This story is probably one of my favourites in the Torchwoood catalogue period.

It gives the listener four stories: two told by Ace, and two by Mr Colchester. Whilst each individual story is good, my favourite was the story of the broken soldier. It works on an emotional level, contrasting the stoic Mr Colchester telling the story with the less put-together Singeon of the 1980s. It feels genuinely tragic, and sad yet hopeful at the same time. I had to pause the story as I was listening on a train and knew if I continued I'd cry - I genuinely don't remember the last time a story accomplished that. Paul Clayton's performance, the sound design, and the beautiful script culminate for a lovely midpoint.

The other stories are also great, the stories of Torchwood's first director aren't as effective but provide a through line through the story. Plus the near misses between the Doctor and Torchwood before Doomsday are an interesting idea and its nice to see them. These stories are undeniably still great and still offer a slight underlying tragedy.

The final story offers a great quiet ending that ties a neat bow on the story.

The sound design is beautiful and gives a great atmosphere for the stories giving a festive yet spooky feeling for the story.  Plus, Ace and Mr Colchester as characters work wonderfully together. The story highlights their similarities - both run-aways in different ways.

I do think the story can be criticised for leaving a lot of the supernatural elements in each story up-in-the-air however, I personally didn't feel like answers were needed. The narrators themselves don't fully understand them, so they can't explain what they don't know.   Overall, its definitely a strong festive story.