This was such a sweet and sad story. Honestly I nearly cried as Charley told Stan's mother his message.

The Doctor is sort of in the background in this one, letting Charley handle the conversation with Stan's family - which makes sense since Eight doesn't really handle grief that well and sort of avoids it. Charley and Eight are really in-character in this one and India Fisher does amazing job as a narrator. This is only the second short trip story I've listened to so I can't say it how it compares to other stories overall but I really loved this one.

I found this a pleasant enough listen. Maybe I can't quite muster up the same level of glowing reviews I've seen afforded to Letting Go, but it wasn't terrible either. I just didn't take away much from it as I expected I would have. I really like the idea of the Doctor and Charley visiting the family of someone who died saving them, but the whole Charley being in love with the Doctor thing definitely worked a lot less, in my opinion. It's not terrible - it fits pretty well if you are completely familiar with their adventures together in the main range and makes a lot of sense for their characters, but it doesn't really work if you aren't well versed in a lot of other audio stories.

It really feels like Letting Go is actually something that should have existed in a more concrete way in the main range as opposed to a side project like this, so I just think of this audio as kind of weird more than anything.  This is important character stuff for Charley that is followed up on, to a degree, so I think it is going to be too easily missed by some fans and not appreciated by others.  Still, to its credit, it stands out quite a bit from the rest of the Short Trips 2 volume and was hardly terrible.

Perhaps my lack of warmth to this has to do with the fact that I feel by now Big Finish has done quite a few Short Trips like this that just kind of gently visit a couple of characters and don't add much else to the equation.  I like the other Short Trips of a more sombre tone that feature a bit more thoughtfulness to them, like The World Tree or The Galois Group, a little better.