After Protect and Survive, and as with many of these little connected triplets in the Main Range, Black and White feels a little transitional. Although it was enjoyable in itself, following a corker of an episode like Protect and Survive would always have been hard, and Black and White very much gave me the sense of moving pieces around the board to get all the players in place for the final episode.

And yes, that metaphor was on purpose - this episode sees the return of Fenric, right at the very end. As I say, positioning all the pieces. I was pleased to see the return of Sally Morgan and Lysandra Aristedes (even if I did have to tardis.wiki them as a refresher), but they were both characters I enjoyed earlier in the range. Certainly, this is an episode that requires the background reading and I am glad to have done it.

That said, I didn't 100% follow the Beowulf plot (possibly more due to the fact I was using a belt cutter at the time than the story itself), but I found all the characters in the story to be robust and full - something which sometimes doesn't quite hit for one off characters. I also felt the black/white Tardis resolution to be quite neat, and I liked how you can feel the strings coming together.

Overall, pretty good for a transition episode, but if Gods and Monsters is as good as Protect and Survive, then Black and White will be yet another case of the weak middle episode.