Of the three stories that make up the body of Trial Of A Time Lord, this is the one that is most hurt by having to fit with that format. The interstitial court scenes fulfil a certain 'parlour room' function for the murder mystery plot, but they just end up serving as roadblocks for the story's pacing.

The production choices only serve to make this more of a slog to get through. The twee sense of humour combined with the soundtrack, like the wah-wah horn on the carrot juice line, is really grating, and I say that as someone who can usually vibe with the show's more pantomime moments. Mel's introduction isn't great either; her screaming for two separate cliffhangers only just manages to not be the most annoying sound here.

The only thing I can look back on with fondness is the design of the Vervoids, and that's only because I keep imagining someone going to a Georgia O'Keeffe art exhibit under the influence of some powerful Vraxoin, coming back to the office and presenting these as potential new monsters. I applaud the audacity, and in the greater annals of Doctor Who creature design, they are certainly one of the more memorable one-offs.

As much as it ends up throwing the entire Trial into question, I like the wrinkle this adds to the larger arc in making the Doctor and the audience question what they're seeing. I mentioned this when writing about The Timeless Children, but I like it when the show plays around with its own status as fiction, and drawing attention to the notion of truth in a story that isn't real scratches a certain cerebral itch for me. Having Sil and the human caps lock himself BRIAN BLESSED! on board helps, as do the visuals, with the surface of Thoros-Beta looking like a proto-vaporwave album cover.

There is a pretty big fault to this one, and that's the treatment of Peri. Beyond the actual torture, which sadly feels like par for the course for how worrisome her and Sixth's pairing is as a whole in the TV stories, her departure here is... not handled well. Strictly on the basis of recognising that, without this, there'd be no Peri And The Piscon Paradox, I'm willing to show some leniency with the latter. But for a companion who arguably got the shortest end of the stick of all the classic era companions, even more so than Sara Kingdom, it still sucks seeing her go out like this. Or, rather, not seeing her go out.

Definitely some interesting aspects here (the gorgeous opening shot, the Three Sacred Texts, Sabalom Glitz as the last truly great Holmes-created side character), and I find myself growing fond of the larger Trial Of A Time Lord framing. Between this story arc where the Doctor watches his own show, getting involved in another TV show with Vengeance On Varos, and even directly addressing the audience at the end of The Caves Of Androzani, it's these moments that would become the foundation for his predominantly metafictional lane in the Big Finish audios.

It's just that the actual story here is pretty middling. A mystery that's not much of a mystery, a conflict that's not that compelling, and characters that overall don't leave much of an impact.

Some day, I'm going to map out a theory that connects this, Main Range #49: Master, and Lungbarrow in a single cohesive timeline.

But for right now, I'm just all kinds of fine with this as an addition to the DW universe. The way the Brendan subplot is visualised and rationalised here, it got me thinking about how many TV stories have different tellings (original broadcast, novelisations, recorded readings of said novelisations, telesnap reconstructions, animated reconstructions, audio adaptations); the same story, just looked at through different filters. Shada is one of my favourites, and there are more versions of that than Blade Runner. With how increasingly self-referential the show has become over the decades, I like this example more than most.

Between that and creating a nice big gap in the Doctor's history to fit more stories into (insert Big Finish joke here), it just feels like a fan made this, and I mean that as a positive. I absolutely get why others didn't like this, both in intent and execution, and I wasn't entirely sure if I did either at first. But even more so than when Doctor Who is good, I like Doctor Who when it's interesting, and this certainly captured my interest. Then again, Jodie Whittaker and Sacha Dhawan are in such top form here, I'll also argue that it's quite good.

It's mostly just okay. Najia is fun (I particularly like when the Doctor tells her that she "raised an awesome human"), Graham's character moments are good, and for a straight-faced take on a creature feature, it does well enough. Only real complaints I have are 'Jack Robertson' for how basic of a caricature he is (with how prevalent piss-takes of that particular guy were between 2015 and 2020, these jokes were already old hat), and the dubious framing around the Doctor's endgame for the titular Arachnids. In an attempt to continue NuWho's pacifism and mock cultural obsessions with firearms, it ended up shooting itself in the foot and made Jack look like the reasonable one by comparison. Big yikes.

I don't even mind the Doctor being morally screwy (it's why Seventh is one of my favourites), but the blind handing-over of benefit of the doubt for that decision and the lack of self-awareness thereof doesn't sit well with me. It's not quite "Amazon is good, actually" from Kerblam!, but it's up there.

Well then.

With these Lost Stories, I often wonder about the specific reasoning for not fully producing them the first time around (budget, timing, availability for rewriting, interest or lack thereof). With this, it's difficult to think of any other reason than "this is too depressing".

I mean, it's good, definitely a more concerted effort to show the effect of the TARDIS crew interfering with local customs, similar to The Aztecs. And of all the classic-era stories, this is the one that most benefits from being at this exact length. But I can't see myself ever returning to this the same way I have for other DW weepies like Vincent And The Doctor, Doomsday, or the ending of The Green Death. Maybe the specific consequences here hit a bit too close to home, I dunno, but this isn't for me.

Not sure if this is good enough to justify being the third-longest Big Finish audio, but still pretty damn good. I'm not even that big on pure historicals, yet this had me hooked, especially in the final stretch.

Also, while I am frequently amazed at John Dorney being both the most prolific BF writer and one of the most consistent of the whole franchise, I didn't have that sharp of an opinion on his acting chops. Then he blew me away with his Alexander The Great.

Goofy, colourful, forthright, relevant, trippy AF (Peter Hoar COOKED!); this is the Doctor Who I want.