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Big Finish Newbie Needs Recommendations
JonJonB
Posts: 2,051 Forum Member
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I've finally decided to give the audio adventures a go, started with Spare Parts as it seemed to be the main one everyone said I should get first. It was good enough for me to consider checking out more, but I only really want to hear the cream of the crop first, stories that are near-universally agreed to be the best. I've no real preference towards any specific Doctor, Companions or villains (although maybe if there's some really good Dalek/Davros ones...), just need some fans to point me in the direction of the best written (and acted) stories. Cheers.
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'The Fires Of Vulcan' - shows how good McCoy / Langford can be when written for properly
'The One Doctor' - not the basis for last year's Xmas Special after all but bloody funny
'Jubilee' - the basis for 'Dalek' in Series 1 of the revived TV show
'Dr Who & The Pirates' - it's Doctor Who The Musical!
'Creatures Of Beauty' - probably the most complicated story they've released and one you're better off not knowing much about before listening to.
'Flip-Flop' - one of the few stories that really plays with the concepts of Time Travel
'Davros' - the origin of Davros in a Dalek-less story
'The Kingmaker' - another comedy, and has the only (sort of) appearance by the 9th Doctor we're likely to get
'The Reaping' & 'The Gathering' - linked Original Series stories heavily infulenced by the New Series style and the only appearance of Tegan we're likely to get
That's a lot to be going on with!
I haven't mentioned any 8th Doctor ones as they're part of an ongoing story and can't really be dipped in and out of at random, but there's a lot of good ones there if you're willing to commit to them.
My favourite is The Kingmaker, which is really funny. I'd also recommend their master origin story, Master, which is suitably creepy (although completely contradicts Last of the Timelords)
Oh yes.....this is one story that I love to bits...so I would highly recommend it.....
To be fair, "The Next Doctor" has more in common with "The One Doctor" than "Dalek" has with "Jubilee".
The One Doctor is a brilliant comedy, one of the funniest Doctor Who episodes in any medium. Spare Parts is the perfect genesis story for the Cybermen and makes The Age of Steel look even more pathetic than it does already, while also featuring Peter Davison at the top of his game. The Chimes of Midnight is wonderfully haunting and clever, and McGann is brilliant in it (I haven't seen Storm Warning, and found it easy to fill in the gaps). My favourite, however, is probably Jubilee. Although Dalek is supposedly based off it, they don't really have that much in common. It has Colin at his best, the Daleks at their best, Martin Jarvis and Rosalind Ayres playing very memorable characters, a distopian world and a perfect companion. It really does have everything, and while it had me in stitches at times it was also one of the most unsettling Doctor Who episodes I've witnessed.
Just finished Master, which is my least favourite of the lot. It starts off well, but it's guilty of the crime that I'd always associated the McCoy era with: it rewrites the Doctor's history and character in a direction that makes me really, really uncomfortable.