A super charming small scale story about widening horizons and the return of Le Great Big Epic™ at the same time, and they actually fit together really, really well.

Le Great Big Epic™‘s return here is different though from how it was in the Cloakroom. It’s very much kept away for until halfway through, and it’s also much more actually dramatic as well. It’s almost as if the moment that the alternate universe gateway opens and the entity comes through, it takes a whole other tone with it as well. Pym’s naivety isn’t wholesome and funny anymore but becomes worrying. Bernice’s quips aren’t quippy for the sake of it, but to deflect her stress. It’s a pretty heavy shift, but it works, because the shift comes when the in universe big shift of the creature coming happens. Like I said, they come together, and it’s like one brings the other with it naturally. Then the coming of the creature itself is build up very well throughout the silly fun at the start, so everything just clicks into place once the drama comes. Which is almost cosmic-horror-y in its execution, with its ununderstandable powers and seeing the entire universe as just a prison for ‘The Death’, which I like.

Also I’m not sure if this is what they’re going to go for in the next parts, but (in extension kinda of what I said before about prisons) this story implies at least a little to me that the entire Eternity Club was only just a really elaborate prison for ‘The Death’. Which I think can bring some cool existential stuff with it too. Everyone there has gaps in their memory, they don’t know what the place is and don’t want to find out. They are all simply brainwashed pawns who think they’re a lot. It won’t seem unlikely to me if some force comes next episodes and wipes a bunch of them out in a second. When all of these… kinda friends of Benny she (and we too) has been spending all this time with, turn out to not have been who they thought they were, that they’re all like 312.

Now that I think of it, I can also see a thematic link with Rhubarb, about the little things in life. Where there it’s about looking after those, and how small stuff can create big problems, Pym’s perspective makes us appreciate the tiny aspects. Everything that’s new is extraordinary, and one doesn’t know what they’re missing until they’ve found it or something. But also, it’s why I think this arc clicks so well. All those little forgettable details, from seemingly random technobabble to character motivations, all come together when Bernice realizes what’s going on. The reveal or twist or whatever you want to call it, of course comes out of left field, but it feels earned, like you should’ve figured it all out yourself long ago, because the story’s been telling it to you through the themes it’s handling. I think it’s brilliant. And it helps making it feel like a finale without even being one. (which in turn can excuse its more dramatic tone too)

Also, Big Spoiler: one of the last drops in the bucket that made me get this: The Master. Great. Perfect. Even if it isn’t, it is, actually. Even if I was spoiled, it was still glorious. Loved every single second of that ending. As they say: “Just the best.”

This story follows classic formats, does things like spying around making sure the goons don’t find you, reunited with there where one belongs, that kind of stuff, but Bernice is also lugging a tree around the entire time. I find it a really fun mix of things.

Then there is the always lovely Derek the tree just doing what he does, and it elevates the entire thing. Though unlike his previous appearances, this time a lot of the poeticisms don’t come from what he says, but rather from what he does and doesn’t. Exactly when here, he’s supposed to be in his element, he’s out of it. Or maybe not, and that might be exactly the point. That the way he acts in the eternity club isn’t how he naturally is, and only around them trees he feels relaxed enough not to put barriers up made out of pretend wiseness and stoicism. Because over the course of his adventure with Benny, he starts becoming less that, and it may be a bit because of the stress of all what’s going on, but even after all that he seems warmer. So that’s cool.

The commentary on how extremism can originate from goodwill I really like. Though at its core it’s more the thing of: tell a child it may not ever eat candy, it will only result in the child really wanting candy. That does remind me of a thing that happened to me in primary school. There was a playground thing, we called it “Heksenhoed” (witches’ hat, cause it was a big climb thing in the form of it). One day it got sealed off for repairing, and a group of the more rebellious children suddenly wanted to get to play on it, even if they never paid much attention to it before. Everything that’s deemed very explicitly forbidden only makes people want it more. That makes it cool and different. In this story is also the added factor of it having a directly negative impact on people as well. You don’t save forests by also making enemies, at least not in the long run. I do find that because of maybe the short runtime, Goss can’t really go into the subject enough. It’s stated, and we als get that it’s not those people’s fault, they can change when given the right path, but that’s also where it ends when chainsaw girl becomes a tree. Which is very much too bad, because if that element was explored more, I think it could’ve just been a 5/5. Because I think if we’re talking pure silly adventurous fun, this one is probably the most successful from the first 6 stories for me. And also Derek. I do love Derek. The other ones just don’t have this much Derek…

Forget what I said in my first review on The Armageddon Chair. Not everything, but some selective things, like is happening to the characters in this grander Eternity Club story. What I then said about Dorian Gray and doing the big epic even though time is short? How that doesn’t apply here. Forget it! I lied. Had that planned. Totally. I just like to lie in reviews and not actually give my opinion ha ha. Anyways.

A departure from the ‘sitcommy-vibeszz’ that the previous stories more or less kept to. Though that’s not really true either. The first two were enough alike, but the series has actually been very quite diverse so far. Though this story is definitely the largest differentiator yet. Foley goes for Le Big Epic™ in this story. Even if it has arguably the silliest title yet too, even winning from Rhubarb (getoutofmyhead) for me. The story might still start off with that silly premise, and to be honest, if you think about it, conceptually the entire thing is just so silly that that never truly stops, but tonally the fact that life has sprouted in a big cloakroom and the coats are offering our main characters to their cloak-gods by throwing them in a big pool of lava (they’re still in the cloakroom btw) is played completely straight. And not even in a parodic manner. Everything is honestly quite epic, and the message about life is honest and pure. It’s just about living clothing.

So yeah, we do start going to the ‘Dorian Gray way’ here. Epic and cool. A feeling like we’re exploring a huge cave where we can encounter everything, and it’s quite nice. Some spelunking, eh?

So like, yeah, nice. That’s what it is. A lot of this adventure is just really nice. But it keeps at being just a really nice adventure. It greatly plays on the character dynamics between Benny and Secretary Pym and improves on them with also that really nice ending moment, and there I go, I said that it’s nice again. The teases of mystery are also really nice. Never goes much beyond that for me though. It’s very good, very solid and imaginative. Just can’t find much more in it like with the others.

I guess I’m missing the irony here? Like on one hand I really appreciate its honesty, and to just be whimsical and have this crazy plot without falling into farce, but I feel like Eternity Club so far has benefited from its satirical tone. But I’m also very happy with this story just like it is exactly because it is so different. Variety is nice. Dang it I said it again.

A very lovely, very funny, very rhubarb story. Even if it doesn’t necessarily have much depth, I’ve gotta give it to mister Foley for just going: rhubarb it, I’m going to make a story where everything’s rhubarb.

It’s a nice rhubarb of how the small rhubarb matter. Every war starts from something small and insignificant. And yeah, most conflicts on our rhubarb could probably just be resolved if people just rhubarb damned listened to each other. But no, those in power and their egotistical wants gotta ruin it. The rhubarb is a very nice metaphor for rhubarb in that way. Our real life rhubarb really aren’t much more rhubarb than the average rhubarb and Sontaran huh?

Rhubard outside of the scope of interhubarberic-war, the theme of small rhubarb leading to big things still rhubarb. Never think: “Ah, I’ll rhubarb that later.” About watering your rhubarb or cleaning the table. It might not lead to a rhubarb-rhubarb, which leads to, you know. But rhubarb get what I rhubarb. As I rhubarb what the story rhubarb.

Some really lovely Tim Rhubarb moments as well, rhubarb the rhubarb and Sontaran and Draconian rhubarb, which are really really wonderful. And of course Bernice who rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb.

There’s also what’s of rhubarb mentioned in the behind the rhubarb about how this is a more rhubarb story, likening it rhubarb to the rhubarb main rhubarb. Also a great rhubarb for how, in rhubarb, Bernice can rhubarb a rhubarb rhubarb, rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb.

Rhubarb rhubarb, rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb, rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb. Rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb. Rhubarb!

Goss only had one goal while writing this probably. He wanted to address the censorship of history, and making the past come over as better than it was. And while it’s incredibly ‘in-your-face’, and done in the least subtle way I can imagine, I can’t say he didn’t succeed.

What James very smartly does here is play the reversed sexism for laughs. It’s first to be assumed to be another piece of satire, until the listener starts to realize when Benny comments on some things that there’s something else at play. Really cool use of the tone of the boxset to ‘mislead’ the listener.

This is something else of course, but I guess you can say that a similar topic has been handled in Jubilee. Though Jubilee is about not taking fascism seriously and commercializing on it. But one of the major things this story reminds me of is Disney censoring old problematic works, forbidding them from being seen. Wanting to forget they have ever happened to make their history look ‘clean’, which in the end is also for commercial reasons. Both can have parallels drawn to them about altering history because of greed (if you take the altering history part literally I’m sure there’s a ‘cracking’ story in that concept). Instead of taking responsibility and learning from past mistakes, shying away from it, and so risking making the mistake again. This part doesn’t go anywhere, by the way, sorry. Even more, it ends here.

It’s a relatively simple concept in the end, but it’s executed very well, and I do think it’s an important enough message, so I’m seeing through the heavy handedness. Works very well with Bernice too, her being an archeologist, and does nice things for her character. The little part where it’s honestly talking about how difficult it is for woman is nice as well.

For my totally official and planned and not something i came up with on the fly after noticing I did two reviews after each other on the first and the second of the month 31 days of December reviews I’ve been missing a few days. Now, this was planned, to allow for me to listen to and review all of my first foray into The New Adventures Of Bernice Summerfield, starting with the latest release, the Eternity Club. I’d been pondering buying these for a while already, but after reading a certain very interesting spoiler with recommendations on top of that, i broke. Gave in. Bye bye money, and hello Benny. Time to do this review thing now.

This new series of adventure is half-hour episodes. Reminding of Big Finish’s The Confessions of Dorian Gray, that have a similar length. Big fan of those too, me. But the way these short episodes are approached are very different. Confessions tries often, regardless of its short length, to tell either big epic stories or dramatic character pieces or both at the same time. It uses the shorter length to push the quick bursts of drama so fast to have it almost gain shock value. Here in the Eternity Club though, we find the length being used to tell lighter, sitcom-esque stories. There is no drowning the listener in melodrama, but a straight-man approach to the crazy world of Doctor Who. Bernice doesn’t go around fighting monsters, but is cleaning and helping an amnesiac member. The thirty minutes are for the more casual things, and used to bring us a look at this universe from a different perspective.

What I want thou to remember most absolute, is that when I speak of ‘sitcom-esque’, I do not mean that this is merely a simple comedy with aliens. Structurally it is not more a sitcom than half of the writing found in the television series of the Eleventh Doctor Who, I ought to say. Even aside from the mysteries and hints at continuing storylines that have been dropped, there is a lot of interesting things to be found here. One that I was most appreciative of, was the slight satirical nature of it. The lack of a good ending, the irony of the situation Bernice has to solve plus the social commentary, bring tonally almost a less cynical version of the writing of the great Guido Martina or remind of people like Evert Geradts and even Giorgio Pezzin (this is my review, and after thinking for way too long, I’ve decided i can draw any comparison that i like). It also doesn’t shy away from more introspective moments, and even deconstructing the characters a little, which I am enjoying a lot as well, though this will come to its conclusion later in the series of course, but the ground blocks laid have already been very strong.

Another quite impressive part is the naturalness of the introductory parts. They are sewn well into the main plot Goss wants to tell this episode. The fact that some scenes very much have an introductory purpose is quite obvious, but still it is that they do not feel out of place.

I feel like there is more to say about this story, but I’m afraid of being redundant by mentioning a lot of specifics, mostly because I won’t currently be able to do it the right way. Comments about the general series itself I do have though, but I have such a feeling that those might be better saved for the other reviews. I already fear the proportions of length are going to be most inconsistent as is. So I’ll just stop and think about structuring my next babble about feminism and history.

Can some EU story be written about how the Lenny Henry Doctor is actually canon through a timemensional-temporadoxal loop of circular mavitational forces caused by Faction Paradox (not explicitly mentioned by name because of rights. They are referred to as “The great dumbasses”) before being partly removed out of the Doctor’s timestream and whose history only partly remained as a lasting impact on the post war universe from which only this short applies because he’s actually kinda awesome please and thank you.

(The reason no other story referenced him was because Eight forgot he happened one day)

Literally every single Seventh Doctor story ever speedrun: 18:17.82 Glitchless any% [Former WR]

We did it. We found the true best episode of Doctor Who. The Curse of Fatal Death looks like nothing in comparison.

Honestly like look alright the main story is incredibly okay and competent and one of those “yes. I have been entertained for these moments in time but will probably never think of this piece of fiction ever again in my life” thingsies. It’s not a bad story, it just doesn’t do a lot for me. Cool lore for Ood guy and we get nice characterization, but I really am close to zoning out at any moment.

But then there’s the last 20 or so minutes where the story suddenly becomes this amazing, dramatic, really fun, kind of introspective piece about the Tenth Doctor  and the Time Lord Victorious and you’re like: YES! This is what the story has been building up to, (even though the story really didn’t build up to it) this is what the writer has wanted to present to us all this time, what this story is for, it just starts to click… and then you realize that nothing clicked. The whole hour of stuff that happened before really does not matter that much. At max it builds a connection to the new place and characters. Like it’s been this really standard ‘Doctor Who romp’ the entire time and then it just decides to drop this fantastic sequence where it actually feels like a relevant cool TLV thing out of nowhere.

Badaboom, Brian kills an important guy and brings about the destruction of the clever people planet and not David Tennant finally gets confronted with his thematic mirror images and it’s so awesome and it makes all what came before seem like mushy filly that just starts to blend together into a vague memory of Oods getting drunk not drunk and heist movie plan like assassination attempts. Like all what previously was written was because it had to fit into the seventy three minute runtime and only this ending part really even felt TLV-y or relevant. Idk man.

And the epilogue the coda is so so good. I really love the calmer, melancholic Eleventh Doctor from Dudman. It was so hype when he came up, i’m so glad i forgot Eleven was even in it. Then Dudman gets to be his Doctor and it’s so lovely and sweet and it fits so perfectly for Eleven. Especially Eleven’s tendencies to see Ten as a different person and distancing himself from that past work extra well here. Look i swear if they had incorporated more Eleven into the TLV event it would’ve succeeded that totally would’ve solved everything.

I didn’t even care that much about that guy that the coda was about. I barely registered what her personality was supposed to be during the story, but the way the Doctor is shown as this mysterious but infinitely kind stranger, then a conversation between two people who know each other as well as they do not (which is very), and I can just see the sad nod and smile in my head before the mysterious stranger leaves and the noise of that fading magical blue box starts to growl. It’s so so lovely. Perfection. If the coda was a separate story i would rate it five stars.

But it’s not so in the end kinda mid tbh