Ninth Doctor Adventures: Ravagers

 

The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Ravagers

Ravagers is such a weird choice to start the Ninth Doctor Adventures with because in terms of plot, this really feels like an Eleventh Doctor story. It’s convoluted and “timey wimey” and quite possibly disorienting for newcomers. In fact, no, it seems definitely disorienting for newcomers. You think a River Song flow chart was required? Nahh, A Ninth Doctor Ravagers flowchart is required, man. As an audio fanatic, it was quite confusing, and well, perhaps indicative of NuWho Three-Parters, because like most of them, it borders on the shit. And one would expect, me, as not really the worlds hugest Ninth Doctor fan, that I’d hate it, right? Nope! I love it. Really do, I mean, it’s not perfect (first releases for Doctors never are: Sirens of Time, Destination: Nerva and Only the Monstrous are all trash, and Technophobia is just okay) But on the whole, I felt it was a consistent set and the quality never really went up or down much in either direction. Because each part is basically a continuation, I’ll try and go through them separately, but they do bleed into another on a regular basis. 

Sphere of Freedom by Nicholas Briggs

The easiest of the three to follow, Sphere still makes the baffling choice to tell it’s story backwards even if in fact would probably be better to tell back to front. At the very least, it’s stylish, if mostly set up. Eccleston is on form for his first appearance in 16 years, he feels like  he really is putting in effort and his performance is as good as it once was. I never get lost on what he’s doing in a scene, just how the scenes fit together, which is a compliment to his acting only enhanced by co-stars Camilla Beputt and Jayne McKenna. Nova has an earnestness to her which does make me like her even if she is incredibly blank slate and Audrey’s voice is uniquely suited to the audio medium. So on the whole, pretty good, if unspectacular, and a good enough start. 8/10

Cataclysm by Nicholas Briggs

Remember everything I just said? Apply it again. Cataclysm, while moving the plot forward has all the advantages and disadvantages of the first episode, despite once again, not really having to. It bounces around alternate and current timelines in past present and future with horrific ease, and honestly is probably more of a mess than Sphere, which at least had a framing device to add occasional sense to it. Yet Cataclysm continues it’s suave mannerisms with lovely aplomb, and while it is a bit shit, much like Sphere, I directly struggle to dislike it when the direction and performances are so damn on the nose. Also I have no clue how the Battle of Waterloo fit into it whatsoever Briggs you absurd psychopath ah why do I complain I said I liked it 8/10

Food Fight by Nicholas Briggs

Food Fight is by far the most consistent and interesting strand of the set, almost doing it’s own thing, with the two distinct and almost easy to follow strands of Audrey being telepathically connected to the Doctor and Nova leading a team of time displaced misfits to try and save the Sphere of Freedom. If not for the whole meeting in wrong orders multiple times and doing it purposely and whatnot I would give this a definitive sense of praise. Like, How many times does Nine cross his own timeline in this thing because I am quite sure it is being purposely obtuse and the complexity is merely a way to make it seem smarter than it is but at the same time - god when the writing is good here, it’s spectacular. It’s a bit silly to hold off the title monsters of your set to the very last bit but they at the very least do seem cool, if not incredibly unique, and Audrey and Eccleston have an excellent rapport...even if I’m not sure what it was with Audrey being so really evil in the previous stories and almost saintlike here. But even Nova is decently served, and the audacious guest cast is so ridiculous I find it magnificently likable. On paper, It would seem like I’m being swept up by Eccleston’s excellent performance on a quite choppy story and while you have a point, all of these individual elements are so stellar and really I quite adored the experience of sheer chaos in this set. Almost not always understanding the temporal jargon puts you more in Nova’s position and dare I say it...at times makes it more fun! I may be a NEEERRRRRRRRRRDDDDD as this story would call me but really I was quite satisfied with this actual good conclusion to a bit of a messy three-parter (huh, Doesn’t Modern Who usually drop the ball on the conclusion?) So, yeah. Call me a hypocrite. It was a shit load of fun. 9/10