Stranded Three

Stranded Three

Stranded Three is such an interesting Boxset, because while it’s good, it’s almost unidentifiable as the same series that began in Stranded One. Stranded One is still the highlight of the series for me personally - it was essentially a new, and never done before concept, and four stories that couldn’t really exist elsewhere. Stranded Two was more …basic Doctor Who stuff, but with elements of Stranded One, while Stranded Three is next to completely regular Doctor Who - only one of the stories takes place on Baker Street, and it’s not even our normal Baker Street. The result is a set that is good but ultimately feels disconnected in tone from what has come before. While this TARDIS team is utterly delightful, and Stranded Three still holds some absolute triumphs within it, I can’t help but feel it may be a step slightly sideways. We’ll see where the series goes.

Patience by Tim Foley

A really slow burn, it’s not so much that things aren’t happening in Patience and more that things are happening incredibly subtly and precisely. It’s one of those audios where everything comes together in a manner that works brilliantly, and the conclusion is worth all the effort…but it can be frustrating waiting for it to come together. Ironically, Patience is a story that’s title is a double edged meaning. The story literally requires Patience - and it will probably test yours. Like The Long Way Round, it’s a story that primarily focuses on our main cast, but unlike that one, there are no supporting characters. It’s also fairly Doctor-Lite, to boot. McGann’s only contribution to the plot is a framing device of him telling us a story (Which seems consciously based around the fact it worked so well in Scherzo and Fairytale of Salzberg) and then explaining things at the end. It focuses on the four companions, and their relationships, characterizes them further, but it does so in a very slow way. Because it’s so subtle, slow, about what’s wrong about what’s going on, it can indeed seem like nothings going on and the scenes are irrelevant, if not gone through a fine toothed comb. Tania and Helen’s thread especially impressed me. The Liv and Andy double act we’ve seen before in previous sets, but Helen and Tania really surprised me with how well they carried the material. I ended up enjoying their segments more than Liv and Andy, which surprised me a great deal. The main villains are the Judoon. It’s not a story that would exclusively work with the Judoon, it could work just as well with any alien mercenary race, but it helps to have a familiar face in the cast. If the story had to take time to set up an unfamiliar alien face, it would be all the more bloated, especially when it’s bloatedness is it’s weakness. While each scene has a point, I’d like it to have had a quicker point. Because while the point of the story is Patience, I would have given up on Patience early on, it rambles on so, until a scene from Helen has her discussing how bored she feels. It’s a great flag to the audience that it’s all intentional. But like, really. Although it ties together incredibly well, the fact that the story’s point is Patience, and the boredom of the characters itself can’t really help with the cardinal sin that yeah. Patience is pretty boring sometimes. Pointing out your problems doesn’t really mean they suddenly doesn’t exist. Even if that boredom’s intentional, I do have to mark it down for that. It could have lost around fifteen minutes and been an absolute banger. As it is, it’s merely quite good. 8/10

Twisted Folklore by Lizzie Hopley 

I have remarkably little to say about Twisted Folklore. Is it as bad as people say it is? Hell no, it’s actually …quite fine, although I do somewhat hesitate to say that. Is it the worst episode of Stranded so far? Still yes, actually. That does speak to the high bar that Stranded has set, but having spent two episodes in Stranded on alien planets that both do rather similar things, it does sort of question the point of the concept of the series. I can’t think of much that Twisted Folklore does that isn’t done better by Patience, and what’s more is it’s the episode exactly right next to that one. I’d have liked something a lot bolder and gnarlier here to continue to build up stakes for the series - Twisted Folklore’s villains are evil fascists, but I think that something even more 1984 than we have already would have been better to insert here. Snow, the following story uses the same kinds of villains to much better effect. Victoria is too nice a main villain for this story, she’s trying to be nicer than the rest of the Human Empire, but she’s still doing awful things so you can’t sympathize with her? The story is sort of sleepy as a result. The Doctor, Helen, Liv and Tania are still trying to figure out things in this episode that we already know, like, “who’s this other evil Doctor guy?” Maybe even swapping this story and Snow’s positions would have been better to it’s you know, whole deal. It just seems inadequate compared to Patience. Being away from Baker Street, the focal point of the series is really frustrating too. I like the continual usage of Patience’s use of stories as a motif, but really, there’s a lot more you could do than this, I’d have loved something fast paced and punchy with the Doctor and co trying to share stories in the underground. Andy’s inexplicable absence isn’t much fun either, but I would have accepted it a lot more if this story was, you know, good. But it’s also not agonizing. It’s pretty …. Bearable … Doctor Who… I suppose, I just … really expected more from this series. 5/10

Snow by James Kettle

Snow is by far the best episode in the set, the best episode in Stranded, and one of the best episodes from the Eighth Doctor in general, and since it’s one of the best Eight stories, and his productions are so good, well, I’m not even kidding, like, it’s one of the all time best. So. I’m. Not going to be great at the whole. Reviewing bit. 

God, once in a while you have to be gushy, don’t you? 

I love Snow for a lot of the same reasons something I love, say, Absent Friends or maybe even The Sky Man, but Snow was just for some reason all the more connecting. It’s a deep, gorgeous and harrowing experience that’s really just genuinely kind of awful to go through. It’s a story about grief, And while those do tend to Permeate Big Finish, this is one of the most affecting. The Doctor and gang’s interactions really work, and Snow just creates this visceral world to it. It’s the only story in the set on Baker Street, but it’s not our Baker Street and it presents this whole dystopian world in a way that’s from a writing standpoint, utterly remarkable. To close off this review, I’d like to tie it all together with my live reaction having finished the end of Snow, copy and pasted from the Doctor Who discord chat room: 

SNOW WAS INCREDIBLE OH MY LORD NEW ABSENT FRIENDS FUCKING SHAKING 10000000/10 I AM THE NUMBER ONE SNOW ENJOYER

 Snow >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> fuckjng everything 

AAHHH H H H H H H H H

10/10

What Just Happened? by John Dorney

People really hate this one, and to be fair, it does go out of it’s way to be as, well, I’m not sure how to say this, but as not listener friendly as possible. It’s a completely different story, but it did remind me of Natural History of Fear, in that you may require multiple listens to really correctly appreciate it. And if you can’t tell, despite it’s flaws, I ultimately actually kinda really loved What Just Happened? It’s no Snow, and technically even Patience is a stronger script, but What Just Happened? is a really great thought exercise. It’s very meta in it’s choices, it spells out it’s purpose and how it may be confusing in some lines of dialogue that make sense in the scene but are ultimately directed towards the audience. The entire play runs on dramatic irony, the fact that you know things the characters don’t, and what their tiniest decisions lead to in the grandest scheme of consequences. I think the final scene with the Doctor and Robin is all the more affecting being placed last, and other little additions like everything that leads to the stuff with Andy, it’s sort of mad. The funniest thing, is I feel more free talking about the latter half of What Just Happened? Than the first, which is where the, you know, actual momentous stuff happens. The reverse chronology could have been done much worse, even if it’s sort of messy. But the themes are so strong, it’s so thematically consistent, and the character stuff is just wondrous. It’s not a subtle story, it does yell it’s themes at you, but I like that? I don’t know, I just really vibed with it, I’m going to have to piss people off, I suppose: 8/10