The players have been introduced and the intrigue begins. Romana has organised a summit of the temporal powers. But what is the Free Time movement planning?
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Here we move into the espionage side of Gallifrey, with a great time travel twist. Leela gets another chance to shine, but Romana proves to be just as clever and devious. I’m conflicted about the emphasis on exotic dancers and implicit prostitution, but it does play well into the seedy nature of the politicians on display. After the lengthy set-up of Chapter One, this is a good single episode plot that still builds on the previous chapter.
Leela’s both been a slave to K-9 and an ex-o-tic dancer so far in this glorious spinoff.
Love this story. Romana is a shrewd force of politics, exposing political enemies and strengthening alliances with the other Temporal Powers at the same time.
I 
Time-Shenanigan Stories!
One of the biggest flaws of this is the awkward Photoshop cover. Yikes.
I listen to all my audios on this mp3 with a 1.4 inch screen. Everything looks great on it! /j
This story is a really weird way to follow up Weapon of Choice.
An entry without much purpose that has a cool idea surrounding it but then chooses to treat Leela abhorrently throughout.
It’s not terrible but it’s not fun to sit through.
Full review here. If you enjoy it, feel free to leave a like:
I’ll be interested to see what the first time listeners to this one have to say - @Speechless your review basically is everything I think as well. It’s a good episode that again I’ve grown to like more as I’ve relistened but some of the Leela stuff is a little unsavoury, and it suffers from the misogyny present in a lot of early Gallifrey.
(Misogyny, you ask? but isn’t Gallifrey about Romana and Leela? sure, but that doesn’t mean it’s great to women and here’s the essay i wrote to prove why yes you are right I have thought about this series too much and also I have an essay in my head about wht Square One is actually secretly The Most feminist episode of series 1 but that’s a story for another day)
Anyway. I’ll be back later for my even more a lot of thoughts but long story short I like this one but it’s not a fave. Also everyone say yayy baby’s first getting exploded for Narvin!
Well Leela has got something in common with Ncuti Gatwa after this story…
Go to 1.39
Ooh I enjoyed this one - love a time loop also a bit of a murder mystery although there wasn’t really much mystery about it.
But I agree, a bit too much misogyny for my liking, although it is political commentary. I was very surprised to hear the words slut and bitch being thrown around!
As I said before, I probably wouldn’t enjoy these sets if I hadn’t been promised it would all get really good later - so I look forward to that and am hopeful!
@sircarolyn I’m guessing that essay contains spoilers? I’ll look when we are finished!
Yes, unfortunately it does all the way up to s3. I am pleased you are sticking with us so far, I promise you’ve just got to get to A Blind Eye and that’s when it all starts coming together, that episode is soooooo good
I think this is my least favorite episode of Series 1. It’s not necessarily bad, but I don’t enjoy it like I do the others. More thoughts after I listen to it again.
I’m almost halfway through this now. I agree that the exotic dancer angle for Leela isn’t great and Flinkstab of the Nekastani is repugnant, though he’s meant to be. The politicking in this is interesting enough, and does give us more background on the other temporal powers. I would note that The Apocalypse Element does get referenced in this.
I liked the first episode more. It was okay but a bit boring during some parts of it. Still don’t get why you talk about Narvin as the worlds best character but it might change later.
Oh it definitely changes later. I will agree that Narvin isn’t the most likeable in the first season. But to experience that evolution is well worth sticking with it.
That’s perfectly understandable, it’s not without reason that I call this the weakest installment of the season.
I swear to you this is the Narvin pipeline. Everyone goes through it, you start confused and disbelieving and by s2 you Get it and by s3 you love him
There we go, finished this one. I still stand by my opinion that this is the weakest of the season. I think for me it’s a combination of the misogyny, the groundhog day angle doesn’t do that much for me, and that none of the guest cast really stands out. I will admit that it’s a good Romana and a good Leela story. The exchange between Romana and Leela at the end is quite good. The villain is actually somewhat predictable when you know what to look for. Anyway, I can’t wait for next week, probably my favorite story of the season.
Listened to this yesterday on the train, twice, since it was quite busy and I honestly didn’t get any of the plot the first time. Both Leela and Romana are brilliant in it in my opinion and especially as a character piece on Leela it’s quite interesting. I do think this is an intriguing narrative to explore the objectification Leela faces, but I do feel as if she’s a bit too naive for it to really work well. With a few minor tweaks this could have been brilliant. Nonetheless, Leela’s intelligence and Romana’s trust in her carry this audio. Also I wasn’t quite expecting this series to be quite so explicit(for lack of a better word), but I like it. There’s again some political intrigue which is very cool, but mildly hindered by the fact that I keep forgetting who’s who. And it uses time loops and quite brilliantly too, I think.
All in all, a strong story with strong characters and some problems, a bit weaker than the first for me though.
Well, how Leela was used in the story was fairly offputting. And I might have stopped with the series right here were it not for the fact I had already bought sets 1-3 a while ago. So, I might as well listen to them at least once.
It does get better.
No opportunity to write more for now. All I shall say is this: I agree with comments re: misogyny and Leela’s undercover role (although the context does kind of make sense, though deeply unpleasant) but, for me, it’s where Romana starts to really shine through. She absolutely saves the episode for me. Her interventions and schemes are, quite simply, wonderful.