Really lovely start to this series, a nice mainly comedic one, albeit with a hideous shapeshifting truth vampire lurking around a country manor during a hen do, picking the participants off one by one. It’s a very good script from Tim Foley that really captures 13 and Yaz down to a tee (“Hang on. Is (Sherlock Holmes) real as well?” “Yes he is! And he’s such a lazy- FOOTBATH!!”), love Ian and Barbara (RIP), love Gina’s mum and Daryl best of the guest cast.

There is even a New Who style arc gently seeded, with the vampire mentioning it had traveled through time on the slipstream of The Tourist (who is a Faction Paradox-y figure, yes? I don’t really know. Could be a new character too). I sort of inherently trust BF to pull off an arc to a season more than any of the three TV showrunners to be honest (who all have at least one great one!), so let’s go!

Love to hear that theme tune arrangement, it’s so good. I have one or two very slight nitpicks to the sound design, but overall it was very good and the music was pretty great (love the opening fake pop song)! Wish there had been a little more conversation in the maze, I don’t need them to get into The Timeless Etc, but perhaps just a little more from The Doctor about how she’s been feeling about everything and about Yaz might’ve been nice. We do of course love Yaz carrying The Doctor.

Weird that I listened last night to the 8th Doc adventure The Love Vampires, where 8 says the exact same thing as 13 does here, that every strain of vampire has their own rules. I enjoyed both of those stories about the same, solid 4s for fun and character and a nice twist and a bit of threat. “(The TARDIS is) at the center of the maze.” “What?! Why did you park it there?!” “Because I’m a silly billy!!”