Well this story was certainly interesting. I notice it's the lowest rated in the MR so far so forgive me for my contrarianism as I say I actually quite enjoyed it and certainly think it was a big improvement over the last two stories. To begin with I just want to say I absolutley love Five and Nyssa as a duo in this. In his TV run Five's TARDIS teams are always chaotic and based around some sort of form of squabbling or conflict, and while that works fantastically, particularly for how Davison plays the role on TV, his dynamic here with Nyssa is a wonderful change of pace. I think it works especially well because both Davison and Sutton's voices have aged quite a bit. Davison still brings the youthful energy but he's also got the manner of an aged professor and Sutton is perfectly playing the role of an inquisitive and intelligent student. It feels like they both appreciate each others knowledge and perspectives a lot and they work together in a functional way that would probably be totally derailed if you were to throw an Adric, Tegan or Turlough into the mix.

The story itself I reckon is fine. It's essentially a BUS, which is a format I love and I do really like the setting of an old house in Alaska. Unfortunately however this story did lose quite a but of steam for me as it went on. The concept of the Permians, skeletal dinosaur-like creatures is pretty cool and if this story had kept to being an atmosphere led BUS as it had been for the first half it would have been awesome. However as you enter the second half, things do get a bit muddled. Things just get needlessly complicated, especially when you start dealing bio-electronic fields and their associated techno babble. It's funny because one worry producers had about having very intelligent companions is that it would confuse viewers too much ass there was no reason to having things explained in basic terms. This is one of the reasons why they got rid of Liz Shaw at the end of S7. I don't happen to agree with this view, although it does come up as an issue here; I don't think this is a fundamental issue with having a very smart companion, I honestly think in this scenario it's just bad writing and poor communication. There's also some weird thing about spiritualism going on here. One of the characters believes this is happening because of some old supernatural superstition and I think the story is trying to execute some sort of theme about the spiritual vs the rational. Thing is though, this theme is so underdeveloped to the point where I don't even know what the story is trying to say. Is it trying to find a middle ground between the two, saying that a balance between them can exist, or is it coming down purely on the rational side? I don't know and this is one of the best examples of how the story here gets needlessly muddled. The side characters are also a bit ehh, none of them make much of an impression with the exception of Monica, who gets some great and lines and, in the absence of Tegan plays off and banters with the Doctor quite well. Overall this story has some elements I really enjoy but sadly a few things that let it down. I'm tempted to give it a 7/10 but I think that's just because of how much I enjoy this Doctor/Companion duo. So I'll give a 6.5/10 and in accordance round down to 3 stars.