I literally just finished this about five minutes ago and I'm kind of awe-struck so I apologise if this is incoherent and sweary - I'll censor the swears for the sake of the censorship bot's delicate sensibilities. Spoilers, beware! (4.5/5)

HOLY F*CK HOLY F*CK WHY DO I NEVER HEAR THIS AUDIO TALKED ABOUT IT WAS SO GOOD WHAT THE F*CK

*breathes* okay, it's okay, I'm good. As was that audio! The use of the radio broadcasts as a framing device and a way to do things like allow the theme music to play in a way that made sense in-story was lovely, it's absolutely my favourite thing when an audio does that, refuses to draw a clean line between the story and the real world. Gorgeous. The focus on music in the audio format was an interesting one too, and definitely a cool avenue to explore.

The anti-fascism was well-done and pronounced, though I thought they could have made it even more explicit how turning people into mindless drones with the escapist music and drugs could lead to susceptibility to fascist thinking. They did this a little with the way the Doctor and Gustavo discussed religion, and the focus on religion's relationship with fascism was chilling even to a non-religious person (me), but I just think an even stronger link could have been made with the music and the fascism. What I'm saying is, what we got was good, but I would have loved even more. What can I say? I like my political themes heavy-handed and explicit.

Often, the "long lost family member I never knew about" trope becomes too cliché and so becomes annoying, but I feel like the Rapture really pulled this off. It tied in well to the storyline, so was used as a plot device rather than a surprise twist ending type of thing.

The exploration of Cat's disability and Liam's need to take care of her was really interesting, and very well done, with the parallels between Cat's addiction to drugs, Liam's addiction to Cat, and Jude's addiction to Gabriel (And the unspoken McShane addition to the Doctor, of course) making the story feel both relatable to real-world problems, and also exploring issues unique to the premise of Who. It's rare to find stories that successfully balance the two, and the Rapture did this very well. One minor annoyance though is that I felt Brian wasn't really brought into it enough - he was their friend, he was killed, and they barely mentioned him, even though he was missing? I just would have expected a couple more references to my boy Brian.

There were times when I thought McCoy and Aldred's acting was slightly over-the-top in the fourth part, which took me away from the story a little, but it wasn't so needlessly melodramatic as to actually change how I feel about the audio. I liked the resolution, and 7 finally calling her McShane at the end really hit hard in a trans-and-trying-out-a-new-name way. That post-credits scene left me with a lot of questions, though - it was trying to scare the listener and I think it did that well, but I don't really understand why. We'd had a good resolution with everything neatly tied up - the scene didn't really tie into anything, and left me with a lot of questions. I think I would have preferred the audio without it.

The few criticisms I have are very minor and honestly more personal preference (and quite possibly driven by the fact that due to my schedule, I had to listen to the story in roughtly 20-minute-chunks over several sessions, which really is not how it is meant to be listened to and was definitely detrimental to my enjoyment of the story). As I said before, liked the music-focus, liked the antifascism, the religious themes hit hard, and it was overall a very cohesive and well-made story. I therefore pronounce this another absolute banger from Lidster!