REVIEW – DARK EYES 2 – THE WHITE ROOM (SPOILER-FILLED)

As usual, spoilerphobes beware

After the super surprise ending to The Traitor, I was half expecting things to pick up where they left off in The White Room. I was half right as things did pick up, but from Molly O’ Sullivan’s POV.

In a surprise twist, the events of The Traitor aren’t even mentioned in this second story. It’s like they never happened! Instead we find the Doctor paying a visit to his residential home at 107B baker Street where he is held at gun point until Molly saves him. Afterwards he promptly asks her to ‘get out of my house’. Some gratitude eh?

Despite not really impressing me in Dark Eyes I, Molly makes a point of correcting that oversight and wins me over to her side. The companion return is dealt with quite quickly and we are thrown head first into this medical mystery involving the Viyrans (you remember those guys?) and the Huntsmen, a group of mercenaries who assist the Viyrans by kidnapping and killing people.

As with most Viyran stories, the plot involves yet another one of the Viyrans’ viruses. This one causes the infected person to continually leap back in time a few seconds-minutes, but at the cost of becoming an incorporeal entity – a ghost if you would. Not to diss Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, but these guys seem more like Time-Zombies than those after images in the TARDIS. The people infected are dead, so have nothing to lose in their quest for revenge.

The cast here are brilliant. They are interesting. They are malignant and they are fun to listen to. Dr. Herbert Goring and Master Zachery in particular get special praises as they are two people I really wish would just drop dead. It pains me to think that there are people like this in real life. The world is a sick place indeed and not even Viyrans can save us.

Speaking of the Viyrans, they are phenomenal in this story, hell-bent on containing the virus and ending up stuck in a circular paradox at the end of this story which I must admit took me by surprise. It should’ve been obvious sooner, but I was just so sucked into this story that I didn’t care. This is the kind of story you want to create: Where all the clues are just ignored by the captivating script. Kudos to ????.

Second to last, I’m going to talk about the Doctor and Molly. Unfortunately for the Doctor, Molly outshines him, but the Doctor in particular gets some awesome scenes including being thrown down the Black Well (the place where they buried victims of the black plague), working out the plot at gunpoint and outwitting two Viyrans among others. So yeah, the Eighth Doctor is a pretty good badass in this story. This story felt as though it contained the most emotion, which shouldn’t come as a surprise as the Eight/Molly formula really works. Yeah I know. I’m on-board with O’ Sullivan now. Maybe it was just the Daleks in Part I that kept me from liking Molly. 

Regarding the underlying arc of this series, there is very little in this story to do with that. Instead, this tale feels like an opener, which is weird because The Traitor was the opening story. Although, by the end of this story, I began to think that the Doctor in The Traitor was a future version as his demeanor differs quite a bit from the one depicted here. Can’t wait to find out what’s the sitch between what follows next and what leads into that.

The White Room not only surpasses The Traitor, but also raises the bar for the next story really high. Next time I look at Time’s Horizon …

Catch up on the other Dark Eyes 2 reviews on Enigmania here:
The Traitor