Great concept. Careful, nonobvious dialogue. Excellent characterizations for theRoses and Doctors.

Shockingly dark. I love the deranged tone, and the deranged lead performance, of this entire series so far.

In the crowded field of excellent actors who have taken up the mantle of The Master, Michelle Gomez manages to stand out and bring something unforgettable to the role. There’s a strange terror embedded in not knowing how Gomez will perform the next line. It’s an unpredictably that just feels evil.

I love a good time-hopping adventure. It makes this world of time-travelers feel alive and it makes Time Lords feel powerful. Here are the Doctor and the Master jumping through time (or living through stretches of it) to catch up with each other and continue the fight. It would be terrifying to be a mortal in this world. Ada Lovelace and Noor Inayat Khan are great additions. A real strength of this era is that it brought us to corners of history the franchise had ignored until then.

It's wild that we got a Winston Churchill audio boxset before meeting Noor, but Doctor Who is finally righting that. It's great to see, and if you're going to grab two people from different points in time, these two (the first programmer and an anti-fascist spy) feel especially on theme for an adventure about a modern-day tech company and its connection with a scheme to kill the world's spies. That said, I would have liked the writing and plot to do a little more with this. I feel like a stronger show would have woven their personal stories throughout the episode, giving them time to be proper fleshed-out characters who help save the day with their unique skills and outlooks. They help the Doctor, to be sure, but the episode would have been stronger if it had leaned in.

Now, for a few issues.

Yaz and Ryan are not handled well in these episodes, but they seldom are. I just never feel like they are going anywhere or doing anything interesting. They are simply not given enough to do and yet they are always around. If 13 was going to travel with three companions, the show should have done a better job of really making each episode focus on one of them. Maybe one of them really goes through some intense growth while the other two have a comic relief-y B-plot. Give us an episode where Yaz goes 80% and Ryan and Graham share a 20% on some light hijinks. Then switch it up. Instead we get everyone at 33% and nothing ever feels meaty enough. In Spyfall, Yaz was seemingly traumatized by her trip to the Kassavin realm. This is resolved by Ryan saying he'll protect her. What? That's not the issue. And why doesn't 13 seem to care? 13 should care. 13 is her girlfriend.

Reintroducing the Master was a choice. I totally think it's fine to bring the Master back, and they cast a wonderful actor to take on the role, but it was way too soon. Yes, the Master is constantly killed and brought back. But never before have we seen a Master redemption arc like we had with Missy. That should have sat untouched for a while and only brought off the shelf with good purpose.

Destroying Gallifrey AGAIN was an even bigger choice. We start NuWho with Gallifrey extinct and that gives the first few New Doctors a distinct flavor. Then we find out it actually wasn't destroyed. Woah. But then, the Doctor has to find it and after two seasons, he does. He doesn't really mess with Gallifrey or the Time Lords again until he regenerates but it doesn't feel like a glaring omission. He hates them and he's got other things to do. And then, with no further adventures on Gallifrey, we destroy it again. Because the Master was mad? Because he was lied to? The way everyone else was lied to? About something that's just kind of interesting in the same sci-fi way everything else is?

Why didn't we at least get a season (or a few) of Gallifrey being a threat or annoyance to the Doctor? I'd love to see our hero Time Lord chafe against a tyrannical, feudal time empire. How much more interesting would the Timeless Child arc be if it played out against this backdrop? The Time Lords are manipulating the Doctor all while lying about who she is. That would be great. That would feel like a story.

An astounding story of excellent characters, shockingly mature themes, and impeccable 90s-vamp vibes.

Almost didn't read this, but Dave Rudden's Wintertime Paradox piqued my interest in Faction Paradox, which sent me to Alien Bodies, which piqued my interest in the Eighth Doctor Adventures — and now here I am, about to read way too many entires in this 73-book series picking up the plot of a failed TV movie from 30 years ago.

It's difficult to overstate just how hard Vampire Science goes. The writing and the characterization of the Doctor pick up on the zaniness of the Classic series, but also do something new with the old formula, somehow giving us a preview of NuWho — and its more attractive, romantic, brooding hero — years before NuWho was a thing. Little details sell us on this new incarnation — like how the Doctor casually grabs coins from behind people's ears, not because he's showing off or doing a bit but simply because, as his attitude suggests, that's just where coins are. Maybe that's impossible to explain here. It really works in the prose though.

The other characters are excellent as well. Carolyn. Shackle. Joanna. Sam. Kramer. We take a spin in each of their heads and while we're there, we can feel how right they are. Shackle is growing disillusioned, and when we're in his head, we see he's right to be. But when we see him from the Doctor's eyes, we also understand that he's wrong. We go back to Shackle and he's in the right again. That's powerful character work. And because we have powerful character work, we have a fascinating clash of ideas.

I won't spoil it here by butchering what I think the book's message is (you really should read this thing), but it ruminates on death and nihilism in a way that genuinely shocked me. I did not understand Doctor Who was capable of these depths outside of really rare entries like Heaven Sent. The depiction of Sam's trauma is handled similarly well.

On top of all of this, the book digs into a really fun corner of lore that I'm eager to learn more about: the Founding Conflict, the Dark Times, the ancient history where we'll later place the Timeless Child, etc. I know the inclusion of straight-up vampires into this universe was controversial but it somehow really really works.

Read Vampire Science. If you like Doctor Who and don't like this book, I honestly don't know what you like about Doctor Who.

Like the Witchfinders, this is another otherwise great adventure hamstrung by the same issues that plague this whole era.

There are legitimately fun elements of this story: the overall homage to James Bond is a fun idea for Doctor Who and little moments, like the tuxedo glow-up, "The name's Doctor. The Doctor," and the finale car-chase really lean into that. But it could have leaned in more, and incorporated other elements better. We get a classic-Bond/weird-gadget scene before we're even given a mission, for example. And it would have been nicer if the cinematography leaned into the Bond aesthetic more as well. We get a quick shot of each companion and the Doc playing casino games, but these moments are not shot in the visual language of the Bond films. There's no tension, no staredown. The dialogue surrounding these games features no clever double entendre.

These moments just happen and nothing is gained. Why do Graham and Ryan win big? I was expecting a reveal that the Doctor rigged it so they'd blend in or something, but no. It just happens and we move on. Because in Bond they do casino games, you see.

The episode is also dragged down by other problems that infect the rest of the Chibnall era. The dialogue is boring and descriptive but it's delivered like we're supposed to think it's snappy or clever. Characters just describe what's happening; at best, they go, 'oh wow, this is happening.' They don't say things that reveal their character or make us smile or laugh or build tension or really add to what we're already seeing in any way. This is a problem with most Chibnall-era episodes but it's particularly glaring here where we're being asked to think about another franchise known for its punchy dialogue.

The 13th Doctor is once again awkward and passive, which remains a strange direction to take this character. And again, it's particularly glaring when we're being asked to compare her to Bond, who is the polar opposite.

For example, once the Doctor and fam are abducted, C's driver is taking them to MI6. The characters talk briefly, just to establish that none of them know where they're going. It's not hard to imagine, say, Capaldi's Doctor in this same situation taking the opportunity to be humorous and rude, maybe insulting the driver for just following orders. You can hear Capaldi's accent calling the driver "stupid," maybe even goading him into telling the crew where they're headed (12 could follow up by calling him "not a very good agent" after he reveals this information). In the episode we get, it's just a dead moment where we could have had humor or character (and would have had, in a previous era). That said, turning the car ride into an action set piece is very Bond, and the Doctor's quick thinking with the rearview is clever and well-done.

I like the idea of the Spymaster and Sacha Dhawan is an excellent actor. If anything, the reveal could have been drawn out more. It would also have been nice to base that reveal on some hint dropped earlier in the episode, instead of just a slip of the tongue at the last moment. But a lovely twist all the same, and Dhawan's little details completely sell us. The way he flicks away the shrunken agent who's life he stole is such a great flourish. Evil, callous, funny, dangerous, all in a moment. You almost have to forgive the episode its faults for reintroducing the Master in style. Almost.

I think this review is getting too long, so I'll save some thoughts for Spyfall, Part 2. Particularly, the problems with reintroducing the Master at all, and the way Ryan and Yaz are handled. But it seems more fair to address those in Part 2 since this episode is clearly setting up more for that hour.

It's a shame this was cut short. Love a non-human companion. Love the horse aliens, too. Would have loved to read this all the way through the 60 planned parts

Another astounding boxset.

The Doctor, the Master and the other time-travelers in this series actually think like time-travelers, which is refreshing. Experiencing things out of order, dealing with incomplete knowledge they know they'll gain later, logic-ing out their situation with an awareness that time is not linear (whether it's a time-hopper catching up to a ship at the end of the universe or a future creature sent to the past to become its own patient zero). It's not unique to this boxset or to the audio genre in general but it does seem to be handled best by Big Finish. It's something I wish the show itself leaned into more frequently.

Time travel stories should exist right at the edge of comprehensibility and so far Dark Eyes does.

Liv Chenka is immediately an all-time companion. Someone from the future, viewing present-ish day earth as ancient history, with concrete skillsets (medical care, piloting) that actually factor into the plot. Excited for more.

The only critique I would offer is that, occasionally, this Master is difficult to hear. I feel like I need to turn up my volume three notches whenever he speaks just because of his volume or because of his particular voice. Not sure what that is, but it makes parts difficult to follow when you are, say, walking a dog and can't fiddle with the volume between lines.

Somehow never seen this before. Interesting to see 10th's immaturity and mania teasing through even in his first moments. Right off the bat, he doesn't want to stare directly at the weight of what's just happened. Despite 9th's growth, he's still not ready to face big scary things like his own role in ending the the Last Great Time War.

Interesting to see his first moments, in which he acts like regeneration is no big deal, when we know that his last moments will involve not wanting to go.

Looking back on the entire four-episode boxset, I'll say I'm hooked for the rest of Dark Eyes. These were actually some of the earliest plays I listened to, years before I found this site, when I was first getting into audio DW. But I don't remember them that well, hence this revisit.

Molly is a great companion specifically because she's not my ideal companion. I love when we get someone from a particular time and I know the 8th Doctor in particular has a lot of companions not from modern-day London (*ahem* 9th and 10th, get it together). Molly's a competent full adult with her own ideas and sort of take-no-s**t attitude in the authority role where the Doctor finds her. She's not just a starry eyed child, which is refreshing.

I liked the first two episodes more than the second two. Which is interesting because I usually like the timey-wimey future stuff more than historical stuff. But the sound design for the World War I era scenes were just SO good. Looked up the relevant folks to give them a shoutout here: Producer David Richardson and Sound Designer Andy Hardwick really deserve praise for taking us to this battlefield, then ushering us into a train of wounded soldiers. You can feel the tension as this cloud of mustard(?) gas pursues us through the night. Really excellent stuff. Makes me want to learn sound design.

The later episodes, including X and the Daleks, does lean heavily into the timey-wimey stuff. It has us fully abandon the earlier setting and gets very complex very quickly. Like 15thDoctor said in their own review, I had to rewind a few times to understand what was going on. Glad that wasn't just me.

Overall, excited to start the next boxset today.

What a fun deep cut!

I love the far-out art style and wish more comics did something interesting like this. Given that Ncuti himself has compared himself to the 3rd Doctor, and his era's interest in calling back to the 70s/80s, they could bring back something like this. Obviously it doesn't add much to the TV episode itself, but the artwork is inventive and weird and captures the hippie/absurdist vibe of the best of Pertwee's era.

The comic is up online courtesy of Radio Times, which has included behind the scenes photos from the episode this comic previews. Those are really worth a look too: https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/doctor-who-guide/colony-in-space/