Dragon's Wrath and The Fearmonger

Hello my little loyal 15 chickadees

In order to let Angelie get her Benny fix before she has to leave we start the afternoon off with Dragon's Wrath. Justin Richards adapts the novel that he wrote for this audio. Nothing really entertaining foodwise, but today's booze is brought to us by Widmer Brothers Hefeweizen.

We start talking again about the torch and twang theme song as we get the audio going.

Me: If I ever get rich I want to get kd Lang to do a version of this.

Tim: We should take the covers and animate them Maurice Bender style. Get some models and do it up real Bond like.

After some bloke gets shot Benny stumbles out of the bar and can't remember where her home is. She sobers up real quick when she finds her colleague bleeding in the alleyway. Then we get some bit with Benny announcing what she's gonna do next.

Me: Is this supposed to be a diary entry?

Tim: It's exposition. It has to go somewhere.

Benny shows up late for a meeting and for the beginning bit it sounds like they're meeting in a airplane hangar where someone put up some sound proofing in mid meeting. Jane Burke returns, previously heard as Tameka in Beyond the Sun. I hope we don't wish she was dead like we did the last time.

Tim: It's like they took the leftover music from Tears for Fears and the Sneaker Pimps and mixed them up.

Me: Seriously, it's like they couldn't stand to hear silence so they just let their kid go to town on the casio keyboard and dropped it in at odd moments.

Benny and Clyde end up accepting the offer they can't refuse and after another crappy bit of blatant exposition are having dinner with Nusek. They toast to a successful expedition.

Me: They're crukked.

After wine and food they get a tour of Nusek's goodies which apparently is nestled inside a volcano.

Tim: Diarrhea is a storm raging inside all of us.

Me: Is Clyde in a totally different room having this conversation with Benny? Honestly, the sound design for this audio is horrible. I think we did a better job with SFT: 2.

Tim: We did.

Angelie and I begin to get our groove on to the music as Benny and Clyde try not to get eaten by a dog thing.

Tim: That sounded more like a feral cat. That's supposed to be a dog? Couldn't they at least program it to sound like a dog?

Apparently the cryloks have their own theme music as the same disco song returns as the next crylok arrives. Once again we all get our doggie groove on.

Tim: Ace! Turn your boombox off!

Me: I think I heard a dog bark this time.

Tim: Yeah, I heard it too. Maybe they reached the end of the sound clip. Oh wait, now it's a cat again. It sounds like a cougar. Shasta's back there trying to kill them.

They escape the cryloks and find a doorway. They wonder where it leads to.

Me: Maybe a better script and better sound design.

Tim: They would've been better off leaving Just War as the season finale.

Angelie: The chimes remind me of the beginning of Cirque de Soliel's Allegria.

Me: God, I'd rather listen to Birthright.

There's some random snapping in the background.

Tim: What the hell is that?

Angelie: (acting like she's tapping a mic) Is this thing on?

Tim: Okay, there's something about a dragon, a cat and someone playing raquetball.

I do some research and find that it's a new guy doing the sound.

Tim: Let's hope he gets better. Does the Secure channel sounds better? And like Ghostlight I think the music is way too loud.

Judging by the sound design Benny is like twenty feet away when she wakes Clyde up. Stuff happens and Benny returns home.

Tim: Did Wolsey just shoot her?

Angelie: She fell.

Me: I think she got attacked.

Kamadrich finds Benny in the bar and says someone's trying to kill her.

Me: Why couldn't they try to kill you during Beyond the Sun?

Angelie: Don't drink the coffee!

Benny gets all pissy when she gets called a second rate archaelogist and kicks Kamadrich's ass.

Me: Now we get the riveting Star Trek style court room scene.

This audio just makes me sad. Justin Richards did an excellent job with The Whispers of Terror. This is a huge step backwards not only for the Benny range but for Richards as well. Especially since he was adapting his own novel. I won't even get into him leaving Braxiatel out of this audio adaptation.

The final few minutes blow huge chunks. Melodramatic factor nine. We end up so disinterested with this that we start to talk about the new Speedracer movie coming out later this year. I wonder if they'll get the monkey from Friends to play Chim-Chim. There's much rejoicing as the audio ends until we find there's like a bossa nova version of the theme song.

Tim: Wow! As good as the last one was, this one wasn't.

Angelie: Yep.

Tim: I don't know why bongos equal anime, but all I can see is the end sequence of Voltron.

We decide to take a break to wash the taste of the Dragon's Wrath out of our system.

Me: I think I'll be listening to Crystal of Cantus later, because you know, that didn't suck.

Once the taint of Dragon's Wrath has been removed we pop The Fearmonger into the player. I'm all giddy because we hit our first Seventh Doctor adventure since Sirens of Time.

Ace hooks up with an old mate from Perivale who has basically created on his own a phone tracer.

Me: And he ran? He ran so far away?

Ace shows she's no Doctor Phil as she fails to keep Walter from freakin out. Walter escapes and The Doctor and Ace go for some tea. Later on The Doctor fails at his attempt to be Doctor Phil when Keyser goes all nutty. Ace gives it another go as they try to keep Walter from blowing the place up.

As the first episode ends and the second one begins Tim and I begin to debate whether this is a parallel universe or not.

Me: It's ashame that Big Finish won't use Jon Blum anymore for audios or that Jon won't write for them again. This is the best one so far.

Towards the end Ace tries to play the Doctor as she attempts to convince Alexander to not kill her. She's not so successful as the second episode ends with her being shot.

Me: Oops! Guess that wasn't such a good idea.

Tim: Remind me not to try that next time I'm held at gunpoint. Sadly the argument of 'look me in the eye, pull the trigger' only works with sane people.

Me: The kind and cuddly Ace didn't work this time.

Tim: Sadness and pain.

Me: For Ace.

The Doctor shows his soft and cuddly side as he tells the Fear Creature that the worst thing that could ever happen to him with Ace being shot. We get another tender moment between Ace and The Doctor as he get all nine kinds of remorseful for her getting shot. I eventually realize that Mick Thompson's theme sounds a lot like Depeche Mode's I Just Can't Get Enough.

Not the most riveting of cliffhangers as the third episode ends. I finally make the connection that the Vince Henderson playing Mick is indeed the same Vince Henderson that's married to Sophie. The Fearmonger ends in typical New Adventures fashion with the Doctor having to talk Ace down from the ledge as the Fear Creature ends up in her.

Tim: That was a hell of a lot better than the Benny play today. Maybe they were freaking out because they only had one disk to work with.

Me: Still no excuse for shitty sound editing.

Tim: That's true.

I don't know when we'll get back together, but next time we should be doing The Marian Conspiracy in the main Who range and The Secrets of Cassandra and The Stones Lament in the Benny range. For you Sapphire and Steel fans tune back next week when the S&S team gets together for Daisy Chain.