The second half of “Empty Vessels”, or the other two-thirds I guess, is “Lure of the Zygons”, a two part/two hour story that similarly deals with a spooky abandoned space craft but throws in some Zygons for some extra flavour. Well… sort of, honestly this felt just like the previous story in being rather bland, thankfully inoffensive, but still just that little bit too predictable and meandering to stand out. Let’s take a look…

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The next Eighth Doctor boxset is already here, just a month after the previous one released and this time we’re back with Liv and Helen in their post-Stranded, pre-Liv-returning-to-Tania period, and it seems we might be gearing up towards bringing this period of the Eighth Doctor’s life to a close… in a few years’ time, given the amount of Eighth Doctor ranges/time periods that get shuffled through each release! “Eos Falling” reminded me a bit of some of the middle episodes of the Eighth/Lucie Miller run in that it was just an hour long and while inoffensive it was also not particularly original either. With that glowing endorsement, let’s take a look!

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Finishing off the Causeway boxset is “The Time You Never Had”, which ramps up the Causeway story arc / buzzword that I’ll be honest didn’t know was a thing until it was brought up. Still, this is once again a good story but also once again has its faults and has an ending that felt a little bit like having your cake and eating it too. Still, I think more good than bad at least! Let’s take a look…

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The first of two Eighth Doctor boxsets within a month of each other, “Causeway” features the new Charley and Audacity combo of companions and certainly puts the latter through the wringer across both stories! “Lost Among The Stars” is a really fun story, full of a creepy soundscape, interesting world building and a good “how will they get out of this one?” twist, but sadly the end and predictability makes it fall short of something truly great. Let’s take a look!

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The next story in the Halloween boxset (skipping over Doctor-less spin-offs for my wallet’s sake) is an Eighth Doctor / Audacity story that focuses on the classic “children’s folklore comes to life” idea but with the folklore of an alien tree-like species instead. It’s a perfectly good one-hour story but once again it feels more sci-fi than horror, which given the whole idea of this Halloween boxset was “spooky stories for Halloween” is a bit of a disappointment. Anyway, lets take a closer look…

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The Time War strand of Eighth Doctor adventure’s Uncharted strand (yes, that’s a strand of a strand!) continues with “Pursuit” and I’m sad to say that despite a really fun cliffhanger last time this set is rather bland, and steadfastly refuses to having any forward momentum until the last moment, and that’s only barely different to how Set 1 ended. If this were an adaptation of something I’d label these stories “filler”, clearly existing to stretch the story out longer without adding anything significant. I will say that the final story, “The First Forest”, was good fun at least, it’s just the three leading up to it that lets the side down… which is a lot given that’s three-thirds of the set! Let’s take a look…

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Hooklight is a twelve (!) part story that was released across two six-episode boxsets, but unlike the ill-fated “Last Day” double-whammy from last year this is actually coherent and enjoyable! While not perfect, particularly in the second half, Hooklight succeeds at a grander form of storytelling (even if it borrows heavily from the narrative structure of Lord of the Rings) and introduces genuinely interesting characters that have a chance to develop and breathe thanks to the extended runtime. Let’s take a closer look!

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Classic Doctors, New Monsters: Faithful Friends comes to a close with the Eighth Doctor encountering the otherwise nameless Monks that the Twelfth Doctor faced off with in a rather disappointing three parter during what was otherwise his finest season. When one of these stories comes around you know it will be taking a “new monster” and either doing a retread of their TV appearance or doing something interesting with the species, and given I didn’t massively like their TV appearance I was hoping for the latter, but instead I got the former. Still, does the addition of the Eighth Doctor in a romantic relationship make it better? Let’s find out!

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Finishing off the “Deadly Strangers” set then is a story featuring the return of The Mara, well, sort of anyway. It takes place in a clinic where people are sent to a deep sleep for many years at a time and so the idea of the Mara invading people’s dreams while they’re kept under is a good, it’s just sadly the story really isn’t all that interesting. Ah well, let’s take a look!

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The next set of Eighth Doctor / Charley / Audacity stories has arrived (or did a short while ago…) and with it an interesting titbit: the first story in the set, “Puccini and The Doctor”, was written by Matthew Jacobs, the man who wrote the TV Movie and therefore created the Eighth Doctor, returning to the franchise for the first time since then. It’s a good thing it has such an interesting behind-the-scenes bit of info because I have to say the set as a whole is rather average or in one case flat-out bad, so there isn’t a lot to talk about otherwise…

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