The Waters of Amsterdam

 


The Waters of Amsterdam by Jonathan Morris 

"Love has an inconvenient habit of overcoming hate."

The Waters of Amsterdam genuinely feels to me like one of the best stories I've reviewed in months, possibly the best story since Year of the Bat or Night of 1000 Stars. It certainly even manages to trounce the Secret History and World Apart (Both of which I also gave a perfect score, so you know this will be an especially good one) and it does all of this and more whilst focusing on a love interest for fucking Tegan. If you told me that my favorite audio since Buying Time and The Wrong Woman would be one focusing on a romance plot involving TEGAN I would have laughed at you hysterically. Big Finish's romance plots oft fall flat for me - Mel's romance in the Blood Furnace in particular was a pathetic joke. And yet this story really managed to invest me. That's not the only thing it has going for it either - it's got a clever timey wimey core of a story that's also a celebrity historical for one of the greatest artists of an age, fun concepts and a gorgeous divergence into alternative history at a climax. Davison is energized by this material, turning in a performance unlike his usual more worn interpretation of the Fifth Doctor we get from Big Finish, appearing more alike a modern youthful figure like Tennant or Smith - oh wait, he's seventy. Huh. Guess he's a really really damn good actor then. Sarah Sutton also serves well as Nyssa - she's not focused on as much as the Doctor or Tegan but she is still an engrossing figure, and still holds that sparkling level of intellect to her you can get from Romana or Martha. One of my favorite moments in the story is her commiseration with Rembrandt over their respective losses of her planet and his wife. It's a melancholy, beautiful approach to her character, whilse still maintaining her nobility and softness. Good stuff, well played by Sutton, but by no means can Davison or Sutton hope to even compare to the monumental performance of Janet Fielding in this story - every inch of Tegan is so real here, she's not just a comedic angry woman, but a humanized wonderful figure brimming with heart, and her emotional level here is varied and excellently performed. Only Tegan would break up with someone because they were too perfect!! Of course there are many moments I could go on about concerning Tegan that hit the spot perfectly, but her final confession at the stories' climax gives me such happy feelings. To hear Tegan of all characters saying there's no where she'd rather be in the world than by the Doctor and Nyssa's side nearly moved me to tears. This audio is nigh perfect, taking Tegan, an already good enough character and elevating her to incredible heights. The fact that this was followed by Aquitaine - and for the record, is pretty much as good, makes me astonished at the level of quality sprinkled into the Fifth Doctor's range. Leave some for the rest of us, alright?? 10/10

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cobwebs

Image
  Cobwebs by Jonathan Morris Now stop me if you've heard this one before...  The Doctor and Companions arrive in Location X where they discover evidence that something bad is going to happen in the future (i.e. their deaths, the TARDIS not working, etc) and have to fudge the rules of time so they live. It's a Doctor Who stalwart, I should think, I can't count how many stories I've done with it, but the Fires of Vulcan and the entirety of Matt Smith series 6 come readily to mind - and quite frankly, Cobwebs is no exception. It's a complicated time puzzle of a story that will never really surprise you (I figured out the twist a solid hour before it happened.) The story's chief selling point is that for the first time ever since like Mawdwyn Undead and Terminus for two seconds, Tegan, Nyssa, and Turlough are in the TARDIS together. It's other chief selling point is Tegan is in it - this was her second Big Finish audio ever, and she had previously said she would
Read more

Torchwood: Aliens Among Us 2

Image
  Love Rat by Christopher Cooper Trust Big Finish to remake Day One, and not only make it good, but also make it somewhat heartbreaking. Of course, Day One is a terrible and horny bit of TV, and Love Rat is also sort of that way, but it makes up for it (in my book) by dealing with the aftereffects of what this kind of story would actually do to the team. Jack's actions in this episode, although prompted by the parasite, aren't even out of character, and the way he seduces Tyler and Ng and the fallout of that is dealt with in a surprisingly mature and emotional manner. Unlike Day One, which strives to be mature, Love Rat is actually mature, and the Gwen and Ng arc is actually a gutpunch to hear, especially the final few scenes with Rhys, as throughout this series, Ng has taken over Gwen's life and utterly ruined it. It's amazing what Eve Myles can do with just a few words, the emotion she can convey that this isn't what she wants, how horrified she is at not being in
Read more

NCJDDAS: Dark Page

Image
NCJDDAS: Dark Page Cover by Arbrax  This episode of the NOW CANON Judi Dench Doctor adventures was Inspired by Robert Shearman listing a brilliant idea for a short story that wouldn’t work in Doctor Who. I say utter Rubbish. I’m taking that story and writing it in Who. Fight me. It also helps that I haven’t read the story he wrote that I’m utilizing, making this even more of a simple writing prompt thing. Featuring The Twenty Second Doctor, Elizabeth Olsen, as created by Arbrax Chapter One In the town of Broughstershire, at 5:27 AM, the postman came by every house in the neighborhood and gave every single person a letter.  The letter was different for each person. For instance, Mr. Layton got a letter that said May 5, 2027, and below that, in slightly aggressive font, Gangrene. Mrs Curbishley got a letter that said June 18, 2053, Car Crash, and Little Timmy got a letter that said October 9th, 2081, Natural Causes. Of course, these are merely examples, those people don't exist, But
Read more

(MAIN RANGE): Dinnertime Part One

Image
MAIN RANGE: Dinnertime Part One This Story Stars Judi Dench as The Twenty Sixth Doctor and David Tennant as The Tenth Featuring Danny Devito as Danny Devito and John Simm as The Master This Story Takes Place Between A Storm Is A Comin and The Countryfile Conundrum Chapter One "It is said that in the final days of planet earth, everyone had bad dreams. To the west...of the...north... of this world...everyone did...gather? What even is that sentence- um, Sorry, Ah, here we are. IN THE CELEBRATION, of a Pagan rite to banish the cold and the Dark. Each and everyone of those people had nightmares of the pretty mild (for the human race) terror to come (I mean, I think the Dalek invasion was way worse). Everyone except Fred. There's nothing special about Fred, he's not really important to the story, but all the same, he had a dream about shopping, and it was rather average. Okay, so, to sum up. Everyone had bad dreams on Earth, except Fred. They all forgot...Except for one."
Read more

Ninth Doctor Adventures: Ravagers

Image
  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 directio
Read more