What's it about: The Doctor and Molly find themselves at the very edge of creation. But something dangerous seems to be heading back into the known universe from the very end of time. The crew of the cryo-ship Orpheus, including its medical officer Liv Chenka, have their mission parameters to adhere to; but the arrival of the Doctor and Molly changes everything. An ancient and terrible force is on a collision course with them all and the outcome seems to be a matter of divine destiny.
Battle Scarred: When something happens in his presence that
sees the loss of many lives, the Doctor tells himself that everything happens
for a reason. Well this certainly did...because he asked the Daleks to do it!
How he can justify that with a wave of the hand baffles me but then perhaps
this is the beginning of the war torn Doctor we saw in Night of the Doctor,
taking his first steps to treading on the little people in order to keep the bigger
picture in check. There was a time recently when he tried to reach the end of
the known universe but there are so many different endings s which one do you
choose from?
Dark Eyes: The Doctor's response to Molly's nickname for the
TARDIS is that she is hardly ever tardy. She wants to go somewhere fantastic
with the Doctor but then she wants him to take her home. She has a life of her
own in he world and this is just a holiday for her. That seems to be all the
rage these days, what with Amy, Rory and Clara all popping back home to pick
their lives up whenever they reach the end of an adventure. It's starting to
become a little old hat. I rather like the Doctor's companions to head off with
him into time and space and never look back. What could possibly compare to
that? However in Molly's case I can understand more than most. She's come from
a war torn world whose conflict has just come to an end...who wouldn't want to
be a part of the celebrations and the healing? I'm on the fence then. She's
getting to know what questions to ask - where they are in time or space? She is
a woman of irrefutable logic - it can't be impossible if it just happened.
Molly doesn't know much about future technology but she is savvy enough to
recognise that explosions close the engines is a bad idea. Molly tries her best
to make analogies to things she understands and so the Eminence breathe of life
becomes a cloud of mustard gas through her eyes. Molly has such trust in the
Doctor that she questions Liv's versions of future events. She stresses that
maybe there is something that she doesn't know, a fact that explains why
whatever happened happened.
Standout Performance: It's Paul McGann's turn to take centre
stage. He even sounds more like the War Doctor from Night of the Doctor than
the old cuddly romantic from the early Big Finish days. Whether this is a move
for the better is up to you to decide...I rather like it. Although I would like
him to have some lighter days too. When he's angry, he sounds like he is
capable of anything.
Sparkling Dialogue: 'At any given moment the universe is
ending for some poor soul...'
'This is madness. You've drilled a hole without of what you
might be letting out!'
Great Ideas: This picks up precisely where The Traitor left
off with the Daleks taking out the alien fleet at the edge of the galaxy that
he was so keen to get rid off. And then follows Liv Chenka's story as she
escapes from the Daleks and winds up on the Orpheus. A vast power source
sitting just beyond the Orpheus, a temporal wave front (have I slipped into
Star Trek Voyager?). Orpheus are long range explorers, tiny habitation modules
yoked to a massive engine array. They were fired off in all directions, a
million light years from home just to see what's out there. It's crew frozen
and their minds backed up on computer to avoid synaptic damage. The Eminence
have surfed a wave back through time from far, far in the future. There's is
the last mind in creation, they are the singularity that fills the void at the
end of everything. Their destiny is to control all living things. Fitton gives
us a little taster of what is to come later in the third series of the 4DAs,
the Doctor and Leela visiting a future where all humankind is slaved to the
Eminence. I hope it lives up to its promise. That is what they want to come to
pass, to fulfil that destiny. The Eminence waged war against humanity with
armies of slaves led by infinite warriors, mummified foot soldiers infused with
the breathe of life. Randall Veran is a master of espionage at reasonable rates
and has been hiding away inside of Liv for centuries whilst she has slept.
There is an energy crisis in the time of the 20th Empire and the authorities
received the data logs from the Orpheus logs in three centuries time detailing
unlimited energy source. He time hopped on board a year after launch fixed a
frakking beam onto the primary grid to drill through the wave front and extract
the primary goodness. He's been waking up in Liv's body every fifty years to
lay a trail, adapting the communication buoys. They might lose 30% but that
still leaves 70% of infinity to be exploited. In the future he is dead, he's a
ghost talking out of somebody else's lips. Well I can't say I saw any of this
coming but it certainly does tie up most of the loose ends and answer all the
questions I had about the whys and where's of the Orpheus and it's operations.
It's nice to get an unexpected sting in the tale sometimes and I really enjoyed
how the tables were turned and Randall went from being a smug, rich criminal to
a desperate ghost of a man trying to do anything to survive. It's even more
clever to play this all out through Liv, cutting out the need for an extra
actor. Vi is a wonderfully tricky character, doing whatever she can to survive
whether that means siding with the Eminence, being their spokesperson or
becoming an Infinite Warrior. Apparently a coward, she ultimately proves the
bravest of the characters in this tale. The Eminence are sent back through
Time's Horizon to whether it is they came from...but you can sure they will try
again one day. I did wonder what the point of the Ides Institute section of
Dark Eyes I was all about as it seemed to have no connection whatsoever with
the central storyline...finally that little piece of the jigsaw is going to be
answered. The Master makes a brief cameo at the story's conclusion, saving the
life of Dr Sally Armstrong of the Ides Institute.
Isn't it Odd: An advanced form of frakking drill? Frakking?
Really?
Result: Hurrah! Opens like a regular Doctor Who story with
the Doctor and his assistant drawn to a mystery in an intriguing setting packed
with well drawn characters. If that sounds crushingly dull then I am doing
Time's Horizon a disservice because the fact that it plays out like a
traditional Doctor Who story (and a good one at that) is one it's biggest
strengths. Continuing the Trial of a Time Lord theme, it is the third story in
sequence which works best as a standalone adventure despite having threads that
will continue on into the rest of the set. Fitton remembers to give this
adventure a self contained narrative outside of its arc elements. With them
appearing in three different eras now (Doctors four, six and eight), the
Eminence are starting to make something of an impression and are exactly what I
have been asking for quite some time...an original race of monsters that make
the same impact as all the returning baddies that Big Finish (probably for
marketing and sales purposes) are obsessed with reusing. They are far nastier
here than they were in The Seeds of War with the focus on extreme body horror
and injecting them into a claustrophobic setting that adds a great deal of
tension to events. The combination of the Doctor, Molly and Liv works very well
and hope they both stick around for the next Dark Eyes set. Ruth Bradley and
Nicola Walker have extremely good, brassy chemistry and it would be a shame not
to exploit that further. I don't want you to think that this is some kind of
Doctor Who masterpiece, it is ultimately a strong spaceship under siege story
but has no ambitions beyond that. However on those terms it is (once again) vividly
directed by Nicholas Briggs and dramatised by a man who has frequently ticked
all my boxes of late. Matt Fitton understands that we need to get to know the
characters if we are to care about them and that the threat has to be invasive
rather than just conceptual. He also seems to have a firm grasp on the Eminence
and gets the opportunity to scribble in some of their back story in Time's
Horizon. He even has a couple of surprises up his sleeve in the last third. I
really enjoyed this instalment, I just wish this was how the Dark Eyes II box
set had begun: 8/10
1 comment:
Yeah, that "fracking drill" analogy was a really poor choice. In hydraulic fracturing, the drill doesn't fracture anything. Fracking occurs after the hole is drilled.
However, I agree that it was one of the few things about this episode that was bad. I thought it a pretty good story.
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