My re-listening of 8DA's 16-episode arc era is near its end.

After half of Stranded 3 where the main characters aren't even stranded anymore, Snow finally takes the story back to Baker Street.

First some positives, it is nice to have the extended cast back. The absence of Aisha and Tony created some interesting new character beats for Zakia and Ron (although still don’t like the fact they changed the relationship dynamics between Aisha and Zakia, and just left it). Liv meets Tania in the future right after they had their first fight and need to escape the pursuit of Divine Intervention is really good.

BUT, Andy still doesn’t have anything interesting to do, which is consistent for this series (still don’t understand why he needs to be in this, except BF just really like Tom Price. I like him too, when he is at where he should be, in Torchwood!).

On paper, I should really enjoy Snow, an emotional tale about the consequences of time travel and the subject of grief. If not for the fact that a much cleaner, more nuanced, and superior vision of the same story already exists with the same main cast, Absent Friends by John Dorney, which it has some permanent consequences for its characters.

Speaking of permanent consequences, (Spoilers for the next set) they choose to immediately undo the death of Tania just for Liv to realize that she wants to stay with her. And in the next set, Liv still chooses to go back to the TARDIS, but has a perfect ending where she comes back right after she left. This is a perfect example of BF’s recent symptom of “have its cake and eat it too”, sacrificing 20 years of 8th Doctor’s ongoing adventures for nostalgia, reminiscing the good old days of Charley, Liv and Helen, forever trapping these characters in the same loop.

Tim Foley doesn’t disappoint me, even in his very first Big Finish outing. And now I get why everyone loves Andy, an everyday person with a heart of gold (considering my first impression of him was in the 8DA Stranded series, and I was really annoyed about the Torchwood aspect of that series), and in this episode he went through some of the worst things that could happen to anyone.

However, there is an issue for me that I can’t get over. The depiction of police brutality as a product of alien intervention, as if it being a state-sponsored violent machine wasn’t inherently wrong enough. Even it reveals at the end that the first murder was indeed racially motivated, it was a little too late.

Some other things that didn’t sit well with me include 1) the student protests being used by people with ulterior motives, and 2) what is wrong with Jack in this boxset, he barely appears in the last few episodes, and the moment he’s back he’s back being a complete asshole?

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed this story a lot, and it truly was a massive step up from this lackluster series. Dealing with multiple storylines at once and still managed to deliver an overall decent story. But dear lord, I guess some of these political stories really hit a little too close to home for my liking.

Three out of five is generous. After all, it didn’t mess up in any respect, but it didn’t do much new either (this is true for any Rob Valentine-led range, and I’m FURIOUS that he is taking over the War Master range.

Last episode has funny narration, this episode has the Master posing as a detective investigating a series of mysterious murders. Well, Nev Fountain’s The Broken Clock did it first and it did it better.

And I am really sick of the MAD and CHAOTIC approach to the Master… it’s become really predictable and boring. (the Master I really want to see more is the Beevers Master, when are we going to get a Decayed Master boxset?

Torchwood: Outbreak

THIS is exactly what I want when I first started listening Torchwood range from Big Finish. Big, bombastic and, most importantly and unexpectedly, full-cast.

I mean I eventually got used to the mostly two-handle approach of the monthly range, and quite appropriate it too. But this feels like it really could be a series before Children of Earth.

The ending of Part 3 was a bit too confusing, but it could just be me got distracted. Overall, I really enjoyed it.

(However, not sure about the conspiracy aspect in it. I mean I know it is Torchwood, and it always has that part in its DNA. All I can say is it doesn’t age that well for me after the pandemic.)