This one is just fine. As soon as you get an idea of what the Daleks are doing, it's kind of like a waiting game until they finally get on with it. Which makes sense, this is Part 1 of the story. But it's not very interesting to me until later into Part 1.

Guest cast give good performances, as does McGann.

I'm not immediately compelled by Lucie, but interested to see how her journey unfolds with the Doctor.

There's a good cliffhanger here, and the story is good, it's just somewhat slow. I'm expecting more out of Part 2.

“Bleedin’ heck!” as Lucie Miller might say. Her and the Eighth Doctor hit it off right away. It’s one of those perfect instantaneous clashes of personality which is so rare. There is a propulsion and drive to the production. You know that you’re going to want a lot more of this!

Blood of the Daleks Part 1: 8.5/10 - I really enjoyed this as a first experience with the Eighth Doctor on audio. The Doctor here was really interesting and although I haven't listened to the Charley stories, I can truly see how the Eighth Doctor is in a hard spot. Lucie was a really interesting companion and her arrival, although being abrupt, makes me interested in who she is and why the Timelords sent her with the Doctor. The Daleks here are very threatening similarly to Power of the Daleks where they mischievously pretend to be good. I like the side characters with Martez being a really cool villain. The plot also flows nicely as well with a lot of good dialogue and a pretty good cliffhanger.

Blood of the Daleks is a fun enough introduction to the Eighth Doctor Adventures. The introduction of Lucie is a little abrupt and very comparable to Donna Noble, but in both cases I'm not sure it does a lot of favours for these companions, even if they were both destined for great things. Overall, the story is entertaining to a degree, but does move a little slow. I like the whole premise and set-up once the Daleks show up as fake saviours - think of this as a far more polished version of Victory of the Daleks, yet it can't be forgotten that it takes forever for us to get to the stuff I most enjoy about this audio play. It is also pretty cool to have Hayley Atwell in the cast.