This is a pretty great, balanced take on the Fifth Doctor going up against the Weeping Angels. It is pretty creative how Big Finish were able to incorporate these monsters into audio form, and I feel in general they do a pretty good job of it.

For all my gripes over his Master performance in the show, Sacha Dhawan is pretty great here on the whole, and him along with Diane Morgan really help elevate what could otherwise have been a more forgettable audio into something kind of special.

7/10 for me, which seems to put me a bit in the minority. I liked the angle of Leela and Romana taking a break to recharge and getting to know each other in the process. Everything else felt like a good reason for them not to take said break though, and it left me with a fairly uneven experience overall.

I also didn't love the science vs. Leela angle in this audio much. Aside from that feeling a bit old hat for my tastes, it felt weird. Why *would* healing herbs work better than modern medicine which often refines whatever is in those herbs for stronger beneficial effects? Like I get it, Leela has a certain wisdom that all of Gallifrey could learn from and I enjoy that particular side of this range as a whole, but it just felt a little too broad and spelled out here for my liking.

I was so excited Lies would be a turning point for me but this and Pandora weren't exactly encouraging.

This was really great.  Peri's accent is awful and Nicola Bryant, brand new to the role and extremely early on in her career, is pretty much at her all-time weakest (no shame in that - she really improves into one of my favourites over the years). Yet in spite of that, this is a solid introduction to a companion, one of the best I've even seen even, and was a pretty entertaining story all on its own.  Late in the game after a lot of mistakes, the Fifth Doctor era closes out with a couple of serials that I think really understand the character and show.

Caves of Androzani showcases the Doctor's heroism, while this one offers a creative setting, a bunch of fun characters, and an entertaining and cozy little adventure with the Master.  I was even a little enchanted from start to finish, with only a few bits of weakness in the production the 80s could never quite escape when it comes to Doctor Who.  Overall, it's one of the best Fifth Doctor TV stories out there, in my opinion.

This was awesome. My favourite Gallifrey audio yet. 9/10 for me, as it has that one ingredient I’ve been looking for in this series since the beginning - it’s weird. Wonderfully strange, alien, and full of weird time travel shenanigans. I found the first set very middling but this makes me excited I’m going to be in for a fun ride.

Having both Romanas in the story was a delightful surprise I was completely unaware was going to happen.  That was great and has lots of fun bits to it.  All the characters were really on point here.  Brax is extremely fun and I love his mere existence having these nice connective ties to the Bernice Summerfield stories.  Even K9 had some great lines and funny bits of attitude.  As much as I found the first box set to be quite average in quality it definitely goes a long way into building up and setting up almost every great moment in Lies.  It feels like I might be recommending the whole range at this rate.

This is just alright.  I found the story very mediocre, even if the idea of the main obstacle our heroes face is in the form of a virus. It sounds like a more interesting idea than what production was able to execute.  K9's introduction is fine but otherwise it is a very underwhelming experience, only halfway salvaged thanks to the charisma of Tom Baker and Louise Jameson.  In spite of it kind of being boring, the Doctor and Leela are entertaining enough on their own that The Invisible Enemy is still very watchable, even if it is just as easy to forget.

It's pretty interesting to learn that Baker and Jameson apparently didn't get along much on set.  You really can't tell thanks to the professionalism of these actors.  I found that aspect quite impressive overall because it does feel like those two have good chemistry together on screen.

This felt like a big step in the right direction after I struggled a bit with The Inquiry.  A Blind Eye is the least Gallifreyan Gallifrey story yet, but I didn't hate our visit to Earth here and quite enjoyed the story with Arkadian.  The train setting was entertaining and India Fisher playing Charlotte Pollard's sister Sissy.  I really like how much she has fallen and the depiction of her as a Nazi sympathizer.  It is given an appropriate level of horror while also showing pretty clearly how somebody can get caught in the allure of fascism.

I saw where they were going with Leela's husband a mile away, but it was still a pretty satisfying resolution of sorts to that content.  Pretty good pay-off for what Leela has been going through for this audio set.  I like that she didn't just forgive or excuse Andred's behaviour here.  That was interesting and I'm quite invested in Leela's character at this point.  I can't quite say the same for Romana but she was at least entertaining here and Lalla Ward is always a reliable performer.

I'd probably rate this higher but I do have to say it ends on Sissy's suicide and there's a big flaw here.  Now, I think that moment was earned and sufficiently built up to.  The whole audio kind of was leading up and depending on it as a moment, and from a writing perspective, I do think they pull it off.  Only for Big Finish to use the silliest, almost cartoony stock sound effect for a gun shot.  I'm probably being snooty here or something but it feels like instead of a deeply punctuating moment morosely sending off one of our main characters in the bleakest way possible, it might as well had been a fart.

This audio had all the markings of something I wasn't going to enjoy.  It is a script by Nicholas Briggs, which usually means it is a story I'm either going to really love or really hate.  It's part of the Dalek Empire storyline which in general I haven't connected with much at all.  In fact, The Mutant Phase is the only chapter of that loose arc I've actually very much enjoyed so far.  And it is generally not very well liked among the fan community.

Yet I found myself enjoying every part of The Mutant Phase and happily following along through the adventure.  It felt like a story that very much kept the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa active and engaged with the events at hand.  I really liked how the Daleks reacted from this genetic disease of sorts spreading through them.  I thought it was well done and fun how they were panicking about this but not really willing to seek out help, either.  We don't often see these villains on the back foot like this - at a distinct disadvantage and in a fairly weak position.  It was very well done on the whole, leaving it the strongest aspect of the audio.

I mostly liked how it was all resolved through a paradox, to a degree, although that part is also where Mutant Phase is at its weakest - being an entertaining enough novelty while also being a little overblown and this still being early for Big Finish to rely this much on sound effects in resolving the plot.  Still, I did enjoy it, and would definitely recommend The Mutant Phase.

This was just alright.  I had some moments with Once and Future - including Past Lives, The Artist at the End of Time, and The Martian Invasion of Planetoid 50, but the rest, including the Union, felts a lot more mediocre in comparison.

I'm not sure what the missing ingredient is.  The Eighth Doctor, Susan, and River are all fun, and each get little moments that stay with me.  I love the scene between Susan and the First Doctor who emerges in a brief moment.  In fact, this audio has a rather impressive number of cameos and appearances in a way that definitely makes this audio feel special.  Maureen O'Brien playing The Union was a lot of fun.

Yet it all felt so... unimpressive.  I kept feeling like I was waiting for the story to really dig into something - the Union's mindset, the Doctor being challenged in some way - anything, really, to give this story some weight and meat to it.  Instead it feels like a whole lot of build-up for nothing.  I didn't really get a satisfying pay-off to the degeneration plot line, it feels like it all just sort of lined up with the Union being behind everything, without any real surprise to anything.  If anything, the audio makes it clear that the story didn't really matter at all - nothing of significance happened and nobody is going to remember anything.  That's deeply unsatisfying in a way the better chapters of Once and Future manage to at least dance around even if it is true of the whole range that the stakes are quite low overall.

The writing felt like it was just kind of lazily checking off some boxes - wrapping up the loose plot threads around degeneration, the Monk, and such, in a relatively straightforward way while giving us some crowd-pleasing moments with all the big cameos and stuff.  The Fourth Doctor gets to show himself quite a bit here and that's not objectionable, or even a complaint, but it does feel like it is just there because it can be.

In the behind the scenes content, Nicholas Briggs mentions that this will be the last big Doctor Who crossover he will spearhead creatively, and I found that very welcome news.  Once and Future wasn't bad or anything but stuff like The Union made it feel tired.  The novelty of crossovers and characters meeting like this has long worn off, and I now expect the story to actually do something fun, or really dig deep a little bit.  This crossover event's best part by far was when they put Gomez and Tennant in a recording together and just let them dig into their characters and improvise a little bit.  There's room for new direction in this franchise, but I definitely think Briggs stepping aside a bit, and letting some newer talent take charge of it for the next big anniversary event, will be absolutely necessary if Big Finish is going to pull it off at all.  And I do hope that is the case.

Also, we need more stories with Missy and the Tenth Doctor.  Or maybe Missy can meet the Fourteenth just to leave continuity alone.  That stuff was magic, I still can't get over it.  The Union feels like a footnote in comparison.

Since writing all of this, BillFiler did point out that there is a pretty firm, well-written through-line of the plot where the Doctor really learns to accept himself and his identity.  I've bumped up my score overall a little bit because of that, as it is a part of the story I hadn't really considered in my original review but absolutely is something there and I did register as a listener.  It doesn't change the sour note all the memory stuff generates, or any of the other problems I talked about either, but it's something.  The Union winds up being better than some of Once and Future, but still feels pretty average overall.  It's probably worth a listen (at an affordable price) but nothing I found that special.

One ought to be familiar with Jack a bit before tackling this.

If you are, it is a pleasant enough romp with Jack, as advertised, in the Victorian Age, on the path to joining Torchwood. I enjoyed the queen here and little moments in their adventure travelling around. Some of the plot was a little silly, but it is easy to forgive thanks to what felt like a pretty laid-back tone to this audio. Not terrible, not great, but fun enough and pretty well performed.

What a terribly strange and baffling idea this was.  I'm not against the idea of Space Babies, I suppose.  I mean it is a tacky idea straight out of the 90s but any idea can be fun if executed well.  It looked just awful though and their whole side of the story was quite boring.  I don't hate the way we speed ran through Ruby's introduction to TARDIS life, but it does feel silly and makes the episode a poor introduction to Doctor Who when it really, truly shouldn't be one.  This is the big start to the new Disney partnership with Doctor Who (previous year specials aside) and it's a truly awful experience.

One thing working for Space Babies is the stuff around Ruby's mysterious origins.  In hindsight, this mystery has no pay-off down the road, and while that's not entirely on this episode, it does make that stuff feel pointless, because while those scenes are cool here, they aren't paid off in any way in this or any other episode.  So no, it's not very good.  It might be one of the worst, if not the worst, series premiere in all of Doctor Who.  And it's a real shame because I quite like the rest of this season.  It's pretty fun, but this was a bit of a train wreck.