An interesting concept, but a fairly lame story.

The Doctor was way ahead of the game at every turn, and it was rather annoying, especially when there didn’t seem to be an explanation for how he knew and he would give us brand new info. Leela was alright. She didn’t have anything special today, which is a shame, considering how great Louise Jameson has been.

God, the Crooked Man is creepy. First showing up in the shadows, then kidnapping a baby, and its voice! It was an interesting idea to have the creature be from the Land of Fiction - something I haven’t heard for a long time and still haven’t finished. The idea for the Land of Fiction to be even bigger than we once thought was genius, but it’s disappointing that we didn’t see that.

There’s a truly heartbreaking side plot throughout the story, but it unfortunately doesn’t work as well as it could. In the first half of the story, Laura and Simon’s story is nowhere near as captivating as what’s going on with the Doctor and Leela. When they both come together at last in the Land of Fiction, I hated how strong Simon was to get to his child. I'm kind of glad that he turned out not to be real, but it's still far too much of a copout. And I disliked how Laura just kind of moved on so quickly at the end.

This story had some interesting development leading to its payoff, and the atmosphere was eerie. One of my favourites of this season for sure!