Well, that was interesting. The worst fake American accents I've ever heard, some egregious alien voices, and frankly I can't even tell you what happened or who the characters were.

I'm glad I skipped this in my first listen through, probably would have put me off listening to the rest of the series.

Biiig yawn for this one.

As other reviews say, good ideas here (using the War of the Worlds broadcast to pretend there's already an alien force invading Earth, the Doctor and Charley pretending to be PIs, NYC gangsters in general), but the execution was lackluster. I started writing an outline of the plot here and just deleted it because so many threads just go nowhere and it's confusing, and the end is unsatisfying. Charley is kidnapped and questioned with a truth serum, and just doesn't get to do much else. The Doctor unwittingly helps a Russian spy, and then comes up with the second fake broadcast*, which doesn't quite work. The random Russian scientist guy who we thought died in part 2 saves the day with a... homemade atomic bomb? Alright.

I did like the performances for Welles and Devine. That's pretty much all I can say.

*read with Pippin's intonation of "second breakfast"

Charming, but I wish I could dig it much more. From other Gatiss entries this one places a bit higher, as always Gatiss gets a pretty cool idea, but the execution feels a bit lackluster. Our leads still have so much chemistry that I can’t really say it’s bad, just kinda lackluster.

23.06.2022

Nothing of interest. Filled with faceless characters that almost blend into one. And the threat is solved by deus ex random guy who just happened to invent a nuclear bomb off-screen. The one good idea they had they misimplemented. 1/5, I think.

relistened 3/9/24-14/9/24

theres a gay nazi in this. epic mark gatiss moment 🤩