Eye of Darkness [AUDIO/2015.3.2]

★★★☆☆

  The most surprising thing about Eye of Darkness, the final installment of the extensive Dark Eyes saga, is that there's not a lot to talk about it once it's over. The drama's there, the characters are decent and the production value is top-notch (as is the standard for Dark Eyes), but even those elements fail to make me talk at length about it in any respect. Not even the narrative, which is the least of my personal concerns when it comes to a work of art, has anything that caught me in particular. The Eminence being a mixture of Schriver and the Dalek Time Controller is a cool idea, though -- possibly the only real notable development to talk about.

  It's a shame to me that Eye of Darkness ends up being aggressively ordinary, in a series billed as anything but. It's not bad by any means, being quite good as an audio production that one could listen to with the brain shut off, but a satisfying conclusion it is not. For an hour, the Doctor and co. run circles around the Daleks... again... and the finale has a long-standing companion make the ultimate sacrifice... again. I guess there's a poetic element to the end of a series about taking accountability and denouncing non-interference (in the natural flow of time and space) ending almost exactly how the series it spawned from ended. History repeats itself, Eye of Darkness is nowhere near as enticing and exciting as Lucie Miller/To the Death, and it's still a good time to be had. I don't think Molly needed to come back all that much if she was only ever going to be used as a sacrificial lamb, but if it means Eight got a little bit of closure, I guess I'm happy.