This story is most impressive for its large scale. As someone used to modern who, the length of this is pretty special in its own right. The characters of Marco and Ping-Cho are likeable and the journey is varied enough to stay interesting. The locations were sometimes a bit too much to keep track of, but most were distinct. It also dawdles a bit here and there, with several escape attempts and a few too many “Give me key? No!” conversations for my liking. Also, Tegana felt aimless at times. His villainy should’ve been obvious for ages, so why do we keep pretending like there’s nothing going on? Same goes for Marco’s regret for stealing the Tardis. They spent ages together, and suddenly on the last few pages, he gets a feeling of remorse. That could’ve been set up way earlier, especially since we have characters that can never reach their home, which is the exact situation Marco finds himself in. Ping-Cho’s marriage plot was also a bit waved away and slightly unsatisfying. She didn’t want to marry someone she didn’t love, so instead she…. Married someone she met 2/3 times. I like the way the old man died though. That was funny to me.

Okay, onto the stuff I actually really liked. Barbara got to flex her history muscle for arguably the first time in the show. It was very clear she knows her stuff. The Susan and Ping-cho combination was also solid and allowed for character building. Clearly portraying Susan as adventurous and optimistic. Which is something that adds to the (otherwise relatively grumpy) group dynamic. Ian got his heroic moments, but I wish Barbara’s knowledge was a bit more used at the end near the palace. The doctor shows his intelligence with the games of chess and backgammon, which is the first time he has really shown how smart he actually might be. The scale, as mentioned before, is also a really good selling point, and quite ambitious! Even if some of it is filled with an irritating sense of frustration between the parties.