Doctor Who: Ravenous 3

The third set in this ‘season' of Eighth Doctor stories is tying in closely to the plot arc now, with the Ravenous moving close to centre stage. Fortunately, however, since they don't do much except slaver and chase after people, the story is more about escaping them than fighting them directly, and the Eleven has a key role that largely overshadows them. Plus, Liv is on cracking form throughout.

• Deeptime Frontier - The first episode carries on directly from where Ravenous 2 ended, taking us to a sort of mining operation in the Vortex. Once we get past the initial rescue sequence, it's a base-under-siege, with the Ravenous as the monsters. We do finally get a proper explanation for what they are, but it turns out to be the sort of thing we've heard many times before in other stories. And then there's a lot of running through corridors and getting split up and honestly not much else. It's not a badly done story, but there's nothing new to it, and it seems to exist mainly just to get the characters to where they need to be next – a necessary bridge, perhaps, and one providing some needed exposition, but unremarkable on its own merits. 3 stars.

• Companion Piece – What follows is fortunately much better. Here, Liv and Helen find themselves the prisoners of a madman who's trying to collect a full set of the Doctor's companions. The result is bonkers, with lots of great one-liners and more nods to the series' history than you can shake a stick at. River Song appears, but we also get (as is apparent from the cover image) Charlie and Bliss, with the latter getting a particularly good turn in a story that's more comedic than her usual fare. It's a great Doctor-lite story, full of fun and putting the companions centre stage. 5 stars.

• L.E.G.E.N.D. – Next, we're off to 19th century Germany for a meeting with the Brothers Grimm. The story, naturally enough, deals with folklore, with elements taken from the stories that the Brothers collected – although not in the cop-out “they were inspired by real events” way that's sometimes used. Instead, we have a story about the arrival of an alien folklorist which, after some initial comic moments, leads to unforeseen complications and a real monster stalking the woods The resolution, when it comes, is a little abrupt and there's perhaps not quite the sense of time and place that mark the best stories set in Earth's past, but it works better than it might have. 3.5 stars.

• The Odds Against – Initially, the concluding story seems like it's going to be another run-around in the style of the first one in the collection. Trying to track down the Ravenous, the Doctor arrives on an alien planet, stumbles across a dead body and is immediately arrested by a patrolling robot before becoming embroiled in trying to solve a mystery. All of which seems fairly routine, but it turns that that's rather the point, and the story soon heads off in an entirely different direction. The Ravenous themselves are, honestly, rather tedious but here, they are really an ancillary threat to recurring villain the Eleven. The latter is very well employed here; even if it at times it gets confusing trying to follow his self-interrupted monologues, it's well worth it. 4.5 stars.