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x_losficBFA 53 The Creed of the Kromon
So in Scherzo, Charley got to have meaty introspection on how having chosen to go off with the Doctor out of love for him meant forever giving up the sort of love involving a husband and children. The position of lady of the house was really Charley’s social birthright, what she might always have expected to return to after adventuring (if indeed she wasn’t adventuring in the first place partly due to pursuit of a man—specifically the one she sought to meet up with in Shanghai). After all this, a story in which Charley’s chosen to become a human-ant hybrid, mother to scores of children who desperately need her, might have creepy poignancy. Sadly no, nothing’s made of Charley’s potentially interesting issues in The Creed of the Kromon.
This BFA left me with a lot of questions. Not the deeply thought provoking sort, more ‘things I would ask were this being workshoped.’
1) Why is a society controlled by a few female queens apparently super-patriarchal? All the decision-making of the Kromon was done by male managers. Does that make sense given the biological hierarchy of the insect world, confirmed by this audio? Why do the Kromon even want hybridized Queens? Is there some need to genetically innovate? Where are all their own, natural Queens?
2) Why does the Doctor not blink at all at the genocide of the entire Kromon race? Granted the slave rebellion of the Oroog is a natural result of their oppression, that he has little to do with, but still: it seems odd that he’s not even slightly bothered by the elimination of the entire race.
3) Isn't it great how this pocket universe still has a lot of basically humanoid life and parallel structures like Companies? Man, I'd been scared for a moment that we were going to do hard scifi or something--thank god, no, just Scherzo and a return to something very safe and done.
4) I thought C’rizz’s harping on how Charley Must Die was an interesting psychological defense: in a fit of indignant rage, C’rizz killed L’Da. If, as Charley’s not being /irretrievable/ shows us, he might well of saved her if he’d adhered to his monastic principles and acted less rashly, this insistence serves as a method of denying his own guilt. …but then no one ever brings up in the face of Charley’s recovery that oops, C’Rizz might have fucked up, and killed L’Da for nothing. So then it just turns into a weird belligerent insistence unmotivated by his character.
5) …which is a boring one. It’s been said before, but Really. C’rizz is pretty dull. Like a cheap movie-verse Nightcrawler from X-Men. …only 10x more dull and not the kid of Mystique and the Devil (probably—if that’s revealed next audio, don’t spoil me, team). Also why does he say of L’Da that they’ve turned her into a human-slug? Last I checked she wasn’t ‘human’ at all…
6) I am unimpressed by Charley’s miraculous quick physiological and psychological recovery from what amounts to massive invasive body modification. In a universe like Who’s, especially when you can’t see that universe for yourself due to medium, there must be real consequences attached to Dire Fates, or else everything feels too Children’s Teatime Program and the predicaments are invalid and uninteresting because we all just know the plucky Doctor and his jolly assistants are going to bounce right back as if nothing ever happened. And that’s bloodless entertainment—no one likes a matador who passes the bull too far from his own body.
7) The Doctor’s remarkably unconcerned about Charley in this. He wants her back and safe, but he’s calm and poised about the whole thing—weird given the emotional intensity of Scherzo. Here he just seems blasé.
8) Interstitial Guy (who I otherwise found rather interesting) has to info dump at the end. Hold up and listen to this crap about C'Rizz being interesting or something. And to do his best ‘Davros in Journey’s End’ impression by accusing the Doctor of having made C’Rizz violent or something, just by having said hello? I didn’t buy it in Journey’s End, and given how little Interstitial Guy knows the Doctor, and…well, what actually happened as far as C’Rizz, it makes even less sense now.
9) The Oroog: what is this sentient thing protesting ‘but I am an animal!’ for? What is his weird personality-free ‘oh let’s bring Charley back, I miss her, though we exchanged all of ten words’ thing? Why are there kindly creatures lurking in the deep that really enjoy helping lost Oroog to antidotes? That’s exceptionally convenient. Also this ONE friendly Oroog that Team (Absent) TARDIS had previously met being the one to find the antidote, and being apparently religious/philanthropic enough to go visit C’Rizz on his water wheel (cool torture, btw)—everything’s just coming up Divergent Universe Roses, isn’t it?
10) Pacing. Several conversations in this retrace each other, a lot of the action could easily be condensed—I didn’t realize until this episode how uncluttered a lot of the audios were, how largely free they were of the Classic!Who malady of ‘this six parter should have been four, tops’ syndrome. So generally well done, BFA, but here a bit grating.
11) Unless it’s REALLY well done in the upcoming audios, I don’t buy no one having a concept of time in this universe. They have a clear causal narrative of events, and generally static societies without a firm concept of dynamism/linear time are jolted into the recognition of one by imperial incursion a la the Company. So why not here?
12) Given how often it crops up in classic Sci Fi, some dudes must have a 'women pregnant with insects/reptiles' fetish. I mean obviously that's O_O, but really how else does one explain ALL those 50’s B-movies where insectile aliens impregnating human wimmins is a threat?
Conclusion: I probably would have been ho-hum about a decent audio after the OMGWTFBBQ!!1 that was Scherzo, but this was just lame. I mean I was making rolls of twenty out of the nets they use to collect the dates from palms at the time I was listening to this—my threshold for ‘will it entertain me?’ Was low. Low enough to answer the implorations of Lil Jon and The Eastside Boyz. /Still/ The Creed of the Kromon did nothing for me.
ALSO: I think I would like Charley better if she kept her freaky ant womb and occasionally plopped out a bug baby as a companion on the TARDIS, because that would make her Interesting. "Some prefect Charley bullshit dialog--excuse me *pulls out screaming ant thing*--there we go, run along and play with your 500 brothers--as I was saying, But Doctor, I LOVE you!!"
EDIT: And what was with the weird alt-rock music? That was just odd.
So in Scherzo, Charley got to have meaty introspection on how having chosen to go off with the Doctor out of love for him meant forever giving up the sort of love involving a husband and children. The position of lady of the house was really Charley’s social birthright, what she might always have expected to return to after adventuring (if indeed she wasn’t adventuring in the first place partly due to pursuit of a man—specifically the one she sought to meet up with in Shanghai). After all this, a story in which Charley’s chosen to become a human-ant hybrid, mother to scores of children who desperately need her, might have creepy poignancy. Sadly no, nothing’s made of Charley’s potentially interesting issues in The Creed of the Kromon.
This BFA left me with a lot of questions. Not the deeply thought provoking sort, more ‘things I would ask were this being workshoped.’
1) Why is a society controlled by a few female queens apparently super-patriarchal? All the decision-making of the Kromon was done by male managers. Does that make sense given the biological hierarchy of the insect world, confirmed by this audio? Why do the Kromon even want hybridized Queens? Is there some need to genetically innovate? Where are all their own, natural Queens?
2) Why does the Doctor not blink at all at the genocide of the entire Kromon race? Granted the slave rebellion of the Oroog is a natural result of their oppression, that he has little to do with, but still: it seems odd that he’s not even slightly bothered by the elimination of the entire race.
3) Isn't it great how this pocket universe still has a lot of basically humanoid life and parallel structures like Companies? Man, I'd been scared for a moment that we were going to do hard scifi or something--thank god, no, just Scherzo and a return to something very safe and done.
4) I thought C’rizz’s harping on how Charley Must Die was an interesting psychological defense: in a fit of indignant rage, C’rizz killed L’Da. If, as Charley’s not being /irretrievable/ shows us, he might well of saved her if he’d adhered to his monastic principles and acted less rashly, this insistence serves as a method of denying his own guilt. …but then no one ever brings up in the face of Charley’s recovery that oops, C’Rizz might have fucked up, and killed L’Da for nothing. So then it just turns into a weird belligerent insistence unmotivated by his character.
5) …which is a boring one. It’s been said before, but Really. C’rizz is pretty dull. Like a cheap movie-verse Nightcrawler from X-Men. …only 10x more dull and not the kid of Mystique and the Devil (probably—if that’s revealed next audio, don’t spoil me, team). Also why does he say of L’Da that they’ve turned her into a human-slug? Last I checked she wasn’t ‘human’ at all…
6) I am unimpressed by Charley’s miraculous quick physiological and psychological recovery from what amounts to massive invasive body modification. In a universe like Who’s, especially when you can’t see that universe for yourself due to medium, there must be real consequences attached to Dire Fates, or else everything feels too Children’s Teatime Program and the predicaments are invalid and uninteresting because we all just know the plucky Doctor and his jolly assistants are going to bounce right back as if nothing ever happened. And that’s bloodless entertainment—no one likes a matador who passes the bull too far from his own body.
7) The Doctor’s remarkably unconcerned about Charley in this. He wants her back and safe, but he’s calm and poised about the whole thing—weird given the emotional intensity of Scherzo. Here he just seems blasé.
8) Interstitial Guy (who I otherwise found rather interesting) has to info dump at the end. Hold up and listen to this crap about C'Rizz being interesting or something. And to do his best ‘Davros in Journey’s End’ impression by accusing the Doctor of having made C’Rizz violent or something, just by having said hello? I didn’t buy it in Journey’s End, and given how little Interstitial Guy knows the Doctor, and…well, what actually happened as far as C’Rizz, it makes even less sense now.
9) The Oroog: what is this sentient thing protesting ‘but I am an animal!’ for? What is his weird personality-free ‘oh let’s bring Charley back, I miss her, though we exchanged all of ten words’ thing? Why are there kindly creatures lurking in the deep that really enjoy helping lost Oroog to antidotes? That’s exceptionally convenient. Also this ONE friendly Oroog that Team (Absent) TARDIS had previously met being the one to find the antidote, and being apparently religious/philanthropic enough to go visit C’Rizz on his water wheel (cool torture, btw)—everything’s just coming up Divergent Universe Roses, isn’t it?
10) Pacing. Several conversations in this retrace each other, a lot of the action could easily be condensed—I didn’t realize until this episode how uncluttered a lot of the audios were, how largely free they were of the Classic!Who malady of ‘this six parter should have been four, tops’ syndrome. So generally well done, BFA, but here a bit grating.
11) Unless it’s REALLY well done in the upcoming audios, I don’t buy no one having a concept of time in this universe. They have a clear causal narrative of events, and generally static societies without a firm concept of dynamism/linear time are jolted into the recognition of one by imperial incursion a la the Company. So why not here?
12) Given how often it crops up in classic Sci Fi, some dudes must have a 'women pregnant with insects/reptiles' fetish. I mean obviously that's O_O, but really how else does one explain ALL those 50’s B-movies where insectile aliens impregnating human wimmins is a threat?
Conclusion: I probably would have been ho-hum about a decent audio after the OMGWTFBBQ!!1 that was Scherzo, but this was just lame. I mean I was making rolls of twenty out of the nets they use to collect the dates from palms at the time I was listening to this—my threshold for ‘will it entertain me?’ Was low. Low enough to answer the implorations of Lil Jon and The Eastside Boyz. /Still/ The Creed of the Kromon did nothing for me.
ALSO: I think I would like Charley better if she kept her freaky ant womb and occasionally plopped out a bug baby as a companion on the TARDIS, because that would make her Interesting. "Some prefect Charley bullshit dialog--excuse me *pulls out screaming ant thing*--there we go, run along and play with your 500 brothers--as I was saying, But Doctor, I LOVE you!!"
EDIT: And what was with the weird alt-rock music? That was just odd.
