Audio - Kaldor City: Taren Capel
Dec. 10th, 2007 10:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fangrrl_squeesRight then, I've finally finished listening to Kaldor City - Taren Capel, written and directed by Alan Stevens.
As before, there's an unexpectedly light note in the first couple of tracks. Carnell is in his element, lecturing an android about chess. Uvanov, meanwhile, isn't entirely sure how to react to the 'gift' of a (confiscated) ancient painting of a rather intimidating worm-like creature. Things move rapidly, as they do in these stories, into the main thrust of the plot - is Taren Capel dead and what is his legacy?
For an excellent summary of the plot, I suggest you read this. There's no point in my repeating myself, here.
Y'know, after watching far too much Blakes 7 in too short a time, Darrow's extra-growly performance as Iago was a bit much. Does he smoke, perhaps? I know, I know, it's a minor quibble.
I would complain about Uvanov's childishness, but it's not really that implausible. Irritating, yes, but not implausible. Honestly, the character's never struck me as all that engaging, which is a shame, given his importance to the story arc. Whininess fails to endear a character to me, I suppose, and Uvanov spent most of this one simply bitching at anyone within earshot and not moving the plot along very much aside from trying to pin everything on Landerchild.
I'm a little confused as to why Justina was still working for Uvanov. I thought she got canned after the foolishness of Death's Head? *shrugs* Maybe Uvanov considered her a useful conduit for keeping tabs on Iago - especially as Uvanov made it clear that he was none too pleased about Iago playing footsie with his secretary.
I think a little too much of the story was given away too early - Iago and Blayse's first scene together, for example, where they both cheerfully share their respective plans/goals. I would have enjoyed it more if the mystery re: assorted motives and the qui bonos had lasted a little longer.
I can't decide if the chessboard device (Carnell determining the situation based on how v31 played the game/placed the pieces) was interesting or twee beyond words. I'm willing to grant it the benefit of the doubt, but I'll be the first to admit that I'm far too forgiving. Granted, it was an effective way of foreshadowing Capel's programming of the city's robots.
The dialogue seemed a lot more upfront - in vocabulary and tone - than previous stories. Believe it or not, I considered this an improvement. Dancing away from indelicate language takes the edge off what is supposed to be a hard-edged story. Maybe I should re-listen to the previous stories before making a final judgement on that. It has been almost a year since I seriously wallowed in these plays.
Despite my kvetching about the placement of plot elements, I couldn't criticize the pacing - pretty much slam-bang from start to finish.Strong production values, too - which had sometimes been a bit patchy in the past. Excellent.
The story ended on a high note - essentially a cliffhanger for Checkmate. Certainly the most exciting conclusion so far.
Admittedly, I suppose all I want by this point is for Iago and Carnell to destroy each other in some spectacularly messy way. They're entertaining characters but, gosh, they need to kill each other. But, I've read summaries for the entire series, so I know I'm not going to get it, but a gal can daydream.
My overall opinion of Taren Capel is that it's the best of the series, so far, which surprises me, as I was starting to lose hope. Hooray for pleasant surprises!
As before, there's an unexpectedly light note in the first couple of tracks. Carnell is in his element, lecturing an android about chess. Uvanov, meanwhile, isn't entirely sure how to react to the 'gift' of a (confiscated) ancient painting of a rather intimidating worm-like creature. Things move rapidly, as they do in these stories, into the main thrust of the plot - is Taren Capel dead and what is his legacy?
For an excellent summary of the plot, I suggest you read this. There's no point in my repeating myself, here.
Y'know, after watching far too much Blakes 7 in too short a time, Darrow's extra-growly performance as Iago was a bit much. Does he smoke, perhaps? I know, I know, it's a minor quibble.
I would complain about Uvanov's childishness, but it's not really that implausible. Irritating, yes, but not implausible. Honestly, the character's never struck me as all that engaging, which is a shame, given his importance to the story arc. Whininess fails to endear a character to me, I suppose, and Uvanov spent most of this one simply bitching at anyone within earshot and not moving the plot along very much aside from trying to pin everything on Landerchild.
I'm a little confused as to why Justina was still working for Uvanov. I thought she got canned after the foolishness of Death's Head? *shrugs* Maybe Uvanov considered her a useful conduit for keeping tabs on Iago - especially as Uvanov made it clear that he was none too pleased about Iago playing footsie with his secretary.
I think a little too much of the story was given away too early - Iago and Blayse's first scene together, for example, where they both cheerfully share their respective plans/goals. I would have enjoyed it more if the mystery re: assorted motives and the qui bonos had lasted a little longer.
I can't decide if the chessboard device (Carnell determining the situation based on how v31 played the game/placed the pieces) was interesting or twee beyond words. I'm willing to grant it the benefit of the doubt, but I'll be the first to admit that I'm far too forgiving. Granted, it was an effective way of foreshadowing Capel's programming of the city's robots.
The dialogue seemed a lot more upfront - in vocabulary and tone - than previous stories. Believe it or not, I considered this an improvement. Dancing away from indelicate language takes the edge off what is supposed to be a hard-edged story. Maybe I should re-listen to the previous stories before making a final judgement on that. It has been almost a year since I seriously wallowed in these plays.
Despite my kvetching about the placement of plot elements, I couldn't criticize the pacing - pretty much slam-bang from start to finish.Strong production values, too - which had sometimes been a bit patchy in the past. Excellent.
The story ended on a high note - essentially a cliffhanger for Checkmate. Certainly the most exciting conclusion so far.
Admittedly, I suppose all I want by this point is for Iago and Carnell to destroy each other in some spectacularly messy way. They're entertaining characters but, gosh, they need to kill each other. But, I've read summaries for the entire series, so I know I'm not going to get it, but a gal can daydream.
My overall opinion of Taren Capel is that it's the best of the series, so far, which surprises me, as I was starting to lose hope. Hooray for pleasant surprises!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-12-12 02:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-13 05:44 pm (UTC)I'll post a more in-dept review, shortly. I'm trying to find my copy of "Death's Head" as I rather fancying listening to the whole run in rapid succession and see how that goes over.
I ordered "Storm Mine" over the weekend, but I don't expect it before next week, given all the Xmas packages that are cluttering up the mail. :-P