This was my first audio from Big Finish & it completely sold me on how good this medium is for DW. Really liking 8 & Charley.

The atmosphere & the voice acting is amazing.

This story went places I had no idea Doctor Who could even venture, I am not too experienced with the EU apart from Scratchman which I still need to finish and the previous 8/Charley stories (minus Minuet In Hell) so I am going into most of these blind and what seemed to be a mere spooky house story turned into something more and more twisted with a delightfully dark plot and great sound design, The Chimes Of Midnight lived up to the hype.

I was looking forward to getting to this one again. After all, it wouldn’t be a re-listen of Eight and Charley without it.

I love the spooky atmosphere, and how it freaks out and confuses even the Doctor and Charley. At the same time, there’s a lot of funny lines and moments. It happens a few times where something amusing happens/is said, but it suddenly takes a turn for the eerie. I also like how the mystery keeps the Doctor guessing. At first they think the ‘entity’ controlling the situation is playing with them, like it wants them to play Cluedo along with it. Then comes the turn towards eerie when the time loop sends them back, Charley starts being incorporated into the game, and they realise they’re very much stuck and not even the TARDIS can take them to safety. 

Edith is such a tragic pitiful character. She’s such a darling and they're so mean to her :(. It’s so, so sad when things finally come into place. That she was so alone, so rejected and neglected that she committed suicide when Charley, who did the bare minimum of being polite and smiling at her on occasion, died in 1930. I really hope her destiny really is changed by her final decision to stay alive at the end of the story, given how convoluted Charley's timeline is.

The paradox of Charley is proving to be a much bigger problem than the Doctor anticipated, huh? After all, he was trying to get her to Singapore. All of time and space and they end up in Edward Grove, where it was clear that a paradox would be triggered? Sus. Almost like the TARDIS is telling them something…

On another note: The Doctor is so sweet in this one, it warmed my heart. Love that about Eight. And Charley is delightful, I just really like her. Their dialogue here feels really natural and believable. The writing really does a great job of showing how the two of them put the pieces of the puzzle together.

And finally: I had to google 'plum pudding' to see what it looked like. Gotta say... it looks vile.

I can see why this one often gets dubbed “the best”. Out of the first 50 freely available stories that a large number of people will have been exposed to, it is the most well paced, intriguing and scary story they did.

You can truly relate to Edith as they flesh out her character and you slowly begin to understand how this twisted story revolves around her. There are enough detailed and fascinating surprises that you could re-listen to this many times and it would still retain its punch.

Oh this story is a perfect story so see Christmas into just fully wow everytime