Dark Eyes Four

 Dark Eyes Four

Dark Eyes Four is such an odd beast - it's back to the random separate stories of set two, and while these stories are all good, it can't recover from what it has done in the past. Dark Eyes One, Two, and even to a degree Three, are all good sets, but when put next to eachother, the lack of consistent vision, the insistence on an overarching plot to the detriment of it's surrounding stories and behind the scenes troubles lead even some of the most stellar attempts at recovery to feel lacking. I'm not sure how to describe some of these stories - both Life in the Day and Monster of Montmartre are exactly what I would want from the series - yet their surrounding elements lead me to look at much of the Dark Eyes experience as a whole with distain. Reviewing Dark Eyes might be my Waterloo, my Final Problem. I have no clue how to summarize my feelings on the damn thing. Dark Eyes inexplicably drifts from very thin plot to very intense plot in such a manner I am hardpressed to even explain it. Do I compare it to Ravenous's pitfalls of the arc being too thinly paced? Is it an initially gorgeous and complicated space opera that soon reveals itself to have  too much ambition and increasingly poor returns like the early Divergent Universe Saga? (Excluding Scherzo and Natural History of Fear.) Are the Eminence just yet another Moffat villain like the Silence or monks? Do I compare to a RTD finale with a love for big famous foes, and with it's finger constantly hovering over the reset button? Oh, it's none and all of these things. The only thing I can decide on is it is a fucking ride. You never know what to expect with a Dark Eyes episode - whether it's going to have a connected story or throw you out the window. And as such, Dark Eyes Four might be the perfect summation of the series...

A Life In The Day by John Dorney

Completely standalone, this is the exact thing I was really not expecting from this series. A Life In The Day is stellar - a simple romance story with an obvious twist that still knows what it's doing enough to floor you. Oh, it's no Absent Friends, but it's smart. I'd compare it most to another early Dorney work, Scenes From Her Life, which it reminds me of in many ways, despite them having like nothing in common. A Life In The Day really catches you off guard, seemingly average as hell and you wonder why it gains it's reputation until the last few minutes. It's just what the Doctor ordered. Of course, if we have to get bogged down in problems I have with it, it's the whole issue that Molly isn't here which is an issue as large as a fucking truck and honestly this really should be her series but as for a segue into the Liv takeover, A Life in The Day is really good and gives this character (who really got raked through the shit in Dark Eyes Three) a nice reintroduction into the audience, and helps us to actually like her again. If all stories were this brilliant, I'd have no complaints: 9/10

The Monster of Montmartre by Matt Fitton

Surprising me yet again, The Monster of Montmartre brings back the Daleks to Dark Eyes in STYLE, really taking the remnants the series has and making the best that it can with it. Reminiscent of a Hinchcliffe era story, Monster of Montmartre takes the atmosphere of Pre-WW2 France with the gothic idea of the Daleks hiding in a restaurant owner's attic and performing dark experiments on the people of France late at night - it's a sick and cruel bead of a story in it's own right, and to my surprise, it was not truncated and Fitton actually gave this idea time to develop: The entire plot is focused on this eerie brilliant atmosphere and it's absolutely gorgeous. The Guest Characters are well developed too, Adelaine Dutemps being one of the most vivid guest characters I've seen in a Who story in an age. Spending this much time on period atmosphere and character really pays off; even when the arc does show up, it's done in a way that feels organic (OH MY GOD, THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED IN THIS SERIES BEFORE, WHAT IS GOING ON) and as such I really feel like I'm entering an alternate reality here... please pinch me... I'm dreaming... 9/10

Master of the Daleks by John Dorney

And then the Master, and the Daleks and the Sontarans all went BOOOOM BOOM BOOM ! AHH! I do wonder what the thought process behind including the Sontarans in this set was - it’s PLENTY fucking busy otherwise. Master of the Daleks is daringly cliche. It’s ideas are run of the mill. We’ve had the Eighth Doctor have amnesia, we’ve had the Master and Daleks work together before, we’ve had Molly O’Sullivan being the center of a plan involving Dalek DarkEyed nonsense - once again, the center of a series that has long ceased to be hers. And we’ve even had Daleks fight Sontarans. (Although that might be just me because I heard The Five Companions literally days ago.) So there isn’t much in original or striking ideas here - but the story does have a hell of a weapon - the lovely pen of John Dorney really letting loose. The dialogue sparkles, and the humor that has been entirely missing from Dark Eyes until now fills me with joy (how did I not realize how few jokes were in the prior sets? They do wonders to give this tale it’s own identity) and this joy nearly salvages the story from the typical nonsense it might ordinarily fall into. Nearly. The clever conceit of having the Doctor be completely irrelevant to the story and hanging with his companion, a dalek, is fun. And the story does the all important thing of letting Daleks be fucking scary. There's some real brilliant stuff in that intro where hundreds of Daleks hail the Sontaran ship and only say "Exterminate." Because they don't need to say anything else. They're the fucking Daleks. Scary Daleks, humor, these are the kind of things Dark Eyes really needed. But so much of the rest of the story is burdened with is rather mindless. Master of the Daleks reminds me of another story I enjoy, Destiny of the Daleks, where the witty pen of Douglas Adams attempts to distract from the dire and done before Terry Nation material, and in that sense, John Dorney is doing a very similar thing with the bloated carcass of the Dark Eyes arc. Which fifteen hours in, I’m not sure what it is about. The return of Molly to the series is also much enjoyed by me, but if they were going to recast her, (which is clearly a result of Ruth Bradley doing other things) I feel they should have really embraced the recast. they shouldn’t have shunted her off to the side yet again, have her there for the whole set- she was gone for much of Dark Eyes Two and especially Three to begin with and as such the focal point of the arc feels almost irrelevant, even in her grand return. Master of the Daleks is a great writer in a fine script, begging to be let out. Because regardless of this stories stellar moments, by the end of the hour we truly know that the finale is going to be far from satisfying: 7/10

Eye of Darkness by Matt Fitton

I am astonished they made something half as good as Eye of Darkness with what they had to work with. Oh, it’s still mostly shit, mind you, but with the utter lack of sanity presented in the series so far, I was surprised that Eye of Darkness was so strong as an ending. I mean, narratively, it’s unsatisfying as fuck, but emotionally, it does actually have excellent moments that gave me feelings in my feelings brain. Eye of Darkness supposedly does explain the rest of Dark Eyes and the Retrogenitor particle nonsense relating to Molly’s eyes ever since the end of Dark Eyes One, but it does it so haphazardly I am half convinced that the solution is “a wizard did it.” And it throws the Eminence back into it and the Eminence used to be really good in the early parts of Dark Eyes, but especially since this is the second time we are seeing their origin and suddenly it is completely different does really reek of laziness. Even David Sibley- usually incredible as the Eminence, is pretty meh. When it comes to our villains, Eye of Darkness tried to insist that 🎵it was the Daleks all along! 🎶

And that they MADE the Eminence, which just puts a sour taste in my mouth after so much of the series has been about the Daleks and Eminence having a power play about being there at the end of time or something, but this is unsatisfying. And I find most of Eye of Darkness, as soon as it moves on from the cool atmosphere of secret Dalek base in the Eye of Orion, pretty unsatisfying. Because technobabble is the only thing this series ever really had proficiency for. But nonetheless, our finale does have a hell of a knockout involving Molly O’Sullivan - and the atmosphere and a few great moments does give Dark a eyes on a whole about half a satisfying ending. At best. 5/10

And so, what is Dark Eyes on the whole? Batshit insane. Dark Eyes One is really brilliant. Dark Eyes Two is also pretty great, minus some bits of Eyes of the Master and White Room where the horror begins to show. And Dark Eyes Three throws any merit the initial thing had out the window. Dark Eyes Four is directly a recovery measure. And well, a recovery measure is about the best summary for Dark Eyes available. Dark Eyes Two was a recovery against the solid ending of one, it Had to recover and come up with An arc for three sets. Dark Eyes Three “recovers” from complex standalone stories and tries to give the series back a consistent vision. And Liv is a recovery companion at the loss of Ruth Bradley as Molly. Sorcha Cusack is a recovery Molly. But is it really that good? I’m not sure. Am I glad I did Dark Eyes? Maybe. There are a few good stories here. Slightly more than half. But it’s by far one of the weakest Big Finish series I’ve ever heard from my point of view. And I can’t believe I’m saying it, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It can’t decide if it’s a singular epic with sixteen chapters, or sixteen stories, and while Dark Eyes Four nearly redeems it, these problems are too deep seated. 

Dark Eyes as a four boxset series is a 6/10