Where to even begin with this one.  I've heard about Zagreus for years but only finally got around to listening to it for the first time in 2024.  It was a cool experience, but I'm glad I took my time to get to this point.  This is absolutely an audio that requires you to listen to Big Finish's Neverland, but I would argue it pays off the more you are familiar with the entirety Classic Doctor Who, the Eight Doctor Main Range audios up until this point, and even Big Finish's first 50 Main Range episodes.

This is a massive audio story with every single original Doctor Who cast member who had worked with Big Finish up until this point, an immense sense of pay-off for the entire run of stories featuring Charley and the Doctor in the Main Range leading into this audio drama, and had even been hinted at in other Main Range episodes thanks to the nature of the in-universe Zagreus Time Lord nursery rhyme you can catch the Doctor mumbling to himself from time to time in all sorts of stories.  It's so cool.  I don't know how people can't appreciate it.  I understand why it's a little frustrating that Big Finish hasn't quite ever topped something this experimental, weird, and cool again, at least not on such a large scale.

I have found the experimental stuff is there, if you know where to look for it.  It's just not in something like Once and Future, but rather a random Companion Chronicle like The Plague of Dreams.  Even then though, Zagreus is something special.  It has ambition like nothing else.  It does so many cool things with its cast and lets these performers, who have been playing the same characters for years, really get to show new sides of themselves.

I could analyze the crap out of Zagreus but don't really have the energy to really get into it.  Suffice to say, while, yes, it does kind of drag a bit near the end, and no, it is not perfect, it is unforgettable and cool as hell.  I'm so glad I listened to it and best of all I got to do so for free on Spotify, along with all those Eighth Doctor stories leading up to it.  How could I possibly dislike that experience?