I really wanted to like Stranded you know. I really did. I absolutely adored the first boxset, the second kind of wasn't for me but I loved what it was trying to do, the third started going a bit too far, and here it's pretty much finished (the last story seems to be almost more of an epilogue than full story, this pretty much wrapped everything up) but all I can think is... 'meh'.

In theory, again, I think what this episode is trying to do is great, bringing our core cast of six (Eight, Helen, Liv, Tanya, Andy, Robin) together, guided by an almost mentor figure in The Curator, walking through the ghost of the core setting of the story so far. Having our characters experience echoes of Baker Street is a lovely way to cap things off, brief glimpses into the lives of the other residents as we draw to a close. It's really really nice.... in theory.

In practice, we havent' had a story with the action centred on present day Baker Street since what, Divine Intervention all the way back in Stranded 1? Even then it was more spread out, I think Must-See TV was the last story to really focus on that setting, and that was ten stories back. There's a similar problem for the test of the cast outside that core six as well. The last story that focused on Ron was Snow in Stranded 3, then you have to go back to Stranded 2 for the last stories focusing on Tony, Aisha, and Zakia.

If Stranded focused more as a series on those other members of the side cast, and was more centred on Baker Street itself, I think this would hit so so much harder, but as it is, it doesn't.

And then there's the resolution. The side of things with Eight and Robin works, I think it could've had more emotion to it, but generally solving the multi-boxset problem by sitting down and trying to empathise, figuring out what you can do rather than trying to stop things that have happened or whatever, changing the future through kindness. That's a Stranded ending for the story, and I really like it...

Now the keys on the other hand, again, I think it could work if more attention and focus had been given to the keys themselves before this set, but as it is... meh. The Doctor and Robin are gone, but they've both got their magic keys, and we've all got our magic keys, so maybe because we've got more magic keys here, we can use them to summon The Doctor and Robin back, and hey, lets add the TARDIS keys to the summoning circle because they're also magic connected to time as space and that too.

It just.

I don't know.

I really wanted to like this story.