I had a good time with this audio.  I don't think I could ever quite fully accept this cast as the original TARDIS crew - they all sound and feel much to different for that to feel quite right to me - but there's so much to like here it easily overrides something like Ian sounding a little different.  I really liked the authentic casting of Japanese characters as a lot of them worked quite well, even when you could kind of tell this was written by somebody with a British perspective more than a Japanese one.  Still, it's a good story, featuring a lot of interesting characters from the historical Japan setting, having an easy-to-follow plot that was just as easy to enjoy, and most importantly, Ian actually got to behave like a chemist.  It's hard to go wrong in such a situation.

I was so wildly engrossed in this one, and I'm not sure why. Regardless, good story, good setting.

A little too long but appreciate how there looking for non British historical stories to do

Utterly dull. Almost 2 hours of pure filler, without any heart behind it.

I’ve mentioned before how historicals work best if there is motivation behind the characters that it present. This one has none of that. Characters are one-note, cliché and maybe even offensive.

It just feel thoroughly run of the mill. Party gets split up, they interact with some samurai, the word honor gets thrown around a lot, and we end it.

It just doesn’t really have a leg for itself to stand on. It only borrows. Barbara gets harassed? Keys of Marinus. The young girl wants to find true love, instead of forced marriage? Marco Polo.

The team uses smoke bombs? Marco Polo and Flames of Cadiz.

There’s just absolutely no creativity with the setting. Which is a shame, cause there definitely could be. This is a country which separated itself by closing all borders for ages! Why not focus on the reactions caused by western inventions? Why not focus on the benefits of mingling cultures? Take the Bushido to a true multicultural society for all I care! Do something with it!

Instead it’s a runaround with 0 character work for anyone. It’s also weirdly fetishistic towards Japanese culture. Why is the English translation full of Japanese sentences and words? Why do all the people have accents? This never happened in other stories. That’s not even mentioning the glorification of the English by making one English Samurai which is “The best samurai this bushido has ever had”. It’s just stupid.

So that leaves us with a mess of weird cultureblending without a true message, character discovery, or frankly, a point. A story that accomplishes nothing, yet takes 2 hours to do so. A waste.

Let’s hope the next time Susan goes swimming, there’s actually a good story connected to it.