Doctor Who: Interstitial / Feast of Fear

This consists of two one-hour stories that are connected only by occurring sequentially and including the new companion who joined at the end of the previous release, Tartarus.

Interstitial - A disastrous time experiment pulls the TARDIS off-course, taking the Doctor and companions to a space station that (from the description) closely resembles the Nerva Space Beacon from season 12. The first half consists largely of them wandering around and trying to figure out what's going on - the sort of leisurely start that works better in a 4-part story than a 2-parter like this. There are timey-wimey elements, but they're relatively minor with the second half of the story mainly dealing with a clash of objectives between the two guest stars.

Arguably, nothing very much happens and the personalities of the guest characters aren't very well drawn - one of them is basically just mad. New companion Marcus feels rather like Katarina from the TV show; too far out of his depth to contribute much and certainly giving us no new insight into his character. The story works well enough but it isn't very memorable, with a few good lines and a decent premise that doesn't, in the end, really go anywhere. 3 stars.

Feast of Fear - The second story is set in 19th century Ireland, probably during the Great Famine of 1845-49 although the year isn't explicitly stated. That's largely incidental, though, with the story instead being about mind control as a monster takes over a travelling circus. Unfortunately, this mainly results in Nyssa and the Doctor being taken out of the bulk of the plot, while the story is too short to do anything particularly interesting with Tegan in the meantime. She does mention the similarity of what's happening with her experiences of the Mara but mentions are all you get, and it isn't really explored. Marcus, on the other hand, is very much a spare wheel who doesn't get to do much beyond being confused as to where America might be.

Nor is the monster a particularly interesting or original one, very much the sort of thing we've often seen before. There's obviously an intent to draw parallels between the monster's situation and the Famine but the latter is too much in the background for that to be any more than superficial. There's some good acting and it's nice to see Ireland as a setting for a change (Northern Ireland, too, judging from the accents of the characters who are supposed to be local) but, as with the first half of this collection it's hard to get too thrilled by it all. 3 stars.