This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: The Whispering Forest

I find Big Finish adapting the one-off (or in this case two-off) villains to be very hit-or-miss (see, The Age of Sutekh). Fortunately, I can safely say that this story is a fantastic usage of the Mara. The Mara, despite getting two whole stories on TV, still felt like it had loads of untapped potential and this story is just scratching the surface.

For starters, I really like that they flip the format of the previous stories around. Instead of having Tegan possessed for most of the story, it's instead the Doctor and Nyssa who are possessed. This just makes sense honestly; they've been present for both previous encounters with the Mara and it didn't think to possess one of them?

We get to explore the Manussan Empire now, something only hinted at before and I was a bit disappointed to see that it's essentially Earth. This would have been a great place to build an interesting and unique location, and have it only somewhat similar to Earth. Instead this story barely differs Earth with that of Manussa and I think that's probably the biggest missed opportunity here. That's a minor thing though, and the rest of this story makes up for it plenty.

Peter Davison is shockingly good in villain roles, something he's proved time and time again and this story is no exception. In fact, I'd argue this is one of the best examples of him playing the villain. The Mara-possessed Doctor is so callous and cruel, it's a stark change from the passive and kind Fifth Doctor and yet Davison plays the villain so naturally. I'd honestly say he's better as a villain at some points.

Overall, this is an excellent conclusion to the previous two Mara stories. The cast get to really show off their acting chops and with a villain as frighteningly fascinating as the Mara it's difficult to go wrong.

Next Story: Heroes of Sontar