It's an exciting time to be a Five fan. I tend not to listen to new Big Finish releases but this one peaked my interest. I love the Cybermen, they're easily my favourite of the big three, specifically the Mondasian design. There's something so eerie about it and the stories they're in tend to take advantage well. I also tend to think of Five as the 'Cyberman Doctor', he's consistently had great stories with them and his more grounded and naturalistic character plays very well off the cold, hard and emotionless beings that the Cybermen embody. This story also features something of a rarity for Big Finish, the whole of the Season 19 TARDIS team in all it's gay and dysfunctional glory. Needless to say before I going in I think this story has the odds stacked in it's favour.

And well, pretty much it meets all expectations. This story f**ks hard. It really manages to do it all, it always feels like the plot is moving forward, the pacing is great there's never a dull moment and yet there's still enough time to define the world and the characters really well. I'll start with the worldbuilding and atmosphere because it's possibly the strongest thing here. The medieval setting immediately oozes atmosphere. The music is key, it's incredible and really works to set the scene. Once The Doctor and gang time hop to the future and Dega takes over as a despot the feel of everything is very different. There's just such a grim and oppressive vibe (again, aided by the music) and I love it. It's these parts of the story where they really make use of the body horror. The effect they put on the voice of the patient, despite being roboticized you can still feel the pain, like the last vestiges of humanity fighting through; it's genuinely chilling. And of course I can't forget the emotional gut punch that is the scene with Raith's mother. This story fundamentally understands what makes the Cybermen such a chilling concept and takes full of advantage of it, this is genuinely on the level of (and sometimes even surpasses) World Enough and Time when it comes to showing what makes the Cybermen so terrifying.

This is also a very strong story for the characters. The side characters are excellent. Sylvan, Dega and Meta might not be the most original characters of all time but they serve their purpose wonderfully; very well performed and very well defined. Speaking of well defined, this has to be one of the best uses of the Season 19 TARDIS team I've seen yet. I love this team but on TV there was definitely the problem of one or more characters getting shafted every story. Not a problem here, Five, Adric, Nyssa and Tegan all get great character moments and get to move the plot along in their own way. Five perhaps may be a little uncharacteristically snarky and brazen for this stage (character traits I see more in line with the S21 version of Five rather than the S19 version) but still, I love this version of the character and he gets fantastic moments showing off his bravery, faith and empathy which I all view as fundamental to doing the character right. Nyssa of course has much stronger characterisation than she did on TV as is par for the course with Big Finish. She has some emotional moments in this story and Sarah Sutton delivers on it very well. But really I want to give a shoutout to the surprising MVP of this audio, Adric. This has to be one of his best outings. He's a devious little s**t as always but when it counts he's very brave. He's the prime factor in the team's success. Alone he rouses a revolution and then saves the day at the end by solving the equations. In this sense the story is an excellent companion piece to Earthshock. In both he similarly finds the courage to put others before himself and the ending scenarios are almost identical but the outcomes are drastically different. I have no clue if this was intentional or not but it just makes Earthshock all the more tragic. This overall might be the best characterisation I've seen for the S19 team and all the cast are on their A-game. Especially Sutton and Waterhouse.

I love this story a lot. It's not perfect, I find the last part devolves into a bit of a basic punch up and I think the resolution is a bit convenient but that's minor. This is my ideal story, it's dark, atmospheric, makes excellent use of the characters and settings and really gets the Mondasian Cybermen. I'll give it a 9/10 / 4½ stars but honestly, it's teetering it's way to a 10/10.