I vividly remember my experience of listening to Sky Man. I was on a four hour coach trip and was listening to all of Only The Good. As I stopped off at a bus station between trips, I remember being sat in the cafe as the most harrowing big finish audio I've listened to thus far (May 2024) played out. I have no words for this. It is just brilliantly awful. The story does such a good job of making you love these bumpkin, salt of the earth farmers, and you maybe even believe that Cole is gonna be able to settle down with Elidh and have a happy life there.

And then, it rips it all away.

The descent of the planet into becoming The Retribution is so chilling. The fact that a simple need to help people produced a race as destructive as the Daleks or Cybermen is so viscerally upsetting - Elidh gradually becoming barely unrecognisable from the sweet girl we meet her as hits especially hard. But the fact that the Master deliberately engineered this scenario to fuel his plan in the Heavenly Paradigm are what truly get me. All those comparisons to Wine throughout the story show how utterly callous he is. An entire planet of people who meant no harm to him are fuel for a mad plan to rewrite all of reality to his liking. In hindsight, all that grandfatherly attention he shows Cole is so, so damn evil. He knows what he's doing, and that's what makes it so upsetting.

The Sky Man singlehandedly elevates Only The Good into being S+ to me. Viscoid and Good Master are solid stories in their own right but. Wow. Holy shit. It's gonna be hard to top this.

Peak television. Nuff said.

Why does everyone always dunk on this one? It's got almost everything you could want in a good doctor who episode - an interesting setting, a creepy atmosphere, a moral dilemma based off of time travel, and development for C'rizz. I've seen reviews saying that the main cast are off their A-Game this week and I couldn't disagree more - the team felt like a team here a lot more than they did in a lot of divergent universe stories. (That yowl from Paul near the end when he was being tortured by Flood caught me way way off guard!)  Eight was wonderfully eldritch here, and having C'rizz - the more overtly alien of the pair - questioning him was a neat parallel. Charley sadly didn't get as much to do this ep, which I've gotten the vibe will become a theme in this stretch of main rang stories, but it wasn't glaringly obvious here.

The idea of a planet having a subconscious is tried and true, but it being a creepy little girl singing nursery rhymes is a fun new take on it. Flood was a fun villain and a definite highlight - despite being your garden variety murderer, the actor playing him was clearly having a good time. Planets being more malleable early in their evolution is really cool; concepts that even the Doctor doesn't want to mess with always hit different.

Overall a really fun episode with a cool mystery and good development for the rest of the team. Scaredy cat! Scaredy cat! Scaredy cat!

Oh divergent universe. You strange, misanthropic little story arc you. The Next Life sums up everything this stretch of audios was - an experimental Gary Russell lore dump with some neat character moments and concepts that ultimately does *not* need to be three hours long. You can absolutely tell that they did not intended to be leaving as soon as they did. It was neat seeing Rassilon and Kro'ka exiled to the Scherzo hell tube at the end and the return of Zagreus was a cool twist, but frankly I've tuned a lot of this story out even after just listening to it. Something about a Foundry? Either way it's a relief to be back in the main universe now.

I know this episode polarises a lot of people, and I can absolutely see why - the male-presenting line is goofy as anything. But that's the extent of my complaints for this episode. I adored it! And all of the 60th, too. 10 and Donna were my introduction to the show and always connected with me really deeply, so seeing them both back together on screen is just. Argh!!

14 is such a cool concept - an old doctor's face coming back and immediately running into someone they travel with is such a great idea that I can't believe it took 60 years to be put into practice (ik it was considered during the end of 5's era with Troughton coming back at least). I've seen people saying that he's basically 10 personality wise, but I definitely disagree. He's obviously a lot more world-weary. There's less of a bravado to him, replaced with a much more emotional openness that 10 never had. Tennant slips back into the role just like a pair of old shoes and I loved every second - the scene in the factory where he's talking to Shirley is a highlight.

Donna!!!! I can't exaggerate how much it means to me, a trans person, seeing her A. have a trans kid and B. be ready to throw hands for said trans kid, it feeds my inner child so much. I would have liked to see a bit more of Rose herself, but the episode is packed enough as is I suppose. Also, I know the line where she's deadnamed isn't... great, and that Russell really didn't need to add time lord-y metacrisis meaning behind it, but I like that its there. Trans people do get discriminated against irl and I think it's important that media uncritically condemns it, which the scene does by making the kids the obvious bad guys.

The Meep is brilliant, both visually and as a character. I vividly remember getting so hyped about how well done it was when they posted the clip of it and Rose in the shed. Absolutely brilliant villain that's a joy to watch cackle away like a cartoon villain.

I don't dislike the Binary, Binary, Non-Binary thing. It's phrased weirdly but it's not the uber-cringe awful teeth gritter I've seen some people say it is.

Overall I loved this episode. Yes there are flaws, but for me personally the positives outshine the negatives, which is the case for me with all the 60th Specials.