(This is a review for both parts 1 and 2)

For a fresh start for the Eight Doctor, we have a new format based off of NuWho! I enjoyed the shorter and more action filled pace of the story, (though I guess it being a 2 parter made it the same length as the older episodes, regardless though it felt quicker.)

Paul McGann was amazing as always. I love how the Doctor seems to be more sarcastic than usual (and has some great quips.) I wonder if his (slight) personality changes were from the events of Charley's arc.

Sheridan Smith was pretty great as well, though I haven't warmed up to Lucie Miller yet. But I do like how she's a mix of Rose and Donna.

Overall, great story. I'd recommend this to anyone interested in starting Big Finish or the Eighth Doctor. Storm Warning was great, but I think the more modern approach of this might appeal to new ones more.

As so often with Dalek stories, things devolve into a run around and you’re left wandering where all the promise of the initial set up disappeared to. The main issue is that fans have seen and heard this story many times before, with various Dalek factions facing each other off.

Despite this Sheridan Smith and Paul McGann continue to delight as an audio power couple. As with all the best Doctor / companion duos they lift proceedings.

Blood of the Daleks Part 2: 8.9/10 - This was a very enjoyable and well done finale to the first story of the Eighth Doctor adventures. I really liked the Daleks in this story and thought the Daleks vs Daleks concept was particularly good here. Martez worked really well as a villain truly believing in their actions. Klint and Tom were good side characters here as well and it was nice getting to know them more after the first part. The Doctor and Lucie's relationship is also fleshed out more here which was really nice and the dynamic between the two is very good! The two cliffhangers, the Telos mention and the call between the headhunter and Mr. Hulbert are good at setting up intrigue and I am excited for where this goes from here!

Unfortunately, I don't feel part two of Blood of the Daleks quite lives up to part one. Part one, I feel, nicely set up a mystery, a new setting, and some ideas for a part two. I had kind of assumed were were dealing with Daleks posing as saviours only to turn out to be villains like in Victory of the Daleks, or maybe we were going to deal with Daleks wiping out lesser versions of themselves, like we've also seen in Victory or a few other episodes in the New Series.

Instead, Blood of the Daleks Part 2 is doing both of these things and much more. So not only are the Daleks false saviours, but they are also mutants created from humans like in the Parting of the Ways, and ALSO are powerful enough to stand up to the real Daleks and provoke a full blown civil conflict on the Red Rocket planet.

It's a pretty cool idea, but somehow, even with two very long parts to it, I don't think any of these ideas are given enough justice, or explored thoroughly enough to pay off. None of these plot elements are fully fleshed out, and instead we get a bit of each idea, all of which is pretty compelling, by the way, but not explored enough to really work. It becomes clear quite quickly to the humans the Daleks can't be trusted, the mutant Daleks have a pretty cool relationship with Hayley Atwell's character but I don't think we get enough of that (she's great though), and the civil strife ends in a bit of a muddled mess of a battle that was a little hard to follow in an audio-only format the way they went about it.

Finally, Lucie and the Eighth Doctor are both a bit of a problem here. On their own, they are fine and quite powerful performers. But writer Steve Lyons puts way too much animosity between these two characters for them to be enjoyable. I know this improves over time and reflects, to a degree, character development in progress, but it takes away from the mystery of Lucie's character writing her like this and it does no favours to Blood of the Daleks.

It sucks, too, because were it not for these faults, Blood of the Daleks could have been intensely amazing. There's a lot of great moments with the Doctor and the Daleks here, and the Red Rocket setting and situation, along with the idea of a Dalek civil war, all had so much potential. It feels wasted, all things considered.