bribriny's review
2.0
The way the story jumps around, i was lost much of the time. Not one of my favorites.
phantominblue's review
I didn't love this one -- audio-only stories don't translate well to playing with time as much as this one did, and much of the dialogue was fairly clunky. Some of the clunkiness was down to getting this time-switching data out, but some of it was just clunky because it's an audio-production and you have to get across what's going on somehow. Typically Big Finish does better than this, but it felt like it was trying to go big and fell a bit short for my tastes.
faiazalam's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Very good mystery, though the plot itself is rather unremarkable. The non linear storytelling adds a huge amount of intrigue that wouldn't have been present had the story been told conventionally
nwhyte's review
5.0
Another experiment in format, with the plot fragmented non-sequentially across the four episodes, so that the crucial contribution of Five and Nyssa to the very beginning of the story only really becomes clear at the end. Very well done.
colossal's review
3.0
This is a fifth Doctor adventure with Nyssa as his companion and is #44 in the Big Finish main range.
Another one in which the audio series play with the nature of the story-telling itself. The story starts in media res and jumps around a fair bit as the Doctor and Nyssa get stuck in a story of a world devastated by toxic mutagenic pollution where the sentient inhabitants are facing extinction in the next few generations. There's a confusing plot where the Doctor and Nyssa are interrogated because of suspected alien interference while actual alien interference is going on from the alien race that caused the accident in the first place.
The story here is an interesting one, but ultimately I felt the format gets in the way. The interrogation scenes are a really clumsy way of delivering exposition and at no point did I ever feel that either of the main characters were seriously at risk. That sort of thing is ok with the 4th or 6th Doctors where they can play up the joke, but the 5th Doctor is very serious and underplayed most of the time. The conclusion is an interesting one that raises important questions though.
Ambitious, but I felt it didn't hit where it was aiming.
Another one in which the audio series play with the nature of the story-telling itself. The story starts in media res and jumps around a fair bit as the Doctor and Nyssa get stuck in a story of a world devastated by toxic mutagenic pollution where the sentient inhabitants are facing extinction in the next few generations. There's a confusing plot where the Doctor and Nyssa are interrogated because of suspected alien interference while actual alien interference is going on from the alien race that caused the accident in the first place.
The story here is an interesting one, but ultimately I felt the format gets in the way. The interrogation scenes are a really clumsy way of delivering exposition and at no point did I ever feel that either of the main characters were seriously at risk. That sort of thing is ok with the 4th or 6th Doctors where they can play up the joke, but the 5th Doctor is very serious and underplayed most of the time. The conclusion is an interesting one that raises important questions though.
Ambitious, but I felt it didn't hit where it was aiming.
kmccubbin's review
5.0
Instantly Nick Briggs moves from solidly competant to brilliant. I don't know what happened in between "Embrace the Darkness" and this, but "Creatures of Beauty is a small masterpiece.
To say too much, given the narrative twists of this piece would be a mistake, but suffice to say that the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa find themselves on a planet just on the verge of interplanetary travel, but that may be dying before they get there. And yet somehow the people coming out of Lady Forlean's estate seem healthy and strangely beautiful.
Not only are its ambitions impressive, it inverts the narrative structure so that not only is the timeline exploded and out of order, but conclusions preceed insighting actions. And it's not just a gimmick. It works to take characters that seem almost like ciphers and then slash them apart as their timelines solidify so that by the end, their marrow is exposed and you feel for them with a surprising depth.
There is a melancholy that infuses the best of the Fifth Doctor stories (Think, the end of "Resurrection of the Daleks" or "Kinda" or "Spare Parts") and this story takes that melancholy and demands that you examine it.
To say more would be criminal. Simply one of the best Big Finish stories I've heard.
To say too much, given the narrative twists of this piece would be a mistake, but suffice to say that the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa find themselves on a planet just on the verge of interplanetary travel, but that may be dying before they get there. And yet somehow the people coming out of Lady Forlean's estate seem healthy and strangely beautiful.
Not only are its ambitions impressive, it inverts the narrative structure so that not only is the timeline exploded and out of order, but conclusions preceed insighting actions. And it's not just a gimmick. It works to take characters that seem almost like ciphers and then slash them apart as their timelines solidify so that by the end, their marrow is exposed and you feel for them with a surprising depth.
There is a melancholy that infuses the best of the Fifth Doctor stories (Think, the end of "Resurrection of the Daleks" or "Kinda" or "Spare Parts") and this story takes that melancholy and demands that you examine it.
To say more would be criminal. Simply one of the best Big Finish stories I've heard.
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