I like French, comics, books, podcasts, (board and roleplaying) games, biking, and trains. I try to stay organized and in good (physical and mental) shape.
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🎙️ radioblog: Night of the Vashta Nerada (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
“Classic Doctors, new monsters” is such a fun concept for an audio play series, and hearing Tom Baker face off against the Vashta Nerada was a delight. Don’t know if I’ll enjoy the upcoming stories as much, but this was fun.
🔗 linkblog: Les premiers trams prêts à circuler dès mardi à Lausanne pour des tests | RTS
Si je comprends bien, la ligne du tramway est tout près de l’appartement à Renens où j’ai vécu pendant quelques mois, et cette nouvelle fait donc plaisir même si je n’ai pas mis pied à Lausanne depuis 2010.
🎙️ radioblog: Theatre of War (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)
Sylvester McCoy is delightful, and I’m glad I got to experience a story with his Doctor and Sophie Aldred’s Ace. It’s goofy in the way that most expanded universe material is, but there’s enough there to be interesting, and I enjoyed the listen.
🎙️ radioblog: Sweet Salvation (❤️❤️🖤🖤🖤)
It’s real neat that the Eighth Doctor has had such a presence in Big Finish and other ancillary media, but this is another story that entirely dissuades me from trying to get into any of that, because I cannot follow what’s going on. Hard to say whether it’s continuity lockout, poor writing, or both.
🎙️ radioblog: World of Damnation (❤️❤️🖤🖤🖤)
This story is the hardest to follow radio drama I’ve ever experienced. It did turn out that I’d accidentally skipped over the first few tracks, but even going back to listen to them didn’t help much. I couldn’t tell characters apart, I wasn’t sure what was a flashback and what was the main story, there was some serious continuity lockout, and I found the whole thing confusing. There were some fun ideas in there, but they were buried under a persistent feeling of being lost.
📺 tvblog: Au service de la France Saison 2 (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)
Je me souvenais de ne pas aimer cette saison aussi bien que la première. Si ça reste vrai (je n’aime pas trop ce qu’on fait avec André, ce qui me semble trop compliqué), il y a des moments marrants qui ont lieu dans cette saison, et je suis triste de savoir que même la plus compliquée des histoires ne trouveront pas de résolution dans une troisième saison.
🎙️ radioblog: How to Make a Killing in Time Travel (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)
There was some passing around of the idiot ball in this story, and it felt surprisingly dark for a Doctor Who story, but I appreciated the layers of disaster piling up, and the villain was compelling in a pathetic way (in multiple senses of the word). I don’t know the Eighth Doctor well, so it’s interesting to get to know him here.
🎙️ radioblog: Their Finest Hour (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
Battle of Britain Doctor Who would really have appealed to me at some point, but it’s the sort of thing now where I find myself wondering if the story is uncritically pedestalizing an important moment of history that is actually much more complicated.
📺 tvblog: The Diplomat Season 3 (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
Enjoying this series less and less the more that it goes on. I think I’d still watch a Season 4, but what began as a smart series with interesting drama has felt with each season that it’s leaning more into the drama and willing to set aside the smarts. Some fun moments in this series but also some headscratchers.
🎙️ radioblog: The Neverwhen (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)
Some silly stuff in here, but enough of a compelling story (and enough John Hurt and core Doctor Who vibes) that I’m willing to forgive it.
🎙️ radioblog: A Thing of Guile (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)
More “fun but not life changing” exploration of the War Doctor.
🎙️ radioblog: Legion of the Lost (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)
Expanded universe material can get very dumb very quickly, but sometimes, it’s a great way to explore stuff that the main canon didn’t have time for. Just like it was a delight to have Christopher Eccleston back as the Ninth Doctor, getting more from John Hurt as the War Doctor is a treat. The story is interesting enough, but it’s really just fun to play with these action figures for a bit,
☕ teablog: Chaotic Good gaming café, Chai Latte (❤️❤️🖤🖤🖤)
When one is at a gaming café, one pays one’s dues to help keep the place open, but the chai latte was a bad choice. It tasted like warm milk with some cinnamon mixed in, and maybe that works for some people, but it’s not what I’m looking for. I might just go for some “regular” tea the next time I’m there—or support the café in some other way.
🎙️ radioblog: The Auntie Matter (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
Clever genre blending is one of my favorite things, so setting a Doctor Who story in what I presume is the style of a P. G. Wodehouse story is delightful (even if I clearly don’t know the genre it’s being blended into!).
🎙️ radioblog: The Ravagers (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)
Doctor Who is not often high art, and neither are radio plays, but this was good enough. Besides, I didn’t realize how damn much I missed Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor, and I would have struggled through a much worse story just to hear his “lots of planets have a north” voice.
🎙️ radioblog: Quantum Heresy (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
Maybe I shouldn’t have listened to this while trying to find parking on campus at a very inconvenient time, but even though there’s an interesting time travel bit at the center of the story, it just didn’t pay off for me.
🎙️ radioblog: The Shadow Trader (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)
This was a fun example of a lot of worldbuilding crammed into the background of a short Doctor Who story, and it gets a lot of points for that.
🎙️ radioblog: To Cut a Blade of Grass (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
This story is maybe the most heartwarming and beautiful that I’ve heard in the entire collection! The Sixth Doctor visits a stroke patient in the hospital and takes him into his own future to see a few important events that he’ll miss because he never recovers from the stroke. It really emphasizes that you don’t have to be important to matter and encourages the listener to be kind in small ways. I really liked it.
🎙️ radioblog: The Lions of Trafalgar (❤️❤️🖤🖤🖤)
This particular story is just so very British that it didn’t really connect with me. I normally appreciate Doctor Who’s very Britishness, but this one just didn’t work for this American.