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.

A masterclass in how to bring back an old villain via audio. This somehow managed to do The Legend of Ruby Sunday - a story I love to pieces - six years before it was even a twinkle in RTD's eye, and arguably even better! Leela's adventure on the side with the lower-class was a welcome detour to the Doctor getting chased Tom and Jerry style across the planet while Sutekh ominously monologued in the billionaire woman's head. The interactions between 4 and Sutekh are just as good as Pyramids, albeit with a bit more flippancy than you'd expect. The cliffhanger was absolutely brilliant and I watched the next one immediately afterwards.

10/10!

Peak.

Bilal my beloved <333

Another day, another Malcolm Hulke banger. This man WILL not miss.

Nick Briggs, I am sending you my therapy bills.

I could talk about Paul McGann's excellent acting - how utterly outraged and scared and angry the Doctor is, and how well it's sold. I could talk about Susan and how her losing Alex nearly brought me to tears in public. I could talk about the Monk - how he's  this snivelling coward who thinks he knows best until things go wrong and he loses something. How it made me care about Tamsin dying despite me not liking her, or how Lucie dying broke me.

But what I will talk about is that ending. With the Doctor playing that recording and filling in his parts. Broken, alone, friendless and having lost everything. Haunting stuff.

11/10. Dark Eyes, you better be as good as this.