A tense, psychological thriller and some terrifically high-concept sci-fi, this is RTD's Reservoir Dogs in space
Doc & Lucie match wits with crocodiles while we refuse to even pretend that we care.
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The Doc (Paul McGann) and Lucie (Sheridan Smith) materialise on the planet Indigo 3 (I dare you to guess which colour it is…), where they promptly avoid being laser-blasted to smithereens by some “pilgrims”, whom we are told almost nothing about, and escape into a nearby monastery where some American chap, who isn’t the Haydmeister from Phobos, has just been eaten by – spoiler alert – a crocodile (henceforth Croc Monsieur).
But they don’t know that yet. And before they find out, they’ll have to indulge in endless conversations with Abbot Absolute and Sister Chalice, trawl through bullet point after bullet point of traumatically ineffectual plot devices, and finally graze the edge of losing our devotion entirely.
Ok. That’s clearly hyperbole. But the fact remains that this isn’t necessarily one of the great ones. That being said, the one-liners are awesometastic, Doc and Lucie exhibit some marvellous acting, as do the extras, and it’s still Doctor Who after all, so you can’t really hate it that much, can you?
A note before I start. I Just realised looking back how harsh I was on Brave New Town. I stand by my points but my score was far too low, I’d up it to a 3.2.
Unfortunately I doubt I’ll be saying the same for The Skull of Sobek. One of big clunkers of the EDA’s, alongside Phobos and The Beast of Orlock. Despite a brilliantly fun bit of evil voice-work from Sheridan Smith (which she tends to end up doing a lot of in these adventures!) the plot is just very standard Who-fare.
The location of the story I enjoyed and the culture it set up was interesting but the more it went on the less interested I got as I couldn’t find any reason to care about the characters. Hell, even in Phobos I was wondering what the villain was, here they’re…crocodiles. There’s nothing much here to separate it from the other dull Who stories such as the 4th Doctor’s Underworld.
But, having Art Malik in a Big Finish story was lovely and I enjoyed his portrayal of the Abbot Absolute.
It pains me to give the story a bad review as I very much enjoy Marc Platt’s work on Doctor Who with Ghost Light being not only my favourite story of the 7th Doctor but in my top three Doctor Who stories of all time. His other work on Big Finish such as An Earthly Child and Auld Mortality are far better.
I’d give The Skull of Sobek a 1.1.