Probably the most mixed Bag Story of the Set. I LOVE how Audacity calls out one of the Sleepers, it’s done so well and is easily my favorite Scene of the whole Set. India plays the possessed Charley to great Effect and gives the Mara a lot of it. The entire setting does fit perfectly for a Mara Story, and I enjoyed myself for most of it, but I wish we had more Time to flesh out certain Things. It was a bit hectic at times and not in intentional Way to enhance its Atmosphere I feel. Still I had a great Time with this one!

This has been a really fun set. The interviews describe Mara as a "sleep paralysis demon" which definitely describes the vibe. Hyperactive Audacity is also a treat.

A. Maybe B.

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.