There are multiple little things with this story that makes me feel like, despite the wonderful portrayal of Liz Shaw by the late Caroline John, despite the Third Doctor's first substantial meeting with the Cybermen, "The Blue Tooth" is unfortunately nowhere near essential.

You can tell (negatively) that this is an early entry into the range, the way it squeezes four parts into such a short span feels almost comedic. As soon as I got nicely settled and interested something, suddenly the episode would end. The attempt is noble, don't get me wrong, it just doesn't end up working, actively putting me off the story. Having to hear the theme tune a grand total of eight times in just over an hour is at least excessive, if not entirely aggravating like it was for me. I acknowledge that I could have skipped it, yes, but that doesn't defeat the fact that it kept entirely disengaging me from the narrative as whole.

Sad that Liz herself has little to engagement with the actual resolution of the situation. It's confusing, for a story that seems to center itself so deep to the character, there is actually very little done with her. What we do receive of her more personal side is lovely, definitely something there that begs to be tapped into, some nice, weighty substance, yet the story seems content to gallivant around more of the Doctor's shenanigans.

In succeeding to feel like a story of Season Seven, it repeats that season's biggest flaw: the misuse of Liz Shaw.

I love this story my first 3rd doctor big finish on cd and it always makes me happy even if it’s dark af

This was pretty good, but a little disappointing. Liz Shaw definitely feels severely underused (or maybe even just misused) from her time in the show. So it feels right to revisit her character for the Companion Chronicles. It's also cool because this is a Cyberman story with the Third Doctor.

I also didn't hate the structure of this plot, with sinister overtones around the dentist feeling very appropriate and taking advantage of the vulnerability inherent to such a situation. It seems creepy to me that a person could be infected that way and one could really play it up once Liz was infected for some real horror. Sadly, the story just doesn't quite feel like The Blue Tooth lives up to all these exciting aspects to it. The whole thing felt a little flat to me.

Caroline John did a decent job bringing the Third Doctor to life, though. It is always nice to hear her come back. The cybermats fit really well into the Third Doctor era, which is cool too. Otherwise though, it feels like it doesn't quite live up to what we were going for. There's no effort to really give any sense of closure to Liz Shaw's character and there's a certain lack of finality to it all, and I'm not a huge fan of how we end things as it is told through exposition, leading to a Chibnall-style smattering of our main character's agency.

On the whole, The Blue Tooth was fun but could have been a lot better.