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cecesloth's review
2.0
There are some great ideas here, like The Clutch and The Doctor being the bad guy, but the modulated voices make an already complicated story even harder to follow.
I desperately want an in-depth story about The Clutch though, with characters getting chased around while the scenery changes around them. What a fantastic piece of hard sci-fi that could be!
I desperately want an in-depth story about The Clutch though, with characters getting chased around while the scenery changes around them. What a fantastic piece of hard sci-fi that could be!
faiazalam's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.25
sshabein's review
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
nwhyte's review
This is another of those Doctor-returns-to-the-scene-of-a-previous-adventure stories, which generally don't grab me, combined with the Is-the-sixth-Doctor-evil? theme which did so much to blight his years on the programme. Good marks for a complex and detailed alien culture with which the Doctor has to grapple (one of the Galyari is played by Anneke Wills, aka Polly). Poor marks for lots of expository passages and for not really working a plot into the situation. Probably my least favourite Six/Evelyn story so far.
colossal's review
3.0
This is a sixth doctor adventure with Evelyn Smythe as his companion and is #37 in the Big Finish main range.
The Doctor and Evelyn appear on a spaceship approaching a fleet of alien spaceships called the Clutch. The Clutch is a nomadic fleet mainly peopled by a species of reptilian humanoids called the Galyari. The Galyari have a long history with a creature of great destruction and violence who wears the skins of defeated Galyari called the Sandman, also known as the Doctor.
I'll start with the positives, which is primarily the Galyari and their fleet. They're a well thought out race, with some thought given to the sort of species from which they've evolved and even the racial obsession with birds. It's also refreshing to see a "villain" race that has progressed from their original nature, but still having trouble with some moral concepts.
There's a couple of issues with this play that I've seen occasionally in other plays in the range. The major issue here is a writer with a clever idea that just doesn't quite fit into the mold, in this case the idea of how a hero is seen by the defeated bad guys when the original battle has been mythologized. You can see how that could work for the Doctor, but some clumsy writing and imagery here just ends up making it feel very out of character.
The other issue is the over-use of voice effects to indicate the aliens. Voice effects in Big Finish are akin to facial prosthetics in Star Trek: the Next Generation, ubiquitous, mostly unnecessary and annoying when overused. In this case they are heavily overused with only the main cast and one other using their natural voices, another one who puts on a silly voice (something like Alpha Centauri from the Peladon TV shows) and every other character having voice effects.
Another slight issue is Evelyn. She's an excellent companion and normally a really good foil for the sixth Doctor, but she's disappointingly underutilized in this one. She's basically reduced to being shocked for about 5 minutes when the Doctor puts on his "evil monster from history" act and then complaining about the Doctor's coat. I'm inclined to give this one a pass. Evelyn is well used in a lot of the other audios and I think it's ok for the companion to take a back seat from time-to-time.
This is a workmanlike entry in the Big Finish range. Worth listening to if you're a completest, but probably skippable if you're looking for the highlights of the early audios.
The Doctor and Evelyn appear on a spaceship approaching a fleet of alien spaceships called the Clutch. The Clutch is a nomadic fleet mainly peopled by a species of reptilian humanoids called the Galyari. The Galyari have a long history with a creature of great destruction and violence who wears the skins of defeated Galyari called the Sandman, also known as the Doctor.
I'll start with the positives, which is primarily the Galyari and their fleet. They're a well thought out race, with some thought given to the sort of species from which they've evolved and even the racial obsession with birds. It's also refreshing to see a "villain" race that has progressed from their original nature, but still having trouble with some moral concepts.
There's a couple of issues with this play that I've seen occasionally in other plays in the range. The major issue here is a writer with a clever idea that just doesn't quite fit into the mold, in this case the idea of how a hero is seen by the defeated bad guys when the original battle has been mythologized. You can see how that could work for the Doctor, but some clumsy writing and imagery here just ends up making it feel very out of character.
The other issue is the over-use of voice effects to indicate the aliens. Voice effects in Big Finish are akin to facial prosthetics in Star Trek: the Next Generation, ubiquitous, mostly unnecessary and annoying when overused. In this case they are heavily overused with only the main cast and one other using their natural voices, another one who puts on a silly voice (something like Alpha Centauri from the Peladon TV shows) and every other character having voice effects.
Another slight issue is Evelyn. She's an excellent companion and normally a really good foil for the sixth Doctor, but she's disappointingly underutilized in this one. She's basically reduced to being shocked for about 5 minutes when the Doctor puts on his "evil monster from history" act and then complaining about the Doctor's coat. I'm inclined to give this one a pass. Evelyn is well used in a lot of the other audios and I think it's ok for the companion to take a back seat from time-to-time.
This is a workmanlike entry in the Big Finish range. Worth listening to if you're a completest, but probably skippable if you're looking for the highlights of the early audios.
kmccubbin's review
3.0
A fascinating idea, the Sixth Doctor as a monster that terrorizes and tortures an entire species... and he admits that it's true!
The story rides high, teasing hints of the truth behind the Doctor's "Sandman" persona and playing around with some harder sci-fi with the idea of "The Clutch", an ever shifting, gypsy-esque conglomeration of ships attached to each other as if unto a mother's teat, but eventually the play has to come clean and put The Doctor back in his hero robes (uh, coat) and it kind of plods from that point on.
Nice performances all around and The Sixth and Evelyn continue to be THE team to be measured against in the Big Finish audios, but the payoff isn't quite there.
The story rides high, teasing hints of the truth behind the Doctor's "Sandman" persona and playing around with some harder sci-fi with the idea of "The Clutch", an ever shifting, gypsy-esque conglomeration of ships attached to each other as if unto a mother's teat, but eventually the play has to come clean and put The Doctor back in his hero robes (uh, coat) and it kind of plods from that point on.
Nice performances all around and The Sixth and Evelyn continue to be THE team to be measured against in the Big Finish audios, but the payoff isn't quite there.
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