5️⃣🔽 = MIDDLING!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

“THIS JAILHOUSE NEEDS MORE ROCK!”

This story is off to a rough start; it’s unclear who is who, where we are, and what’s going on. And even after it’s slowly explained to us what is going on, I’m still quite lost and have a hard time getting a grip on the characters and the plot. I like the general idea, though, of a prison planet populated by more or less unstable inmates.

The most intriguing part about the first two episodes is everyone forgetting who Tegan is. Another interesting aspect is Ivan and his quirky persona.

The story slowly reveals new layers and twists that keep the adventure going at a decent pace. But even then, it only occasionally manages to remain entertaining while mostly trudging along and having no business being six parts long. It then ends at a cliffhanger, supposedly leading straight into next year’s first 5th Doctor box set.

The cliffhangers and their immediate resolutions are great, and the cast is generally superb—this goes for the regulars as well as Philip Hurd-Wood (Ivan) and the two Starclair sisters in particular. Andrew Wincott voices Beyond in the final part, and his interactions with the Doctor are also pretty nice.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS:

The constantly changing surroundings of Beyond bring to mind the slowly changing layout of the spaceship in Wild Blue Yonder.