I guess I was just left weirdly indifferent to Project: Twilight, even with the surprising amount of violence.  As the start of something I know will be followed up on later and does have its fans, I certainly expected more.  It's a weird choice for Evelyn to be in a story like this and I am baffled they didn't focus on her in more historical stories.  I do like how we get into a lot of world building through this story.  I can definitely appreciate aspects of Project: Twilight through that.  There's moments I really like where Evelyn is reflecting on her travels with the Doctor but there is a certain tone and sense to the story that a person wouldn't really enjoy the experience either if this was the sort of thing they were stuck experiencing.  I suppose I'd rather Big Finish experiment with darker ideas than just do the same bland thing over and over again so even though I didn't really enjoy this story much, I can't begrudge it's stranger choices.

I can tell you it is one of those stories I want to like. I can hear the quality and effort clearly put into the production. I can appreciate it is different and Evelyn is still a joy, even here, so I am predisposed to want to like all of her stories.

But I found it long and a little self-indulgent. It reminds me a little of how the Virgin New Adventures realized they didn't have to worry about censorship but then veered hard into dark content.

I have no issue with that, specifically, but it feels like it didn't have much purpose here other than to hype up the vampires. Which I think the world building around The Forge actually did better than the violence. The graphic stuff just kind of made me depressed here.

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

Previous Story: Bloodtide

Wow, that was awful. This story is like if you melted down all the worst parts of season 22 and concentrated it into one painfully terrible adventure. It's so edgy and gratuitously violent for no real reason. I didn't need to hear a man explode and then all the blood and organs splatter on the walls and floor. And I definitely didn't need to hear it a SECOND time. I hate how badly characterised the Doctor is here, he's so stupid. He trusts the mysterious people running the shady casino who don't flinch when a man explodes in front of them for literally no reason and then gets shocked when they turn out to be evil. He puts Evelyn in needless danger and even gets tricked into making a super-virus for the vampires. This story likes to pull a lot of things out of nowhere, like the aforementioned super-virus or when a character gets attacked and then says "did I forget to mention my armour?" as a lazy way of explaining why nothing happened to him.

While I really like Maggie Stables so far as Evelyn, she was downright insufferable in this story. No fault of her performance, but rather the writing. Like the Doctor, she made a lot of out-of-character decisions like leaving Cassie with someone who was clearly going to torture her. That whole sequence was ridiculous because the Doctor told Evelyn to stay with Cassie only for Evelyn to believe a lie that the Doctor "needed her to fetch something". It was a pointless decision made just so the writers could shove in some torture scenes. This story manages to make the 2 hour long snoozefest that is The Apocalypse Element seem like a short trip, and this is half an hour shorter. It's a shame because I genuinely enjoyed the atmosphere at the start and the soundtrack was phenomenal.

Overall, this is an exceedingly dull and needlessly gory story. I understand that this is the start of a very important and expansive arc in the Main Range so if the rest of those stories are anything like this I'm going to have a hard time.

Next Story: The Maltese Penguin

15.06.2022

Is ThE dOcToR pReJuDiCeD? i GuEsS hE wAs. He WaS aLsO rIgHt.

I hate this type of stories. They lead up to one conclusion but end up with the opposite, with neither of them working, resulting in net zero information. It's like you've listened to the void, except the void has a few sequels coming up post-credits. Also f**k them for renouncing some aspects of vampire mythology. "Oh, we're not afraid of crucifixes or garlic, stupid. It's not books, how could you thinks that * spits in the face*". Sure, it's not like you're in Doctor Who story. Fuck that. They should own it. 1/5

MR 023: Project: Twilight

Uh... not sure how I feel about this one. Doctor Who's edgy emo phase I guess. Even edgier than Shalka.

During WW1, the British Empire somehow figured out how to create vampires. Of the State of Decay variety. Those vampires are now in the middle of London in 2001 trying to spread the vampire virus to all of humanity. For... some reason. The lead vampire says it's to "save humanity," but I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean. Immortality I guess? They're hunted by a man named Nimrod, the scientist responsible for creating them in the first place during WW1. He became a vampire himself to stay alive and is now a vampire hunter. The Doctor is tricked in the stupidest way possible into helping them create their virus and then helps Nimrod stop them.

What I have to assume is the most important part here is that they turn a woman named Cassie into a vampire who works at their front casino. Since she's rescued and dropped off in scandinavia to hang out. Presumably to be a recurring character.

Yeah, I'm not a big fan. It's just edgy for the sake of it. Very 80s Doctor Who. Blood and guts and gratuitous violence just cause. And just like State of Decay (where vampires first originate) everyone is trying WAAAYYY too hard to act edgy. They're saying edgy one liners and trying to act all jaded and sarcastic as they saw off limbs or watch people explode or inject people with the vampire virus. Like I said, it's giving very emo. Very Hot Topic circa 2005.

That's really all there is to it. Oh and the Doctor is an idiot for falling for the vampire ruse. Dumb. I'm surprised that this audio got sequels at all. 2001 really was a different time huh?

The Monthly Adventures #023 - "Project: Twilight" by Cavan Scott and Mark Wright

Some people call Big Finish convoluted. Some people say that the Main Range is full of random references, interwoven stories, important scenes in entirely unrelated episodes and constant tie-ins with their other series. Some people say the Monthly Adventures can be hard to navigate. Those people are all correct. Project: Twilight is the beginning of the infamous Forge Arc, an odd, convoluted and often melodramatic series of stories that all begin here, in a bleak crime story with vampires and genetic experiments. We’re about to be on the trail of Nimrod and Cassie Schofield for a very, very long time, so strap in.

In 1915, shadowy organisation the Forge carried out genetic experiments of prisoners and soldiers from around the Isles. 86 years later, and the Doctor and Evelyn become embroiled in the disturbing going-ons in The Dusk, a London casino with the strangest of owners.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Project: Twilight is truly unlike anything I’ve ever seen in Doctor Who. Even on a relisten, I am shocked that this is a story in the Main Range and not an oddball, supernatural take on True Detective. This is not a script in which our characters belong; the Doctor in his technicolour dreamcoat or Evelyn Smythe, professor of history and enjoyer of cocoa should be running around the universe, fighting off big robots and lizardmen. Instead our villains this time are just real, nasty people. We are in a dingy little casino and we are unsafe, people can be killed just like that, and never in nice ways. Everybody is a monster or a wreck and it is miserable in the best possible way. This is a bloody, fascinating crime thriller that somehow made it into the family friendly prime time TV show Doctor Who’s expanded media, and I for one love it. I have a weird soft spot for vampire stories, I think that done well they can be some of the most versatile movie monsters; tragic, scary and fun is a rare combo and vampires usually check all three boxes, Project: Twilight being no exception. Cassie’s transformation hits close to the mark, Nimrod is terrific, fun character with an incredible vocal performance and Amelia and Reggie make for two of the most real, gritty, vile antagonists the show has ever seen, real bottom of the barrel scum, true human (well, not quite human) evil in their own despicable little ways. Everything here just clicks for me, it’s dark with a point, we are meant to feel out of our comfort zone, it’s not just needless violence (most of the time). The characters are interesting and the world is fleshed out, you feel real stakes and real horror as what the hell these people are planning is revealed to you. Adrenaline pumping action with some genuine care and nuance put into it, this is not a style Scott and Wright will give us again, instead opting for more B-movie notes and melodrama, so I’d savour it whilst you can.

However, the story can go too far. There are some moments that are unnecessary cruelty, which can be expected from a story like this, the line it walks on is razor thin. I think the main bit that just made me feel sick for little reason is when Reggie mutilates Cassie for snooping on him. I already am scared of Reggie, Cassie heals soon after because of the vampire mutation, we didn’t need any more reason to hate this guy or give any more reason for Cassie to kill him later on, this is just sickening and pointless. Also, as many others have noted, the Doctor and Evelyn both act really strangely throughout this audio, they hardly ever react to what’s going on around them, despite how horrifying it is. You can not convince me that 60-year-old history professor Evelyn Smythe, who gives her students chocolate cake and knitted jumpers, will see a man explode, be covered in his viscera and just go “oh blast, looks like I’m covered in blood, what an inconvenience”. Also, pretty much every character is covered in blood from this moment on and then they never address it again. There is no space of time for them to go and change but nobody ever acknowledges that they’re covered in a man’s insides.

I think Project: Twilight is brilliant. Horrific and gritty genius that pushes the characters and the listener out of their comfort zone and into unexplored realms, forced to confront the dredges of society through the lens of a vampire story. It teeters on edginess but just saves itself for me, easily a personal favourite.

8/10

Pros:

+ A truly unique story: grim, bleak and ugly

+ Amelia and especially Reggie made for absolutely vile villains

+ Nimrod is an incredibly entertaining character and performance

+ Cassie was easily likeable and a good, grounded character in this madhouse of a story

+ Gripping story with a twisting plot

Cons:

- Needlessly cruel at points

- The Doctor and Evelyn both feel strangely out of character and unreactive

- A couple annoying but ultimately minor plot holes