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Searching for the TARDIS, the Doctor and Charley pass through
the fearsome Interzone barrier into an arid land. This region
is ruled by the termite-like Kromon race, who capture Charley
and threaten to transform her into a hybrid-insect Queen.
The Doctor must barter his knowledge of space-travel technology
to save her...
This
adventure marks to return to Doctor Who of writer Philip
Martin, who penned the Colin Baker stories Vengeance on
Varos and Mindwarp (parts five to eight of The
Trial of a Time Lord), and the novel Mission to Magnus.
At
the request of Big Finish, the story does not feature Martin's
recurring villain Sil, though there are plenty of weird aliens
here to choose from. We have the insectoid Kromon (Daniel
Hogarth and Stephen Perring putting on various voices), the
chameleon-like Eutermesans, represented by new companion C'rizz
(Conrad Westmaas), the sinister disembodied voice of the Kro'ka
(Stephen Perring), and a fearsome yet friendly hairy beast
called the Oroog (Brian Cobby). In fact, apart from the Doctor
(Paul McGann) and Charley (India Fisher), there are no humanoid
characters at all, which brings to mind the experimental William
Hartnell insect adventure The Web Planet. Having said
that, C'rizz's character and motivations seem very human,
in spite of his bony skull ridges and ability to change colour
(both of which, of course, can only be conveyed in the dialogue).
It
has to be said that, despite the absence of Sil, several aspects
of this tale are reminiscent of him and/or Vengeance on
Varos. Like Sil, the Kromon have revolting eating habits,
slurping and burping their way through a feast of maggots
for instance, and like Sil's people, the Mentors, their society
is organised along corporate lines, though they are more concerned
with bureaucracy than profit. Most obviously of all, the metamorphosis
of Charley is bound to draw comparison with the transmogrification
of Peri in Varos, while the mind games played by the
Kro'ka at the outset of the story are similar to those experienced
in the Purple Zone in the same television serial.
The
Creed of the Kromon is a curious mixture of the traditional
and the downright strange, which doesn't always work. However,
I enjoyed this more than Scherzo.
Richard
McGinlay
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