Huh, well this was certainly an interesting listen. The Fearmonger has a lot going on; demagogues, assassinations, backstabbing's, terrorist groups, a supernatural entity which prays off people's fear and prejudices. There's some great concepts here and it seems right up my alley so going into this one I was rather excited. I did end up enjoying it a fair amount but not without reservation. To begin with it's worth mentioning that this is the first full Seventh Doctor audio and of course the return of his definitive companion, Ace. And of course they are both phenomenal here. With some of the other returning actors it's felt like it's taken them a little bit to get back into the role again, however with McCoy and Aldred they are just straight back into it like no time has passed at all. They feel exactly the same as they did on TV, which is to say utterly perfect.

Now onto the story itself, in terms of the actual characters and plot I wouldn't exactly call it the most compelling thing in the world. Harper is sadly underdeveloped, it's fine for her to be one note as that's sort of her character but even still she doesn't get much to do and isn't particularly threatening or convincing as a charismatic leader. I find the rest of the cast similarly forgettable, I often had to refer to the wiki page to remind myself who was who, and in the middle few parts the plot does move along a little too slowly for my liking. However where I find this story really has a lot of merit is on it's political commentary. This story explores the themes of fear and prejudice, where they come from and how they affect people and in turn the political landscape. This is a very interesting theme to explore and The Fearmonger is a good way to establish fear as an actual material threat. However in the last part this story cooks up a bit of a curveball; it turns out that The Fearmonger was only inhabiting the mind of people who thought they could hear it in others. This is a very clever twist as if you're perceptive you may notice that only one person at a time "hears" The Fearmonger. First Walter, then Ace. The scene where the Doctor has to convince Ace of this is fantastic. It's very reminiscent of the "I knew" scene from Curse of Fenric, it really pushes their dynamic and trust in one another and both actors put in a wonderful performance. However, while I do like this twist, I'm less thrilled with how they tried to tie it in the theme. The Doctor makes an odd point which weirdly seems to abdicate Harper's side. "Who was doing more to scare others? The one's with the speeches of the one's with the guns?" It seems like the point being made here is that it was the violent reactions of people like Walter that was stoking fear, when in reality, Harper has just as much, if not more responsibility to bear. It was her divisive and xenophobic rhetoric that lead to people getting violent in the first place right? This seems like something the story understood very well. Both sides have responsibility for the worsening situation in this case, and to me it seemed like the story was exploring this well until this odd moment at the end. I still think this is a good story, I enjoy a lot about it, especially the themes and the commentary, it just ended up leaving me a bit confused and underwhelmed. 7/10 / 3½ stars.