An Autist Reviews: Escape From Kaldor (The Eighth Doctor Adventures: Ravenous 2.1)

*All Reviews Are Spoiler-Free Aside From Any Spoiler Sections*

Kaldor is a planet of haves and have-nots. Robots do everything, the idle rich get richer, the poor get poorer, one company owns half of Capital City, and Liv Chenka did everything she could to leave it behind after her father died, but now the Doctor has brought her and Helen Sinclair back to check out ‘The Complex’ a massive freshly opened mall. But the Doctor has an alternative motivation, a family reunion. Sadly he’s not the only one, as the Sand Rats are about to have a little fun, and thanks to the Company, that fun is going to result in the deaths of innocent, if not posh, shoppers, and with the Company trying to manage the situation, things might only get worse from there.

For an incredibly simple story, this is filled with detail and interesting moments, character interactions, and really was hard to take notes on because of just how much is jammed into not even an hour of audio drama. Liv really is the star of the story along with Helen and Toula, a Company woman trying to save the day. Liv’s relationship with her family and home is really well explored and it helps flesh out her character and explain why she is the way she is. Some moments with her and Toula tend to be rather oddly inserted into the story, but they still are interesting and their relationship is just a chaotic mess. The Doctor’s B story is a fun one as well, really showing off why Kaldor is such a fun setting to work with just because of the obvious themes and messages you can introduce and the lovably hateable characters. The exposition can get a little grating, with one or two unnecessary descriptions and a lot of references to past stories involving Kaldor and its robots. The end deals a lot with the free will of the robots, although the ending comes very quickly once the Doctor arrives on the scene, with him convincing the robots of something with ease. Liv, at the end, also elects to stay on Kaldor for a year and then go travel with the Doctor again, which seems too easy and it seems like it happened so fast, although it’s understandable that the story would need to handle it fast so that the spin-off The Robots could exist to deal with that entire time, but I would have liked SOMETHING more there. The last thing I’ll mention is Kit, who is very annoying, but intentionally so. Sadly, his anxious self isn’t exactly the most enjoyable and his storyline is rather dumb.

The acting is nearly perfect. The occasional line doesn’t come off right from the main cast, but the emotional strength of their performances makes up for those few drops in quality with ease. The robots and the director are fantastically acted villains, with the director having such a douchy CEO voice and delivering every line with a slimy, dickish, psychopathic tone. The side characters, sadly, have the worst acting. Kit is the main reason this is the case, with his performance being so annoyingly grating, but the ringleader of the anti-Company protestors having one or two poorly acted lines. Still, those issues don’t make that much of a difference at the end of the day.

Ah yes, the reason this REALLY isn’t a 10/10. Let’s get to the worst part of the effects first, the action effects. From lazily paced walking effects, to EXTREMELY impressionistic and loud effects during intense moments, the majority of the effects just fall short. Some are still really good, which is why the rating isn’t lower, but the fact that only two can come to mind is certainly an issue. Now, the music. The music is rather forgettable, nice, to be certain, but forgettable. The sad, happy, and intense moments tend to have the best music, as you’d expect, but the intense moments often get held back by the music being too loud along with the action effects being too loud as well. Still, the end has some AMAZING musical choices. The transitions are also rather crap, but they build up the impending disaster at the beginning and certainly do their job at the end, which is more than can be said for some transitions. This is a story with killer robots, so the voice effects are, as one would expect, perfect. There is one iffy moment with the Doctor in a vent, I think, but aside from that moment, the voice effects are just perfect. The background effects are also amazing, a little bare perhaps, but they work perfectly and the fact that you can hear the weather shield being raised despite the size of the Complex is an amazing touch that goes to show how well done the background effects are.

This story, sadly, isn’t one you’ll get more out of on a second listen, as many are, but I did miss that the robots have Toula’s voice the first time around, so I didn’t catch some of the connection between Toula and Liv until later listens. Still, this is a fun stand-alone story that I love to revisit every now and then.

All in all, a phenomenal beginning to Ravenous’ second box set, and one filled with detail and Liv being a sarcastic queen and the Doctor being a chaotic mess, as one would expect. Kaldor is rendered lovingly by the writer with a lot of transparent, but not annoyingly so, themes. The effects hold it down, sadly, with them often overshadowing scenes and rendering them un-enjoyable. Despite this, the story is a favorite of mine and possibly my favorite of this box set. Now… to try and crank out the Christmas special’s reviews so I can get them out in a thematically significant period of time. Happy holidays ahead of Christmas though, have a good time! <3

Original Guesstimate - 9

Total - 9

Plot - 9
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Story - 10
Pacing - 10
Dialogue - 9
Narration - NR
Exposition - 8
Enjoyment - 9
Twist/s - NR
Resolution/s - 9
Ending - 9

Acting - 10
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MC/s - 10
SC/s - 9
BG/s - 10
Narrator/s - NR

Effects - 8
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Music - 7
Voices - 10
Actions - 6
Background - 10
Transitions - 8

Replay - 8
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Re-Enjoyment - 10
New Details - 6

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