Ravenous 2.

Audio Quick landmark update. This is the first of the Eighth Doctor mid to late period releases which has the new logo on the front and cover design, which means that none of the spines match any more. Long term fans will remember the pain of this from the VHS releases.  Shifting to use the television logo to cover all the merchandise is always a bold move, especially right now in relation to the blu-ray box sets which are supposed to be all out in five years.  What happens if there's a regime change at the top and Mark Gatiss or Abi Morgan decide that they want something different to whatever Chibbers signed off on?  It's inevitable that we're going to end up with spines with logos which don't match and also don't represent the era upon which they're applied.

Escape from Kaldor

An incredibly good Matt Fitton script which provides the kind of development for Liv that Absent Friends gave to Helen.  The writer apparently opened up his research beyond television to Chris Boucher's MDA novels which then makes me wonder how much the society constructed here also harmonizes with the Kaldor City audios (perhaps it's about time I got around to listening to them) (assuming I can find a copy).  Especially strong is the sense of place.  Who is at its best when it offers familiar environments on other worlds which are almost but not exactly like Earth and having been to London a few times now, it's entirely possible for me to imagine what this shopping centre designed to attract high earners would be like even if in instead robots serving its employees earning an annual salary which is less than the price of handbag.

Better Watch Out

Utterly incredible.  Without the restriction of having to entertain fans and casuals on December 25th, Big Finish offers an all time classic Christmas story which is challenging in both its story and how its told.  A fairly conventional monster story is enunciated through parallel narrators, nested flashbacks and subjective exposition in ways which arguably could only work on audio as it uses our own imagination against us, wrongfooting who we think we're listening to how the action unfolds.  Plus it's completely festive without becoming cloying, partly because of the continuing thread of Liv being entirely noneplussed by contemporary human traditions (although you might wonder given how long she spent on Earth in Dark Eyes how she didn't come across it).

Fairytale of Salzburg

Long terms fans will probably work out the big character twist at the close of the story which just goes to tie up just how much this two part tribute to the Moffat era even it we'll be slightly perplexed by how it resolves itself with Clarke's law stretched to its very limit.  Is this God-like wish giving being an invention for this story or have they been knocking around elsewhere?  Will they be returning in the future, and surely a figure this powerful breaks the Whoniverse if they can just pop in and bend reality in this way?  Wouldn't they be quite useful during the Time War assuming they can take sides?  Also how much of what's happened to [spoiler] has been retained or have they been replaced with a different version with no memory ala Fitz in the EDAs?

Seizure

After two stand alone stories, here's the obligitory arc episode to justify the title on the box.  It's fine.  It's a standard base under seige story set on a dying TARDIS with minimal crew and although the Ravenous's voice is creepy (especially when it's toying with Liv), it simply doesn't feel like a classic monster with enough potential mythology to sustain a whole series.  With some mild rejigging, there's nothing they're doing which couldn't equally have been done just as well with the Daleks in a way which wouldn't be possible with The Silents (for example).  Rather like Buffy's fourth or sixth seasons with their unconvincing Big Bad, so far in Ravenous it's the episodes which don't contribute to the overall story which work best, which I suppose means the Riley in all of this is the Eleven.