The calm stuff where Steven settles down in Russia is very good. The shapeshifter having an existential crisis was also pretty good. The rest was very uhhhhhhh…

The shapeshifter being the doctor and dodo was so incredibly obvious that i feel like i’ve missed something. Like there was a reason it was so obvious and actually meant to be that way. Like tbh i can barely even call it a spoiler. I dont get it it was so incredibly obvious i felt nothing when it was ‘revealed’. There must have been an underlying reason for it, but i dont see it. It can’t just have been so badly written. It must have been for a reason, right?

Steven becoming friendos with Russian wood guy was really nice. I’ve already said that. But that’s because that was the only really good part. Steven goin’ fishing.

There is a little bit of intrigue, but most of the story centers around the ‘mystery’ of the shapeshifter. If your mystery ain’t a mystery, then I’d say it isn’t a very good mystery. Lots of it was also just really boring and annoying. The whatever was going on with accepting the present was confusing and i didnt care about it. This is my first Steven story and im convinced hes a complete idiot now. He went running after the doctor (spoilers it wasnt the doctor) and that was a whole thing i tried not to fall asleep to. Napoleon recognizing the shapeshifter was kinda funny i guess.

The way the narration was framed was forced and confusing to me. Hope the other companion chronicles just have the reader reading without any silly reasons for them to do it. It just distracts from the story and is annoying. Or at least it was here. Maybe other audios will manage to pull it off better.

The behind the scenes are alright. I think it’s funny that Stevens actor only sees the first doctor as the real doctor, meanwhile the general fandom consensus being that the doctor started getting his character from Troughton. The music suite is better than the story btw.