An absolute hit for the 8DAs, Max Warp is a succesful parody of Top Gear, a great murder mystery, a nice conspiracy story and a funny comedy, getting in jokes at the expense of all aforementioned aspects. I particularly enjoyed the Spin Bot and Lucie's turn as Lucie Voxel Nova.

I always remember this one as a bit of a clunker, but in this relisten I noticed that this play actually has a lot going for it. The worldbuilding is pretty great, Sophie is pretty great and the many time periods on offer keep the play fresh. I will say that the voice of the main villain was a bit of a mistake, got massive gollum vibes from that one.

But really, this one is a far better opener than Blood of the Daleks.

This play is one more of those nostalgia 8DAs which like to, for some reason, hearken back to the 4th Doctor era. Except this time, it is an actually competent one. There is a lot of exposition to get everyone on board with what happened in Image of the Fendahl, but the location and the characters are suitably off-putting, and the atmosphere perfectly conveys that something is just wrong about the whole affair. The last bit I found a bit less effective, but it did allow for some nice initiative for Lucie, who gets a suitable amount of focus throughout the play for a companion. The Doctor was a bit too much of an exposition machine for my liking, but he too gets to explore important parts of the plot.

Good, but the nostalgia factor is a bit grating.

A lovely high-concept story, with some lovely worldbuilding ideas and a strong flavour and great characters. It has a lovely larger-than-life feeling that this kind of absurd premise often has, and I love it. The plot itself was alright, but the imagery of this one is still worth a high score in my opinion.

Nothing too surprising in this play, with rebels, an evil corporation, secret harm to a population and so forth. It's just incredibly fun, though, and very competently executed. The actors are clearly having a blast with this one, the direction is good, the pace is great and the momentum is always energetic, and the music is also very nice and nicely complements the play.

I just wrote a whole review for this, and then I realized what I didn't like about it.

This story has no well-constructed plot. It has worldbuilding, it has atmosphere, some admittedly great worldbuilding, it is a sequel to a 4th Doctor Adventure (as 8DAs tend to be), it sets up a mystery for the boxset, it has Daleks and two comedic characters, and thinks that is enough for the story to be a success.

It doesn't, in my opinion. First of all, most of the plot we follow Lucie, who explores the environment and gets caught in its nasty effects. In this, she is accompanied by a Briggs dynamic duo. (These are a homage to the 4th Doctor side character duos Briggs likes to have in most of his stories but which are never as good as the 4th Doctor side duos, as Briggs hasn't mastered balancing comedy and humanity enough to make them compelling.) The problem is that nothing much happens in this plot other than Lucie vaguely searching for the Doctor, and some of the dialogue is extremely clunky in its describing of the environment too.

On the side, there are Daleks, who receive the Doctor in the environment and ask him to save them. I think that's all they do. There is a bit at the end where Lucie has to choose to save them, but that decision has no relation whatsoever to the Daleks' actions in this play.

The Doctor meanwhile doesn't do anything. He has a box. We're supposed to care for this box because it was chucked into the black hole by the 4th Doctor, who again lends his shadow to loom over the 8DAs. I didn't care for the box.

Lots of decent to good components (the dynamic duo is not included in this), but the whole is lesser than its parts. Considerably so.

In part two, the Doctor tries to outsmart the Cybermen while trying to figure out what is going on with the Time Lords. Fittingly, the Headhunter gets some more screentime too, as the arc plot comes to a close and we find out just why Lucie was on the TARDIS in the first place. Overall, a really good ending to a good first series of the eighth doctor adventures. I had a few thoughts:

• Hulbert is such an oily car salesman, I love him.
• The time lords are portrayed excellently, with the full power and pettiness they have on display.
• Lucie's outburst was a bit forced, but generally very good. I also love how she doesn't just sweep it under the carpet and actually lashes out at the Doctor, good character work. Generally, Lucie is top notch in this play.
• The Cybermen are once again used as a side-monster to up the urgency for the actual plot. Shame.
• I like how the Headhunter is set up to appear again.

All in all, this play is definitely worth your time.

In this one, Lucie goes to the office. The Doctor follows, with the help of the Time Lord Straxus, and together, they find out what Hulbert Logistics is really about.

I really like this one, with its ribbing at office work, its effortless humour and the lovely twist at the end. The casting is absolutely on fire and nails every character, especially the sleazy Hulbert and Jerry, the quintessential manager.

As a part one, the mystery is set up well, and both the Doctor and Lucie get used to full effect to explore different sides of what is going on. I think it's the Doctor who shines here, mucking things up because he uses his normal modus operandi.

Absolutely recommended.

Does evil expire? To which extent is it useful to hold on to the past? Can people truly change?

These are questions that No More Lies grapples with. The setup of the play is well done, with a villain escaping from the Doctor and Lucie only to rebuild his life while the TARDIS crew is still catching up. And when they do catch up, it turns out to be at a garden party.

The play uses in medias res very effectively, contrasting the ongoing garden party with the hectic events in the spaceship in a way that begs the question what these settings have to do with each other. It also enables the listener to judge the villain's new outlook for themselves, by not showing what kind of evil the villain was up to before, which I thought to be very interesting.

Eventually, as 8 and Lucie show up, the play starts to resolve itself and the mystery, sometimes a bit quickly for my liking. The plot with the time loop is great and the real heart of the play, and the Vortex enemies are a credible threat, though a bit too focused upon.

Sadly, the play doesn't really resolve the entire situation, with Lucie getting kidnapped at the end, but it does explore the above questions enough that I enjoyed the play quite a lot.

I have a weakness for this play, I'll readily admit. But then, this play takes the simple premise of "Omega is back after Arc of Infinity" and makes it a fantastic exploration of stories and historymaking as a whole. The play manages to have a cast of characters in which everyone interprets the story in a way that benefits them, be it for money, perceived heroes, love or even sanity. And the best thing is: all of them are wrong about parts of it. The play uses the premise and the setting to explore how stories and heroes are formed, and succeeds marvellously.

Meanwhile, the story also succesfully executes a creepy haunted house murder, with ghosts from the past, and is a super effective character study of Omega to boot. Arc of Infinity pales compared to it.

My very favourite thing was the inclusion of Peylix. Half of the play I spent wondering about his role in events and when the play reveals it it just enhances everything.

Generally, this play is overshadowed by both Davros and Master, but in my honest opinion, Master is nowhere as tightly written as this and Davros is not as deep. This is my favourite Villain trilogy entry.

It's a smart plot, what is going on here, with multiple alternative versions of people and a mindbendy answer to what is actually happening at the planet where Missy has found herself. Answers are given and though not all answers are as satisfying as they could have been, the play succeeds in making the resolution make sense and feel earned.

A very good third part which sometimes feels a bit more like a resolution than its own story but generally really does work.

This is probably the best Missy boxset out at the moment, which the Missy series should be ashamed of.

After Tegan very coincidentally ended up in Amsterdam in Arc of Infinity, in this play, her ex-boyfriend ends up in Amsterdam as well. However, nothing could quite be that simple where the Doctor is involved...

This is one of those stories that starts in one place, ends in another place and does a whole lot of stuff in between. That stuff includes, but is not limited to:

• Having wacky Dutch names and pronounciations (Glauber sounds more German and Polsbrook is better on the ears but spelled wrong (should be Polsbroek)). I'm still fresh from the Story Demon's pronunciation of Hoekstra, and this is an improvement.
• Actually using the fact the Doctor is in Amsterdam
• Giving a very interesting portrayal of Rembrandt's life and outlook on fame, despair and living, almost a reaction on Vincent and the Doctor. Additionally, they manage to tie it in meaningfully with Nyssa's character history.
• Showing another one of Tegan's real world acquaintances in Kyle, Tegan's ex-boyfriend. I think Kyle is done exceptionally well; the narrative acknowledges that both Tegan and Kyle are very flawed, and I like the role Kyle and this relationship play in the overall story.
• Have an interesting time travel plot.
• Have an incredibly hamfisted gap for BF to put solo 5 stories in and almost succeeding as playing it off as a joke. I can forgive this.

The result does have some pacing issues, but still is about the sum of its parts and manages to feel rich.

A functional and good end to the boxset, if slightly underwhelming. The Forest is an interesting concept, with time as space, and the arc is furthered in interesting ways: this time, Cass disappears. However, the play around it seems more concerned with the worldbuilding and the arc than the plot of the play itself, and it feels a bit too much like the characters are just walking around randomly until they get at the actions they need to make for the arc. This makes the play feel less fresh, even though the arc stuff that happens in it is great, the concepts are great and the characters are interesting.

It also seems like there is some character development for Hieronyma Friend. Interesting.

Where the last story was both a break from the action and furthered the arc, this story is just a break from the arc to do something fun with the situation. Unless the Rhymonsters at the end will return, this story has very little bearing on the developments of this series, except maybe to make a case to Alex that the Doctor and Alex are very similar. This could be a massive drawback for this story

Except that this story is a brilliant Time War story that would only work in the setup of this series, makes good use of all characters, is genuinely creepy and manages the atmosphere and pacing to perfection.

Well played. It may not further the arc too much but it delivers on all other levels.

In this entry, the Ethicist gets an adventure all of his own. Of course Dr. Who is still hot on his tail, but soon he too becomes tangled in the plot, together with HMF.

The tale is wonderfully told, and I really enjoyed the bard. I can tell how much effort went into that. I also like the time shenanigans, and the fact that there are no easy answers in the end.

The story takes it down a notch after the action of the last few stories to be a bit more linear. It may not be as exciting as the past few stories, but I think this story is necessary. You need stories in which the characters can just be the characters and allow you to become attached to them. After last story's proclamation of Doom and Despair in Alex's future, I can totally understand why this story is here, as we need to get to know Alex more.

And the fun thing is, so does Alex. He is trying to find who he is after the revelation of last boxset and deal with some of his feelings about it. A nice parallel.

Meanwhile the meat of the exciting stuff lies with Cass, who becomes the spider in the web, and unravels the knot that the others have made in the situation. The narrative has really been focusing on Cass's relationship with alternate timelines and knowing the future, and I wonder where it will go.

A quieter affair, wonderfully told, and a lovely way to spend an hour.

May I note that for me this series has this wonderful feeling of pathos. Everything feels so important, even the quieter stories like this. Could just be me but I feel like they've really thought this arc through. I hope it will stick to the landing.

And so we continue with Doctor Wherefore. Last time, the Doctor was fighting off the evil Gallifreyans with his plucky companion Friend and in pursuit of the villainous Alex, Master of Philosophy, who had absconded with the befores of Cass.

In this entry, the Master of Philosophy is roped into an auction in a creepy house involving the Lords of Time, while the Engineer and his snarky arch-enemy Hieronyma get a lead on caSs and the Ethical Committee Member and fight of even more regenerating foes.

On auction: The Spoil of War. And for some reason, the Philosopher must have it.

After reading my little summary above it comes to no surprise that I love this arc to bits. This play deals with the fallout of the explosive shift in status quo of the last story of Uncharted: Reflections, while furthering the Grandson's and casS's character arc and laying the groundwork for what is to come. And what a DOOM is proclaimed. While the identity of Lord Aglovale did not surprise me too much, his fate was bold and has revitalized my interest in what is to come. Also some hints that Cåss's role is yet to reach its full scope. I'm here for it.

As a drawback, this is not a standalone. But then, without a play like this to kick things into higher gear, the arc would be far less interesting.

This is a good one. I don't quite know why, but I like it more than Immortal Beloved. While I think the plot about racism doesn't quite connect with the rest of the plot, the plot is effective: there is a god on Phobos who's been feeding off adrenaline junkies, and to protect people one man goes lower and lower to scare people away.

The atmosphere is on point: it sounds like an ice moon, and the music is atmospheric and eerie. The acting is good, and the characters are interesting. The concept of the threat is great, and the events in the story ramp up the tension enough that the stakes can be felt. The resolution is very good, especially to establish 8 in these adventures.

A good way to spend an hour.

An excellent story. It does what Torchwood does best: monkey's paws. Ianto wants to know what happened to his father, and now he does.

Listen. If you want to do this play, do not read the spoilers. It deserves a listen instead.

The Story
Ianto's dad is dead, and Ianto is reminiscing with some old friends of his father. Except then he shows up in the past, and tries to not only have his cake, but eat it too. Why not change the past? It's a reckless move I've come to expect from Ianto, and unlike Rhys and Ianto's Excellent BBQ, Gareth David-Lloyd knows how not to let this devolve to Ianto snarking his opinions to a beleaguered second player in the play. Ianto comes at this from a place of vulnerability, and he meets a likable yet irresponsible father. He tries to curtail some of his father's reckless behaviour while getting some bonding time the play realises wonderfully.

Then the kicker: what Ianto does is working. His father, Disco, takes his advice and tries to turn his life around for the better. The second kicker: him doing so only makes Ianto and his family's life worse. It turns out his father, who normally never finishes things, sticks around his family only out of a sense of responsibility and loyalty, and it's been grinding him down for years, leading him to be the deadbeat dad Ianto has known and missed.

Of course, at that point, the trainwreck is coming. Ianto can let his father be happy and change the future and his own life for the worse, or he can doom his father to the sad end evocatively described by the play.

And this is Ianto. And Ianto, contrary to his demeanour, has never been nice

The Feels
This story is heartbreaking. The way the unexpressed emotions from Ianto pervade every single scene with him in this play is masterful, and I legit had to think about this a while to sort through the emotions I took away from it. But the story's biggest strength is showing that the world is not always as people expect it to be and bringing that back to the humans in the equation. It's most fantastic move is making Ianto's dad likeable, because that means that the listener has to really engage to bring the two pieces of Ianto's father, the deadbeat dad and the happy partier, together. It is an effective mystery which makes the payoff so much more impactful. This is not just Ianto's dad, but every single character in the play. They are all wonderfully human, and it dooms Ianto. It makes you happy Ianto got to interact with his father like this, but sad because you know it cannot end so simply.

It's second most fantastic move is to show only the buildup to Ianto's selfish but understandable betrayal of his father, and not the whole thing. It leaves you to fill in those blanks, and that makes its tragedy so much more powerful. It baits you with happy father-son scenes, and punches you in the gut in a way that takes a while to process, almost like whiplash. I think it's the best way for the play to end, after all, the actions are not the important bit, as we know their effect already.

Meanwhile, the play supports these two strong points with events paced exactly right, except for a little snag when Ianto suddenly jumps back in time (that could have been a better scene switch).

I think this play is exactly what it wants to be and it is that perfectly. Definitely one of my favourites.

A fantastic character study of what happens when people marked by tragedy are presented with an impossible development to that tragedy. I loved the contrast between the dad and the mom, and I loved that Ianto tried so hard and fooled himself about the reasons for Molly's reappearance. Heartbreaking. The small hints to the answers are woven into the narrative seamlessly, infusing the play with an aura of dread and heightening the effect as you know something is coming.

Torchwood does the zombie weevil outbreak in the tube. This was a pretty intense release, but in the end was just basically cozy Tommy and Ianto fun during a weevil outbreak, as Torchwood One does. It didn't have the deeper layers that most of my favourite Torchwood releases do have. I do think it's a tight script, with fun characters and some good character development though, and I really like the addition of Tia and Bill, who seemed to parody zombie movies in their own way. A fun hour to spend, but nothing too special.

Dorney is back, with the excellent part 2 to his start of the boxset. Like in part 1, the plot is smooth, sleek and evocative. The inheritance-like subplot gets highlighted as Irving goes off the rails and gets influenced by the Angels, while the Doctor and Ray position themselves for the checkmate that Older!Seven has been working towards. There is not much more to discuss; the plot is straightforward but executed to perfection. The end was poetic and fitting, and I loved that the Older!Seven is not from after the Doctor got zapped to the past, but from even further in the future. It sets up an interesting conflict, and I cannot wait to see where it goes. Luckily there will be another 7 boxset this year.

Ray was good, very quippy, but I don't see her defining moment yet.

This play is to be experienced: it's got bling, it's got action, it's got a fast-moving plot that doesn't hold you by the hand too much. It's a classic excellent Dorney play.

The boxset is excellent too: it really feels like 7 gets hijacked and his status quo gets upended. Very effective. The final quality of this depends however on where it goes. I wonder how it will fit in with The Last Day, and while I've seen some speculation on Fenric returning, I actually hope it does something fresh (as Fenric is already the focus of 7s large MR arc's endgame).

Harry and Naomi have been separated. What's worse, in Naomi's time, the world is destroyed. Enter the Doctor, on both ends, who asserts that this is a corrupt timeline trying to oust the current timeline now the Angel has given it an opportunity. What follows, is chaotic.

I think the idea of the Doctor jumping around the timeline to make small changes here and there to solve the corrupted timeline is genius. It puts me in mind of Friend of the Family, and Protect & Survive (the part where the Doctor has to reason backwards to find the tipping point). However, this play does not focus on the changing history and the future to solve the timeline part overly much, as we follow Harry, Naomi and Ray, from, if I am correct, Delta & the Bannermen. For them, this is a decently straightforward tale. However, the tale is still told out of order, and to be honest, I'm not sure if that was the best idea.

The conflict of the play revolves around Madoc Howell and Sally Cain. In the corrupt timeline, they will team up and create Catastrophix, a company which has to do with doomsday prepping and causing the apocalypse. Madoc is described as the moral compass and Sally Cain is described as the ambition, which I interpreted as the driving force. During the play, the (ahem) play of the Doctor and co is to drive a wedge between the two to stop Catastrophix.

I don't see anything wrong with the setup, but the execution is lacking in my opinion. The play almost exclusively treats Madoc as the problem, which is incongruous with the way Madoc is presented as a reasonable and well-meaning kid. He gets hunted by UNIT, treated badly by the Doctor and (through the former two's actions) loses the faith of Ray, who he cares about, without actually being guilty of doing anything yet. Meanwhile Sally Cain is presented as an absolute asshole, but all the play does is have some characters tell her she is bad and she is otherwise ignored, almost let off. While perhaps not the intention, this made listening to the play a somewhat nasty experience where the Doctor was seemingly just bullying this kid/man for no reason where instead he could have easily talked the man around to help him. I just didn't enjoy that at all. Eventually the Doctor and UNIT scare Madoc so badly he almost tries to kill Sally, and while that is never good, I can easily see Madoc have an emotional breakdown when suddenly every single party is trying to get at him for something he hasn't done and, notably, really doesn't want to do. This kid is going through the wringer and really doesn't want the apocalypse to happen because of him. Of course that Madoc breaks that way is presented as Madoc going too far, and not the Doctor and co being far too heavy handed in their approach towards Madoc. All of it left a nasty taste in my mouth.

Ray is pretty cool here. I haven't done Delta and the Bannermen, but I liked her. She's a bit non-descript so far.

Naomi's and Harry's exit was rushed and felt incomplete. However, I think this was intentional to highlight Older!Seven from the last story being a dick. I'm happy they both got where they wanted to go, though.

All in all...

yeah.

I mean it's a competent story which does a lot of things well but the execution is heavily flawed in my opinion.

So I recently did this entire boxset in two goes, and what I will say beforehand: this boxset has been the most exciting 7 content in a long while. While I enjoyed Harry and Naomi, it didn't seem like it had an (ahem) Endgame until now. More on the boxset later.

In this play, we see yet more UNIT eras at work. In 1999, the Doctor, Naomi and Harry are stopped from immediately leaving by UNIT, who wants them to deal with a rather particular angel. Of course, it goes wrong, as a rich but insecure dude wants to use this to get one up over his brothers and sisters in an Inheritance like setting. To be honest, by itself, this is not a full story, and that is aptly reflected in the fact that this is a Part 1. The setup is good, especially the appearance of another Old!Seven, whose first (ahem) move is to sideline the current 7 to work towards his end. The play has that Dorney new car feel, with lots of moving parts which are all very functional in the story but are given enough focus that they don't seem like cardboard cutouts and an excellent plot and sense for location. The angel sounds in this play have also improved, they even sound creepy now, and the innovation is very, very well done. Excellent.

In my opinion, this is Dorney's best play in a long time, and I cannot wait to see where this plot with Seven will go.

So this one puts on some interesting questions about the ethics of cloning. Most of the play plays out the conflict between two older generation clones against their younger generation, with the younger generation (understandably) not wanting to get overwritten to facilitate the older generation and the older generation mostly being mad with power. And Old Zeus (wonderfully played by Ian McNeice) is a fantastically horrible villain. In the end the younger generation wins in some nicely inventive way, but the most interesting thing the play does is succesfully make you question whether the younger generation is destined to just become the older generation again.

I think the many ethical debates would have worked a bit better if the older generation had some more redeeming traits. Additionally, I think that the concepts could be better explored in a two-hour story, this one goes a bit too neatly for the weighty topics.

This is probably my favourite entry for Ace and Colchester together so far. They contrast beautifully, with ace the pragmatic idealist and Colchester the idealistic pragmatist. The backdrop story was effective enough, with some really cynical exploration of big company business and some characters you love to hate. Like all Goss's stories, it takes the side of standing up against the man, but the picture the story paints is amenable to this, which is used effectively to further the conflict between Ace and Colchester, which I applaud. You really do feel disgust at Colchester siding with these cretins, and the cretins never really veer into parody enough to make the play unbelievable.

This story sets a high standard for future Ace Colchester stories. I await the next one eagerly.