vivdunstan

Onto another one, and this is a relisten for me. As I wrote on Gallifrey Base back in June 2010:

"Timeless Passages is indeed wonderful. I've only heard Benny on audio in some of season 3, Timeless Passages, the Diogenes Damsel, and the Companion Chronicle story. Of these Timeless Passages is easily my favourite, and requires no prior knowledge. And it's *so* timey-wimey :) I just love it."

And my feelings haven't changed, though I've now heard way way more Benny audios than I had back then. Timeless Passages is a quite superb Benny audio, and a brilliant piece of scifi storytelling. Totally standalone, so you don't need to have listened to any of the other Benny audios. As is often the case this one has a very small cast, but they are used superbly, very well acted and written, and the story keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout. A tightly plotted mystery box of a timey wimey puzzle set inside a giant library. What's not to love about that?

It's a rare Benny audio from this era still available to buy from Big Finish on CD, but also in DRM-free download. £5.99 plus shipping if ordering by post. If you hear just one Benny audio, this is the one I'd recommend by far.

Onto my next story, and it's the last episode of season 6 of Big Finish's Benny audios.

And it's a key story. I can't really say much even in spoiler space without giving too many important things away. But it certainly changes things up.

It's also impressive how full cast it feels, against so many Benny audios that feel too sparse. There's a key core cast here of Benny, Jason, Brax and one other. But then there are another eight or so cast members. And it just feels full of folk. But also very well paced in the writing. Joseph Lidster has done a fantastic job.

I do feel I'm missing out on some of the beats in this story by not having read the Big Finish Benny books around this time. Particularly some of the short story collections. However I have most of the books in house, so may dig out a few key short stories to read.

But, yes, epic, very moving, and a huge shake up to the status quo.

Finally resuming my listening and reviewing of Benny audios from Big Finish's series!

Just as a reminder, Benny/Bernice was introduced as a companion of the Seventh Doctor in the early 1990s Doctor Who novels. She then spun off to have her own adventures, and Big Finish made a long-running series of audio adventures starring Benny, played by actress Lisa Bowerman. Benny, like the more recent River Song, is a professor of archaeology. The stories are set in a scifi universe full of Doctor Who lore and monsters. Benny is often sent to investigate an archaeological site or matter on other planets. But in the series she is largely based at the Braxiatel Collection, an archive of strange artefacts, run by the mysterious Irving Braxiatel.

My latest listen is another in the 6th season of Benny audios. In this one, Benny and her former husband / on-off lover Jason Kane go to investigate the status of a museum on a war torn planet.

This is another sometimes brutal audio to listen to, following The Kingdom of the Blind. Like that one this includes accounts of torture, though less directly, rather recounted later. But it's still a tough listen, and does capture the sense of a society in anarchy, with a complicated picture of right and wrong, and certainly not a clear-cut black and white image.

More worryingly the soundscape is chaotic and it can be difficult to follow what's going on. I don't think it was as coherent as it could have been. However there are extremely powerful musings on the role of museums in preserving and sharing culture, and also their potential misuse for propaganda and power reasons. Benny also faces some rather direct questions about the supposedly open nature of the institution she works for.

So it was ok, but not one I'll rush to listen to again. Though the repartee between Benny and Jason was strong. Old friends rather than lovers now, but with a comfortable relationship that sees them survive a dangerous mission.

Until Christmas I was blogging here once a week through the complete Sherlock Holmes short stories and the audio adventures of Doctor Who spinoff series Bernice Summerfield. I paused them over Christmas, and then since the start of the year have been totally felled neurologically, and for the last week extra ill with a cold probably picked up at the V&A Dundee the Friday before. Though testing negative for flu and Covid. And I'm glad I'm not much iller. But that on top of the neurological illness flare is just too much to cope with.

I'm hoping to get back to both the Sherlock Holmes and Benny (Bernice Summerfield) marathons soon. I am really enjoying rereading the Sherlock Holmes stories and writing up my thoughts after. And similarly listening to the Benny audios, many for the first time for me though not all, and writing up thoughts after. Setting myself the weekly challenge of reading/listening to these and blogging about them turned out to be huge fun, and helped me keep going, and engage with them more deeply. I am keen to resume. But will only do so when I'm stronger. But hopefully not too far off ...

Oh this was woefully bad!

On plus a game world run by the Eternals (as in Doctor Who's "Enlightenment" TV story) messing with reality should be a lot of fun. On downside the performances are appalling (Lisa Bowerman excepted), the dialogue phenomenally slow (I could play it at double speed not missing anything important), terrible scenes going on far too long, and all boiling down to something that barely merited 15 minutes of listening, not 57.

On plus hearing Benny express her exasperation about the Eternals and their use of Enlightenment felt totally on point. She was sharing much exasperation with this listener at least. But the rest was just awful.

Glad it's over. By far the worst Benny audio I've ever heard.

On to another Benny audio, and this one's a sequel of sorts to the first Tom Baker story "Robot" from 1974. Though it's also inspired by a tie-in jigsaw featuring the robot released in 1978. For the full story see the "Notes" section of this audio's entry on the TARDIS Wiki website. This audio even features the original robot voice actor from the 1974 TV story, and has callback elements to that story. But you don't need to have seen the 1974 Doctor Who TV story to follow the audio.

Benny ends up on a planet - shot down! - with just a couple of human survivors and one robot. Why she's there is slowly revealed, and also the complicated goings on of the survivors and their back story. It's definitely one of those Benny audios where the often small cast numbers are too painfully apparent. With just a father and daughter plus robot as guest characters it does feel like a remarkably sparse setting.

It does become more interesting as you listen on, when things also expand somewhat. But I was hampered throughout by frustration with the daughter character, who I think I was meant to empathise with. Even Benny gets phenomenally frustrated with her. And this then lessened the impact of certain plot elements later.

However it's an ok audio, and Lisa Bowerman as Benny was fab as always. Benny in this archaeologist phase is definitely someone I'd like to have been in a scifi alternative me, flying from planet to planet to investigate relics and archaeological sites, with hefty doses of sarcasm and spunk. But it's also an audio that highlights some of the problems with the range.

On to the first in season 5 of Big Finish's Bernice Summerfield audios. And a rather unusual one, where at the start Benny's young son Peter activates Benny's time and space travelling rings, leading to a manic chase through strange times and places.

As with many Benny audios in this period this one calls back to old stories. The time rings that Peter uses to transport the group through time and space were a gift from the Seventh Doctor to Benny and Jason, in novel Happy Endings, and were also used as a plot element in a number of subsequent novels featuring Benny. Many of which were made into audios later by Big Finish.

But the story also calls back to the First Doctor TV story "The Chase". Which I haven't seen or heard, any more than I've read Happy Endings or read/heard the other time ring stories. There is even a Grel who seems to sound like William Hartnell's First Doctor early on in this audio, though I'm not sure if that was intentional! But at least I didn't need to know about the earlier TV story, even if it means I miss some of the connections.

It's a truly bizarre set of adventures, that's often extremely funny. The Grel chasing Benny and team are consistently good value on entertainment grounds. And the dialogue between Benny, Jason, their friend Sophia and robot assistant Joseph is also often laugh out loud hilarious.

Oh and I didn't previously know who the Grel were either - they first appeared in Doctor Who novel Oh No It Isn't, another Virgin New Adventures story Big Finish turned into an early Benny audio, that I haven't heard either! But the very useful Tardis Wiki told me probably all that I needed to know, with the description "Squid-like humanoid". And it was fine.

In a nutshell this was a lot of fun. It also creatively developed the ongoing story of Benny, young Peter and Jason. And I laughed a lot. Though I'm not a fan of the new Benny title music. The previous theme was much more fun. Also sounded a lot less like Space Invaders or Galaxian.

Currently listening to this. And this is by far the most atrocious voice modulation I've ever experienced with Big Finish. I thought it was bad with the opening monologue. But that Sea Devil was vastly more listenable to than the other Sea Devils later. As a result I'm only getting a fraction of the plot. And it's just so very disappointing. And frustrating. Because the underlying plot is intriguing. And Benny is fab as always. But even if I whack the volume up massively I can barely understand a word from the Sea Devils. And then my ears are completely blasted if I don't adjust the volume quickly enough when other people are about to speak. If I wasn't such an obsessive I'd give up on this. But am hanging on in there. Albeit expecting to miss 90% of what the Sea Devils say.

Benny has an utterly brilliant monologue near the end though. That was worth hearing if nothing else. But yup, definitely missed much of what was going on this time.

Onto the first in the fourth series of Benny Big Finish audios. And this one sees the return of Doctor Who monsters the Rutans. Who work surprisingly well on audio. Less good is that the audio feels very slow and overlong, especially in the first half.

Benny has been called in to advise on an archaeological site in the middle of the Sontaran/Rutan war. So the stakes are high. But it's just _so_ leisurely. On plus Benny is paired with a wry space commander, who sparks well with her. I'd like to have heard more of that pairing. Though his acting is somewhat dodgy in places. Also surprisingly reminiscent voice-wise of Miles Richardson who plays Benny's employer Irving Braxiatel.

The last third of the audio is very zippy, with the addition of another spin-off Doctor Who character Bev Tarrant, who will play a more prominent role in the Benny audios to come. This section is fun. But it feels like 20 minutes of goodness at the end after nearly 50 minutes of oh so slow.

There is a contentious element in the audio that will annoy some, but I was ok with: ( big spoiler ). But yes, it could easily annoy some folks.

Benny continues to delight. She's a remarkably effective character for a spin-off scifi series of her own. And she is always superbly acted by Lisa Bowerman.

First trial for my new Beats earbud headphones too. Worked very well! Very pleased with them.

Back to the official season 3 audios, and a very different - so far - Benny audio, with Benny finding herself waking up hungover on an unknown space cruiser (thanks Iris!), and soon caught up in a fight for survival with Ice Warriors against the backdrop of peace negotiations.

It's tightly written, and with a taut cast: Benny, ship's steward Karter, and ice warriors Azzar and Sstac. Even with this small cast they are soon split further into pairs Benny and Sstac, and Karter and Azzar.

There is a funny moment with a voice-controlled lift. Which reminded me of a rather (in)famous Scottish comedy sketch and much shared YouTube video version. Though this is followed quickly by the most gripping section of the audio, where a possessed Benny and Sstac - both superbly acted - argue over past hurts.

With such a small cast there aren't many options for who the guilty party could be. And it's even predicted by dialogue earlier on in the audio. But though predictable there's still a satisfying ending. Not least the very last bits, where Benny and another find some emotional peace.