Relistened to this one yesterday.
The part with Charley being used as an alien birthing factory is super unpleasant to listen to, by design I think. L’da begging C’rizz to kill her is so very dark. An incredibly nihilistic society that has been set up. The Divergent Universe is generally not a very good place…
Still, I think the story has some merit, and C’rizz really gets a traumatic beginning to his adventures with Charley and the Doctor.
Oh “Natural History of Fear” is next 
Ah, hello Bill, nice to see you here, ankle deep in the muck with me.
Hit this in my McGann listen-through. I knew it was coming, but I naively thought that Philip Martin was a newcomer who’d been brought on board and then excommunicated after this absolute nightmare story, a la Nekromantaeia. What larks to find out that this was also the mind behind Mindwarp and Vengeance. It all makes so much sense now.
Listening to the first two episodes I was struck by how, initirally, this could have been a comfortably 6/10 “weird alien society upended by The Doctor’s intervention” story that was being told with Six and Seven in the mid to late 80s. All the slightly paranoiac synth work, the evocation of that kaleidoscopic, oversaturated chroma-key skies, an engimatic and slightly effete villain in the Kro’Ka…then it takes a hard left turn with the end of Episode 2, and suddenly the rug is pulled and we realize we’re back in fetish territory. I haven’t seen either Vengeance or Mindwarp recently, and this isn’t inclining me to go revisit them.
Martin is a splatter-punk author, or at least a wannabe, and for as much as I know about the genre. The far-too-long sequence of the Kromon scientist eating and groaning, one of three or four extremely distressing soundscapes deployed in the course of the first half of the story, left me reeling with its gratuity. I think this was meant to push the boundaries of just how much horror audio was capable of conveying, and fair play to them, on that narrow proviso, it succeeds.
But the dialog is still so stilted. Nick Briggs is director on this one, so he’s gone mental with the modulator - I clocked three “distinct” (and by that I mean different pitches of warbly indecipherable voice) vocal effects on characters here (The Kro’ka, the Kromon themselves, and then of course poor Lida at the end) so the whole thing is a muddy listen. It’s like having your ears filled with out-of-date jam.
There’s clearly some sort of ethos at the center of this, a rebooting of sorts in the wake of Scherzo. The world is different, it’s bleak, it’s dark. It’s almost treating Scherzo as its own Twin Dilemma, a regenerative moment that drags the universe just that bit closer to the filth and the mud that Philip Martin so clearly seems to want to work in.
But Martin, I don’t think, is interesting in the filth and the mud further than surface level shock, inspiring revulsion, perhaps indulging his feelings towards the feminine sex? I’m not an armchair psychologist, but I’m sure anyone with a degree and halfway positive intent could have a solid weekend unpicking this particularly sticky jumper.
I’m gonna finish it, but god, it’s rotten. I can perhaps predict one star.
Oh, don’t worry about that one star. It gets worse.
This may possibly be my favourite ever comment about an Doctor Who audio ever. 
You’ve articulated my feelings quite well. He just wants to shock and disgust, and always in relation to women and it’s absolutely awful
While I’ve only finished Episode 3 and haven’t gotten to the true horrors of Episode 4, I’ve heard enough to be able to make some comments. I’m finding this story more boring than anything else. There are a scattering of interesting ideas such as the Kro’ka or the origins of the Kromon (the idea of a corporation invading and the indigenous species adopting their business practices without understanding the meaning behind them is a cool concept). There was a mention of Varos (Martin really liked referencing his own stuff) and I thought Conrad Westmaas gives a good performance. I’ll get around to Part 4 eventually, and then I’ll be done with this mediocre story.
Finally finished this today. It’s got some interesting ideas, the origins of the Kromon as well as the Kro’ka and the Interzone. The hints/threats about C’Rizz at the end are definitely intriguing. Conrad Westmaas continues to give a decent performance here and C’Rizz is a darker companion in the veign of Turlough. It’ll be interesting to see how the character is developed going forward[1]. Yes, this story does however have some faults. What is done to Charlie is grusome, and I agree that the grusomeness seems to be the point. While I can defend it slightly on the basis that it really sells the Kromon as alien, I don’t actually like it. Needless to say, this won’t be a story I’ll be returning to any time soon.
it’s been at least six years since I’ve listened to these so I only remember broad strokes and not many details ↩︎