Jamie Revell
The Doctor arrives on a prison planet run by a man obsessed with the works of Edgar Allen Poe. Unfortunately, Barnes really overdoes it with the Poe references. Yes, at least there's a sound reason for them existing, but there's a clear effort in the plot to get in as many as humanly possible - along with a few fairly naff puns along the way - and this ends up obscuring the central story.
There are some good scenes along the way, although its notable that the best two are the ones directly lifted from Poe himself (mostly word-for-word, as it happens). The raven-robots are unconvincing, and the black cat seems to be there just because there ought to be one somewhere. Despite this, the story does make rather more sense than it might, and with a few genuine moments of tension, its certainly no disaster.
It's also worth noting that this is the first story to properly feature new companion Tamsin, who spent most of her debut episode pretending to be somebody else. She's well-acted, reasonably likeable, and a believable character, but nothing really makes her stand out at this point. There is a danger of her falling into ‘generic companion' status if this keeps up - and one couldn't say that of Charley or Lucie.
The Doctor arrives on a prison planet run by a man obsessed with the works of Edgar Allen Poe. Unfortunately, Barnes really overdoes it with the Poe references. Yes, at least there's a sound reason for them existing, but there's a clear effort in the plot to get in as many as humanly possible - along with a few fairly naff puns along the way - and this ends up obscuring the central story.
There are some good scenes along the way, although its notable that the best two are the ones directly lifted from Poe himself (mostly word-for-word, as it happens). The raven-robots are unconvincing, and the black cat seems to be there just because there ought to be one somewhere. Despite this, the story does make rather more sense than it might, and with a few genuine moments of tension, its certainly no disaster.
It's also worth noting that this is the first story to properly feature new companion Tamsin, who spent most of her debut episode pretending to be somebody else. She's well-acted, reasonably likeable, and a believable character, but nothing really makes her stand out at this point. There is a danger of her falling into ‘generic companion' status if this keeps up - and one couldn't say that of Charley or Lucie.