I was always put off from listening to this series, despite it being held in high regard by many Whovians. I'm not that familiar with the era of the show that Romana & Leela come from. In fact I've never seen any of Leela's episodes. I've seen a few stories with Romana II in, but can't pretend to be especially knowledgable about the character.

Considering how unfamiliar I am with most aspects of this series (pretty much beyond the basic understanding of who the Time Lords are and Gallifrey is their homeworld, I have to figure most things out just from this episode) I am pleased to say that I had very little trouble following this story. The only thing I found myself googling was who Andred was.

There's a lot going on here, as it not only has a story that introduces (at least to me) the Temporal Powers, a device that is believed to be capable of planetary destruction, the threat of war between Gallifrey and their allies the Monan host, the Free Time subversives and our principal cast of Gallifreyans. But on a scene by scene basis I never really struggled to follow what was happening.

The only issue I found myself having, was that I sometimes had trouble distinguishing between Narvin, Braxiatel & Torvold. But I think by the end I was beginning to be able to distinguish them by voice and by personality. I am quite sure this will become less of an issue as I listen to more of the series.

Romana was by far the character I was most interested in whilst listening to this story. Probably helped by her being the character I knew the best going in. But her attempts to rule whilst navigating the Gallifreyan politics and trying to stop the threat at hand yielded some very compelling plans and made for some very compelling scenes. I'm less invested in Leela presently. But, her more savage, direct manner does make for a fun contrast with the more snooty Time Lords. I'm excited to see where things go now that she's been made Romana's personal bodyguard.

All in all I found this an engaging first story that kept me entertained throughout. Did a good (although not perfect) job of setting up the series, it's world, it's stakes and it's characters in a way that I could understand. Most importantly though, it has me intrigued as to where this might go. It's set up well for Romana to have plenty of political threat, both from inside Gallifrey and from outside.

Bring on the rest of this series.