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“The Dark Flame: A Cult Classic in Search of a Spark”

Trevor Baxendale’s The Dark Flame taps into the brooding tone of the Virgin New Adventures, with its sinister cults, ominous rituals, and apocalyptic stakes. The story begins with a scattered and chaotic opening, setting the stage for an adventure brimming with scientific intrigue and creeping dread. While Part 1 eventually finds its footing, the initial scenes struggle with pacing and clarity, as strange visions and fragmented dialogue leave the listener disoriented.

Despite this rocky start, the atmosphere builds steadily, drawing listeners into a world where cosmic horrors lurk in the shadows. The discovery of the Doctor’s murdered friend and the unsettling visions hint at the dark forces at play, setting an appropriately ominous tone.

Character Dynamics and Performances

The Seventh Doctor, Ace, and Benny are a beloved trio, and their chemistry shines here. Sylvester McCoy delivers a restrained yet captivating performance, embodying the Doctor’s enigmatic charm and occasional menace. His final confrontation with Vilus Krull showcases the best of McCoy’s ability to balance wit with gravitas.

Lisa Bowerman is, as always, a delight as Bernice Summerfield. Her sharp wit and no-nonsense attitude make her a standout, even when the script underutilises her potential. Sophie Aldred’s Ace has moments of brilliance, but her role feels underdeveloped, as she flits between scenes without much impact on the narrative.

The supporting cast adds texture to the story. Steven Wickham’s dual roles as Victor, the archaeologist, and his robotic assistant Joseph, provide welcome levity amid the darkness. Andrew Westfield’s portrayal of Vilus Krull, though somewhat archetypal, delivers the right amount of sinister whispering and malevolent intent to anchor the villainy.

A Cult of Missed Opportunities

The story leans heavily on its dark cult and interdimensional threat, drawing inspiration from Lovecraftian horror and gothic sci-fi. While these elements add flavour, they often feel undercooked. The cult’s resurrection of their leader, the eerie possession of Benny, and the malevolent force threatening to break through from another universe could have delved deeper into psychological and thematic darkness. Instead, the narrative treads a safer path, sacrificing potential intensity for accessibility.

Benny’s possession, in particular, is an intriguing concept that never fully pays off. The tension surrounding her internal struggle is hinted at but not explored in a way that heightens the stakes or deepens her character arc.

Pacing Problems and Flattening Atmosphere

The first two parts of The Dark Flame maintain an engaging mix of discovery and danger. Benny’s archaeological escapades, the Doctor’s investigations, and Ace’s wanderings create parallel threads that build intrigue. However, the latter half of the story loses momentum. Part 3 stalls the narrative, and Part 4 overstays its welcome, stretching out the climax without delivering sufficient escalation or payoff.

The atmosphere, so vital to the story’s initial appeal, begins to flatten as the plot progresses. The oppressive dread of the early chapters gives way to more standard adventure fare, and the stakes, while significant on paper, feel less impactful in execution.

The Verdict: A Flickering Flame

The Dark Flame is a competent entry in the Main Range, offering flashes of brilliance but ultimately failing to fully ignite. Its nods to the Virgin New Adventures’ dark and demanding tone are appreciated, but the story doesn’t commit deeply enough to leave a lasting impression.

Strong performances from the central trio and a few standout moments—such as the Doctor’s confrontation with Krull—keep it from faltering entirely. However, uneven pacing and a lack of narrative risk hold it back from achieving greatness.

📝60/100

Random Observations:

• The creepy skull referenced throughout the story reminds me of the skull that plays a pivotal part in Image of the Fendahl.

(DISCLAIMER: TREVOR BAXENDALE IS YET ANOTHER WRITER WHO HAS MADE REPEATED, ABHORRENT AND TRANSPHOBIC REMARKS ONLINE. ONCE AGAIN I REMIND READERS THAT THIS REVIEW IS A REVIEW OF HIS WORK, NOT AN APPRAISAL OF HIM. DO NOT TAKE ANY POSITIVITY IN THIS REVIEW AS A COMPLIMENT TO THE MAN HIMSELF OR HIS BACKWARDS VIEWS. WITH THAT OUT OF THE WAY, PLEASE ENJOY)

The Monthly Adventures #042 - “The Dark Flame" by Trevor Baxendale

The third and final side step, oddly enough released 38 audios after the last one, once again brings the novel-borne TARDIS team of Seven, Ace and Benny to the medium of sound and with it comes a story very reminiscent of whence they came. I’m honestly a little sad at the absence of later side steps as it was fun seeing new companions crop up, like Benny or Frobisher, and we even got The Holy Terror out of it. The Dark Flame, however, is not The Holy Terror, and it’s also not its predecessor, The Shadow of the Scourge. No, The Dark Flame is what I’d call a confusing listen. Whilst enjoyable, it leaves me feeling somewhat hollow.

Picking up Benny from a trip away from the TARDIS, the Doctor and Ace are bombarded by the telepathic force of a murder flung through time. Chasing the source of the vision, the trio find themselves face to face with an ancient cult thought lost to time.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Ask any Doctor Who fan if they’ve heard of The Dark Flame and you have about a 50/50 chance of them going “what?” or “who are you, why are you talking to me?’. Overshadowed by its two big sibling side steps, The Dark Flame is a quaint little story about cults and reality ending catastrophes that, on the whole, fails to impress. Probably the biggest shining light here is our cast, specifically our regulars. They were great in The Shadow of the Scourge but they all play off each other so well here and so effortlessly slip into their more hardened VNA personas, especially Sophie Aldred, who gives a great performance of still being Ace, but with some subtle PTSD. However, I think the main star here is Lisa Bowerman, who is just stunning as Benny. I’ve never heard anybody so effortlessly slip into a role, you could not tell me she was just recording this in a booth without proof. As for the rest of our cast, they’re pretty good. Not the best, but pretty good. They’re distinguishable, well-characterised, sinister when they want to be, I like them (especially sweetheart robot Joseph, he was great). The story itself, separate from its performers, is nothing to write home about, and we will talk about why that damages The Dark Flame later but for now let's just see what it does right. For the most part, this emulates the VNAs pretty well. Set in the murkier side of space, on a dusty old satellite circling a planet of molten sludge, it surrounds age-old cults and tough, no-humour space scientists, all things you’d find in the average Virgin New Adventure. But it also can be pretty fun, Baxendale writes his characters as witty but not snarky, especially Benny who gets all the good lines. And we also have the Doctor seeing through time using a dark star, and armies of skeletons rising from the dead á la Army of Darkness. It’s campy and fun when it wants to be and for the most part alleviates a lot of the boredom.

But it doesn’t eradicate it fully. The Dark Flame is one of those review killer stories that just refuses to be good or bad. The plot is barebones as all hell and fails to keep interest most of the time. It’s lacking in flair, intention and apart from the dialogue, outright humour. It definitely needed more camp, or a good atmosphere, or a more particular genre rather than just “vague science-fantasy”, because it just feels half-baked as it is, a story without any tone or style. Not to mention its attempt at writing a cult; I love cults in fiction (not in real life mind you), I pretty much find them all an interesting subject matter and make for incredible horror antagonists if done well but here, it’s just one possessed shouty guy and a group of cliché followers. It’s tropey as anything and when it's revealed that all of its followers are brainwashed, it loses all threat because it's such a crap religion that it has to mind control people into following it. And then there’s something I just can’t put my finger on. This story concerns the end of the universe and yet feels so very insignificant. It has a tiny cast, running between a tiny space station and a small cave system, never showing a single thing beyond that and due to this, it just feels like a trivial little moment in time, not tense at all. If Baxendale took advantage of the small scale to write something more personal or themed it to be more lonely or scary, it could’ve worked but here, it just ends up being small in scope.

The Dark Flame is nobody’s favourite story. Hell, I doubt many consider it ok, it’s just one of those scripts that fall between the cracks. There was an attempt at some hammer horror/sci-fi shenanigans but it all just falls flat and the only way to describe this audio is bland. The best parts can be found in other stories and the rest ranges from fine to bad. Not terrible, but you won’t see me talking about it after today.

6/10

Pros:

+ Stellar acting from our TARDIS team, especially Lisa Bowerman

+ Fun side cast of memorable characters

+ Can be a campy joy when it wants to be, walking skeletons and all

+ Feels authentically VNA

Cons:

- A completely forgettable and unimpactful story

- Small in scale and scope to the point where all tension is lost

- Poor villain that fails to be a threat

15.09.2022

Forgettable. A spherical Seven story in a vacuum. The villain is perfectly bland, the story bits are tiring and uninspired. They also made Bernice a 12-year-old's impression of Tony Stark for some reason. Hard 1/5

MR 042: The Dark Flame

Damn, my mind is in the process of rejecting this thing so I'm going to try to write it down now before I forget it.

This one is bad. And not for the same reasons of Nekromanteia. This isn't written in a bad way. This is just bad for a standard sci fi reason: technobabble. The story is buried in the stuff and makes it completely incomprehensible. That's why I'm immediately forgetting it. If you need two thirds of your story to be technobabble, you've written a bad script and you need to try again.

So as far as I can tell, the story is that there's some sort of experiment going on on a station in orbit around a planet. The Doctor and Ace are going to pick up Bernice from said station. But then she gets attacked and sent down to the planet where there's a guy trying to resurrect a cult that worships this dark flame.

The guy puts the emissary of the dark flame inside of a recently deceased researcher. Ala Fenric. Who then resurrects a skeleton army. And then it gets a bit procedural. Running around and fighting the cultists and skeletons.

I'm not even sure how it gets resolved to be honest. The Doctor goads the emissary into trying to mind control him and it gets burnt in the process. Apparently the dark flame that everyone worships is the last gasp of life from the end of the universe? Something like that? I can't be bothered to be honest.

I'm not terribly invested in Bernice as a character at all either. I don't listen to her series and I don't read Doctor Who books at all, so she's just kind of a random character for me. She was fine here, I guess, but nothing special. Like in Shadow of the Scourge.

Ace gets to be an action hero so that's cool I guess. The Doctor said she fell in with the military which is... weird and extremely out of character for Ace. So definitely not a fan of that one. Seems as out of character as having her work for the Time Lord CIA. It's weird to have Rapture as the last story with her in it before this where she wanted to be called Dorothy and now she's getting on the Doctor for calling her that, insisting on Ace.

I dunno, I feel like the Seventh Doctor just can't catch a W. His comedy story was very fun, but he's not really gotten a decent serious story yet. Colditz is the closest that's managed to get into that A tier range rather than B-D

Yeah, just not a lot to say on this one. Excessive technobabble can absolutely kill a script as we see in this one. If it didn't have that problem, it could get close to feeling like Dark Souls with the dark flame, the cult, the emissary inhabiting a corpse, the mind control. But it's just not interested in being fantasy and insists on maintaining a sci fi aesthetic even though it's clearly not that.