The Avengers on Radio vs. TV

[Lhbizness]

Ok, so I have a question for anyone who has been listening to the Big Finish adaptations of Season 1. Does adapting what was originally intended to be a television script to a radio format materially change the script or the characterization?

It's an odd situation, because those scripts are technically canonical but we never get to see them on TV (except for the few surviving episodes) and so we never see the original actors or all the changes that could have been made during shooting. So how much do we experience what the Hendry series was like, or how it transformed?

(Apologies if something like that has been asked before - I'm new here.)

[mousemeat]

Ok, so I have a question for anyone who has been listening to the Big Finish adaptations of Season 1. Does adapting what was originally intended to be a television script to a radio format materially change the script or the characterization?

It's an odd situation, because those scripts are technically canonical but we never get to see them on TV (except for the few surviving episodes) and so we never see the original actors or all the changes that could have been made during shooting. So how much do we experience what the Hendry series was like, or how it transformed?

(Apologies if something like that has been asked before - I'm new here.)

hard to say, but I would say no....radio simply tells an story on a different wavelength based on the spoken word, sound effects and music cues...where TV is very visual

[Lhbizness]

Ok, so I have a question for anyone who has been listening to the Big Finish adaptations of Season 1. Does adapting what was originally intended to be a television script to a radio format materially change the script or the characterization?

It's an odd situation, because those scripts are technically canonical but we never get to see them on TV (except for the few surviving episodes) and so we never see the original actors or all the changes that could have been made during shooting. So how much do we experience what the Hendry series was like, or how it transformed?

(Apologies if something like that has been asked before - I'm new here.)

hard to say, but I would say no....radio simply tells an story on a different wavelength based on the spoken word, sound effects and music cues...where TV is very visual

I guess I was leaning more towards whether or not the change in medium, cast, and time period means that the episodes cease to be canonical in some way, even though they're based on original scripts?

[Frankymole]

There is no change in time period. They're set in 1961.

Barely a word has been changed - there is a little dialogue added to set scenes, like the passerby being asked about Dr Tredding's surgery in episode 1, as the otherwise wordless scene of the intruder finding and entering the building would be hard to portray.

The scripts are the same otherwise, and the music authentic to the period and feel of the originals and the production (sound effects etc) sympathetic.

I don't know what "canon" really means, beyond religious works, but they're the proper stories if that is what you mean.

I didn't see the Hendry episodes in 1961 and don't know anyone who has, so it's hard to judge whether it is "transformed", but the episodes seem true to the "feel" surviving ones (and "Hot Snow's" first reel).

Why not try them yourself and judge?

Have you tried the South African radio series with Donald Monat and Diane Appleby as Steed and Emma? The BF ones are more faithful than that.

[Lhbizness]

There is no change in time period. They're set in 1961.

Barely a word has been changed - there is a little dialogue added to set scenes, like the passerby being asked about Dr Tredding's surgery in episode 1, as the otherwise wordless scene of the intruder finding and entering the building would be hard to portray.

The scripts are the same otherwise, and the music authentic to the period and feel of the originals and the production (sound effects etc) sympathetic.

I don't know what "canon" really means, beyond religious works, but they're the proper stories if that is what you mean.

I didn't see the Hendry episodes in 1961 and don't know anyone who has, so it's hard to judge whether it is "transformed", but the episodes seem true to the "feel" surviving ones (and "Hot Snow's" first reel).

Why not try them yourself and judge?

Have you tried the South African radio series with Donald Monat and Diane Appleby as Steed and Emma? The BF ones are more faithful than that.

By change in time period I mean that they're being made now, in 2014, while the originals were made in "contemporary" 1961. So it's looking back and representing the era, rather than being made in the era.

Canon means that they're part of the show (vs. non-canonical, which would be spin-offs, reboots, alternate universes, fan stories, etc.) - and it seems that the Big Finish productions are both canonical (i.e. they are the original stories) and non-canonical (not the original actors, production circumstances, or medium).

I was just asking for opinions, because it's an odd circumstance for a show to have remaining scripts that are now being produced, but not with original actors and not in the original medium. Obviously the characterizations have to be somewhat different, if only because they're different actors.

[Alan]

I think they're as authentic as it is possible to make them. We don't have the soundtracks from 1961 (unlike we do for 1960s Doctor Who, for instance), but as Franky says, the adaptator John Dorney has treated the scripts as gospel and has only made changes where it was impossible to convey something visual in audio alone - but even that has been done sympathetically.

I say this as someone who has studied Series 1 in great detail (I've even written a book on those episodes).

Of course what we don't know is just how much the episodes as transmitted varied from the scripts (we know that much of Hot Snow was changed between script and screen following an eleventh hour meeting between actors and the director, but of course all we now have is the script).