The Art of Death

"Where I know that tonight, I will meet Death once more."

Writer: James Goss
Format: Audio
Released: January 2012
Series: NSA 15

Featuring: Eleventh Doctor, Amy, Rory

Synopsis

"Don't be alarmed!" the Doctor cried through gritted teeth, "It's simply sucking the life out of me. Nothing to worry about..."

When the Doctor falls through a crack in time he finds himself in the Horizon Gallery. But it's no ordinary art gallery, because this one has the best view of the most impossible wonder of the universe – the Paradox. Tour parties are eager to see this stunning, hypnotic portion of sky that's beyond description, and it's Penelope's job to stop people staring up at it for too long. For the Paradox's beauty drives people mad.

The Doctor, Amy and Rory are about to discover that the Paradox also contains a giant and frightening creature with a taste for death...

Verdict

The Art of Death was a very good audio story to continue along my listening of the Eleventh Doctor Tales! I am really enjoying delving back into the era of the Eleventh Doctor and I think it is great to be doing contemporary stuff of this Doctor. It just feels quite neat and takes me right back to a decade or so ago. I liked this one from the off and I loved the concept of a Paradox Chamber with a paradox in the sky being art. How could a paradox be art? It was an indescribable thing, something along the lines of a band or ribbon, but it was so perfectly Doctor Who and that made me enjoy it very much. The format of the story was intriguing with the use of cracks in time, not quite the ones we are accustomed to during the era of the Eleventh Doctor, but it meant that the Doctor met Penelope out of order and we jumped around her life in quite frantic fashion. I think we did that perhaps too much in parts, but it was a unique way to present an adventure which was good. I thought Raquel Cassidy made for a wonderful narrator and I'd definitely be in favour of her returning to tell another story. It really worked having her narrate and play the character of Penelope and was very much resemblant of a Companion Chronicle. Playing with having Death as an enemy is always brave and can be problematic, but I thought it worked great here with the description of him being all bones and shadows. Something having fractured time was very good and it obviously would be the paradox, Penelope pointing that out to the Doctor was pretty funny. One thing I didn't find amusing was that the Doctor doesn't like corned beef sandwiches! They're my absolute favourite so I found that revelation horrific. Mr Silva made for an interesting character while he was around as Penelope's boss, and the description and emotion when he realised he had taken Death's hand amid the panic was excellent. When he was around though, I felt there was way too much time focused on a sandwich being on the floor and Penelope having to pick it up and be laughed at by those that dropped it as she did so. That was strange and unnecessary in my view. How Penelope came to end up in control of the Horizon was good, if not a tad fast, with Silva having been blamed for the students going missing when Death came. The Doctor finding Penelope's secret art when he met her for the first time from his perspective was brilliant and I loved how he was so appreciative of her artistic talents. I was also very impressed with Cassidy's impression of Matt Smith's incarnation, along with her take on Amy. The Horizon being dubbed as being haunted was good and the moment where Death joined the dance made for some very good imagery. Death being linked to the Paradox wasn't too much of a surprise but its touch resulting in Penelope slowly dying was a big shock. It was enough that it had made her blind, but then the Doctor faded away through time once more leaving her. After that, it was about bloody time that Rory showed up nearly a full hour into the story! I was questioning if he was even going to appear. Alas he did and he had to deal with the stasis chamber efforts of Penelope to prevent death by slowing down time. The Paradox being the voice Penelope was hearing and how it wanted to make itself better was interesting, especially when the Doctor returned again and we discovered that Penelope was the creature she referred to as Death! I didn't see that coming which was great. She had been infected by the Paradox. The idea of finding out that Penelope had been haunting herself was terrific and it was because the realisation of not being able to escape the stasis chamber and be stuck in the paradox scared her. I liked that a lot. She was the sole survivor of the planet she killed. That must have been a lot to take in! She could end things by turning off the machine that was keeping her alive, because not only was she infected by the Paradox, she was it. She created it. And she ended it. Overall, a very decent audio!

Rating: 8/10