Nicholas Briggs is a very
passionate man when it comes to things he loves. The
Light at the End, Dalek Empire,
Cybermen, The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure, and The Prisoner were all pet projects of his and they encompass some
of his best work, but in those first few years of Big Finish his track record
was very hit or miss which wouldn’t really become more solid with Creatures of Beauty. The
Sirens of Time and Sword of Orion
were completely serviceable with nothing really special and The Mutant Phase was still good amongst
some extreme flaws, but his worst audio I have the honor of looking at
today. Embrace the Darkness is an obvious concept to do for an audio drama
with the story taking place in complete darkness. This should make this story a horror story
playing on our fear of the dark much like the premise of Trevor Baxendale’s Fear of the Dark, which it tries to do
for the first two parts until Briggs pulls the twist which ruins any sort of
tension that was being.
The story involves the Doctor
and Charley deciding to investigate the Cimmerian System which at a certain
point in history just had its sun go out plunging the planets into eternal
darkness. They arrive on Cimmeria IV
where there is an exploration team that has become trapped in the darkness as
it is spreading into any sort of light and creatures are tearing out their
eyes. The story then becomes a mystery
until the reveal that there is a second race coming in to kill the system after
the Cimmerians have actually been doing it to make their eyesight better which
ruins previous body horror seen. Then it
is revealed the Solarians who are coming are just Cimmerians. Add this with the last portion of the audio
just being them try to escape which is extremely boring. The story feels like someone interfered in
this story so it would become less dark which is a big problem as this is a type
of story that needs to have its darker aspects brought out.
The direction of the
actors doesn’t help matters as the performances of the supporting cast are
extremely over the top making it hard to take them seriously. Briggs was the one to direct which is strange
because he usually does well with direction, but here something feels
lacking. I can praise Jim Mortimore for
his brilliantly chilling music for this story which I honestly think is with
the other music of the audios. The
supporting cast is all over the top and the script makes them all stereotypical
salvage crew for Doctor Who which I really don’t like. The biggest offender is Nicola Boyce as
Orllensa who is just as stereotypical for the leader and has several moments of
voice cracking. Paul McGann and India
Fisher are both serviceable in this story even if McGann shows that he isn’t
very interested with the script he was given.
To summarize, Embrace the Darkness has some ideas
which are really good in its premise but feels like the true fear factor had to
be toned down. The acting is all over
the place, the characters are boring but it has got some great sound design and
music by the brilliant Jim Mortimore.
The story doesn’t even really tie into the arc which makes it one of
those mid-season drag stories. 30/100
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