Time's Horizon [AUDIO/2014.2.12]

★★★☆☆

  Dark Eyes 2 desperately needed to prove its worth after the rather dour The White Room, and thankfully Matt Fitton comes in clutch with Time's Horizon. To me, it's not a masterpiece that stands above the rest of the installments of this series, but it is a breath of fresh air that knows what it wants to do and does it rather well. When you have the Doctor and co. trapped in a spaceship with a hostile crew and an even more hostile big baddie in the form of an alien gaseous sentience, you get Alien (1979) on audio form with Paul McGann trapped in an enclosed space for an elongated period. It's just too much fun not to like it!

  What also works is, of course, the matter of Liv Chenka ahd her having met the Eighth Doctor in a different chronological order to his; she has knowledge of a terrible act the Doctor commits and he has no way to figure it out on his own. It'll all be explained by the end of the boxset, of course, but the added drama is very much a welcome one. McGann seems especially fired up in this story, as if he knows this requires a bit more than the usual Doctorish enthusiasm, and Nicola Walker is fantastic as always. I like many things about Dark Eyes 2, but my favourite is, without a doubt, the fact that they brought back Liv as a regular companion. She gels with Eight ferociously, which is an odd word to use since her personality is far removed from most doe-eyed, breathless companions (she's more wary, battle-worn and calm with her life trajectory)... but a fitting one nonetheless since they hit it off like nobody's business. For once, furthermore, Molly is the legacy character who knows her way around the Doctor's shenanigans, and Ruth Bradley's performance feels all the more energised with the new opportunity to establish a more confident, informed front for her character.

  Rather self-contained in nature, Time's Horizon is nonetheless a fun hour of sci-fi thrills and chills. It's a claustrophobic exercise in a spaceship at the edge of the universe with a malevolent entity (who happens to be one of Big Finish's more interesting creations, the Eminence), and Nicholas Briggs' direction brings out the tension in droves. No wonder Fitton was offered one of the top seats for crafting the rest of Dark Eyes and the Eighth Doctor boxsets for years to come.