Hmmm, this was a step down from the opening for me. The murder mystery and time loop aspects are nice hooks, and the Leela/Romana interplay is nice, but I didn’t quite connect with this one. I like how it continues the Free Time threads and political stuff, even if it’s still a bit muddled.
I somehow didn’t pick up on the Leela stuff, but now that you mention it, it does come across as a bit naff.
I give it a 6/10
Feel free to read and like my review:
Even more boring than the first story, now with added misogyny. Romana is so arrogant & condescending. I do not like a single character apart from Leela who is treated terribly. Sorry I’m done. This isn’t my cup of tea at all.
You don’t often get “fun” out of a political conspiracy thriller but I certainly get it out of this one. Everything about it moves like solid clockwork and the end twist is just the cherry on top. Not my favorite story in the series but a very enjoyable one all the same.
You know what? That’s totally fair. I obviously love the series, but I also appreciate that people telling you “just push through it’ll get better” doesn’t help if you’re gritting your teeth listening to something.
Yeah, its my bête noire. Someone saying about an audio/tv show, just get through the first season & you’ll enjoy it!
I must admit I just asked the forum AI what that phrase means 
here it is for everyone else’s benefit:
The term “bête noire” is a French phrase that has been adopted into English. It literally translates to “black beast”. In English usage, it refers to a person or thing that someone particularly dislikes or dreads; essentially, a pet peeve or a nemesis of sorts.
I’d never heard of it!
Haha, must be my posh grammer school education lol
Pretty sure that should be ‘grammar’ school.
Also, I know what a bete noir is (and I went to grammar school too).
Shocking standard of education in this country.
I was literally just about to edit that lol
Oh that’s a great word, I’m using that from now on
If you edit it now, you’ll make the teacher look stupid… 
But let’s not do that!
Yeah this is an interesting one.
On the one hand, the time loop stuff is really interesting, I like the motivations of the main antagonist being wanting to do the right thing but for all the wrong reasons, I like the murder mystery aspect of it, especially with there being so many different things going on all with different explanations so it’s one red herring after another. I like the reveal of what’s really going on with this conference in the end.
And then there’s the misogyny. On the one hand, (at least most of) the explicit misogyny is from explicitly vile characters, and is never treated as a good thing which, you know, it shouldn’t be. If you’re going to have ex-o-tic dancers being called sluts and bitches in a story like this, it should be shown as a bad thing. But then there’s the implicit misogyny. Leela is forced into this role as an exotic dancer against her will, forced to perform for the whims of others, and while she feels uncomfortable doing so and the misogyny directed towards her as she does is explicitly bad, it’s still framed in an almost tantalizing way. If this were on TV, you can tell they’d be using Leela in this story as, to paraphrase a well known JNT quote, something the dads will enjoy.
I really want to like this story, and I think without all that it’d be an 8/10, but with it, I have to give it a 6.