Doctor Who: Embrace the Darkness on Audio CD

• Year: 2002
• Rating: 5/10
• Cat. No: BFDPWCD8J
• Format: 2xCD
• Running Time: 100 minutes
• Price: £13.99

Director:
Nicholas Briggs

Writer:

Nicholas Briggs

Cast:

The Doctor: Paul McGann
Charley Pollard: India Fisher
Orllensa: Nicola Boyce
Ferras: Lee Moone
Haliard: Mark McDonnell
ROSM: Ian Brooker

On the occasions when the Big Finish audio range get everything spot-on (The Marian Conspiracy, Chimes Of Midnight, Ish…), the results are a match for anything the TV series has offered up. However, the BFs are proving as variable in quality from story to story as their Television counterparts ever were, and this 31st adventure will probably not be remembered as one of the best.

The scenario is promising enough, and writer/director Nick Briggs certainly whets the appetite in his sleeve notes. Pitching the characters, as well as the listener, into a completely black void – a space station where all light has been extinguished – should allow the unique attributes of the audio-only format to really take hold.

To some extent, Embrace The Darkness achieves this. The opening two episodes are grimly minimalistic, as the mysterious force responsible for the blackout tightens its grip on the situation. The first cliffhanger is quietly horrific, and the story is perfectly set up for a nerve-shredding second half.

Then, inexplicably, it all goes pear-shaped. Paul McGann‘s marvellous verbal and intellectual jousting with the space station’s security robot-cum-computer ROSM in parts one and two, which proves a true highlight of all the Eighth Doctor’s BF outings to date, is forced to play second fiddle to some quite cringeworthy nonsense about a blandly benevolent alien race. Insufferably awful dialogue leaves McGann sounding daft and patronising, while India Fisher‘s Charley coos over the creatures as if they were newborn babes. Pass the sickbag, please!

As ever, the supporting characters are less than expertly-realised. They are lumbered with expositional conversation and clumsy chumminess that’s some ghastly hybrid of Ye Olde Englande and Eastenders (honestly, nobody talks or behaves like this in real life), while the female leader of the space station is a haughty Russian scientist played by an Englishwoman. The accent is, of course, distractingly dubious. Once the action shifts in tone the performances become harder to bear.

The ending to this fiasco arrives by way of an implausible last-minute twist, but the unravelling triteness of what precedes it makes the conclusion of little consequence.