a rather mid end to this set, which granted was mid in general tbh except the stellar first episode. charley had some great scenes, but the mara just felt maybe underused ? i feel this should've been a two parter to flesh out the mara more, they really work well with the classic who format as opposed to just one hour i feel. again, i feel this range of 8/charley/audacity could do with an arc like all of the great (not you dark eyes) arcs of 8's boxset era.

Last year was very Mara filled for me as I hadn't seen the previous stories featuring the villain, so before Art Decadence came out in July I watched both Kinda and Snakedance. I have to say, this is probably the weakest Mara story I've experienced so far, but I still enjoyed it. India did a very good job playing both Charley and the Mara and the Doctor and Audacity acted as a good supporting cast. I did like the subplot about the planet that the residents of the sleep clinic are from, but otherwise the rest of the characters were quite forgettable. I think there's lots of good within this story, it just needed a bit more creativity in its use of the Mara and the overall story.

Snake Oil

Prerequisites: None needed, although there are some references to the Mara from other stories

The Gloaming marks a decidedly mediocre story to end this boxset on. Nothing was terrible here, but frankly I just wasn't that interested. While I haven't seen the Classic Who serials featuring the Mara, it seems pretty un-engaging as a concept. Maybe it works better given the longer format of Classic? Whatever the case, here, I didn't quite buy it. The side characters are unmemorable, and it's all wrapped up in a basic moral against capitalism (which has been done much better before). Admittedly, there are some bright spots: the Doctor reminding Charlie of their adventures together was a nice moment, and ending the audio on a conclusion that Dekkar was simply too stupid to be possessed by the Mara was pretty funny. All in all, forgettable.

Really good! I always love when the Mara gets psychedelic stories with unsettling dream sequences and this had that!

All performances were great, but India Fisher especially. She was outstanding!

I also especially love the political commentary as well. I do wish Dekkar didn't get away scott free but Charley's take down of him was pretty grand at least.

Had a lot of fun with this one falling on Christmas in my Doctor Who watch! This TARDIS team is really shaping into its own with all three characters getting great opportunity to shine. The Mara is such an insidious foe, and hearing it possessing Charlie was unnerving. Audacity also gets properly horrified when she learns the truth of why everyone is on the Gloaming. I hope we get this crew for a couple years yet.