It's a fun period piece, a little bit spooky and cozy content to listen to. Nothing mind-blowing, but I still really enjoyed it.

Besides the presence of Mark Gatiss as a voice actor, the tropes, style, and script are very reminiscent of his stories, and it is quite clear this is a script from him. And this already makes me curious going in - his stories are hit or miss with me - he has written some stories I love, and some which I don't care for.

Unfortunately, this falls into the side I didn't particularly care for. The side characters unfortunately blended into the side and the setting for me, and the setting itself, while usually I am a fan of the past, wasn't utilised well enough for me in this story. The setting was realised well, but not enough done with it to really care. The villain however, I was intrigued by, and the mystery worked well to draw me in initially, which has my interest piqued by its atmosphere and horror, however my interest waned as it progressed.

The choice to have the Fifth Doctor with Turlough solo though was interesting, and nice to develop this under utilised dynamic. Davison and Strickson's performance was a pleasure throughout at least.

Honestly, it’s the definitive “This story exists” for Big Finish so far. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad, having the Five and Turlough Pairing makes it a bit more unique. But it’s pretty unremarkable.
I don’t think you can do anything wrong with listening to this, pretty solid start for the 5 solo run, but even out of the first 10, I rarely ever think about this Story. I think that tells you enough about how I feel about it.

Phantasmagoria - 4/10

I did in some ways actually enjoy this story as you can argue its the first 'proper' Doctor Who Big Finish story as Sirens of Time was a multi Doctor adventure.

I don't really have a lot to say about this story: I listened to it, I took it in and then it ended. I don't know if that makes much sense but I just didn't get that immersed within the world this story tried to build up around itself.

On a more positive note I thoroughly enjoyed both Davison and Strickson's performances and they really do feel like the characters they were playing years prior. I said this in my Sirens of Time review too but I love having Doctor Who stories to experience that I know absolutely nothing about.

The setting is something I also quite enjoyed as historical settings to me are always my favourites.

All the other characters just passed me by in this story too which I found to be quite disappointing, side characters in Doctor Who stories always bring some of the best moments (a very random but favourite example of this is Irongron and Bloodaxe from The Time Warrior who provide some of my favourite scenes from the show together).

Overall Phantasmagoria gets a 4/10 because I really just didn't care for the plot that much at all (apologies for the lack of nuance here I'm just really struggling to put my thoughts into words about this story), its not one I can see myself going back to in a hurry.