The first installment of the Dark Eyes saga, which sees the Eighth Doctor don his second outfit and Ruth Bradley debut as companion Molly O'Sullivan.
This audio also a marks a big turning point for the Eighth Doctor- a very recognisable and permanent Tone Shift into darker and downcast territory, establishing the mindset that would eventually lead the Doctor to the planet Karn and his destiny.
After the trauma of "To The Death", the Eighth Doctor, rather broken, tries to find a reason to continue living. He tries to steer his TARDIS to the end of existence, to look back on time itself and maybe find some small glimmer of hope. When he can't quite make it, he takes an axe to the console in a desperate hope of triggering enough of a power surge to get the rest of the way there. Instead, he's stopped by Straxus of the Gallifreyan C.I.A., who's returning to send Eight on yet another Time Lord mission...
And then we get something different. Molly O'Sullivan, a young Irishwoman, has followed her lady Kitty into France to become World War I medical volunteers together. Kitty is now dying from gangrene, and Molly is wrecked with Survivor Guilt and pain. She's not in any mood to deal with a wounded long-haired man in velvet who calls himself "The Doctor". However, when someone claimed to be a doctor starts giving Eight a blood transfusion that will kill him for good, Molly decides to save his life and try to get him away from the inexplicably glowing mustard gas attack that's approaching. The gas destroys what was left of Kitty, and Molly, now with even less to live for, follows the Doctor. Then, because Eight is the universe's cosmic plaything and his day can, of course, get worse than it already is, it promptly precedes to do just that; they're rather rudely interrupted by Nicholas Briggs and his ring modulator because are you really surprised that the intergalactic murdering Fell Saltshakers would show up at this point? No? Nor were we.
Tropes
- Ax-Crazy: That's how bad the Eighth Doctor has fared from losing three companions and loved ones. Bad enough that he buries an axe blade into the TARDIS console trying to trigger enough of a power surge to get to the end of the universe. Many years later in "The Doctor's Wife", The TARDIS doesn't complain about it.
- Broken Bird: Molly is a textbook example.
- Changed My Jumper: The Eighth Doctor absolutely ruins his clothes in the trenches of WWI. He starts wearing a leather ensemble with a t-shirt, jeans, boots, a satchel, and even cuts his hair short (although the hair-trimming doesn't seem to happen until the next serial, despite what the audio cover depicts).
- Hospital Hottie: Molly, although she's in no mood to be one and can understand perfectly well that being sexy wouldn't help in any way.
- From Bad to Worse: The Doctor's day has been bad enough: he's been broken by the events of To The Death, puts an axe in his TARDIS console, the Time Lords meddle (again), then someone he's just met dies. How could it get worse? Naturally, of course, the Daleks rear their ugly heads.
- Medical Horror
- Percussive Maintenance: Eight tries to regain control of his uncooperative TARDIS with a pickaxe. She's not amused.
- Saying Too Much: Doctor Sturgis telling Kitty not to give the Doctor his sonic device, even though the Doctor never said what it was.
- Strapped to an Operating Table: Eight, with a helping of Playing with Syringes.
- Suddenly Shouting: The Doctor is not happy at the beginning, and his mood is worsened when Straxus shows up and his TARDIS is stopped. They exchange a few words before the Doctor whispers angrily "Get out of here," followed by yelling "Get OUT of my TARDIS! Get out!" And then he's almost on the verge of tears in his hurry to get to the end of the universe.
- Survivor Guilt: Both Eight and Molly.
- War Is Hell
