📝5/10

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time! 

This time: there's much ado about nothing!

MY SCATTERED AND TOTALLY IRRELEVANT NOTES:

Creatures of Beauty presents an intriguing and unconventional start, immediately setting itself apart from typical Doctor Who adventures. The story begins with the Doctor and Nyssa under interrogation on an alien planet, accused of crimes that remain shrouded in mystery. This setup creates a sense of intimacy and peril, with Nicholas Briggs skillfully unraveling the narrative in a way that keeps the listener curious.

The non-linear storytelling, while ambitious, feels more like a gimmick than a necessary device, adding little value to the story's core. Similarly, the cliffhangers fail to build enough tension or excitement to compel a listener to eagerly jump to the next part.

The story leans heavily on character interactions and relationships, unfolding primarily through dialogue-heavy scenes. These moments succeed in adding depth to the characters and gradually layering the narrative. The decision to separate the Doctor and Nyssa for much of the story allows them to explore different dynamics with other characters. Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton deliver thoughtful, compelling performances that anchor the story, showcasing their range and chemistry even when apart.

The guest cast is equally impressive, with standout performances from David Daker, familiar from The Time Warrior and Nightmare of Eden, and Jemma Churchill, who later appeared in Village of the Angels. Their portrayals bring additional texture to the story, enriching the world-building and emotional stakes.

However, despite its strengths, the story struggles to hold attention consistently. The dialogue is well-written and moves the plot forward, but the narrative as a whole feels disjointed and lacks a clear sense of purpose. The central themes—an ecological disaster and a deadly disease—create moments of tension, enhanced by excellent sound design and intense performances, but they fail to resonate deeply or leave a lasting impact.

This is a story that may benefit from a second or even third listen to fully appreciate its nuances, but on a first pass, it feels like a case of strong execution overshadowed by a forgettable narrative. While Creatures of Beauty boasts excellent production values and performances, it ultimately falls short of being trulymemorable.

The Monthly Adventures #044 - “Creatures of Beauty" by Nicholas Briggs

Nick Briggs is one of those strange writers who, once in a blue moon, will just decide to shy away from their usual torrent of mediocre to bad stories and produce something like Creatures of Beauty. Where this level of quality was when he was writing the pilot for The Monthly Adventures, I do not know, but it seems that all of the convoluted messes and suffocated worldbuilding or earlier audios have finally been made right by a story of grim injustice and horrific truths that left me feeling shaken like no other story before it.

The world of Veln is an ugly one, putrefied by a toxic atmosphere caused by a negligent alien race. When the Doctor and Nyssa arrive, they find themselves in a whirlwind of conspiracy, as the world tries to make itself beautiful again, and a truth too horrible to bear draws ever nearer.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

It’s a pretty big event when you get a story you really have not seen before. In previous, lesser Briggs audios, such as The Mutant Phase or Sword of Orion, you could always tell his biggest strengths and his biggest weaknesses. His stories were always rich with ideas and imagery, worlds that were unique and ideas that boasted great merit but then he simply refused to take them anywhere. His vast worlds always felt hollow, populated with dull characters and a decidedly bland narrative that made all his often melancholy, always evocative landscapes turn dull and banal. Not Creatures of Beauty though; it still does contain a number of his more insidious faults hiding in there -  they’re not obvious without searching and I will highlight them later - but for the most part, this is the story where his ideas work. From the beginning, great premise: a world in the wake of an environmental disaster has become plagued with genetic defects that are slowly killing the planet’s species and the Doctor has been caught up in a conspiracy involving the aliens who polluted the planet in the first place. Immediately interesting and a great playground for some really sad, contemplative ideas. Does Nick stick the landing? Yeah, actually, the tone here is great. This truly feels like a world in its death throes and through the twisted characters and hopeless vistas we’re presented with, Briggs builds a palpable and funerary atmosphere that persists throughout the whole script. And what a script this is, this is grimdark done to perfection; even though I’m a fan of something like Project: Twilight, I can’t argue this is a much better execution of a similar tone, taking these nasty and cruel characters and using them as paints in a tragic portrait, victims of a disaster not of their making. And I think what really helps them along is the dialogue; I’m not the biggest fan of Briggs’ characters, I think they tend to come off on the more bland side and whilst they’re definitely not deep here, I can at least praise the words coming out of their mouths. The dialogue here is beautiful but not artsy, it feels real and grounded and sombre. That speech right at the end by viscous chief security officer Gilbrook, about his great-grandfather witnessing the pivotal explosion that leaked the deadly pollution into the planet’s atmosphere, finally giving reason to the whispery “beautiful”s we’ve been hearing, is a sublime little monologue. Although, on the character front, I can praise Five and Nyssa, two characters I find to be consistently boring are genuinely great here. Seeing Five struggle to control his fears and Nyssa slowly breaking over the course of the plot is easily the best work I’ve seen from Sutton and Davison thus far. And on the more technical side, one of Creatures of Beauty’s biggest selling points is its unique structure. We’re deep in experimental Big Finish territory right now and Briggs has decided to deliver us a story told in a non-linear format, jumping between different points in the story to expertly build a tension and mystery, starting with Nyssa being interrogated for murder and slowly unravelling the horrific events that lead up to it, dancing between the beginning and end, drip feeding us information all for the merit of that one, final moment. I have issues with Creatures of Beauty’s second half, but as for the end, like the very end, I have none. I actually clocked the twist a ways in, but luckily had forgotten about it enough so that the final reveal still hit me like a truck. So, it turns out the Doctor accidentally caused everything that happened by crashing the TARDIS into the ship carrying the radioactive waste that polluted Veln. It is a gut punch of an ending and the way it's revealed, finally bringing all the separated plot threads together for one, singular scene is glorious. Throw in Five and Nyssa’s ambiguous reactions to it all, whether the Doctor knew or not, Nyssa’s guilty conscience and you have the makings of a perfect closing moment.

But, Briggs is not a perfect writer, and this is, for all of its achievements, no perfect story. Remember when I said that for all of Briggs’ worlds and ideas and imagery, he was always unable to fill it with substance, well, Creatures of Beauty isn’t much better. The story is a fine narrative: simple and a little bit uneventful obscured by the complex structure. Because we never see anything in order, constantly piecing it together like a jigsaw puzzle, it’s easy to overlook that the story basically just jumps between five or six scenes with a few quick moments in between. The story feels like it's missing something, like we skipped over some important development in the plot that would’ve helped things flow better. By Part 3, everything had begun to blend into one and what was a slowly drip-fed plot became a plot that stopped moving, ending halfway through and going on out of necessity. There are a lot of double edged swords here, the structure being one of them because it becomes overbearing after a while and ends up dragging out of the pacing of the story. And another one of these swords is the characters. As I said before, their dialogue is brilliant, and a couple of them are even engaging but so much of the cast feel almost personalityless, more vehicles for the plot than living, breathing facades. And, in the end, trying to diagnose the issue, I find that Briggs once again forgets to explore his world. Creatures of Beauty is very plot heavy and, because of that, we miss out on the intricacies of the setting and the characters. We never really get time to breathe and whilst Veln is built to be this massive and detailed society, we see such a small amount that it falls in between the cracks to a sort of liminal space where everything just feels a little incomplete, somewhat empty. And that’s a shame too, this story had some much going for it, it’s upsetting to see it stumble because of the writer’s repeating flaws.

However, Creatures of Beauty is pretty unlike any story I’ve heard before, and likely will not be like any story I hear again (maybe The Natural History of Fear, they have quite a few similar ideas). Nick Briggs knocked it out of the park, I think, and whilst he didn’t rectify many of his issues as a writer, he certainly improved upon them and I think this is his one script so far where what he wants to work, works. Could use some polish, but no doubt an impressive and sombre tragedy.

8/10

Pros:

+ Decidedly dark and brooding in a glorious and palpable way

+ A truly grim story that uses it torments for a purpose

+ Brigg’s dialogue is both realistic and deeply poetic

+ Writes Five and Nyssa better than any story before

+ Interesting and complex non-linear structure

+ Has one of the most horrific twists I’ve seen in an audio

Cons:

- Is a somewhat uneventful story that feels as if it's missing a few crucial moments

- The world is significantly under explored

- The cast is, for the most part, underdeveloped

- The structure is a double edged sword that causes issues with the plot in the second half

19.09.2022

Excellent. I haven't heard dialogue this good in a while. The writer on this one sure knows how to write a confrontation.
Also the non-linearity makes it a huge favor. The information is revealed at such progression it leaves just a perfect amount of mystery to grab you. I didn't want to stop listening to it (i.e. when I arrived at my destination).

The central conflict is very interesting. I found myself siding with the "villain" here, but unsure. Is it eugenics to do this? Am I going down the same route as Nazis once did? Is it okay if it's voluntary?

The position of every fraction in this one is believable. I had a clear understanding of each one by the end of the play. This is simply phenomenal.
The discussions of colonialism are brief, I would like it to be expanded, but given everything else discussed here, it would probably be bloated this way.

My only problem is the final scene. I find it doesn't add much to the story and makes a very shallow point. Nevertheless, I can easily give it a 5/5.

MR 044: Creatures of Beauty

Excuse me, Nicholas Briggs wrote this one? What? That's wild. I don't associate him with good writing, but apparently he had it in him to be creative this once. Who knew? Good job Briggs.

This story is told out of order and feels rather experimental which is definitely the point. It's actually rather effective in this method of storytelling. The order in which events and details are revealed is very important here.

The story starts out with Nyssa being imprisoned after being roughed up by security, accussed of murder. To which, naturally, she insists she's innocent. We learn that a psychitrist has tried to examine her and thinks she might be telling the truth, to which the chief of police chews him out and later beats him up violently. It's an effective start because we're curious right away as to what is going on.

Then the second episode shifts to the Doctor having an encounter with a wealthy lady in a mansion. He has no idea what's going on, but neither does she know what's going on with him. So they're talking past each other while Nyssa gets arrested. This conversation is particularly interesting, especially when she ends it by saying "You saying you don't know what's going on is making me nervous." Which presumably and does indeed later lead to further interrogation.

We then learn that there was some sort of major ecological disaster here caused by an alien race called the Koteem. But we don't learn details about it until a little later. We do learn, however, that they're working with the lady in the manor, Lady Forleon. The security use this assumed murder as an excuse to investigate Lady Forleon's manor and what they find is shocking to them. Some sort of lab downstairs.

There's some scenes that are out of order here with the Doctor and Nyssa meeting the Koteem for the first time and then a scene with the Doctor and Lady Forleon's agents rescuing Nyssa from prison. The third episode ends on the actual ending where Nyssa asks if they made a difference. This was honestly a fantastic place to end the third episode because we get the full explanations in the last episode, naturally, so the musings are really interesting to us.

When Nyssa asks if the Doctor wanted to make a difference, The Doctor compares the universe to a painting that you don't want to look too closely at because all you'll see is brush strokes. Which is a rather sad way of seeing the world. He's getting older I guess. Too bad he has another two dozen incarnations to go, rip. When Nyssa asked him if that was why he originally left Gallifrey, to make a difference, he said "ah the folly of youth." Ok old man, get off my lawn.

The fourth episode actually begins with the beginning of the story, with the Doctor and Nyssa in the TARDIS. As it turns out, the real enemy was capitalism all along, as it always is. The Koteem had, a century ago, created energy out of a rather dangerous type of radiation, but it killed their world. So they eventually reversed course. The problem was they had all this radiation they had to get rid of, so they were allowed to dump it in uninhabited parts of space. They just weren't allowed to carry their dump trucks through inhabited areas. The people in charge didn't really mind, though, if they went through an inhabited system because it was cheaper on fuel. They would look the other way. Unfortunately there was an accident in orbit over this planet, leaving everyone hit with radiation sickness that killed them slowly and made them severely malformed. Which is why they hate the Koteem now and see everything happening as a potential Koteem agent. This paranoia makes sense after what they've been through.

The Koteem are working with Lady Forleon to create an entirely new species. They can't cure the disease, but they can put their essence into people. Which is rather bizare, but it works. The important thing is that it's the only way to save both species because they're both dying. It's kind of a wild solution, and both governments think so. These Koteem are rogue agents. It's an "everyone is right" situation. These rogue Koteem are right for trying to save everyone even if it means combining both species. And these security are right to be paranoid about Koteem incursions after the horror the Koteem inflicted on them in the name of cutting costs. That said, saving both species is certainly "more right" by my count.

That's what the "murder" was with Nyssa. She didn't murder anyone. Someone who was getting the Koteem insertion violently rejected the procedure. And then right in front of Nyssa she stabbed herself to death repeatedly trying to get the Koteem out. Which is, you know, horrifying to witness. Nyssa should be scared for life now. Not that we're going to mention this again, but hey we can hope for character development. Who am I kidding. We never mention her planet or father's death ever again after all.

The big reveal at the end is what recontexualizes everything. So at the beginning of the story the TARDIS was malfunctioning, the Doctor materialized it in space in an area where people weren't allowed to travel, over this planet. Just as the dump truck was coming through. They had made their hold weaker to travel faster, or some such, just in time for the TARDIS to hit them and then get pushed a century forward in time. So the Doctor and Nyssa were absolutely vitally important in what happened here, in causing this to happen. And it pretty expertly ends on the Doctor saying "I don't think we made any difference at all" when he partially caused it in the first place! It's kind of f**ked and feels careless as hell, but it makes for a chilling ending.

This Doctor is absolutely perfect for this script too. This is the Doctor that does nothing and is passive and observes the stories he is in. That's actually perfect for the ideas in this script. He's just dragged along for the ride because Nyssa got arrested and we get to see the devestation caused by that initial accident through him and Nyssa. It's also perfect because he's partially to blame for what happened by doing what he does. Not getting involved, just observing. More importantly, carelessness. It's a rare Fifth Doctor W. The audio I mean, not the actions. Obviously it's an L for his actions. But the audio itself is fantastic. I'm really surprised Nick Briggs had it in him.

This is an intriguing story from start to finish and pretty dark in its subject matter. It feels hopeless, like nothing could really change or get better because of the destruction of Lady Forleon's lab, and it's made all the more hopeless by the Doctor's own actions. What really makes it work, though, is the way it's out of order and the order in which those events are told. If that ending was at the beginning it would change the entire way we listened to the story, as would putting the scenes together in order in general. It's much stronger as it is, I think. Well done.

I am a fan of non-linear narrative, and I think the telling worked mostly well. It adds weight to the story at the end upon finding out how the chain of events links together. Nicholas Briggs can be a mixed bag for me, but this was one of his better ones. But that could be mostly due to the non-linear narrative, which does need closer paying attention than if the story was told linearly. Briggs does over-emphasize mentions of beauty and ugliness in his script, and some of his characters seem unnecessarily overbearing. But The Fifth Doctor and Nyssa are overall enjoyable in this tale.

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: Spare Parts

Where is the Nicholas Briggs that wrote this now? This is such a heavy and uncomfortable story. I have to commend it because very few stories evoke genuine reactions like that. I'm still not entire sure what happened, it's not a regular story in the sense that nothing wider is changed by the time the Doctor and Nyssa leave.

I've been waiting for some experimental stuff with this TARDIS team for a while now, especially considering this is relatively early Big Finish. This definitely delivers on that with a non-linear order of events. You're constantly jumping back and forth in the story and this is used to great effect as the mystery slowly unravels. It's not always easy to follow but this is written very well so that you can still generally understand where you are and what's going on.

It is a fairly drastic shift in tone from the other stories with this team, not an issue, just a warning for anyone going into this. While it's not my kind of story, I can appreciate that it has a clear idea of what it wants to do and executes it perfectly.

Next Story: The Game

I don't always agree when people say a story has 'palpable atmosphere' but this is a prime example of that. Dark, brooding, horrible, unsettling. It's structure is all jumbled up, but it uses that to build up to a horrifying realization, something even the doctor doesn't realize, or if he does, he makes sure that Nyssa doesn't find out. It's a highly affecting story that feels half-formed on purpose, stylistic and conceptual, and it really pulls it off.
10/10