This was not a particularly great story.

In my quest to find any and every story set in Birmingham, I approached this one, understanding that it is one of those very few stories set in the city.

The story itself is basically a rehash of The Unquiet Dead, only without the charm of that story's setting, cast, visuals (granted The Other Side is an audio drama so can't exactly compete), etc.

The villains in this, the Bygone Horde, are literally just the Gelth but more annoying. So annoying, in fact, it took me out of the story and left me dumbfounded. They are a grouping of species that were erased in the Time War, and now, in the post-War universe are trying to break back into reality by (whoever could guess this) sacrificing humanity. The Doctor tells them this is obviously a dumb idea and that he can actually save them and do so without destroying another race in the process, which is an absolute win-win. The Doctor was offering them everything they wanted and more... and they inexplicably turn his offer down, and the Doctor inevitably stops them, because of course he would.

This just infuriates me. Any semblance of logic or realism is tossed out the window because the Horde are the bad guys and therefore cannot have any nuance.

Given this is set not long after The Unquiet Dead, this story would have actually worked much better if it subverted the expectations set by that story; to show a species that did take up the Doctor's offer.

The sound design was about average, the music didn't really feel very Murray Gold-y, and as for the acting, Langley gives a good, if a slightly roped-in, performance. Nicholas Briggs is a good actor, but his impression of Nine isn't the best, but it is better than his Rose.

This story doesn't add much to the overarching plot of series 1, as its events — by dint of it featuring Adam — can't be impactful else discontinuity with *The Long Game*.

And as for Birmingham? The only thing this story had to really say about it was its location and that it has a cinema. It didn't even make fun of Birmingham!

My familiarity with Cwej: The Series is admittedly very inconsistent; I've only read the odd instalment here or there, and on top of that I've never read any of the VNAs that feature the titular adjudicator. So my understanding of Chris Cwej as a character, and of the settings/worldbuilding as a whole, is minimal.

Yet in spite of my own personal lack of understanding of the series as a whole, The Judas Bargain was still an accessible work of fiction, as it didn't particularly rely on much prerequisite reading, barring knowing the general idea of the characters. That is because the story is told through the lens, the eyes, of a wholly original character and how he is torn from his home world as its destroyed, to being placed in a situation where he is really out of his depth.

The story follows Dasju, who encounters temporal variants of the core cast, and his emotional journey of loss that eventually culminates in a choice that, while is easy to read as amoral, is understandable: what he chooses to do, to sacrifice what isn't his to have his whole world, his family, and his life back, is understandably very human.

Another thing that this story does well is toy with the Doctor Who universe's ideas of canonicity, specifically the toxic way non-canonicity is tossed around by fans and the occasional writer in ways that makes Paul Cornell die a little inside. The story is unique in its presentation of "everything is true, canonical and co-existent", as it jettisons the more commonly accepted idea for such perspectives that "time is rewritten", but rather posits that multiple versions of events co-exist; this is the deal with the core Cwej cast, as spoilers, the versions were see are alternate, yet still just as "real" as the versions we see, and they end up dying in the story.

The way the story handles this meta-commentary is perhaps a little heavy in places, such as the direct acknowledgement of canonicity in-text, but it wrangles itself overall to be a tastefully poignant piece that does make you, perhaps, look at your favourite franchise from a different perspective.

(Apologies if this review is a little rambling, as the story isn't completely fresh in my mind, and my thoughts in general have been scattered somewhat recently.)