"It begins here." There are many stories for which such a claim can be
made, but thinking about the first Doctor, this is the only real choice
in audio. It was not the first Companion Chronicle I heard - that was Solitaire,
although in my mind it hardly counts since at the time it was the only
full-cast release in the range - but it might have been my second. (I
bought Shadow of the Past at the same time, and can no longer
remember which I listened to next. The pair of them sold me on the
concept, and it then became a mainstay of my Big Finish purchasing, more
so even than the Main Range.). Regardless, Frostfire was both my introduction to the first Doctor on audio and the first Companion Chronicle released.
What astonishes me coming back to this is the way that almost all the
staples of the range are assembled right from the start. There's the
two-voice structure; a more significant framing device than we've seen
in the CCs I've reviewed so far; Vicki being separated from her
companions in a way that feels natural but eases the burden on Maureen
O'Brien; and the sound work making it feels less like an audiobook than I
had expected (it was only the strong reviews that eventually persuaded
me to give the CCs a go at all). Indeed, the music here consists of
short and slightly weird snatches, capturing the feel of the 60s even
better than a number of the later stories.
One aspect which is different is that this release, like the others in
the first series, is only available on CD rather than download -
allegedly since one of the participants (most people presume director
Mark J. Thompson, who has not returned since) wouldn't give permission,
though I have no authoritative source for the supposition. Another
oddity is that there are no interviews or other extras, which surprised
and mildly disappointed me even on this listening; perhaps I thought it
would be different this time? The CCs started just after Nick Briggs
took over as head honcho of Big Finish from Gary Russell and introduced
the idea to their Main Range, so I probably just assumed the feature was
universal. I'm glad they were introduced here, too, in the second
series.
When Should You Listen?
Unlike The Suffering, this story is told from Vicki's perspective
after she has parted company with the Doctor; and because the frame is
fairly substantial - embedded in her future history as well as
interrupting the narrative at various points, rather than simply sitting
at the beginning of each episode - it tells us rather a lot about
events we haven't yet reached in this marathon.
That makes this the perfect time to talk about a tension in the
Companion Chronicles for marathon runners. There are a number of threads
on Gallifrey Base discussing cross-media story continuity, and with the
Doctors for whom the CCs provide the bulk of the audio material there
are two schools of thought. One is the straightforward idea of listing
them by the main plot (just like, say, a sixth Doctor story that has a
cameo from the seventh at the end would work best in the former's
timeline). The other is to go for a spoiler-free approach, which
generally means placing it by framing sequence. In this scheme I would
have delayed reviewing Quinnis, for example, until after The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
Both ideas have merit. I've gone for the straightforward approach so
far, although that will be adjusted slightly for an upcoming trilogy. If
I ever do such a marathon again - just for fun, and not with reviews! -
I may try the alternative. Who knows? I may like it better!
Published:
Date: 5th February 2007
ISBN: 1-84435-263-0
Rating:
8/10.
Next Time:
Mars.
Showing posts with label 2007. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2007. Show all posts
Monday, 3 August 2015
Thursday, 30 July 2015
Episode CC1.01b: Frostfire, Scroll II: Miss Austen Regrets
"What happens next in the story?"
Keith Drinkel has a bigger part to play in this episode, and although his character's speech is clipped and to the point - contrasting with Vicki's more florid, literary style - his role rather neatly brings the framing and framed stories into closer contact as time goes on.
Unlike The Suffering, we've known almost from the start that this is not a pure historical. Rather, it's a celebrity historical somewhat in the modern style, although Jane Austen is less at the heart of the action than fellow authors Charles Dickens or Agatha Christie. Indeed, while she has a larger part than Steven, Miss Austen seems more on a par with Jem, the boy from the chimney introduced at the end of the last episode.
This really is the perfect period to feature a chimney sweep's apprentice as a character. It sits in the uncomfortable gap between the invention of mechanical brushes in 1803 (the results of a prize competition, no less - shades of Longitude!), which took away the last excuse, and the new legislation introduced in 1834 to replace the (completely unenforced) act of 1788. We may be a long way from the end of this particular chapter of human misery (The Water Babies still has relevance nearly half a century in the future), but the practice is at least at the beginning of its long decline.
So it's a bit of a shame that Jem is a completely programmatic, stereotypical urchin. Like Valzaki, he's exactly the sort of figure we might expect from the 60s TV show; but the rest of the production has moved along, so we can't use "faithfulness to the period" as an excuse (even if we wanted to, which in cases such as this I don't). And sadly, this observation also points up the shallow characterisation of the rest of the guest cast. It's not a deal killer for the entire story - which has plenty of other charms - but it does damage it.
[Mild spoilers from here on.]
"I live it again with each telling."
I mentioned that the framed and framing stories grow closer here, and we do actually learn quite a bit about Vicki's life after leaving the Doctor. The struggles she's had living in history make me a little sad - part of me just naturally wants a fairytale ending for one of the brightest shining companions, and there is also my general impatience with the pessimistic outlook for the Doctor's friends expressed in my review of The Schoolboy's Story. However, she is not crushed or made totally miserable: she simply has to deal with a less-than-perfect world. And she has obviously continued to grow as a person, which is great - her travels with the Doctor have merely been part of a full and rich life. So, overall, it's not really a bad thing. And the fact that we learn so much about her is vital to helping us invest in the framing story as much as the 1814 section.
(Incidentally, it was also this which prompted me to refer to the episodes as "scrolls", since Vicki mentions when beginning the narrative that she is starting to read the first scroll. My alternative idea was to break it into four scrolls corresponding to the four tracks on the CD - the joint-lowest track count, I believe - but that was too restrictive.)
[And major spoilers for the rest of this review - skip down to the rating if you want to avoid details about the ending.]
"Perhaps next time it'll change."
The series of quotes I've taken here from Frosty - and what a perfectly Vickiesque name that is! - really set the tone for the structural twist which is revealed at the end to form the retroactive driving force of the story. (And incidentally, it was given just enough emphasis that I spotted it before the reveal, but not too long before.) I've recently been relistening to the anthology release Circular Time, which looks at the difference between cyclical time (for example, the seasons) and linear time (e.g., mortal lives); and this is at the heart of Frostfire, too. The story goes round and round in a timey-wimey fashion, and who knows? Perhaps the story can change on each iteration - certainly my second time hearing it (as with other twist-ending stories ) was not the same experience as my first.
But for Vicki and Frosty? I suspect not.
Rating:
Good, but not quite so good as the opening episode, despite a superb build-up to a perfectly judged ending.
7/10.
Next Time:
Companion Chronicle 1.01 as a whole.
Keith Drinkel has a bigger part to play in this episode, and although his character's speech is clipped and to the point - contrasting with Vicki's more florid, literary style - his role rather neatly brings the framing and framed stories into closer contact as time goes on.
Unlike The Suffering, we've known almost from the start that this is not a pure historical. Rather, it's a celebrity historical somewhat in the modern style, although Jane Austen is less at the heart of the action than fellow authors Charles Dickens or Agatha Christie. Indeed, while she has a larger part than Steven, Miss Austen seems more on a par with Jem, the boy from the chimney introduced at the end of the last episode.
This really is the perfect period to feature a chimney sweep's apprentice as a character. It sits in the uncomfortable gap between the invention of mechanical brushes in 1803 (the results of a prize competition, no less - shades of Longitude!), which took away the last excuse, and the new legislation introduced in 1834 to replace the (completely unenforced) act of 1788. We may be a long way from the end of this particular chapter of human misery (The Water Babies still has relevance nearly half a century in the future), but the practice is at least at the beginning of its long decline.
So it's a bit of a shame that Jem is a completely programmatic, stereotypical urchin. Like Valzaki, he's exactly the sort of figure we might expect from the 60s TV show; but the rest of the production has moved along, so we can't use "faithfulness to the period" as an excuse (even if we wanted to, which in cases such as this I don't). And sadly, this observation also points up the shallow characterisation of the rest of the guest cast. It's not a deal killer for the entire story - which has plenty of other charms - but it does damage it.
[Mild spoilers from here on.]
"I live it again with each telling."
I mentioned that the framed and framing stories grow closer here, and we do actually learn quite a bit about Vicki's life after leaving the Doctor. The struggles she's had living in history make me a little sad - part of me just naturally wants a fairytale ending for one of the brightest shining companions, and there is also my general impatience with the pessimistic outlook for the Doctor's friends expressed in my review of The Schoolboy's Story. However, she is not crushed or made totally miserable: she simply has to deal with a less-than-perfect world. And she has obviously continued to grow as a person, which is great - her travels with the Doctor have merely been part of a full and rich life. So, overall, it's not really a bad thing. And the fact that we learn so much about her is vital to helping us invest in the framing story as much as the 1814 section.
(Incidentally, it was also this which prompted me to refer to the episodes as "scrolls", since Vicki mentions when beginning the narrative that she is starting to read the first scroll. My alternative idea was to break it into four scrolls corresponding to the four tracks on the CD - the joint-lowest track count, I believe - but that was too restrictive.)
[And major spoilers for the rest of this review - skip down to the rating if you want to avoid details about the ending.]
"Perhaps next time it'll change."
The series of quotes I've taken here from Frosty - and what a perfectly Vickiesque name that is! - really set the tone for the structural twist which is revealed at the end to form the retroactive driving force of the story. (And incidentally, it was given just enough emphasis that I spotted it before the reveal, but not too long before.) I've recently been relistening to the anthology release Circular Time, which looks at the difference between cyclical time (for example, the seasons) and linear time (e.g., mortal lives); and this is at the heart of Frostfire, too. The story goes round and round in a timey-wimey fashion, and who knows? Perhaps the story can change on each iteration - certainly my second time hearing it (as with other twist-ending stories ) was not the same experience as my first.
But for Vicki and Frosty? I suspect not.
Rating:
Good, but not quite so good as the opening episode, despite a superb build-up to a perfectly judged ending.
7/10.
Next Time:
Companion Chronicle 1.01 as a whole.
Monday, 20 July 2015
Episode CC1.01a: Frostfire, Scroll I: The Eye in the Egg
And back to audio, with Maureen O'Brien's previous (and, inevitably,
first) Companion Chronicle. Here she is not so strong on voices as the
other performers we've encountered in this marathon so far - an aspect
she improved on by the time of The Suffering - but she reads it
beautifully. In terms of simply being a listening pleasure, I'd rank her
performance in this episode right up there with many of William
Russell's, which long-term readers will know is high praise indeed.
It helps, of course, that the words are well written. Marc Platt, as I've mentioned elsewhere, is strong on worldbuilding and not normally particularly interested in plot, with characterisation sitting somewhere in the middle (which is a different mix to Jacqueline Rayner's, but - in the right circumstances - one that can be equally effective). Here the 'alien world' conjured up is early 19th Century London, and his carefully chosen prose gives a strong feel for the setting, the Frost Fair in particular. Supported by some well-placed snippets of music and sound I had no trouble picturing what was going on, visualising it in black and white, although on a cinematic budget that the TV show could never have matched.
Well, I say I had no trouble imagining it, but there is one instance where that is not quite true. During the scene with Vicki first meeting the egg I completely lost concentration, and came back to myself after she had been revived. I rewound, and the same thing happened.
It took me four times before I could force my mind to focus on what I was hearing, and I did so through sheer willpower. Afterwards I was surprised to find that I'd only tuned out for about half a minute; it had felt longer. I also remembered that the same thing had happened the previous time I listened to Frostfire, although in that instance I gave up after two attempts because I remembered the gist and couldn't be bothered to rewind again.
This I found to be a bit creepy, in all honesty. Still, I suppose the odd shiver is appropriate for this story! Though, actually, what is it about expanded-universe Hartnell-era stories and extreme winters featuring cold-related creatures? Kim Newman tackled one in Time and Relative, now we have this.
Anyway, the Frost Fair (a title I considered for this episode, before hearing Platt's preference) is only one of two major locations, the other being Sir Joseph's soirée. The latter is the more humorous, featuring a very different array of supporting characters and Steven being admired and ridiculed in equal measure. It's not so colourful, in a way; but provides a nice contrast. Valzaki - a character we first met at the fair - returns; and this is slightly unfortunate, since he's a stereotype of the sort that we might very well have seen in the 1960s. Having said that, he is woven more firmly into the story now, which helps. More unambiguously positive is the introduction (just before the cliffhanger) of the chimney sweep's boy Jem, about whom more next time.
Getting back to O'Brien, she elegantly (I was going to say effortlessly, but I'm sure it wasn't) distinguishes between the adult Vicki of the framing sequence and the teenager of the main story, while still showing her to be the same person. The warmth and irreverent cheekiness is in both, but she's slowed down and grown more worldly-wise - even a touch world-weary - since leaving the Doctor.
Which does bring up the issue of the framing sequence, but for reasons of balance I'm going to leave that until next time...
Rating:
It's gripping, atmospheric, performed and directed well, with a nicely judged soundscape. Other than preferring full-cast dramas on the whole, what more could I ask for?
9.5/10.
Next Time:
Miss Austen Regrets.
It helps, of course, that the words are well written. Marc Platt, as I've mentioned elsewhere, is strong on worldbuilding and not normally particularly interested in plot, with characterisation sitting somewhere in the middle (which is a different mix to Jacqueline Rayner's, but - in the right circumstances - one that can be equally effective). Here the 'alien world' conjured up is early 19th Century London, and his carefully chosen prose gives a strong feel for the setting, the Frost Fair in particular. Supported by some well-placed snippets of music and sound I had no trouble picturing what was going on, visualising it in black and white, although on a cinematic budget that the TV show could never have matched.
Well, I say I had no trouble imagining it, but there is one instance where that is not quite true. During the scene with Vicki first meeting the egg I completely lost concentration, and came back to myself after she had been revived. I rewound, and the same thing happened.
It took me four times before I could force my mind to focus on what I was hearing, and I did so through sheer willpower. Afterwards I was surprised to find that I'd only tuned out for about half a minute; it had felt longer. I also remembered that the same thing had happened the previous time I listened to Frostfire, although in that instance I gave up after two attempts because I remembered the gist and couldn't be bothered to rewind again.
This I found to be a bit creepy, in all honesty. Still, I suppose the odd shiver is appropriate for this story! Though, actually, what is it about expanded-universe Hartnell-era stories and extreme winters featuring cold-related creatures? Kim Newman tackled one in Time and Relative, now we have this.
Anyway, the Frost Fair (a title I considered for this episode, before hearing Platt's preference) is only one of two major locations, the other being Sir Joseph's soirée. The latter is the more humorous, featuring a very different array of supporting characters and Steven being admired and ridiculed in equal measure. It's not so colourful, in a way; but provides a nice contrast. Valzaki - a character we first met at the fair - returns; and this is slightly unfortunate, since he's a stereotype of the sort that we might very well have seen in the 1960s. Having said that, he is woven more firmly into the story now, which helps. More unambiguously positive is the introduction (just before the cliffhanger) of the chimney sweep's boy Jem, about whom more next time.
Getting back to O'Brien, she elegantly (I was going to say effortlessly, but I'm sure it wasn't) distinguishes between the adult Vicki of the framing sequence and the teenager of the main story, while still showing her to be the same person. The warmth and irreverent cheekiness is in both, but she's slowed down and grown more worldly-wise - even a touch world-weary - since leaving the Doctor.
Which does bring up the issue of the framing sequence, but for reasons of balance I'm going to leave that until next time...
Rating:
It's gripping, atmospheric, performed and directed well, with a nicely judged soundscape. Other than preferring full-cast dramas on the whole, what more could I ask for?
9.5/10.
Next Time:
Miss Austen Regrets.
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