The Darkening Eye (Doctor Who: The Companion Chronicles) [Audiobook] [Audio CD]

sixth release in the third series of talking books called doctor who: the companion chronicles. these involve an actor who played a companion to the doctor in the old version of the tv show returning to the part to read a new story featuring their character in an adventure with the doctor.

the disc, like all in this range, runs for roughly seventy minutes, and has the story divided into two episodes of roughly thirty five minutes each in length. the penultimate track concludes with a clip from the forthcoming next story in the range, but does not give it's title, and the final track is a short interview with the cast and director.

also usually with these, the actor in this release does almost all the voices, but there's one other actor who does one part. well, normally they do one part, but in this case the guest actor does two.

this release is the first in the run to step outside the era of the first four doctors, as it features sarah sutton returning to the role of nyssa. she played the part alongside the fourth and fifth on tv, but the story here is set during her time with the fifth, thus other companions tegan and adric also show up. sarah sutton voices both of them. As with the doctor, she doesnt do a direct vocal impression, but does manage to imitate their speech patterns very well. the story is set somewhen between the tv stories black orchid and earthshock, and it features a race of aliens called the dar traders. they recently appeared in the seventh doctor audio the death collectors, and this is a prequel of sorts to that, but there's no need to hear one to understand the other as they both stand very much on their own.

in this story, nyssa, sometime after she left the doctro, tells a hospital patient about something that once happened to her. an occasion when the tardis was forced to land on a derelict spaceship. during an exploration of it the companions were separated from the doctor, and forced into helping the dar traders open a mysterious box. the contents of which spell death for the doctor. can nyssa stop this from coming to pass?

the script is a good recreation of the fifth doctors tv era in style of story. the first episode is involving and paced just right, but it's all set up for what comes next. the second is stronger although at thirty five minutes it does take a little while for the plot to really get going and come together.

the outcome of it does tie in well with the scenes with nyssa and the patient. like most of the stories in this range, the companion goes through a bit of an epiphany, and that has an effect on them.

it's very well read by sarah sutton, and whilst it's not the most stand out story ever, it's a decent little bit of doctor who, and not a bad listen

I told Sarah Sutton who plays Nyssa in 'The Darkening Eye' that this was my favourite Doctor Who Companion Chronicle, and I meant it. I could follow this story easily without any problem since I heard Sarah's voice so many times when she played Nyssa in the Big Finish audios. The story itself is quite dark and grim, but manages to get inside Nyssa's thoughts and feelings as the writer initially intended, and I like the connection they made to `Terminus' when they had scenes with Nyssa attending to the patient after her travels with the Doctor. I wish I can listen to more companion chronicles with Nyssa since I enjoyed this one so much. But that's up to Sarah Sutton though, and I must say her voice is beautiful when narrating.