Admittedly I am a bit bummed out, maybe the constant Talk about this Series on the Forum made me have too high of Expectations, that said this beginning of this Spin-Off Series is still one with a lot to like.

For the Starters, the titular Team is just great, isn't it? I am not surprised considering how good they all were in their first (and sadly only) TV Appearance. The Story itself didn't do all that much for me, if anything the big highlight of this first Episode was the great Atmosphere. As somebody who likes a good spooky Story, I should have loved it and while I really like the Atmosphere throughout it, it sadly didn't catch me as much as I would have wanted.

Still, this is not a bad Impression at all, maybe I'll like it more in Retrospective after doing a few more of those Episodes, I certainly look forward to it!

I love Remembrance of the Daleks, so naturally it follows that I adore Counter-Measures. This series is the brilliant idea of taking the three secondary characters from Remembrance and putting them in audios. Though this is a concept that has variable success in Big Finish's endless spinoffs, C-M is very much worthwhile.

This is also just an excellent opening episode to a series. The story is engaging, rattles along at a great pace, and gives all our four characters a great deal of depth - more than Remembrance could ever have afforded them. We get a great sense for Ian and Rachel, and it's easy to forget that Toby was never on TV at all. But it's Allison that I love most of all, and so I am of course delighted that she is well served by this episode. It would have been so easy to make her Rachel's little assistant with no brain of her own, but she crucial to the narrative in this story, and cements her place as a vital member of the ICMG.

This story is kind of spooky, with alien possession and a horrid old doll, but it is very compelling, and the sound and music design is wonderful. It's easy to get lost in the atmosphere of it all, and easy to love our characters. Fully reccommended.