The Sky Man

I vividly remember my experience of listening to Sky Man. I was on a four hour coach trip and was listening to all of Only The Good. As I stopped off at a bus station between trips, I remember being sat in the cafe as the most harrowing big finish audio I've listened to thus far (May 2024) played out. I have no words for this. It is just brilliantly awful. The story does such a good job of making you love these bumpkin, salt of the earth farmers, and you maybe even believe that Cole is gonna be able to settle down with Elidh and have a happy life there.

And then, it rips it all away.

The descent of the planet into becoming The Retribution is so chilling. The fact that a simple need to help people produced a race as destructive as the Daleks or Cybermen is so viscerally upsetting - Elidh gradually becoming barely unrecognisable from the sweet girl we meet her as hits especially hard. But the fact that the Master deliberately engineered this scenario to fuel his plan in the Heavenly Paradigm are what truly get me. All those comparisons to Wine throughout the story show how utterly callous he is. An entire planet of people who meant no harm to him are fuel for a mad plan to rewrite all of reality to his liking. In hindsight, all that grandfatherly attention he shows Cole is so, so damn evil. He knows what he's doing, and that's what makes it so upsetting.

The Sky Man singlehandedly elevates Only The Good into being S+ to me. Viscoid and Good Master are solid stories in their own right but. Wow. Holy shit. It's gonna be hard to top this.