Tag: audio drama

Golden Age Article

Is a New Golden Age of Audio Dramas Coming

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As we hunker down during the global pandemic, those with more leisure time have binged a whole lot of television and been able to find distraction in new episodes of their favorite programs.

Many live late night programs have continued with the host at home and guests also at home. While this can work to an extent for Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert, it raises a point.

How is this going to work for scripted dramas? There are so many logistical issues with filming a TV show or movie. The sheer number required to be working together on the set, the close proximity that actors have to get to each other, etc. If some form of social distancing continues to be enforced, any TV shows and movies produced during this time are going to look quite odd. That’s if they can be produced at all.

While it’d be an interesting idea to do more animation of popular TV shows, the truth be told, there’s not going to be time before the Fall Season to produce high quality animation to continue beloved shows.

The answer may be for the shows to re-embrace the audio medium they abandoned nearly sixty years ago and work to release new programs over radio. British Audio Drama company Big Finish announced on March 17th that it was suspending recording due to the COVID-19 virus and therefore would not be in studio. However, 9 days later, they were back in production having discovered that most of their stars could work from home and the direction could also be done remotely.

Dramatic podcasts around the world have been doing the same thing for years, as producers using affordable software have been able to mix and blend voices from thousands of miles away to tell stories via audio that sound just like they were recorded with all actors in the studio together.

While it might be tempting for any audio content to go to a premium provider like Audible, there’s going to be a larger audience for radio and a good potential to earn advertising revenue during a time when filming’s going to be difficult. The added listeners might also help radio stations who have seen their listening numbers decline with less people on the roads.

Several types of radio programs could work over radio during this period:

  1. Exploring Continuity Gaps:

A lot of dramatic television is highly serialized today. In an earlier era of television where continuity was light, it’d be easy if you made one-off radio episodes that told previously untold one-off adventures. That’s harder today because so many episodes are interconnected. TV shows also won’t want to continue their ongoing planned storylines over radio because we hope that television will eventually return to normal and they don’t want to mess up their reruns and resyndication plans by having audio episodes you have to listen to in order to understand what’s going on. They would have to re-record the audio shows for TV and I assume they won’t want to do that.

Some series could return and explore gaps in the continuity. For example, months often pass in-world between the end of one season and the start of another. If a TV series has already shot its season finale and knows that it wants to start the next season by jumping forward several months, it might do a radio series that explores what happens in those intervening months.

It might also explore past gaps in continuity. For example, the third season of the CW Series The Flash ended with the hero being imprisoned in the otherworldly Speed Force. The fourth season began after his friends had protected the city for six months in his absence. In the premier episode, they bring him back from the Speed Force. CW could commission a radio series based on what happened during that six-month period.

2. Spin Offs

Many programs have had popular guest characters and this might be a great time to explore whether their stories might be worth exploring in their own right. Creating Spin Offs will once again spare the main series from having to mess with its continuity. If the radio spin off works well, then a TV spin off may make sense once all returns to normal.

3. Return of the Cancelled Shows

Some shows continue to be popular even though they’ve gone into reruns. A new Golden Age of Radio could see them return for a limited run. There are two approaches that could be taken. First, is the continuity gap solution listed above. Secondly, you could set a show after its finale.

Monk would be a fun program to bring back by either approach. Attempts at making a Monk movie over the last 11 years have been stymied, but a series of radio dramas could hit the spot in these difficult times.

4. Original Programming

The networks have a whole host of ideas for concepts for new TV programs. Many of these could be adapted to radio, as well as bringing programs especially created for radio to light. Radio could provide a low-cost way to test the market for shows that would have high production values on TV.

5. Movie Adaptations

During the Golden Age of Radio, the Lux Radio Theater, Screen Guild Theater, and Screen Director’s Playhouse were dedicated to adapting movies to an audio format and recreated great big screen moments over the radio.

In the 1980s, George Lucas sold rights to adapt the Star Wars Trilogy to NPR for $1 per film and NPR produced adaptations of each of the first three films in the trilogy.

Adaptations of other popular films to radio with some of the original cast would be worth exploring. The Star Wars adaptations were popular even though fans could now watch the original films on VHS or TV.

Star Wars has a devoted fan base, which was key to the success of the audio dramas. Any successful adaptation of film to radio would have to be of a film which features equally devoted fans.

Overall, a new golden age of audio dramas would offer the entertainment industry a chance to bring something positive out of the awful events of the last few months, and I hope they avail themselves of the opportunity.

Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: Black Jack Justice, Season Seven

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Season Seven of Black Jack Justice finds the show very well settled in to its successful formula as Jack and Trixie continue to solve crimes in a post-War unnamed American city.

The season avoids some of the fancy experimental episodes from previous seasons and really plays to its strengths. That means well-crafted mysteries and clever wordplay. The closest this season gets to any sort of emotional depth is in the episode, “The Score” when an old war buddy of Jack’s tries to draft him to rob a Nazi war criminal to exact revenge.

All of Season 7 is great listening. If I had to pick a favorite, I’d choose the fifth episode, “A Simple Case of Black and White” which finds Trixie and Jack working for a pro bowler trying to connect with his child. The plot is intricate with a surprising solution. There are characters named (of course) Black and White. That plays out to really good effect.

Overall, if you’re looking for fun diverting mysteries that illustrate how a radio detective show should be done, you’ll enjoy Season 7 of Black Jack Justice.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

The entire Seventh Season of Black Jack Justice is available for free download on their website.

Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: The Twilight Zone Audio Dramas, Volume 5 Review

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Volume 5 of the Twilight Zone Audio Dramas offers six more adaptations of Twilight Zone in TV episodes.

The set kicks off with, “The Rip Van Winkle Caper.” It’s a story of a well-planned robbery where a scientist is part of the gang and has a plot to avoid prosecution: have the gang hide out in the cave with their stolen gold and then put themselves in suspended animation. The story delivers a smashing twist at the end, but before it gets there, we’re given some great interaction between the members of the gang. The story is a clever and intricate morality tale that holds up quite well.

The next story is, “A Most Unusual Camera,” which is about small-time crooks getting a relatively small haul from a pawnshop burglary that includes a camera that, as they discover, can predict the future. After an unnecessary scene with the crime being reported to the police by the owners of the pawnshop (who are never heard from again), the interaction between the small-time crooks dominates the rest of the story and is a real treat to listen to with a lot of plans, double crosses, and twists.

In “Twenty-two,” a singer is terrified by dreams about the number 22 and she senses impending doom surrounding it and tries to avoid whatever fate awaits. This is a well-done suspenseful tale, though to be honest, it’s the weakest story in the set, which says a lot for this particular box set.

“The Midnight Sun” finds two women trapped in an apartment in a big city as the Earth is moving closer to the sun and everyone is trying to get away from it. The characters in this are great, and there’s a big twist at the end.

In “Walking Distance,” a stressed out ad executive takes a walk while his car’s getting fixed to the nearby town where he was raised. It’s a wistful, sad, yet wise story for anyone who’s ever visited somewhere they grew up and expected it to be exactly as it was as this time he finds it that way.

The set concludes with, “The Passerby” which finds a Confederate War Widow watching the defeated Southern Army return home. She begins to notice strange things, including the return of a soldier she’d believed dead. The story has some atmospheric moments, a great reveal, and an unforgettable closing scene. It’s a picture of the sadness and tragedy of war that’s beautifully realized.

Overall, this is one of my favorite sets in this series. Unlike previous sets, there are no recognizable guest stars in the cast, but to be fair, the original Twilight Zone series, most episodes didn’t feature huge stars or those who would become big stars. For every episode of the TV series featuring William Shatner, Peter Falk, or Burgess Meredith, you’d have an episode or two featuring actors no one remembers. The strength of the Twilight Zone are its writing, its concepts, and the thoughtful ideas at the heart of each script, and that strength really shines through here.

If you’re curious about the radio series, this is definitely a set I’d recommend. The stories are very well-realized and capture the spirit of the original series beautifully.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

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Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: The Prisoner, Volume 3

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Big Finish concluded its reimagining of the Prisoner in the third volume of four audio episodes.

The series kicks off with a take on the TV episode, “Free for All” with there being an election for the new Number 2 with Number 6 finding a surprising groundswell for his candidacy.

The episode works well. It plays with the ideas in the TV show about Democracy but goes deeper in many aspects. Whereas, Number 6’s end is kind of sudden in the TV episode, we do get a build-up, a great final confrontation, and a memorable conclusion to the episode.

There are a couple of issues. I did find the village rifle association absurd. No prison is going to hand prisoners guns, not even the mad system of the Village. In addition, Lorelai King’s Texas accent didn’t ring true.

Other than that, this episode did a good job of setting the stage with a surprising conclusion.

In the next episode, “The Girl Who Was Death,” Number 6 is back in London with foggy memories of how he got there. He encounters Kate Butterworth (Lucy Briggs-Owen) again who tells him it’s been six years since his last return to London.

This story is intriguing. It revisits the smashing Series 2 opener, “I Met a Man Today” and challenges what we thought we knew about that story and how the aftermath played out over Series 2. There’s some real question as to what’s going on and who number 6 can trust. The answers aren’t obvious.

The flashback to tie in “Free for All” was a bit dull, and I miss the surrealistic majesty of the TV version. However, this does work a treat in continuing on this box set as a more inter-linked story.

The “Seltzman Connection” is an original story that’s a bit of a nod to the TV story, “Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling,” Number Six teams up with another escapee to travel overseas and find out what happened to his girlfriend Janet before Number Six tendered his resignation. This is a story that has some intrigue and turns trippy towards the end to set the stage for the finale.

The series concludes with “No One Will Know” as Number Six now finds himself in Kate Butterworth’s body and questioned by Control. This a talky episode that deals with body-swapping and the ethical and practical merits of a world where no one would know who anyone was. It also ends up as a finale for the series so far and the result isn’t what I’d want, nor was it in line with the original, or something you can see being built up to from the beginning. Nevertheless, it’s one way to go and its handled pretty well.

Overall, I found the third series of The Prisoner to be a worthy updating of the original series. It evocative of the original series but goes deeper on some points than the classic television series did while developing its own themes. The acting and sound design is marvelous throughout, managing to evoke the 1960s while also having a very modern feel. Overall, a well-done final volume for what’s been a solid range at Big Finish.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5

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Audio Drama Review: Slick Bracer, P.I.

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Slick Bracer, P.I. was a 2011 Summer series for Decoder Ring Theatre. Unlike the ongoing Red Panda Adventures and Black Jack Justice, the series was written by Eric Decker.

It starts Peter Nichols as Private Eye Slick Bracer and features a soundtrack and feel that places it in the late 1970s or early 1980s as opposed to the more golden age setting of the two regular series. It featured Christopher Mott as the extremely stereotypical Detective McGillicuddy.

In many ways, the series does feel a lot like the Sid Guy, Private Eye series with its comedic send-up of detective tropes. It’s not quite as adept. While it does sound like the actors were having fun, this doesn’t work quite as well.

Each episode tends to rely on running gags, most of which weren’t that funny the first time. Every episode, Slick’s secretary tells a caller that’s “Slick’s not there” however her words slur together into “Slick snot.” And Slick gets furious about it. Every single episode.

I did enjoy the last episode, “Slick Bracer and the Perils of Public Radio.” It did seem to be written with a lot of knowledge of the subject, which led to some funny jokes and even a nice running gag about a coffee mug.

Overall, this was not good, but it did have its moments.
Rating: 2.25 out of 5

You can listen to Slick Bracer, Private Eye on the Decoder Ring Theatre website.

Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas, Volume 4

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The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas, Volume 4 brings together six more Twilight Zone radio episodes:

“Steel” stars Lou Gossett, Jr. as a fight manager and former fighter in a world that’s outlawed humans boxing and now leaves it to robots. Gossett’s character has an assistant who doubts the efficacy of everything Gossett’s character does which begs the question of why the question of why the guy is training an outdated robot boxer. Despite that, this one still works for its overall thrust about the triumph of the human spirit in a world that seems to try to move human beings towards obsolescence.

“Four o’Clock” stars Stan Freberg as a crank who persecutes everyone as guilty of some kind of evildoing and sets out a plan to shrink every evil person to two feet tall. This episode is mostly Freberg ranting as an over the top character. It seems like a commentary on the McCarthy era using the most cartoonish caricature possible.

“Uncle Simon” features a woman named Barbara (Beverly Garland) who has spent her life caring for her disabled, brilliant, and cruel uncle (Mark Richman) in hopes of inheriting his estate. He has a secret experiment he carries on but won’t tell her about. This is an all-time classic Twilight Zone story with a great twist. Garland was a true professional and turns in the best performance of the entire set.

“The Parallel” is about an astronaut (Lou Diamond Phillips) who returns to Earth from space but everything in his life seems to be slightly different. This one may be a story that doesn’t hold up well in modern times. Genre savvy fans will easily guess what’s going on and the title may give the game away for modern fans. The solution to the problem is well-executed but  simple with relatively little consequence. The story’s strength is supposed to be its concept but the concept’s been done so often and so much better that this is the most forgettable story in the collection.

“A Hundred Yards Over the Rim” begins with a wagon train traveling from Ohio to Arizona. A man (Jim Caviezel) goes to see if he can find help for his sick son and stumbles into the then-present day. While in some ways, this feels like the Time Travel version of “Parallel,” there’s a bit more to the story emotionally with our hero trying to save the son, plus there’s a powerful idea of pioneers seeing the West that was founded on their efforts and the society that emerged. It’s a solid tale.

“One for the Angels” is about a kindly salesman (Ed Begley, Jr.) who has just gotten by in life. He’s kind to the kids in the neighborhood but is otherwise unremarkable. That’s when Death arrives to tell him to give him time to prepare to die. However, the Salesman objects he never had a  successful big pitch and asks time to achieve this pitch “for the angels.” Death agrees, but the salesman resolves to one-up Death by never making the pitch. However, Death is hard to cheat. Over television, the part of the salesman was played by comedy Ed Wynn. While Begley’s not the same sort of actor, he does do a good job and this is an enjoyable take on the story.

Overall, this is a pretty good collection. While there were a couple of stories that didn’t work as well as I’d like, these six trips into the Twilight Zone make for nice listening.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5

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Audio Drama Review: The Red Panda Adventures, Season 6

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The Red Panda Adventures’ sixth season brings the Red Panda (Gregg Taylor) and the Flying Squirrel (Clarissa Der Nederlanden Taylor) into the World War II properly after several episodes in the previous five seasons laid the groundwork and included several pre-war clashes with the Axis powers and their agents.

As the series opens, the Red Panda is restless and eager to go to war. However, Kit has taken a job as a writer for the Chronicle, a paper August Fenwick owns. She thinks the Red Panda’s work on the homefront is vital and writes glowing pieces highlighting that importance hoping to keep him home. However at the end of the premiere, Fenwick enlists.

To his disappointment, the Red Panda doesn’t go to war. Instead he is assigned to the Home Team, a group of super humans under the command of Colonel Fitzroy who he met in the previous season and doesn’t trust.

There’s a really good dynamic as the Red Panda and Flying Squirrel have to adjust to a new reality. The Red Panda previously ran his own organization and kept all other mystery men out of Toronto. In this season, most of his operatives are gone, and he has to team up with other heroes and even a few villains in his effort to stop the Axis.

I liked how real history was blended with fiction, and as an American I picked up some things I’d never heard about because they occurred before the U.S. entered the war. The season finale is also one of the best so far ending the season on a massive cliffhanger.

The two heroes spend most of the season on the trail of Archangel, a Nazi agent performing sabotage and instructing his underlings to pretend to be him. It got tiresome after a while and the pay off was unimpressive.

Kit’s newspaper career was another issue because nothing in the previous five seasons hinted this was a talent or even an interest in journalism. In addition, the character of editor Pearly comes off as a poor man’s Perry White and can be a bit grating at times.

The episode, “Girls Night Out” featured Kit heading west and encountering and a new female superhero. It was a bit contrived.

Still, despite the flaws, it was an enjoyable season. It does build to a big finale and manages to offer a nice mix of superhero action, science fiction, and war time drama.

Rating: 4.00 out of 5

The Red Panda Adventures Season 6 is available on the Decoder Ring Theatre Website for free download.

Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

The Top Ten Big Finish Stories of 2019, Part Two

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Continued from Part One

5) Lies in Ruin by James Goss starring Paul McGann, Alex Kingston, Lisa Bowerman, and Alexandra Riley from the Legacy of Time

This is the first story in Big Finish’s big 20th Anniversary box set. It opens with two Doctor Who archaeologists River Song (Kingston) and Bernice Summerfield (Bowerman) meeting on the ruins of a destroyed world. The Doctor (McGann) arrives and they realize what the ruins are (or think they do.)

While this is a big story with huge sci-fi concepts, it also works well as a character piece. Most of the story is the Doctor, River, Bernice, and the Doctor’s new companion Ria (Riley) interacting and it plays out beautifully. It’d have been tempting in bring River Song and Bernice Summerfield together to turn the entire story into a tit for tat verbal battle. Lies in Ruin doe have such moments, but the story moves on. McGann’s performance is marvelous, bringing his most melancholy and sad take on the Eighth Doctor late in his life. It helps even elevate Ria and give her annoying character some pathos.

4) Space 1999: Breakaway by Nicholas Briggs, Starring Mark Bonnar and Maria Teresa Creasey

I did a full review on two hour pilot episode last year (see here). This was a great re-imagining of the Gerry Anderson classic about a Moon Base about to launch a major space mission, but also dealing with a mysterious illness. Great acting, superb sound design, and definitely an intriguing story that whet my appetite for more.

3) The Sacrifice of Jo Grant by Guy Adams, Starring Katy Manning, Tim Treloar, Jemma Redgrave, and Ingrid Oliver from The Legacy of Time 

While observing a time anomaly,  UNIT leader Kate Stewart (Redgrave) and former Unit Agent Jo Grant-Jones (Manning) are sucked back in time to the 1970s where they meet the incarnation of the Doctor Jo traveled with, played by Tim Treloar.

This story works on a number of levels. There’s humorous moments, but it’s a great character piece, particularly in the focus on the relationship between the Doctor and Jo. It’s sweet to see how they interact and how the much older version of Jo relates to the Doctor she knew as a young woman. It’s a well-paced, fun, and emotionally satisfying listen.

2. Doctor Who and the Star Beast written by Alan Barnes from a comic strip by Pat Mills and John Wegner, starring Tom Baker and Rhianne Starbuck from Doctor Who, the Comic Strip Adaptations, Volume 1

This  was adapted from a Doctor Who Magazine Comic strip from 1980. In this story, a teenage foster child (Starbuck) decides to protect a cute alien from authorities. whose spaceship crashed. The Doctor (Tom Baker) gets caught in the middle as another group of aliens are hunting the cute alien and have mis-identified the Doctor as an accomplice.  However, another wrinkle is thrown in as we learn that the cute alien named Beep the Meep (Bethan Dixon Bate) is nowhere near as innocent as he appears.

In some ways, this comes off as a bit of a twisted send-up of E.T. (even though E.T. wasn’t produced until years after the comic strip.) It’s Doctor Who at its most wacky and insane, but it’s cleverly written and does work in a few emotional beats. The cast is great and it sounds like Baker is having fun with the material, which makes for a delightful listen.

1) No Place, Written by James Goss, Starring David Tennant, Catherine Tate, Bernard Cribbins, and Jacqueline King

This story finds the Doctor (Tennant) pretending to be married to his companion Donna (Tate). They’re traveling with her grandfather Wilf (Cribbins) and her mother Sylvia (King) as they’re remodeling a haunted house for a reality TV show.

This story has a lot going for it. There are multiple mysteries including what’s going on in the house and why the Doctor and why the Doctor and friends are even doing this. There are scary moments and fun moments. The characters play well off each other as everyone picks right up from where they left off on television a decade ago without a missing a beat. 

It’s enjoyable from start to finish and my favorite Big Finish story of 2019.

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Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article, Podcast

The Top Ten Big Finish Stories of 2019, Part One

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I’m a huge fan of Big Finish Audio Dramas. Mostly the ones I listen to feature stories with the past stars of Doctor Who reprising their original roles in new science fiction adventures as well as several Doctor Who spin-offs featuring other characters.

Big Finish releases a ton of new stories packaged together in box sets. I haven’t heard them all, so I can’t consider this a definitive list by any means of the best of the Big Finish. It is only the best of what I’ve heard of their 2019 releases.

10. The Perfect Prisoners by John Dorney starring Tom Baker and Jane Slavin from the Fourth Doctor Adventures, Series 8, Volume 2

This two episode story wraps up an eight episode two box set story where the Fourth Doctor (Baker) is joined by 1970s Police Woman Ann Kelso (Slavin) as they investigate a crime syndicate with schemes that stretch across time and space. This is a very complicated plot involving a sinister mind control scheme as well as multiple layers to the mystery of who is running the syndicate. We also get some big revelations about Ann that have an emotionally powerful impact on the Doctor.

9) Day of the Master written by John Dorney, starring Paul McGann, Nicola Walker, Hattie Moran, Michelle Gomez, Derek Jacoby, Eric Roberts, Geoffrey Beevers, and Mark Bonnar from Ravenous 4:

This is the big finale to the four box set Ravenous series and it is an epic story with multiple things going on. The Doctor (McGann) and Companions (Walker and Moran) have to stop the Ravenous from destroying the universe after the Master (Beavers) was apparently killed by them in the previous story. Like the Doctor, the Master is a Time Lord with multiple regenerations and three of these (Gomez, Jacobi, and Roberts) begin to get in the way of the Doctor and companions but eventually come together and team up. The series does a lot. Its an exciting two hour adventure with so many twists. It provides some real fun to hear these many iterations of the Master play off each other. At the same time, the story doesn’t forget that the Doctor is the hero and still gives him plenty to do. The deeper you are into Big Finish, the more you get out of this story as it not only provides the payoff for four box sets of the Ravenous story, but also pays off and answers questions that go back years before.  However, it doesn’t require a deep knowledge of the continuity to enjoy it.

8. The Vardan Invasion of Mirth written by Paul Morris and Ian Atkins, starring Peter Purves and Steven Critchlow from the Companion Chronicles: The First Doctor, Volume 3

Steven Taylor (Purves) finds himself separated from the First Doctor and seemingly stranded on Earth in the 1950s and working in a TV repair shop. However, he receives a mysterious message via television from the Doctor that leads him on a path to playing straight man to old time comic Teddy Baxter (Critchlow). The idea of Taylor (one of the Doctor’s more serious and no-nonsense companions) appearing in a comedy act is funny itself. However, the story is a charming and heart-warming tribute to the comedy of that era which Purves requested and the sincerity really shines through. Critchlow is great as Baxter as there’s some laughs to add but also a lot of sadness. The story has a nice mystery with a few good twists and this is a really fun hour of entertainment.

7. Companion Piece written by John Dorney, starring Nicola Walker, Hattie Moran, India Fisher, Alex Kingston, Rahkee Thakrar, John Heffernan, and Paul McGann from Ravenous 3:

This is an unusual story set during the Ravenous saga as the Doctor’s main companions for this series (Walker and Moran) are kidnapped from the events of Ravenous series by the Nine (Heffernan), a kleptomaniac Time Lord who decides to go about collecting all of the Doctor’s companions. There are cameos by a lot of different companions but the focus is on the companions of the Eighth Doctor (McGann): past (Pollard), present, and future (Thakrar) as well as River Song (Kingston.) They’ve got to come together to thwart the Nine and get back to their own place in time. It’s ultimately a distraction from the on-going story arc, but what a fun distraction.

6. The Bekdel Test written by Jonathan Morris, starring Alex Kingston and Michelle Gomez from the Diary of the River Song, Volume 5

This is set during the time that River Song (Kingston) was imprisoned for murdering the Doctor. She’s transferred to the Bekdel Institute, a prison filled with dangerous inmates, and most dangerous of all is Missy (Michelle Gomez), one of the Doctor’s oldest enemies. This story delivers on so many levels. Kingston and Gomez play off each other with some hilariously witty banter and a few really good character moments. The idea of the Bekdel institute is incredibly well-executed as a concept. Its name is a clever play on words for the so-called Bechdel test for female characters in fiction which also plays into the main plot of the story. This one has some really clever twists and nice surprises. It’s a superbly written piece that really lets these characters play off each other and the result is a delight.

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Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: The Holly Tree Inn

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While Charles Dickens is beloved for his novel A Christmas Carol, that’s far from his only Christmas work. He wrote several Christmas stories. This is the fifth one that Colonial Radio Theater has adapted.

“The Holly Tree Inn” is a short story about a man caught in a snowstorm on Christmas Eve and taking refuge at the Holly Tree Inn where he wiles away time talking with the people at the Inn. As soon as the storm lifts, he’s continuing on his efforts to leave the country as he believes his sweetheart has jilted him for his best friend..

The Holly Tree Inn is a dialogue-heavy story. There’s little movement which can be a challenge with an audio drama. However, this is helped by the fact that the dialogue is by Charles Dickens which means there are some fun turns of phrases, stories told within the story, etc. In addition, Colonial does a superb job adapting it with its typical professionalism and a nice score.

The Holly Tree Inn is a sweet little story. It’s not much more than people sitting around during a snowstorm talking but it has a moral that is well-taken, if not earth-shattering. If you’d enjoy a relaxing story while wrapping presents or de-stressing from the Holidays, this is a bit of comfort listening.

Rating:3.25 out of 5

Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: Black Jack Justice Season Six Review

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After five seasons and thirty-six episodes, Black Jack Justice had established  the main characters of Jack Justice (Christopher Mott) and Trixie Dixon, Girl Detective (Andrea Lyons). Season six features a fair share of experimental episodes.

“Cops and Robbers” is a story told mostly by the supporting cast, “The Sky’s the Limit” is a story of a Poker game where the players try to suss out what happened on a case where no one has all the facts. “Man’s Best Friend is told from the perspective of the office dog, King.

Of the three, I think “Sky’s the Limit” was probably the best. It’s definitely fun to hear the story pieced together and to be learning details as the characters are. The ending is a bit ambiguous but it’s still a lot of fun. The other two stories have their moments but don’t work as well. The side characters are not as interesting as Jack and Trixie so that limited my enjoyment of “Cops and Robbers.” As for, “Man’s Best Friend,” the dog narration part landed flat. The approach seemed to be, “I’m a dog who thinks he’s a detective.” I think it would have been funnier had he been thinking more like an actual dog.

I personally preferred the other three episodes which were more traditional Justice and Dixon mysteries. “The Albatross” was my favorite as Lieutenant Sabian (Gregg Taylor) hires them to look into the murder of a black girl in a tenement which his superiors want him to lay off of. The episode examines the idea that certain unresolved cases haunt detectives, whether official or otherwise.  It’s a well-done episode.

Overall, while I’m not crazy about all the experimental episodes in this season, I still enjoyed it pretty well.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

You can download Black Justice Season Six from Decoder Ring Theatre.

Audio Drama Review, Podcast

Audio Drama Review: Something Wicked This Way Comes

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In Colonial Radio Theater’s 2007 adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s novel Something Wicked This Way Comes, a carnival arrives in a small Midwestern town in late October. Two thirteen year old boys, Jim and Will, discover something sinister is behind the carnival and its leader Mr. Dark.

The story itself is pure Bradbury at his best. Superficially, it’s about a couple of kids in a small town and a scary carnival. But there’s a lot of depths and themes here such as age and youth, innocence, and evil. Yet Something Wicked This Way Comes never seems like it’s trying to be profound and it never forgets to be an entertaining and scary story.

The dialogue is not typically the way most people talk either now or then. It has a stylized, almost lyrical quality.

The production qualities are solid. I’ve listened to hundreds of hours of Audio Drama from many companies. So far, Colonial has the best sound design this side of the Atlantic. Even though it was recorded twelve years ago, the sound design and music hold up and build that creepy small-town atmosphere. Colonial’s talented team of actors delivers good performances all around and manage to handle Bradbury’s unique style of dialogue.

Overall, this is a fun and well-done take on a Bradbury classic that’s definitely worth a listen.

Rating:4.5 out of 5

Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: The Mark of Zorro

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On the big screen, Val Kilmer played iconic heroes such as Batman and the Saint. In 2011, he added the role of Zorro in LA Theatre works presentation of The Mark of Zorro, based on Johnston McCulley’s novel The Curse of Capistrano.

The play opens with Don Diego de la Vega (Kilmer) trying to woo the beautiful Lolita Pulido (Ruth Livier) to be his wife as his father is pressuring him to wed now that he’s in his mid-twenties. Lolita isn’t interested because of his foppish, bookish nature, however she falls in love with the masked adventurer and vigilante Zorro (also Kilmer). The villainous Captain Ramon becomes a rival for Lolita while also trying to capture Zorro.

The play has some great professional sound design and music. The cast is generally good, though a couple are very broad and big for audio. Unlike another Hollywood Theatre of the Ear Production I reviewed (The Maltese Falcon), this doesn’t have each character narrating their own actions. Instead, the events are narrated by the landlord at the local tavern (Armin Shimerman) giving the effect of the story being told to you by your friendly barkeep Shimerman. This is a fun choice and the casting may be a bit of a nod to his role on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Ferengi bar owner and landlord Quark. I also think the story story did a good job establishing the culture and values of the time.

This story strives for book accuracy probably more than any other Zorro work. That does mean there are some surprises. In most adaptations, Zorro is an action hero who romances his lady. In this adaptation, Zorro is first and foremost, a romantic figure sweeping Lolita off her feet and protecting her from Captain Ramon. The story is a bit more romantic comedy than an action tale, and the dialogue and plot isn’t exactly out of Jane Austen.

Don Diego is never revealed to be Zorro, even to the audience. Zorro’s secret identity is nearly as well-known to the public as Batman’s and Superman’s, so this is odd. It’d be like a Batman movie that never showed Batman was Bruce Wayne despite the audience knowing it. Again, I think this is an example of being loyal to the book, but it didn’t work for me.

Overall, though, this was a good time. If you’d like a Zorro tale with some adventure, political intrigue, and some cheesy romance, this is a well-acted and enjoyable way to spend a few hours.

Rating:3.75 out of 5.0

Audio Drama Review, Podcast

Audio Drama Review: The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas, Volume 3

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This is the third six episode set of the Twilight Zone Radio Dramas presented by Falcon Picture Group. This volume, like most others in the series, adapts stories from the TV Show.

“The Obsolete Man” stars Jason Alexander (Seinfeld) as a librarian in a totalitarian state who is sentenced to die because he’s been declared obsolete. I have to admit, I was nervous about this one because the TV version featured an iconic performance by the great Burgess Meredith, but Alexander does a good job carrying the performance off and the timeless message of the story still makes it work today.

“Back There”starts Jim Caviezel (Passion of the Christ) as a young man who visits a Washington DC based club and has a conversation with four wealthy men over whether a time-traveler could change history. As often happens with those sort of debates, he finds himself transported back to 1865 on the day Abraham Lincoln is assassinated and gets a chance to test his theory. This was a nice story with a good twist at the end, though a lot of the time travel stuff is never explained.

“A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain” stars Adam West (Batman) as an older wealthy man married to a gold-digging wife who he wants to please. His brother is working on a de-aging formula that works on animals and he pressures his brother into trying it on him. The TV version is not a favorite of most fans, but this was entertaining and it’s all down to Adam West’s performance. You feel sorry for this guy, who, by modern standards, we’d consider a victim of emotional abuse.

“Nervous Man in a Four-Dollar Room” stars Adam Baldwin (Firefly) as a two-bit crook who has been ordered to commit murder. He rents a cheap room and waits to do the job and encounters one person who tries to change his mind: The man in the mirror. This one works over radio and Baldwin does a good job playing both versions of his character.

“The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” finds a suburban neighborhood cut off from civilization when power fails and no one can leave. Paranoia spreads as the residents suspect one of them is in league with whatever caused this. This was a great tale of what fear and paranoia can do to a community and, by extension, to the world. It’s a chilling cautionary tale and the radio version is almost as good as the TV take.

“Escape Clause” is a Faustian bargain story where a middle-aged hypochondriac (Mike Starr) sells his soul to the devil in exchange for being able to live as long as he wants. The story is a bit of dark comedy as the protagonist finds out immortality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, however I think the story has a more subtle message.

Overall, I probably enjoyed this Twilight Zone collection. The stories all work fairly well and there are a couple all-time classics that are well-handled. On top of that, we get to hear radio acting by some actors who never got to work much in the medium due to when their careers began.

Rating: 4.25 out of 5 

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Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: Space 1999: Breakaway

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Space 1999: Breakaway is Big Finish’s feature-length audio drama re-imaging of the first episode of the 1970s Gerry Anderson TV series Space 1999.

Commander John Koenig (Mark Bonnar) returns to his post in command of Moonbase Alpha in order to facilitate the launch of a probe towards the planet Meta. However, he arrives to find a mysterious illness said to be fake takes out the pilot of his ship and has ravaged the primary crew of the Meta Probe. Doctor Helena Russell (Maria Teresa Creasey)  is trying to find some way to stop the illness while Commissioner Simmons (Timothy Bentinck) of the World Space Commission is thwarting her for fear the word of the illness will spread and stop the launch of the Meta probe.

In the interest of full disclosure, I did not grow up watching Space 1999 and have no nostalgia investment in the series. I did watch the TV episode  “Breakaway” which has been made available on YouTube by DVD manufacturers Shout Factory prior to listening to the audio version. My initial impression of the TV episode is its fine. There are some interesting concepts, but it’s a bit dry for my taste.

However, the Audio Drama was superb. Writer Nicholas Briggs takes a fifty minute TV episode and turns it into an audio drama twice that length. While this is usually a recipe for a padded mess, I’m happy to report that’s not the case. The audio version has all the key plot points of the TV script with a lot of enhancements. The character feels more real and fleshed out. The pseudo-science of the series is a bit more realistic and grounded, with several aspects of the plot being far better explored over audio. The script is well-paced, it never drags. It held my interest from start to finish.

The acting is really good. I’d only heard Bonnar playing a Doctor Who enemy in Big Finish’s Doom Coalition and Ravenous box sets, so this is a very different performance. His performance is grounded, believable, and really engaging. Commander Koenig’s a man trying to make sure the Meta Probe, a project he’s put years of his life into, gets off the ground while also trying to protect the life of his crew. The story begins to reveal those goals may not be compatible. Creasey turned in a solid performance playing a character that could have easily been unlikable due to how harsh she is, but what came through is that Dr. Russell (Creasey’s role) is acting out of concern for human life and her anger is entirely appropriate.

The soundscape has nods to the original series,  but it feels modern and cinematic. The audio version also features some superb including a great new take on the original theme.

My only criticism is there’s a scene where a news interview cuts to a documentary to facilitate exposition.  That’s it, everything else is great. The listener should be warned that this is, in effect, the feature-length pilot episode that will set the stage for a new Space 1999 series and therefore raises a lot of questions that will be answered in the regular series.

Overall, this superb audio drama sets a high standard for the rest of the range.

Rating:4.5 out of 5

Space 1999: Breakaway is currently available exclusively at Big Finish’s website.