the most recent third Doctor set with the Cybermen, because it sort of goes
back and revisits the world and the atmosphere of Spare. You know, spoilers, you know, obviously,
if you're listening, it goes back and revisits the world and the tone and the feeling of Spare parts
in a more, in a way that I think was more directly referential to Spare parts than I expected. I
thought it was, I thought it was great. I had a great time with it. So that's my highlights from
what we know we've had since we've been off air. I think it's been a strong enough wee run for
big finish, mostly. Yeah, it's definitely been a pretty strong few months, I think. I did enjoy
Operation Werewolf and I know exactly what you mean. It's a little bit long, but it's recreating a
late 60s Doctor Who six-parter. Yes, it's a little bit long. Of course it is.
We've had some good Torchwood. We've had some great Torchwood. We've had Art Decadence,
which introduces us to this sort of 1920s aristocratic Mara-infested Torchwood, which
was great. I enjoyed Endgame, which was like, I mean, Tosh Torchwoods are always good, but I think
it might be the best Tosh Torchwood we've ever been given. And we've had loads of Morbius. Like,
we've not seen or heard from Morbius for absolutely years. And all of a sudden we get an entire Dark
Gallifrey Morbius series, which was exceptionally unique. I really don't think we've ever had
anything else like it from Big Finish. And we've had a proper War Doctor versus Morbius horrible,
nasty battle. Like, I love the idea of Morbius popping up in the Time War and just deciding to
ignore everything else that's going on, getting a load of Time Lords onside and going after the
Doctor, like proper vengeance style. It was a really, really good release. I had an awful lot
of fun with it. And Jonathan Carley is, I mean, I will always say this for the rest of time,
just such an incredible War Doctor. Like, how anybody can just be so close to an actor as great
as John Hurt and make me believe it is him all the way through flawlessly is beyond me. It's just
such an achievement. I had a lot of fun with Trials of a Time Lord, kind of.
It was sort of the sixth Doctor's, five Doctors, kind of, or power of the Doctor, something like
that anyway. Having a great time with Bernice Summerfield, the new Benny series, which we've
still got one to go. And going back to what you were saying about Michael Troughton being absolutely
fantastic in his father's role, by far the best thing about Trespassers 3, the Paternoster gang
set that came out a few days before recording this. It'll be a few weeks old by the time this
goes out. But he was absolutely fantastic in that. Like the second Doctor and Vastra were a nice
little double act. I really enjoyed hearing that. So yeah, we've had some great stuff.
And it looks like we're getting some good stuff, even sort of immediately after recording this.
In the next few weeks, we're getting an eighth Doctor set that I'm very much looking forward to.
The next few TORCHWOODs announced all sound rather good.
I think they've announced their release dates now, and I'm not sure if this is the very last
release of the year or the second last. But The Curse of Time, I think it's called The Curse of
Time, which is the first four part, fourth Doctor, Sergean Smith and Harry Sullivan story,
they've released. They've only released one totally original, brand new to big finish
story with the fourth Doctor and Sarah so far. That was in the last classic Doctor's New Monster
set. But this is the first four part serial they've done with Tom Baker and with Sergean
Smith and Harry Sullivan. And I'm desperately excited to hear it.
The first proper season 12 story.
Yes. Yes. And I like that it apparently is like a week quarter to season 12. So I'm looking
forward to that. Yeah, I think that'll be a lot of fun. And it's a TARDIS team we've really,
really waited for. I did enjoy them in Return of the Cybermen and the other Lost Stories we've had
them in. But we've had quite a lot of Harry with the fourth Doctor and Naomi and then Unit and then
the seventh Doctor. We've had quite a lot of Sarah with the third Doctor. But this is
what we want. We've wanted the season 12 team ever since they've had
the fourth Doctor and Sarah and Harry as active characters at big finish, haven't we? Surely
that's what we've all been waiting for. How long has it been now since like Return
of the Cybermen, which was Sergean's first, you know, or, you know, it was the first recast
Sergean story that was back in. Was it 20 or 21?
2021, I think, because it wasn't far off Eccleston coming in. So that was 2021. That's quite a long
time. And I think it's I know it's just how big finish record, but that feels like a long time
to wait for a brand new Sergean Smith and fourth Doctor story. It feels strange that we're only
getting that now, but I'm glad it's finally here. Yes, I do sincerely hope that at some point in
the distant future, because we know the fourth Doctor is recorded the best part of a decade in
advance at this point. I'd love to think that we were getting another series with Ramana as well,
like the fourth Doctor and Ramana have been such a great pairing at big finish.
But I'm more than happy to wait for that if it means we're getting more for and Sarah or for
Sarah and Harry. Yes. Yes. Let's let's address the well, the elephant in the room that we've
already done two very long episodes about but obviously, telly daughter who we've had series
one since we were last regularly online as a podcast and we did do a couple of episodes at
the time we covered half the series in one and the second half the series in the other and
overall think we enjoyed it think that maybe the finale left us feeling a little bit.
I don't know short changed. Is that a fair word to use? I think the fairest thing I can say about
it is is that I am a little it's not that I'm not excited, but I'm feeling a little more
ambivalent about what's to come than I usually do. Which is to say that I don't ever feel
ambivalent about Doctor Who and I sort of do this time. I think I think I didn't make much
secret at the time. I wasn't a huge fan of series one. I thought some of the individual stories
were pretty good, but the overall effect of it left me feeling a bit cold. Joy to the world
looks good. I I'm I I'm glad it's a Steven Moffat script because I think I'm maybe slightly more
predisposed to like a Steven Moffat script. And I'm I'm looking I'm I'm really glad it's back in
Christmas Day. I had wondered for a while because have you seen the BBC schedule for Christmas Day
this year? It's absolutely insane. It's Walson Gromit. It's Doctor Who Gavin and Stacey. It is
the best Christmas schedule they've had for years and I had sort of thought I wonder is Doctor Who
going to get bonked at Christmas Eve or Boxing Day? Because you know to make room for
Walson Gromit and Gavin and Stacey are 19 minutes each. But the BBC have made the right decision
and they've taken Michael McIntyre off instead. Yes, very correct decision. So Doctor Who's still
on Christmas Day where it belongs. I think it was all I always said I thought it was a shame
that Doctor Who was taken off Christmas Day and I'm glad it's back there now. I'm looking forward
to it. It looks like a good story. Trailer came out yesterday. It's a good trailer. You know at
the time of recording it was yesterday. So I am looking forward to it. But I think it's fair enough
to say season one has put a little bit of a dampener on my excitement for what's coming next from
Telly Doctor Who, which is fine because I have big finish and I will be quite happy with it and the
books as well. I think that I'm definitely looking forward to Walson Gromit more, but I think that's
fine. That's right. I don't think that's any sign of where I am with Doctor Who at the moment. I
think it's just oh my god more Walson Gromit. Yes, yes. They are, I was going to say they're
national treasures. They are the national treasures. Yeah, I'm not sure how, I know
there has been stuff, but I've not seen any of it. I'm not sure how I'm going to cope with
not Peter Salis Wallace. He's very good. He is genuinely indistinguishable to my ears.
I think that at the time of Matt Rolofan death, it was kind of half and half, wasn't it?
I think pretty much for the last 10 years, it's not been very much Peter Salis, you know, I think
from 2010 on. He's been dead for a good 10 years. But yeah, it sort of inhibits your ability to
even before I play the character. Not a big finish.
I haven't quite gone that far just yet. I didn't really see him dead that long. I think even before
he passed away, it was Peter Salis did the the actual Wallace and Gromit and Ben Whitehead did
everything else, all of the supplementary stuff. So he's very, very, very good to my ears. And you
know, I'm listening to the trailer or I'm watching the trailers and listen for it.
And it just sounds like Wallace to me. So I'm very much looking forward to it.
And we're doing very well on art. We're only talking about Doctor Who episodes so far.
Yeah, I'm still in pretty much the same place with season one. I've not rewatched it.
But I've not sort of felt as though I want to go and rewatch it. And normally, when there's a new
series of Doctor Who, within six months, I will have watched it again. I mean, I'm a lot busier
now than I was in the days of RTD1 when I was quite young. But yeah, it hasn't at any point
sort of made me want to go back and like, yeah, I need to do that again. I need to catch up. Is
there anything I've forgotten? Because I genuinely don't think there is anything I've forgotten. I
don't think there's anything being carried over to a Christmas special or a new series that I kind
of need to remind myself of. I could be wrong, like I said, I'm not bringing back to it. But
it felt as though season one tied pretty much everything that was dangling off. And in a few
cases, not very satisfactorily. We've got the Mrs. Flood thing, but that's not really gone anywhere
yet. No, judging by the trailer, I think the Christmas special is going to deal on a little
bit of the fallout of Ruby leaving. And I have watched the finale twice. I've watched everything
else once. I've watched the finale twice. And looking back, I think it's half and half that
Ruby left and half and half the doctor decided to leave Ruby behind for her own, for what I think
he thought was her own good, which you could argue was not his decision to make. But I think
the trailer seems to be dealing with some of the fallout from that, how the doctor feels in the
wake of a companion leaving him. So that's good material. It's good material for Stephen Moffat
in particular. So I think that'll be good. I want to know what's going to happen with Mrs. Flood. I
think she was great. I think Anita Dobson's great. And I'm looking forward to that. I don't expect
to get any answers or hints on what's going on with her until the end of season two. I think
that's the absolute earliest we'll find anything out about Mrs. Flood.
Mrs. Flood. Yes, I'd agree. But it's, you know, I'll watch it. I'll be there on Christmas day,
probably after one too many glasses of wine, and I will be watching it. And then I'll probably need
to rewatch it a few days later due to the aforementioned wine. But that's a tradition.
So yeah, roll it on. Roll on Christmas day. I'm definitely here for it. But I'm kind of in the
same position as you where sort of take me back 10, 15 years and I'd be counting down to new doctor
who not to Christmas. And I think that's the difference. Maybe we've just grown up.
Never.
That's it. No, no, we're not doing that. We're definitely not doing any of that nonsense.
Okay, then. So we've talked about our big finish highlights. I'm going to make you pick
one. Oh, God. One big finish release since we went off air that has been
the best or the most significant.
That I would pick as a favorite. I think we're going to talk about it fairly shortly.
It's quite possibly goth opera because the novel adaptations were such a big part of my
early big finish listing. I got into big finish 2015 end of 2015 started 2016. And the novel
adaptations were sort of at their height around about then, if I remember. So I listened to a
lot of those the likes of all consuming fire and cold fusion was a big one. It was great to hear
those because I cannot bear the thought of trying to track down these novels via eBay and pay for
them. I've got very one or two. You got like I went and got all consuming fire because I
flipping love Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes. And I thought, yes, I need that novel. But I
don't particularly feel the need to go out and buy like a whole set of Virgin New Adventures
because the thought of having to track them all down terrifies me. So I'm always delighted to get
these adaptations. And goth opera was actually the only one that I've ever read before I've
listened to the adaptation. I listened. I got goth opera a couple of years ago. And it was the only
one that I was in any way familiar with before I listened to the big finish version. So it was nice
setting a listing going, oh, I recognize that or oh, they've changed that bit.
So I think I would pick it as my as my favorite from this year so far anyway, since we've been away.
And that's fair enough. I it's definitely a good one. It's definitely up there. I mean, I'm just
I'm scrolling through the app because I've thought about this so many times and come out with
something slightly different each time. I think I am going to have to settle on Morbius the Mighty.
War Doctor. Yeah, I really, really enjoyed it. And it, it wasn't, it wasn't big or clever. It was just
let's go to war. It was just nice and simple, vengeance filled Morbius going after the War
Doctor with the Time War as a backdrop. And it held the Daleks back towards the I mean, the Daleks
had to be in it. There's no way they weren't going to do Morbius versus Daleks versus the Doctor. And
like Morbius having a pop at the Daleks was quite a lot of fun. But they held that back to the last
episode. The first episode was pretty much just Morbius coming back and strengthening himself.
The second episode was him going after the Doctor and them having a bit of a confrontation. And
then the third episode just threw the Daleks into it. It was just a really nicely, a really nicely
structured set that did something really well with actually quite a simple and basic idea like
there's the Doctor, there's somebody that wants the Doctor dead, let's do it.
Yeah, I really enjoyed that. And it was great to listen to around the Morbius Dark Gallifrey series
as well, which I have to admit, I did not enjoy on the first listen. I listened to one and two
and just kind of went, oh, no, no, I'm not getting this. I'm not clicking with this.
And somebody said to me, re-listen to it before the third one comes out, re-listen to it.
And then you can listen to one, two and three as a whole. And I did. I listened to the whole series
as a whole in one day. And it just clicked. I just got it. And it was really weird how parts one and
two just did not click with me the first time around. And the second time listening to them as
a full series, it all just fell into place. And I don't think I've ever sort of turned around my
opinion on a new release so quickly before. So it was great to have that. And then it was great to
have Morbius The Mighty, which just, it thematically linked to it. And whether the release
schedule has just kind of worked out quite nicely there, or whether it was a deliberate decision to
kind of have a lot of Morbius all at once. Well, it was a direct sequel, wasn't it? I haven't heard
the Morbius Dark Gallifrey series, but I have heard Morbius The Mighty and it is a direct sequel to
the Dark Gallifrey run, isn't it? It's, I mean, it's a direct sequel to anything that's had Morbius
in before, really. It's, yeah, it's very much Morbius is really annoyed with the Doctor because
of Brain and Vengeance and Dark Gallifrey. Let's just really go for it. Like I say, it was just a
really simple idea done well. And it reminded me that, you know, we were going to have a
series of characters that were going to be really, really complicated. And it reminded me that,
you know, we don't need to be big and clever. We don't need to be timey-wimey and overly complicated.
Actually, just a really, really straightforward, this character wants that character dead kind of
scenario can work very well in Doctor Who. So yeah, that was, I found it to be a really, really
interesting, when I look through the list of stuff we've had, I mean, that's not to do down a lot of
other stuff. I really enjoyed New River Song. I really enjoyed Starcross, which was also New
River Song and, you know, various other bits. Goth Opera was fantastic. I mean, I want the novel
adaptations to come back. I want there to be one a month until they have done everything, literally
like, give me the rubbish ones. I don't care. I just want all of them. I want a full set.
And when you think of some of the stuff that they've not done, like, give me,
give me that. What's the trilogy with kind of those all-time twins in it? I know there's a
couple with the Six Doctor. Is the first one Scales of Injustice? It might be.
I have absolutely no idea.
I can't remember. Well, it's Business Unusual and Instruments of Darkness, which are both
six Doctor books, but they are sequels to an MA and I can't remember what it is.
But that-
What's that one Gary Russell did that was, was it a regeneration story or something?
Was it Spiral Scratch?
Yes.
Was that part of it?
No, no, that wasn't part of it, but that was a thing. But I just sort of think, you know,
take the ones that aren't so popular, that aren't so well remembered and just
see what you can do with them. I'd actually rather them try to adapt something that's a little bit,
a little bit less beloved, just to see if they can, they can do something with the adaptation,
just to see if it works better on audio or, or anything like that. Because
while you're going back and just adapting the classics, you're not going to hit the nail on
the head in the way that the books do, if that makes sense. They're lovely to have, they're great,
don't get me wrong. And like I say, I will take any novel adaptation, big finish one to throw at me.
But-
I must admit that I'm a fan of the way they've handled some of them because of adapting them
because of adapting them as single stories. Am I right in saying Damaged Goods originally,
the book sits in the middle of a trilogy? Is that right?
I think so, yeah.
And the changes they make for the audio version, I really liked, because it came out just as they
got the rights to the new series. I don't think I knew that they had got those rights fully at that
point. I'm not sure. But I got Damaged Goods at Christmas 2015. And I got that because it was
a Russell T. Davies story. And I thought that's great for me. And you're listening through to it.
And there's that really, it's really well done. It's the reveal they do about Torchwood.
Torchwood replaced the villains of that trilogy. And that's great. That makes it standalone. It
ties it in. For a new series fan coming in, I think Damaged Goods is the best place to start
a big finish because it's so new series-y. And you suddenly do get this Torchwood drop,
and then the time work gets worked in a wee bit later on. That was beautifully done, I think,
as far as adapting a story goes, to take one set of villains and replace them with this other
really super recognizable bunch. I thought that was great. Maybe people who read the original
book thought it was sacrilege. I thought it was great. I do absolutely love that. But I also
think they're absolute cowards for not making it The Forge. Not that it makes any sense to do so.
I would have been sitting there. I can't remember when I listened. I think I'd listened to that on
Boxing Day or something like that that year. I would have been sitting there going, who?
And instead I was going, oh my God, it's Torchwood. Well, dragging the conversation back to
Goth Opera then, which was our first novel adaptation for absolutely years. I don't get
the whole, well, they never sold very well thing because everybody seems to love them. Everybody
that I've ever talked to about Big Finish has kind of gone, yeah, I love the novel adaptations. They
need to do more. It's the most in demand thing to come back except perhaps Frobisher.
Oh, such a sore point with Frobisher. I think they probably sold about as well as any other
Big Finish sells, which wasn't enough to cover the costs of making them. Because there's like,
if you look at the cast of Goth Opera, even it's absolutely stacked and it's a big three hour play,
you know, they do require a larger cast. I think there was a bit more doubling up with
Goth Opera than the other ones. Maybe they're trying to cut down on the production side of it
a wee bit, you know, the production costs. But I really enjoyed it. I thought it was great.
Yeah. No, I see what you mean. It was a huge cast and I think it did it well. It's funny
because it's one of those books that's just so well beloved throughout fandom that even though
I've never read it, I kind of knew the gist of it already. Like there was nothing in there that
surprised me. I do kind of wish they'd have done whatever the new adventure is that it ties into
as well. Blood Harvest. Blood Harvest. It's the seventh Doctor and it comes first and then Goth
Opera comes after. And that's it. Goth Opera, it felt like it was a sequel. It felt like
I've missed something here because I've not had Blood Harvest, which wasn't a problem. Like at
no point did it take me out the story because again, you know, I've got the fandom perspective
of I know it links to another story. I know that this is taking place during or after other events.
But yeah, it was good. It was a great release. It was a lot of fun. I did find the stuff with
the theme music and there were just a few little productiony things in there that seemed a little
bit strange. And I actually have they altered them now? I haven't heard the new version, but I
understand they have. And I have to be completely honest, I think it was a mistake to do so. I
actually really liked the different way the theme was used because the music was done to tie into
it. If you listen to the soundtrack and the build up to certainly the first Cliffhanger,
it has been arranged to tie in with the opening version of the theme. Yeah, absolutely. If it has
been changed, which I suspect it has, my honest opinion is that it should not have been.
I thought it worked really well. I thought it was something different. I also, it gave it a
little bit more of a, I guess a cinematic quality. It felt more like this is the fifth Dr. Nisser and
Teagan, the movie, as opposed to this is just another story. Yes. You can make an argument
that it was different for differences sake. I think it worked pretty well. I think it was
pretty well. I liked that it made this feel like something out of the ordinary because it is,
it's a novel adaptation. It's not your average run of the mill, big finish, Dr. Who. And I liked
that it had these wee things to market it as a slightly alternative thing. I saw a lot of
people complaining, oh, they've used the door sounds wrong. That's not on, et cetera, et cetera.
The only argument I get for that is that this is an audio drama and yes, the door opening sound of
the TARDIS notes them going outside. And yes, you sort of do need, that's important on audio, I think.
It sounds good. It's a good sound. And you, I think there's enough cues, you know, for you to
understand that they're still inside the TARDIS. I know this is getting into a really nitty gritty
thing, but a lot of people, certainly from what I saw, talked more about this stuff than they did
about goth opera as a story. And I know there was a lot of complaints and I am sad that Big Finish
did change it in response to those because I thought it worked well and I liked it.
I mean, it's like, it's Big Finish's own release, The Snyder Cutters, isn't it?
Pretty much. Do you know what makes me sad more than anything else? It was, I think this was a
deliberate artistic choice by the director or the sound designer. I think, you know, probably the
director, not sure. But I think it was a deliberate choice. The soundtrack, as I said, builds up to
the theme being used in the way that it is. And I'm sad that it was changed for the sake of this
slavish accuracy to 1981. And the first mistake is they're adapting a book from the mid-90s.
Yeah. But this isn't 1980s Doctor Who, this is 1990s Doctor Who. Yeah. So it can be different.
I thought the original version, which I have on CD, I haven't replaced the discs. They sent me discs
out and I wish they hadn't. But, you know, they sent me the replacement discs, as I said, I really
wish that they hadn't done that because I'm not going to listen to them. I like the original
version as is. I'm sad that I can't get the original version now as a download. I wish they
had kept that even as a bonus release that you could listen to the original version as intended.
I'm pretty sad that it got changed, as I said, just for the sake of being really slavishly
accurate to 1981 or 1982 or whenever it's big finished, I think it was meant to have been produced.
See, I'm going to go back and listen to it now to see just how heavily it has been changed.
I had no problems with it listening to it the first time around at all. And it is kind of a shame
that that original version may now be lost, which makes me wish I'd just downloaded it on day one
as opposed to apt it. But we'll talk more about the app in a bit.
Well, yes, because I know we've talked about a lot of the problems with Goth Opera, but the story
itself is great. I love it. It's a nice, refreshing, not London centric classic Doctor Who story,
set in Manchester and it automatically has a different feel for it. It's playing in the
whole vampire realm, which I don't think Doctor Who does quite enough. Certainly not as part of
run of the mill Doctor Who and not the likes of Time Lord Victorious or whatever, just as a big
special thing. I like Doctor Who delving into that side of things. So I really enjoyed it. I thought
it was great to hear this version of a story I already knew and enjoyed. I just really liked it,
as I say, probably my favourite release of the year. Really, really good.
Excellent stuff. Yeah, I did thoroughly enjoy it. And it was, I was looking forward to it. I have
to admit that I've had so much to listen to, Doctor Who and otherwise recently, that I've not
really had the time to anticipate new releases and have kind of gone, oh, that's coming out and it's
going to interrupt listening to this instead. But this was one that I was very much like, no,
the day this comes out, I'm getting it downloaded and I'm getting it listened to. I really can't
wait for this one. And it did not let me down in the slightest. And I'm going to argue that
the Doctor and Nissa did a load of repairs on the TARDIS leading up to Ark of Infinity.
And TARDIS doors are meant to make that noise and they repaired that. And then Tegan rejoined them
in a few adventures, including Gothopper happened. And then for some reason, the TARDIS doors stopped
making the noise again, because the TARDIS got broken again. There we go. Tegan broken.
Tegan broke it even better. There we go. Sorted. Done. There we go. Right. Come on,
big finish. We'll have the original version back now, please. God, can you imagine the reaction
of these people when they watched The Five Doctors and the ending theme was a little bit different?
Oh, I'm just very done with the whole approach of this isn't exactly like how I remember. I'm
not going to like this. You know, we're not making Doctor Who in 1970X or 1980X. We're making Doctor
Who in 2024, soon to be 2025. Make Doctor Who for today. Yes, absolutely. Couldn't agree more.
I think that's something our next release for discussion has done, which is the CODA,
the sort of final once and future release that's come over a year after the last one.
And I mean, once in future, we'll talk about another time. It wasn't as well received as perhaps
a lot of people would have hoped, but I think there's still some absolutely fantastic stuff
to find in there. But I think CODA might be the strongest release of the lot. And I can't work out
whether I genuinely do think it's the strongest release of the lot. It's definitely a contender,
or whether I just think Jo Martin is so amazing that you could hand her anything and she's going
to turn it into some of the best Doctor Who you've ever heard. I completely agree with what you say
about it being the best of the once and futures. I thought it was good to end that series on a high.
Jo Martin, I'm really, really excited for Jo Martin coming to Big Finish because obviously
we did not get enough of her on TV. One of the best things about the Chibnall era, and she was,
how many, what was it, four on screen credits? And three of those were she was only, three of those,
she was only on screen for three minutes. Three of those were basically cameos. Yeah.
Yeah. So brilliant that she managed to make such an impact in such a short period of time. And I'm
glad now she's getting to expand on that through Big Finish. That's brilliant. And I think,
looking back, like even in David Tennant and Christopher Eccleston's case, I think it took
them an episode or two to settle back into the roles and get their voices back. Jo Martin,
straight in, I thought she was exactly the same. She wasn't the same. She was a little bit more
reserved. She was exactly the same. She wasn't TV. I thought she was fantastic, instantly nailed
her own role again. I don't think this was a case of her finding her feet. I think she stuck the
lantern and I think she was excellent. And a real thrill to hear this, it's a new version of The
Doctor on audio. You always get that excitement whenever you're here listening to
to a new doctor coming to Big Finish.
And in my case, I think that's only happened
with David Tennant and Christopher Eccleston,
as they say, I can't, I don't think there's any others
have joined Big Finish in the time
that I've been listening to them.
So hooray, Joe Martin's here.
Jacob Dudman is furious with you.
Doesn't count.
But do you know what I mean?
It's great to be sitting down listening,
oh my God, it's that person off the telly
and they're here, they've joined the party.
And we're gonna get that again with Jodie Whittaker.
And I'm really looking forward to that.
But I think Joe Martin is this.
And I'm glad that she got a nice big focus episode in CODA.
Yeah, quite right.
Because it's kind of a, I don't know,
it's sort of a looking to the future thing.
From a Big Finish point of view,
like, you know, we've got loads of adventures
with this whole brand new undiscovered doctor coming up.
So here she is as part of the 60th anniversary celebrations
as she should be, even if it came out on the 61st anniversary
or the day before the 61st anniversary.
But yeah, great.
And I'm really, really looking forward to,
is it next month?
Is it January?
Yeah, yeah, it is a sort of far away at all.
And they're tied in as well,
because there's a bit at the end where she realizes
she's being followed by Cosmo,
who is Alice Krej's character from the Joe,
you know, from the Fugitive Doctor series.
So they tied it in.
It's brilliant that they got this all done at the same time.
Yeah, this is very much our starting point.
I do think we should come back to Once and Future.
I think that we should do an episode on Once and Future,
because I'm going to re-listen to it relatively soon.
I've just finished a run through.
I did it in the late up to CODA coming out.
And I think it's probably a universal truth,
a big finish, because of the way they release stuff,
you know, monthly.
Yeah.
In so many cases like this, I think it's,
you know, we said this before as well
about the Fifth Doctor 40.
It's much better to listen to this as one series,
because I think I got more out of it this time
than I did on first listen.
But that's not to say I think it's a work of art.
I certainly think the series had its problems,
but CODA was a great ending.
I think it really did end on a high.
Just a great story.
And the perfect, it's one of the few cases
in Once and Future, I'm looking at the two main characters
who've been put together and said,
actually that makes tons of sense
for those characters to meet,
and you know, for this to be a battle
between the Fugitive Doctor and the War Doctor,
the two forgotten incarnations,
the two slightly more not business as usual incarnations.
Well, I'm definitely expecting to get a lot more out of it,
listening to it as one big run.
So yeah, I'm looking forward to that.
And I'm going to listen to it
as part of the War Doctor's timeline.
So it's my intention to kind of try
and do the time war in order if such a thing is possible.
So I'll be starting with sort of the classic Doctor,
new monsters, Eighth Doctor stories,
where he's just sort of on the edge of it
and not quite there yet.
And then I'll go into the Eighth Doctor time war,
and then I'll go through the regeneration
and follow it that way with stops off
for the War Master and Gallifrey and all that kind of thing.
But Once and Future is going to fit quite nicely in there.
I think I've put it after War Doctor begins,
like after the six sets.
Yeah.
So we'll see what happens there.
I was going to say,
I think that's probably the perfect place for it
is between War Doctor begins and War Doctor rises.
Let's talk about one more big finish release
that we have had before we move on to,
well, before we end even.
And that is Stuff of Legend,
which is big finish doing something a bit different.
They did this as a live recording.
I never got there.
I never went to the live recording.
Don't think you did, did you?
I wish I had.
I wish I could have made it,
but just the time it was announced,
it was only announced like a month and a half
before it was due to happen.
And it just was not enough time
to book flights over to England.
Yeah.
Whereas I just had 700,000 million things on
and unfortunately wasn't even able to think about it.
But I do know people who have been there.
They said it was, who were there even,
they said it was absolutely fantastic.
At this point of recording,
this is another one of those,
when we record, it's not out,
but I suspect by the time this episode is online,
it will.
We've got the live version actually to be released.
So everything I'm talking about here
is based off the studio version
that they released on the same day
that the live recordings went ahead.
And I really enjoyed it.
It was just a nice traditional four-part Dr. Who story,
Dr. Who story, Eighth Doctor and Charlie.
And okay, yes, Master and the Daleks were there.
That was a little bit big and over the top.
But of course it had to have the Master and the Daleks in.
It's a special, you know,
designed for live recording story.
But ultimately it's just a really nice,
solid traditional slice of Dr. Who.
It took me right back to when I first listened
to the Eighth Doctor and Charlie stuff.
I would say it fits in perfectly,
but apparently some people have been getting wound up
about Charlie knowing what Daleks are continuity error.
Don't care at all.
It was just, it was fun.
It was just nice to kind of celebrate Dr. Who a bit,
listen to something that was a little bit bigger
and a little bit more special,
but ultimately fit very nicely into an era
that I really, really enjoy revisiting.
What about you?
I loved it.
So I, again, I'm in the same position.
I've heard the studio version
and I believe there's one or two differences
just in terms of cast members.
I really liked it.
I'm a big fan of them doing just really light,
breezy stories that you can listen to,
you know, not as part of a run.
So I'm always glad to get this sort of thing.
We know words that we too are
blitz through of a Dr. Who story.
And I'm very happy.
You know, I think if you're going to see Dr. Who on stage
in any form, you sort of want a big iconic villain or two.
And in that case, it's, in this case,
it's the master and the Daleks and hurrah.
Yeah, perfect choices.
Don't care that it doesn't fit into the continuity
just so neatly.
I do not care a jot
because that's not the point of this sort of thing.
When you're going to see something on stage like Dr. Who,
you want to see them with a big iconic villain.
And then in this case,
the choice of the Daleks and the master and brilliant choice.
If you're going to see Paul McGann on stage and you know,
there's a master going to be in it for a big Finnish fan,
you want that to be Alex McQueen.
And I'm glad he came back.
I think his appearances have been far too few
and far between.
So hurrah, he came back.
Brilliant.
I think judging from what I've seen of the live performance
it looked like a pretty special occasion.
Paul McGann on stage as the doctor in his costume
from Now to the Doctor.
There's a video trailer they released from it,
which the BBC actually put out
rather than Big Finish themselves.
And it was taken from material recorded at the event.
And there's a few shots of Paul McGann and India Fisher
as the doctor and Charlie coming out of the TARDIS,
coming out of the police box doors,
standing at the TARDIS console.
And it's the classic console.
It's not the Paul McGann one, but I don't care.
It's the doctor and Charlie.
It's the first time we've seen the doctor and Charlie
on a screen at the controls of the TARDIS.
And it looked, just those few seconds of that
in that wee trailer is pure magic to me.
Just make the bloody series, Russell.
Just do it now.
That's the long and short of it.
But you know, looking back at that,
I was just like, oh my God, that's the doctor and Charlie.
I'm seeing the two of them in character for the first time.
You know, I have heard the trailer for the live version.
And I think that sounds,
I honestly don't think I'm going to hear,
I'm not going to get the live version.
I've bought the story once already.
I don't need to buy it again.
But like there's the line in there.
There's the wee Whistlin and I reference there.
He says, oh, Charlie,
we've accidentally gone on holiday by mistake.
And that's in the trailer.
And it got such a cheer from the crowd.
Can you imagine being in that room
for all those wee jokes and stuff like that?
That would have been brilliant.
So I hope they do more.
I hope there's a slightly longer period,
you know, of an announcement for it
that I can actually get over to the next one.
So I hope they do more.
I think it's a great idea.
And I would love to get the one.
I think they look like a lot of fun.
And if they do it with Paul McGahn, that would be great.
If they do it with other doctors, that's also great.
I think this sort of thing should be spread around
and we should be able to see the old doctors on stage
if the actors are ready and willing to do so.
I think they should give us VIP.
We should just be able to rock up
and go Johnson and Conor, spodcast.
That would be nice.
But I think we're dreaming.
I think we are.
That is not why we do this.
But yeah, no, I'd be really tempted to go to something,
but I agree with you.
I think I just need a little bit more notice.
And also just something Big Finish
might not be aware of actually.
There are other bits of the UK, better bits than London.
So you could come and come here.
Actually, my only issue with the whole thing
is that I think they probably could have,
I will not buy an audio recording of the live one,
not for I think the price that's being charged for it.
I would buy a video recording of it.
I think I would love to see this thing.
And obviously they recorded it
because they've done the video trailer for it.
I wish they would release a live video recording
because I would buy that.
Yeah, I'd love a DVD release or a Blu-ray release
or a just send me the video file for a tenner release,
whatever.
I'd just, yeah, I'd quite like to see it.
I'd quite like to see the video.
I'd quite like the visual of that one.
Yeah, for sure.
Because as you say, we've bought the story
and heard the story already.
And I fully appreciate that a live recording
is entirely different to something done in a studio.
I'm a vinyl collector and there's a lot of that.
But yeah, I think really I'd want to see
what went on for me to buy that one.
Either that or give it a year or two
and they'll stick it on a sale and I'll just go,
oh yeah, I've not heard that for a couple of years.
It'll be interesting to listen to the other version.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
If it goes on sale then I'm gonna absolutely
see myself getting it.
Yeah, totally.
I'm certainly never not going to get it,
but I'm certainly not gonna get it
when it comes out in the next couple of weeks
purely because I've got the studio version
and I don't have that while I was there connection.
If it was there, I'd have it like a shot, but there we go.
So one more thing to talk about
and then we will wrap up our first episode back.
We're not done.
We're gonna do when we were,
while we were away again part two
because there's so much we wanna talk about.
Like we still wanna talk about what we know is coming up
across the next year.
We wanna talk about some other stories that we've enjoyed
such as Trials of a Time Lord, Time War Reflections
like the Eighth Doctor's had a really good Time War set too.
Going to those Lost Stories a little bit more.
But there is one,
there is one elephant filled room.
That we've strolled past a couple of times
and not over heads into.
To be perfectly honest,
this thing has genuinely completely changed
the way I listen to Big Finish forever.
That this is, I've always used the Big Finish app.
I've always gone to the Big Finish app.
I've always filled the Big Finish app
with playlists and running orders and scrolled through it
and spent time going, oh, well, does this link to that?
Could this be a marathon?
How does that work?
And the Big Finish app,
just went, just.
It's not even that it just went,
it was an entirely self-inflicted went.
Yeah.
But it was almost like the Big Finish app
shot itself in the foot and went,
no, that didn't hurt enough.
Bang, nope, still not hurting enough.
But it just kept shooting itself in the foot.
Like it just, what was it doing?
So I know that so much of this
was outside of Big Finish's hands.
I know. Oh, absolutely.
Yeah. This was, I think this was a case of them
being let down by their IT contractors.
I don't believe for a second
that Nick Briggs has sat down and developed an app.
I think this is very definitely a case of them
being let down by people who are not in Big Finish itself,
but have been contracted to make this website an app for them.
But I think from Big Finish's point of view,
I think the quality checks on it just didn't happen full stop.
I don't believe for a second that someone at Big Finish
actually sat down with the new app
and actually used it before it was sent out to us all.
Because if they had, this would not have all happened.
And it was the fact then,
so it was aggravating that the old app was taken away
and the new one was put on and we had to use it
and it just full stop didn't work.
It was unusable.
It was the fact that we then rolled back
and people were missing their library
and people were missing out on,
you know, like new releases weren't syncing in.
Stuff like that, you know, I think was pretty shoddy.
They have since, you know, made all the right noises
and given all the right apologies
and brought back the app and gone it working again.
I felt really scared in those,
what was it, like Fortnite or three weeks?
It was longer than that.
I think overall, I think it was a month
before anything relatively concrete happened.
It was a long time.
It was a long enough time to get the app back to the state
that it was once in, that it was usable.
It's still not entirely there
because it takes a really long time to rebuild your library.
Whenever you, you know, pull down and refresh
for a new release, it takes a solid minute or so
for it to pull anything through at least,
which it didn't used to do.
It used to be straight away.
But obviously it's better than it was.
And as I said, I know a lot of this was outside
of Big Finish's hands.
I didn't, I went on full cold turkey, Big Finish.
I went to BBC signs for three or four weeks
and listened to the likes of Sherlock Holmes
with Clive Morrison and Charles Parris mysteries.
That was great.
It was nice to get a wee bit of a break actually
and listen to something that wasn't Doctor Who.
Oh, we need to do a Charles Parris episode.
Like just forget Doctor Who for a week.
Let's just talk about Charles Parris mysteries.
They're amazing.
Yeah, I just, I was really disappointed
and I was really let down.
And I actually thought this is pretty serious enough
that I think Big Finish may possibly have just terminally
shot themselves in the foot.
There's something that they may not actually recover from.
And to the extent that I went out and bought a hard drive
and I have been loading it up with,
my Big Finish library,
I've been doing what they've told us to do all along,
which is to make a copy for ourselves
and not rely on the app.
And I hadn't done that.
So I just, I know you could download the stuff
from the website, but when you're used to the app
being this ultra convenient way of accessing your library,
I have, you know, I didn't have anything on hand.
I know I could have sat down and used the website,
but the website itself was pretty unusable
because you couldn't filter or sort through at all.
So I, as I say, have now done
what they've told us to do all along,
which is I've gone out and bought a wee external drive.
And I've been using that exclusively
just to hold my Big Finish library.
I haven't got everything on to it yet.
I'm chipping away at that slowly,
but I don't want to end up in a position again
where, you know, we can't use the app.
And the library is not conveniently accessible
because I've spent far too much money and time
building that up over the years.
And I do not want to lose it again.
And for those few weeks, I genuinely did not think
that was the first time I've ever thought,
right, Big Finish is actually not going to be around forever.
I need to get this sorted,
but I do not lose out on all of these stories.
Yeah, I thought it was pretty poor,
but since it's happened, they've made the right noises.
We've been given free stories, which is, you know,
hurrah stories we thought we'd never get,
the likes of the four doctors and the five companions.
Free stories that were genuinely a gap in my collection
in the case of four doctors, yeah.
As apologies to your customers go,
I think that's a pretty strong one.
So I'm happy enough with that.
I think they've recovered well from it.
And they are to be given all the congratulations for it.
It's just a shame that it happened in the first place.
I think, I mean, the main thing that concerns me
is we're going to end up in a situation
at some point in the future,
probably relatively soon where they go,
right, we're trying that new app again.
And they had better be really, really certain
that it is exceptionally ready to go.
I, for me, it has to have the features the current app does.
It cannot launch again before that point.
Because you couldn't play this properly.
You couldn't, it was really shoddy for trying to switch
between what you downloaded, what you'd purchased,
all that sort of thing.
The buttons just didn't work the way they should have done.
So I will not be happy with the new app
until it's released with the exact same functionality
that the current one has.
So I've, I mean, you say you started to back up
your collection and that kind of thing.
I've kind of taken that a step further, I guess.
So I've taught myself an awful lot through doing this,
but I have set up an audio bookshelf server,
which is, I'm hosting from a Raspberry Pi,
a tiny computer for those of you
who don't know what a Raspberry Pi is.
So what I've done is I've,
I'm still in the process of doing this.
It's a very long, slow process,
but I'm downloading Big Finish.
I am backing it up on the micro SD that's in this Raspberry Pi
and I am cataloging it.
And it's all accessible to me
through the audio bookshelf app.
So it's kind of like the Big Finish app,
except I control what goes on there.
So whenever there's a new release,
I've actually now managed to set up a Python script.
I don't know the first thing about Python,
but chat GPT is a wonderful thing.
I've managed to set up a Python script
that will automatically download a new Big Finish release
based on my RSS feed, stick it on there.
And all I need to do is just put in
which range it belongs to.
And that's it, boom, it's on there,
ready to download at the end of the day.
So, and I'm really happy this has happened.
Like I'm not doing it because the Big Finish app
let me down over summer.
I was in Florida and all of a sudden
I didn't have Big Finish to play with.
So I'm not doing it because of that at all.
It's genuinely something I've always liked the idea of doing,
but not only have I got my Big Finish library,
which is I'm actually alarmed at how massive it is.
It's far, far bigger than I actually thought it was
now that I'm actually going through it
or downloading it all and cataloging it all.
But it's not only backed up, it's there and available
on an app that actually gives me a lot more control
over how I listen to, what I listen to,
how I playlist and so on than the Big Finish app did.
And I've got other stuff on there as well.
It's not just Big Finish I'm using this for.
I've got loads of audio books, other audio dramas,
stuff I've built up over years.
Lord of the Rings is all on there, BBC radio's
Lord of the Rings, which is just exceptional.
And it's all available to me in the same way
that my Big Finish library has been available to me
on the Big Finish app.
I'm really happy that I've done this.
So this is something good that's come out of the app fiasco
on a personal level at any rate.
So this is how I'm gonna do it from now on.
Like sometimes it's a bit easier just to download
on the app and listen to a new release
if I want it in a hurry, but if I've got five minutes
to just make sure it's on the server, okay,
I've got that instead.
So yeah, that's a positive thing to come out of it
because I've learned an awful lot about getting it set up
and all that kind of thing.
And yeah, it's quite good.
That's how I'll be going from now on.
Yeah, I completely, 100% agree.
That it sounds like a great project
and fair play to you for doing it.
I'm still using the app
because I'm not so technically minded,
but as I said, Big Finish have recovered from this
really, really well.
They did the right thing.
They brought the old app back.
They brought the old website back
and they have given us lots of free stuff
and made lots of nice apologies.
So a hundred percent they have recovered really well.
I do not feel the panic I said I felt before
about them maybe not surviving it,
but it did feel for a wee while
like that was a genuine possibility.
It was like this might actually put them under
if this is not fixed quite quickly
because it couldn't be something you want.
You'd got pre-orders, you'd pre-ordered stuff
and paid for it and it wasn't being released.
So.
Well, they'd released Operation Werewolf
and told us we were going to get Death World the next day.
Yeah.
And then they launched the app the next day
and we didn't get Death World the next day
or the next week or, and it was delayed for quite a while.
Was it two weeks?
It was delayed by the end.
I think it was due to come out in one month
and it got bumped to the next.
Yeah.
And it came out quite late then if I remember rightly.
It was long, it was certainly a long time before I heard it.
Yeah.
But we'll get to those two stories next time.
Anyway, they're definitely worth a segment
but we have definitely run out of time for this
our first episode back.
So we will return next week with
while we were away part two,
while we were away again part two,
we've been away before but not this long.
And we'll talk about some more big finished releases
that we've really enjoyed while we've been off air
and we'll also have a little look forward to next year
and work out what it is we're particularly
looking forward to.
But in the meantime, like I say, we'll leave it there.
So I will say thank you to Connor for joining me.
Thank you very much.
It's been great to get back into this.
It's yeah, I have missed this.
I've really missed this.
And yeah, we'll be back.
We'll be back to do more of it very, very soon.
Goodbye now.
I'll see you next time.