The Crucible of Souls [AUDIO/2016.9.22]

★★★☆☆

  While it's much less in-your-face exciting than the previous two-parter, The Crucible of Souls manages to carry on the torch of Doom Coalition aptly. By its nature, it's less a traditional Doctor Who story and more a knot of all the disparate elements and secrets presented in previous installments as well as another thread leading to a massive cliffhanger. It therefore feels a bit less confident and well-rounded (as a standalone story would).

  That doesn't mean it's not fun, of course. We get to have a copious amount of fun with John Heffernan's Nine being an incorrigible kleptomaniac and evil bastard while Liv and Helen straddle along thinking he's the Doctor's new incarnation. The Doctor finally gets an expedition with only River Song at his side, and Paul McGann and Alex Kingston show just how much chemistry they share together (even though one of them's wearing a fake Rita Hayworth face). If the cosmic mumbo-jumbo of this adventure isn't to your liking, hopefully the character interactions will be. Speaking of cosmic mumbo-jumbo, we get another boatload of information that's more or less as good as it can be under the circumstances. Revelations are stacked upon revelations, and there's a final gut-wrenching drive in the final ten minutes where stuff hits the fan and we're all shocked at the prospect of Doctor Who and his companions being shunted off the universe. If anything, it certainly whets the appetite for the fourth and final boxset of Doom Coalition.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ  

  The Crucible of Souls is a smorgasbord of elements that creates a fun, hour-long cliffhanger. That's what it is, after all — a story that acts as a cliffhanger — and if you're not looking for that kind of experience just right now, you're probably better off postponing your Doom Coalition binge for the moment. If you're willing to give it a listen, though, it proves worth your time.