The Monthly Adventures #053 - “The Creed of the Kromon" by Philip Martin

The Divergence Arc was an opportunity for Big Finish to push their experimentalism even further than before, which seemed impossible with unique genres, story structures and unusual quirks already getting used up in the latter half of releases 1-50. However, this arc opens with Scherzo, which is undeniably a unique and altogether strange story, promising the Divergence would continue the trend of new and innovative ideas. The Creed of the Kromon is not that. In fact, The Creed of the Kromon might just be the biggest downgrade in Doctor Who’s history.

Escaping from the perilous interzone, the Doctor and Charley find themselves on the oppressed desert world of Eutermes, where, allied with local inhabitant C’rizz, they find themselves at the whim of the tyrannical, insectoid Kromon.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

There was this old trope in Doctor Who I found to be most prevalent way back in the First Doctor era: the underdog story. Basically, the formula this trope posited was that A: the Doctor and co show up somewhere oppressed and B: the Doctor and co help kickstart a revolution amongst the oppressed. Examples of this include: The Daleks, The Space Museum, The Savages and The Web Planet. And that last one is especially important because The Creed of the Kromon is effectively a cross between Phillip Martin’s breakout TV episode Vengeance on Varos and The Web Planet. And just like The Web Planet, this is an embarrassing mess of a story. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it is worse than the infamous vaseline smeared dumpster fire (this is just about the most 5/10 story I’ve ever seen) and I’d even say there was a lot to like. First of all, this is the introduction to new companion C’rizz, who I’ve personally always found incredibly underrated, and who gets a pretty decent introduction here. Instantly his dynamic with Eight and Charley is established nicely, we get a few hints as to the darker leanings of his character, a non-human companion is always fun and he gets a good few moments of development, like when he’s forced to mercy kill his wife or is left behind to do nothing whilst others risk their lives for him. All in all, this ticks all the boxes in introducing him, it just unfortunately fails in nearly every other department. However, what I don’t see commented on often enough is the world building. Eutermes is a pretty well built up place and the distinctly alien Eutermesans and Kromon are both given some wonderful speculative biology, like how the Kromon need a constant supply of water or the fact that Eutermesans change skin colour to camouflage with the environment. It really does make the setting feel alive and it’s surprisingly rare to get an alien location that isn’t just Earth 2.0. As for our returning cast, I like them here. Especially in the early parts, the interactions between the Doctor and Charley were noticeably well written and entertaining. It wasn’t much but after seeing them so at odds the last few stories it was nice to see them so comfortably friends again with such good dialogue shared between them.

So, we’ve established that character is not at fault here, the cast is enjoyable, no doubt, so what makes The Creed of the Kromon so overwhelmingly mediocre? Well for one, the story is utter dross. Like I said earlier, this script easily fits into a decades old trope for Who that I think almost always spawned a dull story and doesn’t change up now. It’s a lot of pointless back and forth between one note villains and our protagonists before the inevitable downfall later on. And, you know what, let me just talk about the Kromon, since they’re the title bad guys and all. They’re dull. That’s it, that’s all, all she wrote, they are as bland as a tyrannical species can be. I like how distinctly alien they are but that doesn’t change the fact they don’t feel threatening, lack distinct or interesting personalities and have little to no depth. And it’s them that cause so much of this story to drag, because we’re stuck with their endless taunting that only causes mundanity. Something I also think impacts the grand revolution plot is that we get to see so little of this world. The Kromon apparently have hundreds of Eutermasens and Oroog (other alien species, kind of like giant moles) enslaved but we never see a single one of them. And since, in the climax, the Kromon all die in sync because their queen got removed, we don’t really see the revolution, only the slow and tedious build up. Plus, we see the return of Philip Martin’s recurring issue of violence against women in his scripts. Or rather, body horror directed specifically at women in his scripts. Much like Peri getting transformed into a bird in Vengeance on Varos, Charley here goes under a rather uncomfortable metamorphosis into a Kromon queen that just rubs me the wrong way. It’s cruel and disgusting in an unfun way that only serves to leave a bad taste in your mouth and the story would be a lot better off without its addition.

The Creed of the Kromon had potential, at least, I feel it did. There are a number of great ideas here, most of them coming from the excellent world building, but it’s all stuck in a large scale story that’s been shrunk to a relatively small scale for little reason. And since I should mention it somewhere and The Creed of the Kromon is already wasting good ideas, the whole point of the Divergence Arc, taking place in a universe without time, is thrown away immediately. It would be more accurate to say it takes place in a universe without the word “time”, as that seems to be all that’s missing; there are still days, hours and every other measurement of time that would surely be impossible. Misuse of its central conceit or not, there’s no denying that The Creed of the Kromon is nothing special at heart, consisting of an uninventive trek across an arid landscape with only a few hidden gems.

5/10

Pros:

+ C’rizz gets a really effective introduction

+ The world of Eutermes is wonderfully alien and strange

+ The interactions between characters are surprisingly endearing

Cons:

- A derivative bore of a plot

- The Kromon are entirely underwhelming antagonists

- We get to see an unfortunately small amount of a nicely developed world

- Really nasty to Charley in a supremely uncomfortable way