Chris Swanson is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.
Okay, so we’re finally onto the concluding set of Dark Eyes, a project that began in 2012. Here’s what this fourth set is all about:
4.1 A Life in the Day by John Dorney
The Doctor and Liv return to post-World War One London, where the Doctor meets Kitty Donaldson (Beth Chalmers), and Liv strikes a friendship with her brother Martin (Barnaby Kay). But what mysterious force is hunting them?
4.2 The Monster of Montmartre by Matt Fitton
The Doctor and Liv’s investigations bring them to Paris, where a monster stalks the streets.
4.3 Master of the Daleks by John Dorney
The Master and the Dalek Time Controller have forged an alliance. History hangs in the balance, and this time the Doctor can’t help…
4.4 Eye of Darkness by Matt Fitton
It’s the endgame. Truths will be revealed, and a hero will make the ultimate sacrifice.
Directed By: Ken Bentley
Cast
Paul McGann (The Doctor), Nicola Walker (Liv Chenka), Alex Macqueen (The Master), Barnaby Kay (Martin Donaldson), Rachael Stirling (Adelaine Dutemps), Sorcha Cusack (Mary), Dan Starkey (The Sontarans), Susannah Harker (Anya), David Sibley (The Eminence), Beth Chalmers (Kitty Donaldson), Charlie Norfolk (The Woman), Derek Hutchinson (Usher), Alex Wyndham (Thug), Blake Ritson (Barman), Camilla Power (Receptionist/Mademoiselle), John Dorney (Android), with Nicholas Briggs (The Daleks)
I was severely disappointed in Dark Eyes 3. It was just all over the place, and introduced a companion, Liv Chenka, who didn’t really seem to belong. Two of the four stories in the set were quite great. But the other two were not good at all. Does Dark Eyes 4 improve upon what went before and give a satisfactory conclusion to the story?
For the most part, yes. All four stories were reasonably good, and built upon each other nicely. None of them stand out as particularly excellent or, frankly, that memorable, but they are solid entertainment.
Also, I will give the usual kudos to everyone in the cast, most notably Alexander Macqueen as the Master and Dan Starkey as the Sontarans. He does a good job of making them all sound just slightly different and much less like Strax than they have in the past. And the writing was decent.
There were problems, however. Liv is a better companion than she was in DE3, but I’m still not entirely convinced she needs to be a part of the story. And for all the hype of the Sontarans putting in an appearance, their presence in the story wasn’t all how I would have liked. It would have been nice to see more of the Sontaran battle fleets versus Daleks, but we didn’t really get that. What we got wasn’t bad, but I expected quite a bit more.
Then there’s the Eminence. I really, truly, sincerely hope we are done with them as an adversary. Nothing about the Eminence and their evil space zombies even remotely interests me. I don’t find them threatening, I don’t find them interesting, and I really want them to never return. There is a resolution to their storyline in this audio, and I hope Big Finish leaves it at that point and never goes back.
From the start, Dark Eyes has been a bit flawed. Molly O’Sullivan always had potential to be one of the great companions, but was sidelined before she really got a chance to get going. Liv’s presence was always a bit odd. The Eminence never worked for me. The Daleks are chronically overused. That all pales in comparison with the worst sin of the series: it doesn’t follow up sufficiently on the events of To the Death.
At the end of To the Death, which concluded the Eighth Doctor Adventures line, we had the Doctor poised for revenge against the Daleks. We had him ready to upset the timelines to undo what had been done. We had the Doctor being set up for the Time War. I was drooling with anticipation at what was to come with the first Dark Eyes set.
What I got was about five minutes of reference to what went before and… that was it. Nothing else, really. At the conclusion of the Dark Eyes series, I still had no more than those first five minutes. That’s all. There is still no real resolution to the Lucie Miller stories, and that really sucks.
Big Finish is gearing up for another set of boxed adventures with the Eighth Doctor called Doom Coalition. I have no doubt it will be at least okay, but… frankly, I want the Eighth Doctor to be back in the main range. I want him to have a simple three story trilogy, or even some stand-alone stories. These box sets are just getting a bit overdone and aren’t as well-executed for the Eighth Doctor as they have been for Jago and Litefoot, or Bernice. As special events the box sets have generally worked well, too; The Fourth Doctor by Phillip Hinchcliffe and The Fifth Doctor Box Set were pretty good. But maybe it’s the fact that we have stand-alone stories with those Doctors, as well as the boxed sets, that makes them more acceptable. With Eight, all we have are the boxes.
Lest this leave you with the wrong impression, I haven’t hated the Dark Eyes series. But I was disappointed in it overall, and I long for Big Finish to get back on track with the Eighth Doctor and start really wowing me again.
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