Doctor Who - Dark Eyes 3: Reviewed

This whole boxset is written by Matt Fitton, who wrote two very strong stories in Dark Eyes 2, but is well known for being a bit...mixed on the whole. Let's see how he does (not great unfortunately)

3.1 The Death of Hope by Matt Fitton

God this is boring. The Death of Hope sees the Master and Sally enlist a mesmerised Molly into getting the Eminence under the Master's control. MacQueen and Bradley are as fantastic as always, and the setting is quite neat, but that's about where the positives end. The actual plot moves slowly and is very boring, and I didn't care about Hope or anyone else. Sean Carlsen is here as Narvin, one of my favourite Big Finish characters, from the Gallifrey series, but in this one he doesn't really do anything, he just shows the Doctor some footage and threatens him a bit. Oh yeah, David Sibley shows up as The Eminence again for a bit and is still stunningly brilliant. On the whole though, The Death of Hope felt like pure set up and a boring waste of time.

4/10

3.2 The Reviled by Matt Fitton

The Reviled feels very similar to The Death of Hope, but focuses on 8 and Liv instead and I found it slightly more enjoyable to listen to, but it's still very dull. The Reviled deals with another set of human survivors, this time living in poor conditions overseen by the Ramossans. Having two such similar stories right next to each other does not help the pacing of the set in the slightest and I find myself increasingly disillusioned with The Eminence as a threat.

4/10

3.3 Masterplan by Matt Fitton

Masterplan is much much better than the previous two stories, showing us the origin of The Eminence, and we get lots of Doctor-Master interacting here. It's a bit like the absolutely brilliant monthly story Master in that the Doctor and the Master are together in one room, ruminating on morals and their pasts. Of course, the plot rears its ugly head as this progresses, but the interactions are entertaining enough to put a damper on it. I found the Liv and Sally stuff not quite as interesting, and despite being an interesting origin to The Eminence, I think it brings the story down significantly. This could have been utterly brilliant. As it stands though, Masterplan is really great and a huge step up from the first two stories.

8/10

3.4 Rule of the Eminence by Matt Fitton

Rule of the Eminence rounds out the set, and it's a mess. This should have been a two-parter at least. There are some enjoyable aspects...I think...but this whole thing just feels so clumsy. The Eminence are pretty pathetic and are defeated way too easily, Molly is misused yet again, Liv is at her most depressed and Hope gets one line at the end, making the ending of The Death of Hope feel rather useless. There's some pretty poor 'describe what you're seeing' dialogue too. The Eminence became less and less interesting throughout the set and they're definitely at their worst here. I love Narvin but he's been a bit useless in this. A bad ending to a bad set. Sorry Fitton!

4/10

The big problem with this set is the stories being dull and forgettable, there's just so little interesting material here. Molly also gets majorly sidelined in favour of Liv 'getting more and more depressed by the story' Chenka (who I really enjoyed in Robophobia and Dark Eyes 2) and it's just not fun to listen to. The finale feels like a very rushed RTD finale in style with an incredibly lackluster resolution.