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

MR 053: The Creed of the Kromon

AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

That's it. End review. No, but really, fess up. Who let Philip Martin have a pen?

I just... I'm speechless. I thought we were done with the dark and edgy torture porn for the sake of it stories after Nekromanteia and the two Project stories. And yet here I am. Suffering. I hope you're happy. We went from an absolutely breathtaking meditation on the nature of Doctor Who in Scherzo to... whatever the hell was going on in Philip Martin's mind.

I don't even want to summarize the plot so I'll just gloss over it. After exiting their glass tube, the Doctor come across... immigration and border customs? Or some such. An angry disembodied entity that decides whether people get to cross over into the zones on this planet. Because there are zones on this planet. This whole section was bizare.

And then we go to the zone with the Kromon and we all go wtf. We start off relatively harmlessly by meeting C'rizz, our designated new companion. He's escaped from the Kromon after he and his girlfriend L'da were taken. They infiltrate the Kromon and we get to see their operation. They're a termite like species that exists in a hive. Brainwashing, making all aliens slave workers. They're now a corporate structure because they themselves were destroyed by a corporation but adapted the corporation's methods. Their "creed." It so feels like the director is supposed to be Sil. He sounds like Sil and acts like Sil. I was half expecting him to make the annoying purring sound that Sil makes.

C'rizz discovers that L'da has been made into a queen to birth kromon offspring forever. Which, you know, is horrifying. It reminds me immediately of Dragon Age because that game series has the same sort of monster. It's body horror, but particularly horrifying for women. Women being reduced to baby incubators is certainly what a lot of conservative policy is all about so it has a real world horror to it.

L'da begs for C'rizz to kill him, which he does and then they get put on trial. The story then drags on and gets super boring. The trial goes on forever and nobody cares. The Doctor works on space travel, but tricks them into causing an explosion. C'rizz gets tied to a water wheel and tortured, but is rescued by a friend from the beginning of the story. And Charley gets made into the new queen. This is the horrifying bit. We get to see every bit of the process of Charley being transformed into a birthing queen, as if it's a fetish for the writer. Who knows, maybe it is, he did have Peri transformed in both his two stories.

They eventually escape and I'm mercifully saved from having to hear more of Charley birthing and controlling Kromon offspring. One thing that did strike me as incredibly pretentious was how the Divirgent Universe is not supposed to have a sense of time and yet it absolutely does have time. There are events that occur in chronological order, something that would not happen without time. Regardless, why did anyone think this story was a good idea? And why did anyone think it would be a good introduction to a new companion? This Divergent Universe arc is not off to a great start. Let's hope the rest of it isn't like this.

01.04.2023

It's just torture porn. No narrative substance in here, I'll tell you that.

Also an award for the most unimaginative implementation of a great concept. In Scherzo the world with no time felt distinctly alien and incomprehensible, almost lovecraftian. Here it's "What is this time you mention? I don't know this word. Anyway, see you in two days".

Filler after filler after filler, the only scenes of any character substance are downright pornographic in their depiction of suffering. The writer gets off on this, I can grant you this.

Another award for the blandest secondary cast of all time. There's no distinct features for any other character. One of them becomes the companion by the end 🤮...

This ain't it, chief. 0/5

😑36% = Bad! = Leave it!

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

IT'S THE NEW WEB PLANET!

The Creed of the Kromon picks up where Scherzo left us, with the Doctor and Charley looking for the TARDIS while coming across a desert world filled with anthills and the giant, insect-like Kromon. Is this another The Web Planet (1965)?

Kro'ka, the creepy and playful guardian of the Kromon zone, allows the Doctor and Charley to enter the lands to search for the TARDIS, and this is where their real struggles begin.

Philip Martin builds a story that has very similar vibes to his previous TV work for Doctor Who (Vengeance on Varos); it’s pretty bleak and unnerving, but not effectively engaging like Scherzo. The story primarily revolves around the Kromon's use of the Doctor and Charley to uncover the TARDIS' secrets, yet it is excessively long, sluggish, and sporadically impactful.

Paul McGann and India Fisher are always reliable, but they feel very underwhelming here. It's a pity, since Charley in particular goes through quite a tough time (again) in this one.

Conrad Westmaas introduces us to our new companion, C'rizz. He offers a unique perspective as an alien with the ability to alter his skin tone to blend in with his surroundings. The story gives him ample opportunities to shine and portrays him as a passionate, decisive character, yet understanding him remains somewhat challenging.

The alien side characters blend into each other, and this release goes overboard with their voices.

This one has a pretty good sound design to capture the dusty and barren setting, and the simple but unnerving music is also nice.

A lot of this story has a strange aura to it, and I rarely felt engaged by the story surrounding poisons, mind control, and scientific experiments. It’s all a bit naff and devoid of excitement. That being said, the body horror aspects are fairly effective, and the darker themes popping up here and there give this one a more serious tone.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Well, this is a huge step down from Scherzo. The story is painfully slow, bizarre in all the wrong ways, and features themes that don't land as intended. It's only relevant for C'rizz's introduction.