Even if the bar set by The White
Room was lowered by half of what it was, Time’s Horizon would need a ten foot
pole just to reach it. What a pitiful story to include in Dark Eyes II.
I apologize if you liked it, but I am
the one reviewing it here and according to me and several others I’ve talked
to, this story is clearly the weak link of the series. Molly’s dark eyes
returned during the previous story, which automatically catapulted her back to full-companion
status. The Doctor and she go to the edge of the universe and meet Liv Chenka,
who immediately starts blaming the Doctor for the events in The Traitor.
My suspicions about that story
taking place later in the Eighth Doctor’s timeline was proven correct and it
takes serious convincing for Liv to believe the Doctor she met on Nixye 7 isn’t
the same man standing before her now. Of course, as with most non-time
travelers, this opens the door for the old ‘it hasn’t happened yet, so change
it’. I find it so weird that almost no time traveler ever takes the time to
explain the obvious paradoxes involved, instead opting for making the situation
even harder just for the sake of drama.
What’s worse is the fact that since
we already have this great chemistry and storyline involving Liv and the
Doctor, Time’s Horizon screws it up by splitting them up for nearly all the
story, instead choosing to ‘create’ a relationship between Liv and Molly as
it’s really important for companions to get along. What a waste in my opinion.
The enemy for this story is the
Eminence, with who I have no problems with whatsoever. I love the Eminence. I
love the whole ‘Breath of Forever’ they use to take control of people and I
love how they are the focal point of this series, replacing the Daleks as a
force worthy to outlive all others. I personally do consider them more
dangerous than the Daleks and wouldn’t mind a few more stories with them as the
main baddie. Destroy the Eminence, which is a Fourth Doctor audio drama scheduled
for release later this year, will feature the Doctor coming face to face with
the Eminence for the first time (from his POV). Time’s Horizon features the
same sort of storyline, except this is the Eminence’s first encounter from
their POV. Time wimey eh?
Now onto the plot and characters.
The characters I found boring and very stereotyped. I’m not sure if you can
forgive this as base-under-siege format requires characters to be fiercely
stereotyped. I for now do not. You on the other hand can make up your own mind.
As for the plot, I have only three words: Too fucking slow!
Seriously, listening to this, it
just felt like people talking for an hour. The backstory takes forever to setup
and explain, the twists are unpredictable, but that’s just because the listener
has a tendency to nod off and not listen to the climax setups. This is made
even worse because this story features the great resolution to the whole
Eminence threat. If you’re struggling to see what I mean, it’s kinda like if
Love and Monsters (Doctor Who) had been the series finale. Lame eh? Yip. That’s
what it felt like here – except worse!
The true highlight for me during
this story was the ending which featured Alex MacQueen’s Master making a
surprise appearance and setting up the events for the last story. It wasn’t a
very long scene, but it did what it was supposed to do and got me excited for
the next part.
Rating this story: 5/10. Time’s Horizon fell flat on its face and
wasn’t able to keep the pace, but Eyes of
the Master did. Tune in next time to find out how.
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