This story was kind of dull to me until about 50 minutes in. The premise itself is not disinteresting - a creature that feasts on the dark and time and provokes apathy in people. We're introduced to a cast of relatively uninspiring side characters who waffle back and forth about turning the lights on and catching the Stormcrow creature.

It's only when the Doctor gets overtaken by the creature that things get a little more interesting. He immediately rejects Leela and humanity as being annoying clinger-ons, and seems to abandon her, much to her surprise. One of the things that intrigues me most about Leela's character is the way she does not and has never belonged. Though she clings to the Sevateem, she never really fit in there, and many of her most interesting stories dig into these ideas. So when Leela said 'I may never find the place where I belong', I sat bolt upright, suddenly intrigued.

Without thinking, this story manages to cut straight to the thesis of Leela's character, giving us a touching scene where she reflects that she will probably never see the place she was born again.

And then it goes back to being a little dull. A shame, but goes to show that every episode can have a hidden gem in it.

This book spends its first thirty pages Doctorless and introducing us to a million side characters who will all be dead by the end. I hate it when DW novels do this - they almost invariably give me no reasons to care about the side characters and I am rarely sad to see them go. The Face Eater is no exception.

It's not a bad book, exactly. I just didn't enjoy any part of it. Sam and the Doctor head to a pioneering human colony world led by tight fisted ex-military Helen Percival. I rather suspect we were meant to think of her as a domineering bitch but I find that kind of woman hot so I liked her. In fact, she was basically the only character with a personality that wasn't just a tired stock trope. We have Fuller, the world weary detective, and Leary, the misunderstood hero, and after that I stop remembering names.

And then we have the Doctor and Sam who are basically just there. The Doctor is off having a jaunty old time getting beaten up and hanging out with the telepathic natives of the world while Sam gets lusted over by a 40 year old man for some reason and has, yet again, a very bad day. Neither of them seemed to be that relevant to the story and both spent a sizeable amount of time hospitalised, immobilised, and broken.

The world itself is an interesting one - Messingham insists upon introducing every character with their full name and racial identity which paints us a picture of an incredibly diverse world. Men and women seem equal in jobs and society. Everyone is pulling towards the same goal. But for all the interesting potentials there, the story may as well have been set on Earth in the 90s. It gave no flavour of otherworldliness.

This perhaps sounds more negative than I feel, but in truth I feel very little. I will, in all likelihood, forget about this book very quickly, except for one conclusion: for a book called The Face Eater, basically nobody got their face eaten. What a false promise.

This could not have been a more generic commentary on climate change and corporate greed if it tried. That said, it was a perfectly fine commentary. It got the job done. The Daleks were... well, there I guess. It was unremarkable, though not tedious.

As always, Leela is the highlight here with Louise Jameson giving her all to fight against becoming a Roboman. And though Leela costume remarks are tiresome at best, I can't deny I did get a kick out of how much she enjoyed wearing trainers.

A typical Briggs base under siege story. Not a particularly special story, but filled its purpose well. I quite enjoyed Alison and Leela's interactions, and though she didn't have an awful lot to do, Leela was never treated by the narrative as stupid which I appreciate. It is also interesting to me how often a Briggs script is very anti-empire. Here, British Empire is treated as savage and base - something that Leela is explicitly not in this episode. The British pillaging the alien ship and taking it to dominate the alien culture is very much treated as a bad thing in this script, so despite the generic plot beats, I still enjoyed the story overall as it made me think, which is better than being boring.

I came very close to rating this one 3, and the entire reason for that is that finally this series has given me a character I like: Morli. Is this strongly to do with the fact we rarely get characters who sound like they're from the North East in DW? Perhaps. But she is also kind of bonkers, and when every single other moment of this series is bogged down with scrapy Dalek voices and serious, boring characters, that is a blessed relief. I wouldn't call the acting good, or even her story that engaging, but I was not tuned out so that was a big win.

The negative is that the entire rest of the story is boring. Suz and Alby have begun to actively annoy me with every word that comes out of their mouths. Suz' relentless threat to kill herself quickly becomes meaningless when it is clear she'll never follow through. The Daleks insistence on always calling her Suuu-sann Mennn-dezzzz is irritating at best and egregious at worst, and I couldn't possibly tell you what their plan is because I am not tuned in to this series. Kalendorf continues to be the other most engaging character, but when your competition is Dalek-synth turned way up and a handful of other generic rebels whose names I don't remember, that's not hard.

I am sad that I have not been enjoying this series, and though I will see it through to the end of s2, I don't think I'll be picking up 3 and 4. Unless something drastically interesting happens at the end of this series, anyway. But I have not been given a lot to hope for.

This one was... weird. And it was definitely meant to be. Stylistically full of experimentation and metaphor and layers that contradicted each other. But blissfully it wasn't boring.

At its core, this story wants to tackle the complex ideas of what right one has to make a choice, and how faith can affect that. It wants to be a commentary on religion and human nature and free will. But it's trapped in the skin of a 90s Doctor Who novel and that means we have to sit through an entire extended metaphor which details the Doctor's c-section but actually he's just being possessed by a pregnant sun(?). This was the part to which I, aloud, said 'What is going on...'

If I'm honest, I'm not sure I fully understood the plot or the point Mortimore was actually trying to make. It feels like he was throwing his musings around in a sandbox and having fun playing with his dolls. This is, I accept, a valid approach, but not necessarily a sensical one. However, Sam did get something to do in this one, even if that was die horribly again and get possessed and have to deal with a cult leader. The usual for her. I'm not certain I understand if she's okay or not, honestly.

But! It did not bore me. It was strange and visceral, but I wasn't bored. That to me is a great big win.

What a strange and charming little story. Full of all the typical Paul Magrs trappings one would expect, our Bessie has been forgotten in an old junkyard, and now being hunted down by a villain who wants to huy her for a million pounds

The whole story is thin - it's just Bessie reflecting on every story she is in on TV and somehow psychically communing with her new friend. And at the end, she gives up her sentience to get a message to the Doctor that he's in trouble. But despite that, it's enjoyable enough and wonderfully read by Stephanie Cole.

This is a story that, on paper, is very good. Avril comes back! She wants to steal Peter! Ruth and Jack discover their pasts and Brax finally defeats Pandora from Gallifrey for good! All that sounds great, and what's more it's set at Christmas, how lovely. If you like a plot, this sure is a plot that seems great.

But despite all this, it manages to be exceedingly boring.

As I say, there's nothing strictly bad in this. The acting is fine, the sound design is a little saccharine in places but servicable, the plot is theoretically fun. But I can't make myself say anything else about it but 'it's fine'. I found it to chug slowly along, and even all the twists were like 'and now this is happening'. I couldn't feel sad about Peter because I've not connected to him at all since Boxset Era began, and Ruth and Jack are so nothingy to me that their shady pasts didn't hit at all. Even Benny, who I adore, doesn't make me feel anything in this one.

I wish I had more to say, but I don't. It's fine. This is the worst boxset of Boxset Era.

You know when you listen to an episode and literally nothing happens for an hour, so you're like huh. What was the point of that. HMS Surprise is one of those episodes. Benny, Peter, and Jack get whooshed away to a shipyard where Benny meets some mystery guy in a lighthouse and Peter and Jack meander around and around some old ship.

And that keeps happening for an hour.

This episode isn't bad, not at all. The characterisation is fine, so Jack continues to be annoying and Peter's continued vendetta against his mother isn't particularly engaging either, and the concept of the story is fine. It's just boring. It's a nothingy story. They all wander about and get confused by things, and then it ends. Not a favourite by any means.

The first time I listened to this boxset, the comment I made was 'The Irverfield is one of the funniest names for a thing I have ever heard. The best thing about the boxset'. And I was right. And 'Irverfield' isn't even that funny.

This story calls for 'an archaeologist' to head to a planet that is alive or something and has two creepy dust children or something and there's also a paranormal hunter there too for some reason. It's remeniscent of Iris Wildthyme: High Spirits except at least that episode is actually funny. I feel like this episode tries for humour, and falls completely flat. All the characters were completely unengaging to me, and even Benny herself I felt was just plodding through the motions.

I think we were meant to feel sorry for the two planet children of dust or whatever they were, but honestly I was over them when we started with the naked jokes and totally tapped out by the end. And I think the conwoman paranormal videographer was supposed to be funny, but she was mostly just a bit irritating.

If I remember rightly, this boxset doesn't get any better either. Sigh.