This is the type of story that makes sense for a DW book. Completely impossible to do on TV, very weird looking aliens, impossible cities, complex timey-whimey stuff, the works.

I liked the story, even if the whole thing with the wild animals + the habilines, and pretty much everything with Jacob was a bit overkill. Shock-value, even. On the other hand, the Tractites (I love when there's horse people) were a very interesting race, and I liked pretty much everything about them. The whole thing with the time traveling tree took me a sec to understand.

It was very nice seeing Sam stand up for herself and make decisions. However, the stakes in this particular case were just so immense (the whole of creation) that I wanted to shake her and yell “girl, this is not the time to doubt the Doctor!!!”, especially in the beginning of the story. But! It was very nice that she got to do what she believed in, and was allowed to make mistakes as well. I hope we see more of her coming to terms with what happens at the end of the story. She’s seen a lot of death so far, and this was War 101. The next entry is ‘War of the Daleks’, so I’m guessing her pacifist nature is going to be confronted with rash reality once again. And once again I must say: Doctor, she’s too young!!! take her home!!! she shouldn't even be at the club!!!! she should be in The Sarah Jane Adventures!!!

The Doctor gets tortured this time. Should I be keeping count? So far that tallies are Memory Loss:1 (in 'The Eight Doctors'), Serious Injuries/Near Death Experience:2 (gets vampired 'Vampire Science', nearly drowns in the Thames in 'The Bodysnatchers'), and now Torture:1. The writers too one look at Eight's beautiful face and went "he's lovely! I want to see him crying and bleeding on the floor". And I respect them for that.

Also Jo Grant was there?? Not sure how necessary that was (especially considering her role at the end). I want to say it was lovely to see her (and it was), but it was a sad and tired Jo who was not having a good time at all.