Like The Jigsaw War and Daybreak, these interrogation stories always hit hard. Incredible stuff. Also, the Curator in Stranded has me really coming around on Tom Baker, where his first few TV serials haven't convinced me.

A+.

After quite a dryspell in Ravenous (except for maybe the Salzburg two-parter) John Dorney is back with an instant classic in my opinion. 55 minutes of pure dialogue that just fly by. I've been liking the slow build up that Stranded is going for, introducing the Baker Street characters and their background first. But now it seems we are getting into the meat of the arc, I hope the slow burn pays off.

This story reminds me a bit of the Redacted story Interrogation, both stories composed primarily of two-person scenes, a member of our core cast and a member of a shadowy organisation who's interrogating them.

I think the mystery of who this organisation is, is done quite well here, slowly as the story goes on the core cast are figuring out more details of who they are, what they want, why they want it, what's happened to the world in the thirty years it's been since the the present day of Stranded.

Unfortunately, the part of Stranded I like the most, the character stuff, doesn't really get as much focus here. Don't get me wrong there definitely is character exploration, but with our core cast putting up a good fight against the interrogation, it's more an exploration of this newly introduced interrogator. It's fine that it is, but it does feel a bit of a shame.

The scenes in the present day with the interrogator as a child and The Curator are done really nicely, but they do feel a little pointless until the end, and even then it's not a 'oh that makes complete sense why they're here', more just a 'oh, right, that makes sense'.

I do like though how you have to wait to see Eight in this story, and I love what you get of him when you do. A lot of stranded seems to be focusing on these paradoxes, so a bootstrap paradox being what gets them out of this mess is great, especially one that's done as cleverly as this. The reveal as to what the paper says and what it really means is just very fun, and very Doctor Who.

The ending is also... Interesting, I'm wondering where things are going to go from here. Intrigued as to what's going on with Divine Intervention, but the specific twist that Robin is their leader at least for now feels more confusing than intriguing.