The Rutans vs. Sontarans plot thread comes to a close and thankfully it’s a good one. Not a great one like the opener, but a good one, with some really satisfying twists and scenes at the very end. It also once again reunites Paul McGann’s Doctor with Charley and C’rizz, which still makes me smile that we’re getting new C’rizz stories in the 2020s… Anyway, let’s take a look!
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After a great opener and a pretty good second part Rutans vs. Sontarans comes to a bit of a halt with “Grave Moon”. There are some good bits here and there but mostly it’s just sort of meandering around for a while before a few revelations and then it ends. Honestly it felt more like an Eighth Doctor story too as I can’t really think of anything The Sixth Doctor or Peri really did during the story, whereas at least McGann did some things, a bit. Ah well, let’s take a closer look anyway…
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The next Rutans vs. Sontarans story is “Rendition”, and it’s technically a Second Doctor adventure, it’s just I normally put stories that feature multiple Doctors in the style of the oldest Doctor present, which in this case is the Eighth Doctor even if he is just a mysterious cameo. “Rendition” is an odd story, featuring the Rutans under a microscope as a bunch of them have found themselves outside of the war and cut off from the host mind. Let’s take a look!
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The Time War: Uncharted line comes to an e- … Oh, well… The Time War: Uncharted line concludes a few things but somehow continues on with “Branches”, seeing the return of Susan to the storyline, albeit briefly. After a 4 for the Cass boxset and Set 1 Uncharted 2 got just a 2 from me last time, so how does this fair? Well…
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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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