Serpent In The Silver Mask

 Serpent In The Silver Mask by David Llewellyn 

I'm a sucker for a sci-fi murder mystery. My two favorite stories of all time are Chimes of Midnight and Save Our Souls, both unique twists on the sci-fi murder mystery format, and another favorite of mine is Vesuvius Rising, a peak example of how to do the job well. Serpent is an incredibly charming script, certainly, but it is missing the central thing I feel that would make it rise up against similar stories in the Doctor Who murder mystery genre- because when this genre is not done well, all I feel is a strong feeling of "this has been done before." and Serpent is really strong Fifth Doctor material, it knows how to play it's cards. It has a few interesting ideas to twist onto this, a family of clones (all played by the same actor in an absolute tour de force of a performance, holy cow) a murder mystery time travel plot, The murderer specifically going out of their way to be as similar to the Doctor as possible - all intriguing individual elements. But does it all come together perfectly as all the best murder mysteries do? Not neccessarily. Serpent's best bits are in it's humor and ability to poke fun at itself. The army of baby dolls in the ventilation shafts, the incredibly horny woman who wants to plant one on poor Fivey, and Adric and Nyssa being utter shit at going undercover. But as it stands? The final twist of who the murderer is is pretty much what I expected even though it's clearly going for a humongous shock, and the murderer also is incredibly stupid. An initially creepy and competent villain gradually going from awesome to a bit shit is always disappointing (just look at the Shadow in the Armageddon Factor!) But at the very least, Serpent has it's own decisive identity and while isn't the most original or mind-blowing story,  it's a really really fun two-hour runaround, and I won't say no to that: 8/10

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cobwebs

Image
  Cobwebs by Jonathan Morris Now stop me if you've heard this one before...  The Doctor and Companions arrive in Location X where they discover evidence that something bad is going to happen in the future (i.e. their deaths, the TARDIS not working, etc) and have to fudge the rules of time so they live. It's a Doctor Who stalwart, I should think, I can't count how many stories I've done with it, but the Fires of Vulcan and the entirety of Matt Smith series 6 come readily to mind - and quite frankly, Cobwebs is no exception. It's a complicated time puzzle of a story that will never really surprise you (I figured out the twist a solid hour before it happened.) The story's chief selling point is that for the first time ever since like Mawdwyn Undead and Terminus for two seconds, Tegan, Nyssa, and Turlough are in the TARDIS together. It's other chief selling point is Tegan is in it - this was her second Big Finish audio ever, and she had previously said she would...
Read more

Torchwood: Aliens Among Us 2

Image
  Love Rat by Christopher Cooper Trust Big Finish to remake Day One, and not only make it good, but also make it somewhat heartbreaking. Of course, Day One is a terrible and horny bit of TV, and Love Rat is also sort of that way, but it makes up for it (in my book) by dealing with the aftereffects of what this kind of story would actually do to the team. Jack's actions in this episode, although prompted by the parasite, aren't even out of character, and the way he seduces Tyler and Ng and the fallout of that is dealt with in a surprisingly mature and emotional manner. Unlike Day One, which strives to be mature, Love Rat is actually mature, and the Gwen and Ng arc is actually a gutpunch to hear, especially the final few scenes with Rhys, as throughout this series, Ng has taken over Gwen's life and utterly ruined it. It's amazing what Eve Myles can do with just a few words, the emotion she can convey that this isn't what she wants, how horrified she is at not being in...
Read more

NCJDDAS: Dark Page

Image
NCJDDAS: Dark Page Cover by Arbrax  This episode of the NOW CANON Judi Dench Doctor adventures was Inspired by Robert Shearman listing a brilliant idea for a short story that wouldn’t work in Doctor Who. I say utter Rubbish. I’m taking that story and writing it in Who. Fight me. It also helps that I haven’t read the story he wrote that I’m utilizing, making this even more of a simple writing prompt thing. Featuring The Twenty Second Doctor, Elizabeth Olsen, as created by Arbrax Chapter One In the town of Broughstershire, at 5:27 AM, the postman came by every house in the neighborhood and gave every single person a letter.  The letter was different for each person. For instance, Mr. Layton got a letter that said May 5, 2027, and below that, in slightly aggressive font, Gangrene. Mrs Curbishley got a letter that said June 18, 2053, Car Crash, and Little Timmy got a letter that said October 9th, 2081, Natural Causes. Of course, these are merely examples, those people don't e...
Read more

(MAIN RANGE): Dinnertime Part One

Image
MAIN RANGE: Dinnertime Part One This Story Stars Judi Dench as The Twenty Sixth Doctor and David Tennant as The Tenth Featuring Danny Devito as Danny Devito and John Simm as The Master This Story Takes Place Between A Storm Is A Comin and The Countryfile Conundrum Chapter One "It is said that in the final days of planet earth, everyone had bad dreams. To the west...of the...north... of this world...everyone did...gather? What even is that sentence- um, Sorry, Ah, here we are. IN THE CELEBRATION, of a Pagan rite to banish the cold and the Dark. Each and everyone of those people had nightmares of the pretty mild (for the human race) terror to come (I mean, I think the Dalek invasion was way worse). Everyone except Fred. There's nothing special about Fred, he's not really important to the story, but all the same, he had a dream about shopping, and it was rather average. Okay, so, to sum up. Everyone had bad dreams on Earth, except Fred. They all forgot...Except for one....
Read more

Ninth Doctor Adventures: Ravagers

Image
  The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Ravagers Ravagers is such a weird choice to start the Ninth Doctor Adventures with because in terms of plot, this really feels like an Eleventh Doctor story. It’s convoluted and “timey wimey” and quite possibly disorienting for newcomers. In fact, no, it seems definitely disorienting for newcomers. You think a River Song flow chart was required? Nahh, A Ninth Doctor Ravagers flowchart is required, man. As an audio fanatic, it was quite confusing, and well, perhaps indicative of NuWho Three-Parters, because like most of them, it borders on the shit. And one would expect, me, as not really the worlds hugest Ninth Doctor fan, that I’d hate it, right? Nope! I love it. Really do, I mean, it’s not perfect (first releases for Doctors never are: Sirens of Time, Destination: Nerva and Only the Monstrous are all trash, and Technophobia is just okay) But on the whole, I felt it was a consistent set and the quality never really went up or down much in either dire...
Read more