Chimes of Midnight may very well be the most impressive and well-written Christmas-themed story of the entire franchise. Note that it is recommended you listen to at least Storm Warning before this one.

This is an extremely strong audio featuring the Eighth Doctor and Charley. It really deserves the near-universal praise it has received, though I am not going to pretend this audio is perfect, either. The weakness only shows up in the final act. Up until that point, Chimes of Midnight is perfect. It is a masterclass in writing but also in building up this feeling of tension, mystery, and suspense. You will get random dialogue that feels useless all about plum pudding, only for it to become incredibly relevant to the building sense of mystery. The set-up and pay-off in this story is remarkable. By the time we are counting down to midnight at the end of the second part, I was on the edge of my seat.

It helps that the entire cast is so good. This isn't one of those stories where the Doctor or his companions are carrying it (although both Eight and Charley are great here), every character and every actor does an amazing job, do excellent acting, and each give a hell of a weighty performance. Every character stands out and has a relevant role to play in the story, and they are all fantastic at bringing this haunted house story to life.

My only issue is that, yeah, things kind of fall apart near the end. It's not bad, not exactly, but once our villain is revealed and we get a sense of what this story is about, I found myself losing steam and excitement over Chimes of Midnight. It feels like all that carefully built up tension and suspense dissipates really quickly once our haunted house starts chatting with the Doctor.

Still, it is very impressive, and absolutely should be appreciated as one of the better, if not absolute best, Christmas Doctor Who story.