|
STORY LINKS
Review Story #01
|
An Introduction
Someone once said of reviews that the longer a review is, the more you learn about the reviewer, and the less you learn about the text. They were probably right; but it can’t have been the most earth-shatteringly correct statement ever made, because I can’t remember who said it. So I’ll take it with a pinch of salt, and subject all those willing to my painfully overlong, probably badly written, yet strangely honest and hopefully whimsical reviews. The first, I’m sure, falls into at least two of those categories; as for the other two options, I couldn’t say. And who knows what the future brings? It certainly doesn’t need saying to anyone who’s got this far, but Doctor Who was the greatest tellybox programme in the history of the universe. It didn't always have the most money to spend on glossy Americanised effects or whizzo-bang production stuff, but the people who worked on it were fucking marvellous for achieving what they did with what they had. Doctor Who’s strength always lay in plots over looks; substance over style. Its producers recognised that they couldn’t compete as a shiny-buttoned space-y thing, so they made it a story-y and charactery-y thing. Andie Frankham’s 3a adventures have successfully sustained that... erm… “Legacy”, continuing, innovating, and breaking new ground like little other fan-fiction would dare to do. It should be applauded for that. And if you’ve ever sat and wondered who are going to be the “official” innovators of the future, the new Paul Cornells and Kate Ormans and Lawrence Mileses, then you’ve come to the right place: we’ve got them here. All of them. Remember them. I wrote this introductory piece to assuage myself of the necessary self-indulgence implied by my first quote above: hopefully after this, you’ll know all about me, and can get to read the reviews proper. My failed Maths A-Level (bloody Mechanics!) suggests that if all the stories are the same format, and all my reviews this long, I’ll have probably written more for this Season than anyone except Andie and Niall. That sounds quite scary, but I still aim to make the reviews as enjoyable as possible: frinstance, I’m sure they’re better than the actual novellas, OK? Actually, now I think of it, don’t even bother reading the novellas - these are much more fun. Anyway, I don’t know if I’ve succeeded in my ambitions; either way, I certainly hope that any subsequent additions to this section will. stay happy, andrew editor's note; each review will be online on the same day as the chapter under review. “fate doesn’t hang on a wrong or right choice fortune depends on the tone of your voice”
|