M051 - The Wormery

The idea of the setting for this story is quite interesting; a bar with entrances in both 1930s Berlin and a dozen different star systems. Unfortunately the story occupying it was less engaging. This might be because it followed the bizarre epic Zagreus, but I would mostly blame the odd plot involving the Doctor being seduced by Bianca, the owner of the bar, and Mickey, the chief waitress who recounts the story years later to the mysterious Mr. Ashcroft. The Bianca side of the plot was less interesting than the trans-temporal bar, and Mickey's narrative added little except the running mystery of Mr. Ashcroft.

The interesting side of the story, that involving the bar with many doors, could have gone filled in any time occupied by Bianca, I think. Having 30s Germans finding a contact point for alien technology sees the Doctor in the middle of stopping the Nazis gaining advanced tech while trying to close the dangerously impossible bar, which might rip a hole in the Universe. No reason to distract from that. So it was a middle-of-the-road episode with some clever sides and some weaknesses.