I listened to this just under a month ago and it has not left my head since - and I rarely relisten to stories after hearing them once. This story is like if you rolled a haunted house story, Pet Sematary and an "I Know What You Did Last Summer" kind of slasher film into one. One word - gothic. In terms of pure horror atmosphere, it doesn't get better than this. Admittedly, it took a while for things to click properly on first watch - the mystery of what the five academics are doing on a spooky island in a spooky mansion isn't made clear until the second half, and exactly what they were doing and how is admittedly somewhat difficult to wrap your head around. But when it clicks, it clicks. "Temporal experiments leading to the creation of a psycho zombie serial killer girl who gouges people's eyes out" is an all timer concept for a Who story.

10/10. Will be relistening a lot in future.

What if Curse of Peladon was set on a space station instead of an old castle and was about a royal marriage instead of joining the not!EU? This is the question Havoc of Empires asks, and answers it in a delightful way. An undoubtedly fun story, if nothing else - courtly intrigue, bombs going off left right and centre, giant eels used as hunting dogs and a surprisingly sweet interspecies romance help you forget about the slightly jarring narration and Tim Treolars still somewhat rough around the edges Pertwee impression. Why was Mike Yates here again? 8.5/10. Easily the better of this set's two stories.

Possibly the most nothing story I have ever listened to. I cannot recall a single plot detail.

I actually forgot to rate this after first listen, so make of that what you will. Alright, I think. Perfectly OK way to spend an hour and a half.

Keys of Marinus is like every stereotypical 60's Who comic that was about 5 pages long was rolled into one 6-parter and put to screen. It has it all; a long-winded quest across various exotic locales, at least one companion being framed for murder, lots of over-the-top screaming from the female companions, lots of action man moments for the male companion - you name it! Sprinkle in a Terry Nation monster that the crew expected to be as big as the Daleks but never quite caught on, and you have perhaps the most quintessentially First Doctor story ever.

And you know what? It was a hell of a lot of fun. It did peter out close to the end with the whole murder mystery plot (what was the killer's motive again?), and the side cast were incredibly underbaked. Also, am I the only one who was surprised at how little the Voord were in this? I was under the impression that they would be following the crew across Marinus as they got the different Keys, but they only pop up in the first and final parts and all get blown up at the end in a slighltly anticlimactic finale. Nonetheless, this is definitely on the upper end of 60s sci-fi stories and I could quite easily see myself watching it again. 8/10.

First off, I stand by what I said in the first part, were it not for the use of androids here the Kraals could have been replaced entirely by Sontarans or even Judoon. That said, I loved how at loggerheads the Doctor and Master were here: this is basically an hour of one upmanship. Leela was great too, she's really growing on me. Overall, a very solid finale to a pretty solid first season of audios.

A banger first part of the finale. The Master is beyond sinister and as a Derbyshire resident it was nice to have the White Worm mentioned. Some really cool folk horror vibes here, although... The Kraals? The guys from Android Invasion? That's our finale villain?

I should like this story. It's always surreal seeing Leela and 4 in the 21st century (I like that she gets to wear trainers and really likes them lol) and the message here is very good, as are the side characters. That said... Idk, there's something very hokey about this story. It feels like that fake Dalek story at the beginning of Jubilee where the Daleks are just moving the earth or the moon again, for some reason. And the commentary is all very surface level. The Daleks going back and doing the same to humanity what the Doctor nearly did to them should have made for some great writing, especially with 4 of all doctors, but they just... Don't do anything with it. Nearly fell asleep halfway through haha. Solid enough, however, but I probably won't be coming back to it anytime soon.

Now THIS is what I'm talking about. A pure historical banger and the first real hit in the 4DAs thus far. Leela and 4 have their first real moral disagreement that nearly ends in disaster. The audience finds themself sympathising with Boudicca with Leela before it's revealed that she was tortured, yes, but took that pain out on others just as much herself. 4 screaming "LEEEEEELAAAA" in the second half got a bit stale but hey, if Tomb bloody Baker not being on his A Game at all times is the worst that can be said about a story, that's generally a good sign.

This story has its fans but I personally found it to be a bit of a slog. Harcourt is a likeable enough villain and the message of knowledge without purpose being useless is neat enough, but overall it's just pretty boring.

You lot are being overdramatic, it was good.

Ravagers is over and we can get to the rest of the 9DAs. Eccleston has HARD carried this set and it shows. Some neat timey wimeyness does not save an unnecessarily confusing boxset that really needn't have been the hook for a new range.

Briggsy... you don't need to write every single story. It doesn't always work. I never loved Nova and frankly I'm glad she didn't become a regular. What's the plot again?

Woof, this is a pretty rough start to the 9DAs. Whilst the novelty of having Eccleston back carries this story for the most part, it falls flat in so, so many other ways. Still the best Ravagers has to offer.

And s2 comes out with yet another banger, to the surprise of nobody. Holy f**k what an episode. I will not lie, out of all the episodes of the entire show, Midnight was one of the last ones I would want or expect a sequel to. That said, this is exactly how it should be done - it added just the right amount of information to the entity whilst keeping the mystery and not resorting to the same tricks as before. And both the regular's acting in this one? Dear god. And the ending!!! Is the entity just loose in the universe now???

Absolute cinema.

Abject slop. It's been months since I've heard it and it isn't any less rooted in my mind as being abjectly terrible. A terrible way to introduce a new companion, a terrible followup to the masterpiece that is Scherzo, a terrible, fetishistic plot, and a wholly unnecessary return of The Guy Who Wrote Peri Getting Tortured In An Unnecessarily Weird Way Twice. Seriously, why bring Phillip Martin back? How does one make a story about big bug accountants gross and icky in a bad way?

It's a take on the riddle of the sphynx... except it's a giant space cat that's guarding a planet Sutekh is on. It's alright. You get some nice insights into Osiran culture and the immediate events prior to Sutekh's capture. Not really much else to it.

A surprisingly competent adaptation of one of the better SJA stories. It is still obviously geared towards younger readers and there are typos a many, yeah, but it does what a novelisation needs to do and even adds in a few little nuggets of characterisation for Andrea that obviously wasn't explored in the show.

As of writing, I have not seen all of Doctor Who. That said, I do not think there is a single episode like The Gunfighters throughout the entire show, and part of me doesn't think there ever will be again. It's like the TARDIS landed in an entire different genre or something - part of me wonders whether the sheer camp of this story is leftover bits of the Toymaker's realm bleeding through into reality, or whether they popped in for a trip to the land of fiction.

And it was so much fun. The acting was atrocious in most parts (those accents, dear god), the plot was as cliche as one can get (even the doctor points this out at the end) and those musical interludes were so jarring... but I loved every minute.

This was one of the worst Big Finish audios I have ever listened to. Almost every aspect of it is beyond grating. Maybe Izzy has some hidden charm or appeal I don't know since I've never read the comics, but good god, her voice is atrocious. No disrespect to the voice actress, but it's so high-pitched and shrieky - was it meant to be childish? The missing comic story was... a thing. The outer space comic place was... a thing. It all passed in one awful haze. I did not enjoy a single minute of this. Not even Paul McGann's silky smooth voice could save it.

This is absolute peak. The Third Doctor and Sarah Jane land on a lesbian hippy art commune... on an abandoned oil rig... which is floating... on a planet with nothing on it but sea... and they're menaced by eldritch horrors. What a scenario! There was such a genuinely menacing buildup in the first two parts and the characters were all really likable, which made them literally dying via crying hit all the harder. And The Gulf itself is such a good villain! I definitely headcanon it as a member of the Pantheon (God of Sadness maybe?)

If that all isn't enough to convince you to give it a shot, the Doctor quotes Jon Pertwee's "I Am The Doctor" song whilst psychically beating up the baddies. I was squealing as soon as he said "I cross the void beyond the mind". Nuff said.

Heartbreaking: the person in a ninth doctor audio who cut their hair, lived as a man, and used he/him to enter a gentlemans club ended up being a cis woman just pretending and got married to a man and was not, in fact, a gay trans man 💔

Obscure Victorian rural folklore references, old man yaoi, oh my! The 3DAs continue to impress. Was it just me, or did the guy who played the Reverend sound uncannily similar to Colin Baker?

A rip-roaring blockbuster of an audio. Sutekh has turned the entire planet into a not!Phaestor Osiris and Mummybots are roaming the streets sacrificing people. All hope seems lost and all that can be done is mustering a force of the lower class to assualt his grand palace. This audio doesn't stop to breathe at any point and it's all the better for it. Leela's confrontation with Sutekh was hilarious too, I'll be unable to watch the season one finale without thinking "hehe horseface" now. Speaking of the finale, while some might think it decanonised this two parter and his other EU appearances, I prefer to think that his defeat at the end of EoD lead to all this. Where else would he have gotten the whole tech billionaire angle from? ;)

9.5/10, delivers on the previous part excellently.