Dark Eyes is a strong box set of adventures with the Eighth Doctor. With a bit of background knowledge about the Eighth Doctor’s previous adventures, it’s a good place to get into the Big Finish line of Doctor Who audios. (I mean, all you really need to know is what happens at the end of the last series of the EDAs, and that can easily be found out via Wikipedia or another site). It’s a magnificent example of the things that can be accomplished via an audio-only story, helped immensely by the impeccable sound design and score by Andy Hardwick. It’s a well-written and a (mostly) well-paced set of stories with strong performances from its core cast, especially Paul McGann and Ruth Bradley. The ending is open-ended enough that it leaves room for plenty more adventures with the Doctor and Molly (which, obviously, it had to do considering there are a further three box sets in the Dark Eyes series) and the set as a whole steers the Eighth Doctor in a much darker direction than he’d previously been in, helping to bridge the gap between the more light-hearted Classic Doctor Who run and the more traumatized Doctor we find in the 2005 reboot of the show. It’s a strong box set and I recommend it to anyone interested in hearing/experiencing more adventures from Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor.

(Full review at my website ( )