A little further along the fourth dimension, we return to Doctor Who as presented in TWO dimensions.
Cow bugs, loud noises and a thorough misinterpretation of the concept of race memory.
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Right, it’s finally here. Doc and Lucie are pulled into a full-scale war between a race of Wirrn cows (sort of) and what appears to be a grand total of three human soldiers. Add a splash of inconsistent plot logic and 50 minutes of non-stop loud noises, and you have Wirrn Dawn.
We’ve been talking about how much we dislike this audiobook for ages. Then, about a month ago, we sat down and reviewed it, and now – finally – we’re dropping it on your ear balls. I trust the levels of criticism and vitriol are to your liking.
Just for the record, we have reviewed a number of Doctor Who audiobooks, and we loved the heck out of most of them. This one, alas, is not one of our favourites…
On a trivia note, Wirrn have appeared on Doctor Who before. The 1975 serial, ‘The Ark in Space’, starring Tom Baker as The Fourth Doctor, introduced the Wirrn to television audiences. Check out the screenshots here below.
A very fun one this! I actually listened to this without first seeing The Ark in Space, and so had no knowledge that the Wirrn were a pre-existing race in Doctor Who.
The main thing I remember from this story is the fantastic audio palette, with Wirrn transformations sounding absolutely horrific, similarly to Hothouse (Sorry for the painful memories JD!). Also Lucie’s line about being mates with a centipede is pretty damned funny if I say so myself!
I’d give Wirrn Dawn a 3.7.
Hello,
The name’s Chris and I’ve been trying to get into the Audios for a while, but could never figure out a chronology. So, I’ve decided to tag along with yours.
My review of Wirrn Dawn basically comes down to 2 major points:
The first is the realism that has let me visualize most of the other audios was missing. Even Phobos had that. Unless I missed something, the only description of the Wirrn was “Bugs.” That doesn’t give me too much information on scale. I suppose that I should assume that they are human sized, because the hatch from people. It was the only visual that stuck with me.
The second is that Lucy is awesome, as usual. I love her interactions with pretty much everyone. The Doctor-Lucie dialog was the only thing that kept me hooked.
If I’m rating this relative to all the audios I’d give it a 1.5, but taking the serials of the classic and new Doctor Who into account I’d have to move it down to a 1.0, because there are so many better episodes to spend your time on.
Thanks for doing this wonderful podcast!
~C.M.