Doctor Who - Red (or: did Autechre create aliens?)

[purlieu]

So I've been lying in bed with a completely fucked body thanks to covid for the past 18 months and I've spent the time listening through to the many, many hundreds of Doctor Who audio adventures created by Big Finish Productions. Lots of them are good. A lot more are mediocre. Some are terrible. But the real thing I've gathered is how interesting many of them are, especially the nerdy creative decisions that went into them.

Anyway, there's a fairly dark and violent Seventh Doctor story called Red, written by Stewart Sheargold and starring, among others, Sandi Toksvig. Why am I writing this here? Well, I will just post the cast list below as way of an explanation.

The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
Melanie Bush - Bonnie Langford
Nuane - Denise Hoey
Leterel - Ann Jenkins
Chief Blue - Sean Oliver
Draun - Peter Rae
Celia Fortunaté - Kellie Ryan
Whitenoise - John Stahl
Vi Yulquen - Sandi Toksvig
Uviol - Steven Wickham

Apparently the liner notes include this sentence: "I should probably also thank Autechre, whose ‘music for architecture’ stylings were the first inspiration for this script."

I admire the bravery of the script, but I can't say it's a story I particularly enjoyed. But the continual reference to Ae titles in every other sentence kept me bizarrely entertained throughout the full two hours. I suppose their track titles do make fairly good alien names, and I'm sure any non-fans who listened would never have considered them anything other than your usual Doctor Who names. But it certainly amused me.

Edited July 23, 2023 by purlieu

[mcbpete]

That's, woah - Just looked it up and it was released back in 2006 so really surprised no-one seems to have mentioned it in the past 17 years !

[jaderpansen]

yeah, nice catch!

[Joyrex]

Someone do a Doctor Who/AE venn diagram!

[auxien]

23 hours ago, purlieu said:

Draun - Peter Rae

damn, the actor even changed is last name for the AE tribute. p devoted.

 

i have a terrible memory but this kinda rings a bell, maybe someone else did notice and mention this some years ago?

[purlieu]

14 hours ago, auxien said:

damn, the actor even changed is last name for the AE tribute. p devoted.

He was a last minute replacement for Gareth Pendulu Hv Moda.

[NewSchoolScience]

On 7/24/2023 at 12:17 AM, purlieu said:

So I've been lying in bed with a completely fucked body thanks to covid for the past 18 months

Wait... what?  Are you OK now?  I hope you're OK now.

[mTesc]

I also hope that you're ok now. I'm sorry that you've had / are having that experience.

On a kind of similar note (classic sci-fi / fantasy dynasty, etc.), I've wondered many times over the years if Autechre rated (as they would say) Twilight Zone. I notice a lot of little flourishes, over the last decade in particular that I find share a specific flavor.

[purlieu]

Thanks guys. No real improvement sadly, basically just the common long covid symptoms - crippling fatigue, pain in every major joint and muscle, digestion issues, headaches, etc. Lots of fun!