This episode is broken up into two major parts. The first part involves what happens to Kaymee after the Daleks cure her of the plague, and it's wonderful. The second part involves the Graxis Wardens teaming up with Galanar, Elaria, and Tarkov, and it's tedious and annoying. A couple of episodes ago, I said that the issue with "Dalek Empire III" was pacing, not padding. At the time, I was right, but as for this episode... what else do you call it but padding when so much of the episode is taken up by characters telling other characters things that the audience already knows?

To be fair, I really like the whole thing about why Tarkov is suspicious of Galanar. Tarkov can feel himself wanting to trust Galanar, but knows that he has no reason to trust him. Most people in that situation might stop thinking and just go with their gut feeling. Tarkov actually becomes more suspicious precisely because he feels himself wanting to trust. That's quite interesting.

In theory, anyway. In practice, it's actually terribly dull, because we know that Tarkov should trust Galanar, and Tarkov's suspicions are doing nothing but holding up the story. And frankly, it gets really hard to listen to at some points, as Tarkov just repeats, with ever rising incredulity, everything that Galanar says. Do you ever find yourself wishing for a character to die? I wanted Galanar to kill him just to shut him up. I wouldn't have minded that it was out-of-character and unmotivated.

Uh oh... don't look now, but now that the story starts making its way toward a resolution, the plot problems are appearing again, just like in the previous two series. This episode establishes, not very convincingly, that everyone desperately needs to get to Velyshaa, and that Tarkov is the only one who knows where it is. Neither of these points makes much sense. For some reason, everyone is convinced that the only way to convince the Galactic Union of the Dalek threat is to first return to Velyshaa. It's just like Project Infinity all over again. Everything that's happened so far is irrelevant, and the whole story is going to come down to who gets to the magical plot planet first.

A successful conclusion. The two actually come together in the story as Jago and Litefoot come together within the story they're telling. Overall a very nice 40th Anniversary celebration of Jago and Litefoot and their enduring friendship with the Doctor. I particularly thought Trevor Baxter did a good job in the scenes with Litefoot and the Tenth Doctor.

Litefoot is joined by Jago in telling a story before the meeting of a scientific society in which the two were separated by hundreds of miles, with Litefoot travelling to Minos as both were in the dulldrums after months of nothing unusual happening.

The production breaks all kinds of "rules" that short trips go for as it has two actors in it. Really, this is very much a companion Chronicle two parts. This first pard does a great job setting the scene and giving both Jago and Litefoot good material to work with. Jonathan Barnes has a good sense of both Jago and Litefoot and the new series Doctors. The story ends with a very good cliffhanger that sets the stage for Part 2.

Classic Torchwood. Barrowman is on top form. Other actors also great. Sound effects good, music good as ever.