Okay, I listened to this one pretty recently and I have some really strong (very positive!) feelings about it so, strap in, this is going to be a long, rambly ride... heavy spoilers, especially towards the end of this review. 5/5

The brutal arrest and interrogation of Nyssa hits hard in consideration of the terrible crimes committed by psychiatric institutions. The effects of conflict described in terms of ugliness and beauty is truly fascinating - with Briggs known as the voice of the Daleks, it's easy to forget that he can also be a fantastic writer. The idea of 'otherness' is heavily pushed here - anyone else who grew up on the sidelines, marginalised by your peers, feel really called out here?

I feel like this story managed a great balance of politics and morality - it's like, the effect of political decisions told through conflicted feelings, that just makes it hit much harder than if we saw the carnage from a wider, more outside perspective, and this really could have only been acheived with this innovative story structure. I found the structure really enjoyable, not at all confusing, and I think it allowed for a proper exploration of the Doctor and Nyssa's involvement in it all that would have been much more difficult/impossible if it wasn't told in this order.

In love with the way the story challenges the Doctor's role in the story - in all stories! The way he acts just as much of an all-knowing superior saviour as the Koteem do to the Veln, just because he has a cool ship (time travel) and a cool name and backstory (time lord, Gallifrey). This deals so well with the problem of the bystander... Usually, the Doctor arrives to save a race. But today, the races were already saving themselves, just not in a way that everyone could agree upon. As Nyssa said, they made no difference. They changed nothing. But I think, that's the point - they didn't have to. They can save themselves. They can make the choice, to live or to die, and that's their decision.
And in the end, isn't that all we want? That autonomy? Isn't that all that matters?

Pollution and oil & gas and global warming and capitalism's genocides and the saviour complex of the guilty party and the fact that in climate change we are not all in the same boat because some of us are in yachts.... damn this is a good story. "Ridiculed me in public, but took my money behind closed doors" HELLO!!! I just. I cannot say anything about this that isn't said in itself.

OMG IT WAS THEM. IT WAS THE TARDIS THAT CAUSED THE COLLISION. ALL THIS TIME THINKING THEY DID NOTHING AND IT WAS THEM. But of course, it could have been anything... It didn't have to be them, that's not the point, that's just the ironic icing on the cake. The point is that the Koteem did this to themselves, they used this oil and gas I mean dyestrial, they poisoned themselves, and then the captain took shortcuts that endangered the Veln's lives to save a few bucks, they did this to them, they did it... Never forget, it wasn't the Doctor that caused this all. It was greed. Capitalistic greed, plain and simple... Two whole species, destroyed... Because of capitalistic greed...

I cannot think of anything uglier.