Overall, I had a great time with The Fearmonger and think it is an example of an early Big Finish story actually being pretty fantastic. I love the introduction with the Doctor interrupting the radio show. It really relies on Sylvester McCoy to pull off a scene like that and he does it phenomenally, selling me on the Seventh Doctor audio adventures and the fun of Big Finish all in one fell swoop back when I first heard it.

It's a really strong introductory episode for the Big Finish month range. I love how nakedly political it all is, which fits a franchise that has been political since the very beginning, and how well acted the audio is by all players. This is less surprising from McCoy and Sophie Aldred, who are both so great reprising their roles, but also the supporting cast. Jacqueline Pearce, Mark McDonnell, and Vince Henderson were all pretty memorable too me. The effects largely work well to give a feel of this being an adventure that could easily have come out of McCoy's original run of television episodes.

Now, leaning into that trend some of the writing can be a bit clunky, and like some of the other early Big Finish audios, the balance with sound effects isn't quite achieved - things get very crazy around the riot scenes, for example, and are a little hard to follow - but I found the story itself very easy to follow and had a lot of moments that were either entertaining or compelling. You can very easily tell the direction of this story for its final part, but that didn't make me enjoy it any less. I still had quite a bit of fun with the Fearmonger and would absolutely recommend it.