Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #328967 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-31
• Format: Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 2
• Binding: Audio CD

Customer Reviews

Mediocre
Not being the biggest fan of the whole 'Divergent universe' story arc I found this audio adventure rather tiresome. Whilst there are some good moments (the sentient cave is rather cool) and The Eighth Doctor gets his teeth into some great dialogue (his extended speech on time in part three is rather good), the overall effect is pretty dull. The large cast becomes rather unwieldy and hard to keep track of, and there is some painful overacting too. Not the best but passable.

Another Blake's 7 guest star....could you go wrong?
The first thing that grabbed my attention of this particular story, i am sorry to admit, is Micheal Keating as the guest star. My admiration for Blake's 7 (second only to Dr Who) is huge and getting a representative of that series in Who is enough to sell a story to me. (Storm Warning had Gareth Thomas, Spare Parts had Sally Knyvette, The Fearmonger had Jacqueline Pearce, you get the idea.) So, despite having a guest appearance in Who before (he was in Tom Bakers The Sun Makers) Micheal Keating here appears as Major Koth, a rebel leader with a cause, living in a deep cavern with his loyal band of ex-soldiers.
Very early on we are told Koth lost his family to a terrorist disease many years previous. So this is a man with a driving force...or is he?
The Doctor (McGann is once again excellent), Charley (India Fisher, again brilliant) and newboy C'Rizz (Conrad Westmaas) stumble into this new zone (not new planet, note - there is something very strange going on in this new universe -) and immediately start to unravel certain things that we all know will lead to a great climax. What is the secret of the cave system? What is the strange protein mixture everyone is eating, which grows on cold walls, which seems to devour people in the lower levels? Where is Koth's huge psionic influence over people coming from?
The Twilight Kingdom's conclusion comes with no surprise, i had it sussed from part two. However, the force of its conclusion and its underlying terror is great. Its a tad cliche but pulled off in a fashion that rises it above retreading an idea.
The voices are all excellent, Keating in particular. Koth is not your two dimensional bad guy and all the better for it. C'Rizz is sidelined somewhat - this is more of a Doctor story. Which brings me to an interesting thought - Charley, under the psionic influence, betrays the Doctor's true identity at one point. Is this a warning of her confusion as to the Doctor's integrity in this new universe? He is still part-Zagreus after all. She may seem to trust him but is this a long-term staple? The characterisation is brilliant and gripping and i hope it will continue. Some words by the Kro-ka also enhance the running darkness of this new universe and its inhabitants.
Oh, and to top it off, the drama (and the season) ends with a single word, said with such drive and menace that you are begging for more. Brilliant.

Doctor Who by numbers
"The blood of innocents has been spilt - a terrible sequence of events has been set in motion. The forces of darkness are on the move.
"Deep underground, an army of light prepares itself for the oncoming war.
"The Doctor's used to winning. Stumbling in, reading the face of the enemy, and then beating the odds... but what if this time he's got it wrong? Charley and C'rizz think he has.
"Stripped of all that is familiar, just who is the Doctor? Major Koth thinks he knows.
"Lost among the dark caverns of an unknown world, has the Doctor finally met his match?"

For the Eighth Doctor's fourth adventure in the Divergent Universe, Big Finish productions once again plays down the unique potential of a universe without time and gives us another "Doctor Who by numbers" type of outing. Thankfully, it's better at least than "The Creed of the Kromon".
Will Shindler's script start with a classic "Doctor Who" story conceit - the Doctor and one of his companions are caught by a group of soldiers whilst standing over the murdered body of one of their colleagues, and are arrested and taken into custody. Once within the underground base of what turns out to be a resistance army, the Doctor's companions begin to sympathise with the rebels' cause, whilst the Doctor begins to doubt the motives of the rebel leader. A rift enseues between the Doctor and his companions, as Charley and C'rizz believe the Doctor to be searching for a malign influence that isn't there - searching for a monster to fight, as if that's all he knows how to do.
Unfortunately, the potential that this concept creates for an interesting character study is wasted as there is little to convince the listener that the Doctor is behaving erratically or out of desperation. Rather, it is the companions who seem to be at fault (yet again Conrad Westmaas' new companion C'rizz gets little chance to shine here, as he falls under the influence of the rebels and is very quickly sidelined). Paul McGann and India Fisher do their best with the material, but there's little particularly groundbreaking or involving about the way the story and characters develop, apart from a few gross-out moments towards the end (marred by the use of overly descriptive dialogue). "The Twilight Kingdom" is okay, but from Big Finish Productions, who often spoil us with their innovative and dramatic stories, we have come to expect more.