Doctor Who: Aquitaine

The Doctor and companions find themselves on a spaceship mysteriously overgrown with vegetation and apparently haunted by the spirits of its missing crew. The first part of the story is quite creepy, as the mystery unfolds, but even once it becomes clear what's going on it remains very engaging. Explaining why would give away too much of the plot, but suffice it to say that there's plenty going on, and it's one of those stories that rewards close listening, due to its complexity.

The key guest character is the ship's computer, Hargreaves, programmed to act and sound like a stereotypical English butler - he is written brilliantly, and is one of the highlights of the story. Aside from the depth of the story, another strength is that Aquitaine manages to avoid many of the cliches that one might expect. Even the episode endings are more story beats that advance the plot than the traditional cliffhangers - and they don't overdo the reprises, which is something that often bugs me on audio.

This is one the best Big Finish stories in the main series for quite some time, an intelligent tale with strong guest characters, good writing of the regulars (Nyssa is perhaps more of the focus than Tegan, but the interplay between all of them is great), and going in some interesting directions that are unusual for the series, but perfectly fitting for it. Technically, it's part of a trilogy of releases, but it's entirely standalone, and recommended for any Who fan.