Zagreus sits in the fandom's head,
Zagreus sleeps among the bookmarked wiki pages,
Zagreus sees you in your bed
and eats you while you're theorising.

Just finished my first listen of Zagreus and I am conflicted!
My immediate reaction is that I think a solid 75% of it is absolutely incredible, an honest to goodness stroke of genius. I will admit I teared up towards the end, and Paul McGann's desperate, furious, helpless performance is something to be in awe of. It's got me really curious about listening to Gallifrey and it has fuelled my hunger to listen and read more about the great vampires.

I was aware of its reputation (teetering on infamy) as confusing and dense when going in, and I have to say I was surprised how naturally i fell into it (though I devoted my full attention to it, I don't think I could've followed so well had I been doing anything else)

But that remaining 25% really did not do it for me, there is stuff in here I really deeply dislike. The TARDIS' misogyny is really quite upsetting, even if she was under the influence of Anti-Time it doesn't sit right to hear her making remarks about dirty underwear and how long they spend in the bathroom- an unnecessary addition. In fact the whole framing of the TARDIS as being jealous has a flavour of misogyny to it, Charley's retort highlights this especially. Also I was rolling my eyes for most of "Uncle Winkie's Wonderland" and despite the fact I loved hearing McCoy let off his leash to be as whimsical as he wanted, the whole Disney parody just didn't feel natural or well placed in the story.

Of course much of Zagreus draws on famous prose and poetry, the Jabberwocky and Alice in Wonderland mainly- it follows quite neatly on from Neverland's Peter Pan references and the titular force of Zagreus being a nursery rhyme character. But Disney land doesn't sit as neatly for me.

There was one line in this nearly 4 hour beast which has since been lost in the soup of Zagreus so I can't quote for you (nor will I be searching through all of it again) that genuinely made me roll my eyes so far back into my head I think I saw Zagreus sitting in there myself.

But overall, I actually think I really enjoyed it, the more I have sat with it since finishing, the more fond I'm getting of it. Is it exceptionally long and dense? Yes. But it's also full of exceptional character work, interesting mysteries and lore (if you're a lore fiend like me who salivates at the prospect of Gallifreyan history then this is for you!) and excellent performances from some of Who's most iconic actors.

Onwards to Scherzo and beyond! (one week at a time)

Going into this 4 hour epic was pretty intimidating, especially since I was only familiar with the Eighth Doctor stories and not the other lines that led into this. I’m glad to say this didn’t pose much of a problem at all. There wasn’t anything I noticed that required more context from other stories. As for the length it zipped by, managing to feel half the length of ‘Time of the Daleks’ despite being twice as long.

The biggest surprise for me was Colin Baker. Having not listened to any of his audio stories yet I was unfamiliar with his performance, but here he was delightfully nefarious, clearly enjoying himself in villainous mode, and give such a great performance I’m excited to check out his audios in the future (if I ever get through the Eighth back catalogue). McCoy is also extremely entertaining, and McGann gets a lot of meat to work with, really displaying his range. Unfortunately this means that Peter Davison gets lost in the wash as he’s left with possibly the most uninteresting and least fun of the characters to work with.

The story, whilst a bit all over the place is surprisingly easy to follow, at least until towards the end. There’s plenty of times in Doctor Who were I will lose the thread of a story or it will cease to make sense, and I’ll simply switch off, enjoy the ride, and trust that there is some kind of internal logic ongoing if I had the mental acuity to piece it all together. However whilst I managed to keep up with everything for the majority of the runtime, the denouement in the Foundry lost me. Maybe it was fatigue but I couldn’t really make sense of what was happening or how. Still this didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the overall story.

Overall a fun, chapter heightened by great performances, although Charley kissing Sylvester McCoy’s character whilst shouting “Uncle Winky!” like a little girl is something I don’t think I need to hear.

absolutely insane and maybe one of the best anniversary specials we’ve ever gotten for the show, I think I’ve finally “clicked” with Eight & Charley I understand them more and their dynamic and the fan service is plentiful with so many little niche references oh it’s wonderful.

zagreus is ridiculously high concept, full of fan service, and is a very pretentious length. and god, i absolutely adore it

The thing is that this is not a middling story. I just can’t decide if I love it or hate it.

The plot itself is all over the place and hard to follow. I don’t care much for Alice in Wonderland themes, or some of the implications of the story, or its treatment of Leela. Charley is cool but I have a few issues with her. And it relies heavily on recognizing voices, which is not my strong suit.

But oh my Rassilon, the lore. There is SO much here about Gallifrey’s history, and Rassilon, and that bit is great. It also has some fantastic Doctor moments and did give us Romana writing fanfiction.

So basically, this three stars is me giving it both 1 and 5 stars simultaneously.