This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: Blood on Santa's Claw

Whatever little moments that made the last story Christmas-y are almost completely gone now. Apart from a few mentions of Christmas this story could really be set anytime. Joe is still pretty uninteresting, it's hard to care about him when we know so little of his character and all that we do know is just that he's a generic male companion who Peri is in love with.

Aside from all that, the story is decently interesting at the beginning, but really repetitive so it gets boring quite quickly. I like the concept of these artificial experiences but after we go through like 5 of them it gets a bit dull. At the very least, Nicola Bryant's performance is really great. Otherwise this story doesn't have much to offer in my opinion.

Next Story: I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday

The second part of this Christmas-themed Main Range isn't very Christmas-themed at all. On the one hand, the idea of the designer babies is quite compelling and could make for some serious science fiction content that reminds me a bit of the film Gattaca. It's explored well using Peri and Joe... until things go full werewolf. I think this is where the effects most shine, and we get some really good horror sound effects and bestial sound effects I found quite effective, but this story is very uneven in tone especially with the rest of the Blood on Santa's Claws set.

It has some interesting ideas to it and is entertaining enough. Blood on Santa's Claw & Other Stories is a very strange audio though. I would say you definitely need part one to inform part two at least a little bit, but Joe's character really just comes out of nowhere in these stories and that weakens the effectiveness of what he could be overall. Here, he isn't anything special. Peri seeing her potential future children shows how much more interesting this story could have been with Joe - she is touching in this part, where he is just kind of... there. I also think the ending is dragged out a bit more than necessary, and Peri's reaction kind of loses me at a certain point.