The Monthly Adventures #031  - "Embrace the Darkness" by Nicholas Briggs

Recently, I’ve noticed a really odd trend in some Doctor Who stories; an uncommon trope, but a trope nonetheless. Some stories will set themselves up to be classic horror outings, filled with things that go bump in the night and all the strange, stranger creatures of the Doctor Who mythos, before suddenly deciding to turn into a different story halfway through. Already, we’ve seen an audio do this (in a much more egregious manner than today’s episode, I must say) with Whispers of Terror, which abruptly heel-turned into a political thriller after two parts of really well constructed horror. Embrace the Darkness, written by the ever hit-or-miss author Nicholas Briggs, doesn’t change genre as such, but it does completely lose the plot in another way entirely.

The Cimmerian System - once a thriving empire of lights and sounds and colours, now swallowed by the dark following the disappearance of its sun. Chasing its mystery, the Doctor and Charley stumble upon the terrified members of a lonely research station, and the creatures that hunt them in the darkness.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

I absolutely love a good audio horror story. Scherzo is the obvious and immediate example for me - an utterly horrifying thrill ride through a blindingly white void that never ceases to take hours from my sleep schedule - and for a while, Embrace the Darkness felt like some weird twist on the Shearman story a good few audios early. Rather than blinding light, we have the dark. Endless and suffocating dark in a solar system missing a sun. Visually (despite probably having little visuals) it’s a goldmine and simply imagining the Doctor and Charley feeling their way through cramped and dark corridors with some unknown creature not far behind is a terrifying image and primarily the reason why the first half of this story works so well. Not to mention the imagery we get; that first part stinger, when we discover the crew of the research station are missing their eyes, might just be one of my favourite Big Finish moments ever, it’s executed so well that I was scared out of my wits relistening to this. In broad daylight. In public. Surrounded by other people. You know a horror story’s truly great when it can scare you anywhere and anywhen. Not to mention the score, which oddly enough was composed by Jim Mortimore, another acclaimed Who writer, who lends a foreboding, claustrophobic feel to this soundtrack, with a lot of echoey sounds like were trapped in the iron-lung-base with the characters. And, despite the fact the story loses the plot somewhat by the end, Briggs’ main consistent strength - worldbuilding - is on full display here. The setting of Cimmeria is utterly fascinating, but the looks into how it works are even more so. I love the idea of a species whose primary sense is taste, using a weird, muddy soup to learn information, like an edible encyclopaedia. Briggs never fails to create captivating alien societies, and he doesn’t slip up here.

But Briggs does also have some major faults, all of which show their pretty little faces here, mostly in his inability to make sense half the time. Like I stated in the opening, this is a story that’s almost completely different by the end, and whilst it’s not a complete genre switch up like Whispers of Terror, it definitely loses its strongest aspect - the horror. By the end of part two, the tension is pretty much gone. The maddening delirium our characters are facing disappears and the whole situation becomes a lot more tangible, which fully removes any cosmic element the story may have had. The Cimmerians, to begin with, were terrifying things that lurked in the shadows, engulfing the world in darkness, never to be seen, until around halfway into Part Two when the ROSM (Rescue Operations Security Module - basically a big rescue robot) knocks one out and the Doctor examines it. Turns out the Cimmerians are really the good guys, and only burnt out the crew’s eyes to protect them, and can just give them back anyway. Yeah, I don’t like this twist, I see what it was going for but it’s a lot more boring and less evocative than the horror stuff and is just a bit of an anticlimax following how good the first two parts were. Things continue to slow down as the story becomes much more action focused until the final part, which becomes a complete mess, desperately trying and failing to succinctly explain the grand old mystery Briggsy’s been setting up the past three parts, that quietly falls to bits as it’s explained to us at tedium. It’s a confusing and boring ending that just kind of cuts off the story after everything’s been tied up in a nice bow and it feels like an utter disservice to the carefully constructed terror of Act One. Plus, I’m really not a fan of this side cast. The characters all feel pretty one note or can be just plain annoying, and some of them will just recover from a full on manic episode just like that if the story wants them to. Despite the quality of the first parts, I can’t deny that they were the weakest link.

Rarely will a story that so suddenly switches up tone and genre halfway through make it work and Embrace the Darkness is no exception. Practically two different stories, the baffling choice to destroy this immaculately constructed horror story and turn it into yet another technobabble parade is slightly sad to me, because it means I missed out on what could’ve been a 10/10 classic. That first half is some quality storytelling from Briggs, but I’m afraid it just couldn’t stick the landing.

7/10

Pros:

+ Utterly terrifying first two parts

+ Great idea for a setting that’s executed really well

+ Full of utterly horrific but endlessly creative imagery

+ Interesting if messy worldbuilding

+ Incredible and endlessly creepy score

Cons:

- Loses all tension by the halfway point

- The Cimmerians go from incredibly creepy aliens to boring matchstick men following the twist surrounding them

- The cast is mostly forgettable

- Incredibly convoluted story that devolves into continual exposition by the end