Finished listening to the "Classic Doctors, New Monsters" box set! Thoughts:
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Fifth Doctor and Weeping Angels
Nothing really groundbreaking or new was added to the Angels, but I really don't think there is much to add, anyway. They've already tried a few times on tv, but how they were on Blink was enough. But, they're inserted into a pretty decent story featuring Michelangelo as he works on sculptures and the Sistine Chapel, and it doesn't get too complicated in terms of time travel, which is fine for newcomers, but I always saw that as half the fun with the Angels.
I was kind of bothered by how they didn't really do much on the premise of blinking. Kinda understandable, since you can't really do a whole lot with it on an audio format, but because it's so integral to the Angel concept, you can't help but know that some of the characters have to be blinking while they talk, and yet the angels aren't as aggressive as we're use to seeing them.
It's the weakest story in the set, but it's not awful by any means. Looking beyond the flaws with the angels, the story plays it pretty straight and it's still entertaining.
Sixth Doc and Judoons
Ok, I swear I'm not being biased, but this story really was the best of the set. For one, it has a crazy fun premise: A 19th century court drama, featuring a Judoon platoon, taking place on Mars (probably), with Six defending a Judoon that was part of a traveling circus. And it all comes together surprisingly well in a coherent storyline. Plus, there's a hilarious scene where you see a new unique trait of the Judoon (and a totally believable one) when Six distracts them at the circus. And yes, there's plenty of the "Bo Ko Ro Sho" fun going on. A good chunk of the story is said to be based on the movie The Elephant Man, but I haven't seen it so I have no idea how much of it is inspired by it, but even still, it's a good story on it's own feet.
Now, all I want is some more stories with Six having Captain Kybo the Judoon as his companion.
Fun fact, the writer didn't know he'd be using the sixth doctor until late in the writing process, so it was a neat coincidence that C. Baker's Doctor was in yet another court room drama.
Seventh Doc and Sycorax
I quite liked this one, it has a nice commentary on the reliance of technology and medicine, although the message gets pretty darn obvious after a while. Still, it's solid material, with another nice premise: humans have a large blood bank in space, and the Sycorax have their eye on it. Plus, McCoy's doc is really playful in this one, and that was just fun for him to mess with the Sycorax.
Not much is added to the Sycorax, but at least the writer acknowledges that in the story. The Doctor even says the Sycorax are nothing more than bullies and monsters, so it's not like we're to expect a solid character study on them. They're about the same as they were on the first Tennant episode, so there's at least a consistency to their interpretation.
Eighth Doc and Sontarans
Hmmm still not entirely sure why the Sontarans were considered "new Series" monsters in this set, unless they really differed between the Classic series (apparently they didn't do the Sontar-Ha chant in the classics?). But! No Strax nonsense in this story! These are the militaristic Sontarans that are bound by their rules of combat and honor, and even better, there's still a few moments of Sontaran humor that doesn't feel out of place. And you get to see how a Sontaran is punished when it fails to secure a victory on behalf of it's race.
This story is considered "new Who" mostly because this story partially deals with the Time War, since the Sontarans play a little off of it. And it's really interesting to see how although Eight wants nothing to do with the Time War, more and more people are becoming disgusted with his race because of it, and a lot of that anger is unleashed on Eight no matter where he goes, despite everything he does to try and help those people. Kinda depressing, you start to feel for the guy :(
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They're all good stories at the very least, but in order from best to least, I'd rank them as so (using the featured Doctors as a reference point): Six > Seven > Eight >Fifth
For the next box set, Big Finish has confirmed (in the CD Extras) that they're using 3 more "new series" monsters, and one of those is going to be used for two stories (so essentially, two doctors will be dealing with the same monster, on seperate ocassions, I believe), but maybe it's two different versions of that monster?
The Silence would be easy to retcon, so I could see them being one of them.