Wow! People don't like this one, do they??

Me, on the other hand, I had fun with it! It's nothing too amazing, but it's fun. You've got some great side characters, an interesting concept to start with Phobos, and I think this one is funny! I enjoyed the unraveling of this mystery.

I also, in particular, enjoyed the 8th doctor in this. I liked his speech. I liked that Lucie is starting to get more of an idea of just how ancient the Doctor is, how much terror he's seen.

This is a fun, inconsequential, run of the mill Doctor Who story. That's all it had to be, and frankly all I expected from it. I had a smile on my face most of the listen, and I kept going "people don't like this one?! What??"

But, hey, I'm glad I liked it. It's one of those moments of "I'm glad I made up my own mind about this". Because truly you have to. I've skipped stories before because of low ratings, only to come back to them later and find, oh, I liked it, or it wasn't as bad as it seemed.

I wasn't very into Blood of the Daleks or Horror of Glam Rock, but Immortal Beloved and Phobos has me interested again on continuing this season. I look forward to more!

This is mostly just a quite boring, run of the mill Doctor Who story, but I did think that the main villain (the creature in the wormhole that feeds on euphoric fear) revealed in the latter part was a very engaging concept, although not really enough to make up for the pretty tedious first three quarters.

The production of this episode is great and the voice cast do a very good job.

But the payoff if terrible, there’s a subplot that goes nowhere and a twist at the end only makes sense if you are listening to all of the stories in order.

Really disappointed.

I’m not sure I needed a ‘Doctor Who does Scooby Doo’ story. I’m not sure overtly referencing the user of the Scooby plot formula in the script made the lift and shift any better. The ending sees The Doctor overloading the mind of the enemy with his powerful thoughts - it’s something we’ve seen many times in the show before. I’m also not a fan of McGann’s big speech written in the style of Tennent’s Doctor - it felt too indebted to then contemporary television show.

Regardless - it’s still cozy fun.