The Monthly Adventures #045 - “Project: Lazarus" by Cavan Scott and Mark Wright

It’s the second instalment of the Forge Arc that begins to bear its ugly underbelly. Project: Lazarus marks Cavan Scott and Mark Wright’s sudden veer into melodrama, going from the dark, depressing and brilliant Project: Twilight to three stumbles of the world’s strangest Bond film, full of camp villains and ridiculous set pieces. This’ll be the trend for the rest of this arc and, unfortunately, the rest of this duo’s scripts, excluding a couple I haven’t listened to yet, culminating in the aggressively bombastic Project: Destiny. But we have a long, long way to go until then, and for now, we have Nimrod’s next big plan to contend with.

Finally having a cure to the Twilight Virus, the Doctor returns to Norway to cure Cassandra Schofield of her infliction. But a bug in the TARDIS lands them years too late, where they find the situation to have escalated and the Forge to have taken control.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

I think this is probably the first direct sequel of the Main Range, so how about we begin by recapping. The story opens back in Norway, with the Doctor and Evelyn trying to find Cassie Schofield and cure her of the twilight virus. Instantly, another dark setting with vampires running about in it, seems like the natural follow-up to Project: Twilight, but strangely enough, it isn’t. There are some distinctly disturbing moments in Project: Lazarus, sure, but for the most part, this takes a much different, much stranger cadence. It’s more a schlocky spy-caper than anything, with cartoonish secret organisations and dream logic thought up by an over-imaginative child. I don’t hate it per say (and it will get a whole lot worse in later stories) but it’s a weird departure from its predecessor. The whole thing is very over the top, which makes it strange when it suddenly decides to drop some of Big Finish’s best character work so far on you. The end to Part Two is absolutely the highlight of the story and what it chooses to do with Evelyn is just sublime. The raw emotion and humanity with which Scott and Wright portray Evelyn is probably the best execution of her character as of now, though it will be perfected in Arrangements for War, and I think it makes for the best part of Project: Lazarus. The fallout from Cassie’s murder is easily some of the best acting I’ve seen out of the Main Range, it made an average scene one of the greatest. As for the story, I have my issues with it but I do have to say the choice for it to switch to a Seventh Doctor story halfway through is inspired, that it is a really fun idea that I think they handle well. And of course, multi-doctor shenanigans are always a good time, even if it’s technically not multi-doctor. But at the end of the day, it’s fun. That’s Project: Lazarus’ greatest attribute, it’s a fun story. Not amazing by any means, hell, I think good can be a stretch at points, but you won’t be bored and you won’t be let down, it’s Doctor Who’s action adventure, quick and fast and in the end, enjoyable.

And yet, Project: Lazarus is one of those stories that is fun to experience but not great to analyse. For one, I think the plot, whilst novel, is messy. The story being split into two is a fun idea but I don’t think it’s executed well, since neither half is long enough for the story to be impactful; they both go so quickly. The first half especially, since Part One feels like an entirely different audio, set in Norway running around with a cryptid hunter. And then there’s the melodrama; look, you can be as self-aware as you like but acknowledging bad writing doesn’t make it better, and it doesn’t make this script any less melodramatic. The dialogue especially is awful, ripped directly from some low-budget 80s action movie, full of one-liners and completely unnatural sentences that no human would ever say. It’s not excruciatingly bad but it takes a lot of tension out of the more climactic scenes. And then there’s the logic, which is just insulting half the time. Cassie breaking out of deep rooted mind control because Evelyn shouted at her about her son for two minutes. Or the Doctor clone for some reason being able to mimic voices for plot convenience. And back to that whole brainwashing thing, I hate it when a story tries to kill a character, or does a twist reveal that they’re working for the opposite side, and then only go halfway with it. Like here, the Doctor’s mistake can’t have pushed Cassie into the manipulations of Nimrod. No, she had to be mind controlled. Wouldn’t it hit harder if she actually was taken in by the Forge?

All in all, Project: Lazarus was disappointing. Not terrible - it was an enjoyable listen - but it’s simply messy. Bad logic and an underworked story with some genuinely admirable things hidden in there. It’s also somewhat of a disappointment as a follow up to Project: Twilight. I’ve seen worse, but I’ve seen much better.

6/10

Pros:

+ Evelyn’s best episode yet, with a fantastic performance from Maggie Stables

+ Ending to Part 2 is utterly traumatic

+ Great multi-doctor shenanigans in second half

+ At the end of the day, incredibly fun

Cons:

- Incredibly messy story that never finds time to settle

- Dialogue is completely ridiculous

- Runs with the same logic as a below-average spy caper