Paul Cornell, Martin Day, and Keith Topping wrote of the serial in The Discontinuity Guide (1995), "The combination of disturbing images (Jamie having his face taken away), superb literalism ('When is a door not a door?') and set pieces (the mental battle for control of Jamie and Zoe) makes this one of the most memorable stories of the era." In The Television Companion (1998), David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker praised the story's inventiveness, stating that it "remains a hugely enjoyable story, and one that stands up to repeated viewing". However, they said that the various characters that did not contribute much made the story "a bit of a jumble", and the fact that the serial was elongated by an episode had added padding. Howe and Walker also felt that the story went "downhill" after the "wonderful" first episode. In 2009, Mark Braxton of Radio Times praised the story's "brave" premise and its "delightful" but subtle humour. He also wrote that the inhabitants of the Land of Fiction were "well cast", despite being "middle-class" and "bookish". The A.V. Club reviewer Christopher Bahn described it as "one of the series' most genre-breaking and forward-thinking stories", with the various elements "creepy and frightening" rather than played for camp. While he noted the confusion of where reality ended and the Land of Fiction began and the ambiguous ending that did not seem to affirm if they had escaped it or not, Bahn felt that it had a "weird effect" of strengthening the theme of the danger being the Doctor's ongoing story. In 2010, Charlie Jane Anders of io9 listed the cliffhanger to the first episode — in which the TARDIS breaks apart — as one of the greatest cliffhangers in the history of Doctor Who.
