Eighth Doctor Audio: The Skull Of Sobek

[Peri-Peri]

Too much perfection is dangerous.
 
On the isolated planet of Indigo 3, far out in the wastes of the Blue Desert, lies the Sanctuary of Imperfect Symmetry. It is a place of contemplation and reflection. It is also a place of death.
 
Something from another time, from another world, has found its way inside the hallowed walls. Something with a leathery hide, a long snout and sharp pointy teeth

Sound good so far?

So what's good with it? McGann/Smith - awesome etc! The supporting cast on this audio is brilliant. Barbara Flynn, Giles Watling and Art Malik perform their socks off with the given material and work well alongside the regulars. There are a few great one liners in an otherwise quite unfunny script with some great banter between the good/bad characters. The pacing isnt too bad and the setting is interesting (if perhaps a little underexplored). Potentially a very good and quite scary story in there somewhere trying to get out.

But what's wrong with it? Marc Platt seems to have given up trying halfway through writing the script and you sort of feel that he got bored of it and just wrote in anything to get it finished. As a result the action becomes boring and getting to the end of it is a bit of a challenge. The silly voices of the crocodile possessed people also become very annoying after about 3 minutes and despite the actors putting the effort in, they haven't been given the greatest material to work with. It's a standard Doctor Who-by-numbers story that pales in comparison to the previous outing, which is a shame because given some more effort there could have been quite an interesting story to be told here which just makes it all the more frustrating.

Final Verdict: A safe story with nothing really new or exciting introduced and unfortunately a little boring.

The Skull Of Sobek gets just 2/5 TARDIS's

Extra Info: 60 minutes long on one disc. Bonus features include cast interview. It can be purchased from Amazon from £6.76

[Exterminate]

I found a *free* download of this a while back and I have to say I wasn't impressed. There is a huge overusage of animal aliens in the last few years. Pigs, fish, cats, rhinos etc. This one has crocodiles and it really doesn't work. It kept putting me in mind of the one from Peter Pan that's always after Hook

[Oh-Wise-One]

I didnt mind this too much. It dragged on a bit and the story was a bit ropey but the actors put in a decent performance and didnt ham it up too much despite the fact they could have gone very over the top with the script. 2 TARDIS's is about right I guess. There are far worse stories out there.

[Peri-Peri]

I found a *free* download of this a while back and I have to say I wasn't impressed. There is a huge overusage of animal aliens in the last few years. Pigs, fish, cats, rhinos etc. This one has crocodiles and it really doesn't work. It kept putting me in mind of the one from Peter Pan that's always after Hook

I agree about the animal aliens. Way too overused in new Who, though they have pulled back on them a fair amount lately. Off the top of my head, I think this might be the only such occurence in the audios. I might be wrong though

[Roranicus]

I really don't understand why there are so many animal aliens. They very rarely end up being any good.

[Peri-Peri]

There is a good twist with them but it's executed slightly badly. There aren't animal aliens in any other audios that I can remember

[The Doc]

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