Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor - Time War, Volume 1

This is really more of a prequel to the War Doctor audio series than it is a continuation of the regular 8th Doctor stories. It's also a single four-hour story, albeit with the two authors taking turns in writing the hour-long ‘chapters', each of which has a different setting.

It starts out in the style of any typical DW story, with the Doctor stumbling across sinister goings-on on a luxury cruise liner in space. Subtle hints that the apparent mystery is merely a sideshow build up until the effects of the Time War arrive, and everything completely changes direction. From there on, we're pretty much just dodging Daleks in a story that's focussed on the Doctor trying to get a group of refugees to safety.

Much of this is fairly standard Dalek fare, although Eight's personality is strongly contrasted with that of the War Doctor, doing everything he can to avoid fighting and getting involved in the larger conflict. The third segment of the story, set on a Gallifreyan army base, is the strongest, with the Doctor standing up for individuality in the face of the dehumanising nature of military training.

It's really only that, and a few decent twists in the story, that raise it up to the 4-star level, although anyone who's a big Dalek fan may well find more to enjoy. Apparently, it was originally intended as a companion-free story although one of the characters does end up travelling with the Doctor at the end. That this hadn't been planned at the time of writing probably explains why she's missing for long chunks of the narrative, although she seems heroic and capable, the sort of companion that's going to be useful in a series about a war. If anything, it's the other guest characters who stand out more, making this more a story about the effects of war than about the war itself.

Which is a good thing.