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Okay, look. I am so here for haunted paintings, the Master in masquerade drag, Ace being a punk, and deserts that scream. I mean, that sentence alone? I’d marry it. But Dust Breeding somehow takes all of that delicious gothic nonsense and turns it into the sonic equivalent of licking a Hoover.
The setup is promising in that “ooh spooky art gallery in space” kind of way. The Doctor and Ace arrive on a dust-covered planet plagued by psychic screams and sandstorms so loud you’d swear Big Finish just sat on the volume knob and never looked back. They’re chasing after Edvard Munch’s The Scream, which in this version is apparently a cursed painting full of ancient evil. Love that for it. Unfortunately, said evil is a telepathic dust-entity called the Warp Core—which sounds like a rejected Star Trek joke and acts like a migraine with voice lines. It doesn’t do much, it just floats around whispering “be afraid” and making actors overact like they’re auditioning for Hamlet in a wind tunnel.
Then there’s the masked figure, who’s obviously the Master in a bad Phantom of the Opera cosplay. They drag out the “mystery” of his identity like it’s some dramatic rug-pull when it’s about as subtle as a Dalek in a tutu. And what’s his master plan? To coax the dusty scream-monster into becoming… a slightly bigger scream-monster? So he can control it? Or maybe just vibe with it? Who knows. He and the Doctor basically yell psychic threats at each other while the actual resolution is handed off to a random side character like, “Oh, you had a bomb? Cool. Guess the plot’s over.”
The real kicker here is the sound design. It is unhinged. I don’t know if they mixed this story during a power outage or in the middle of a leaf blower convention, but the background noise is CONSTANT. The storm never stops. There’s this high-pitched screaming that loops like a cursed ringtone. It’s supposed to be atmospheric, but it just turns the whole thing into a game of “what did Ace just say? Turn it up, I still can’t hear her.” It’s audio claustrophobia, but not the cool kind.
Even the performances feel like they’re screaming over the storm. Everyone’s cranked to eleven with big feelings and bigger vocal cords. The Warp Core manipulates people into becoming Shakespearean lunatics, which is… a choice. Ace barely gets to be Ace, and the Doctor spends most of the runtime moodily brooding in the background like he’s in a Nine Inch Nails music video.
Final Thoughts:
This is one of those rare stories where the concept should be a banger but the execution trips over its own dusty shoelaces. You could listen to it. But you could also stick your head in a vacuum cleaner and get a similar experience.
1 out of 5 tragic Munch faces. Let this one scream in peace.