A review by kmccubbin
Doctor Who: Creatures of Beauty, by Nicholas Briggs
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.