This is a fun, entertaining and interesting adventure with a great performance by Matt Smith as the Doctor fighting being taken over by the Cyber Leader. The chess games against a Cyberman are perhaps influenced by the excellent 8th Doctor audio adventure The Silver Turk.

The flaws are the slightly underwhelming children and the weird ease with which Clara becomes a confident military leader. This is not the greatest plot or situation but the Cybermen are impressive and exciting, the script and action are very enjoyable, Warwick Davies and Jason Watkins are fine guest stars and Smith's acting is great so overall I think this is a pretty strong episode. It is not up to the standard of Neil Gaiman's earlier story The Doctor's Wife but I think it is underrated.

'Lights of Skaro' ends Series 1 of the New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield on an incredibly strong note with Benny, Ace, and the cast from the previous story trapped on the homeworld of the Daleks. But not all is as it seems and dark secrets are about to come out regarding why the situation is happening that will affect everyone involved, not least of all Bernice herself. More than one member of the TARDIS team is about to be put in the doghouse and this time it may not necessarily be the Doctor.

While the plot of the audio is a little bit bare bones barely amounting to a few conversations and back and forth chases, what Nev Fountain's script has to say about the titular menace themselves in the days of their creation is fascinating and some of the best we've ever gotten from a Dalek story. It also doesn't let anyone off the hook necessarily especially in how things came about past and present especially when combined with a dark and suspenseful atmosphere that even succeeds in making the planet of Skaro mysterious again. There's so much to unpack about it that I would love to discuss further but really it's best for the listener to just be surprised, revel in the soundscape, and simply let the drama play out.

The cast is mostly good with Bowerman again pulling off a stellar performance on the whole. While the Seventh Doctor and Ace barely appear in the story, their actions and presence are still very much felt and both McCoy and Aldred do well with what they are given. There are a few minor problems outside of the plot in that the biggest surprise of the story is a major tease and nothing more, some of the side cast are still relatively underutilized, and the final moments where Bernice rejoins the TARDIS team feel a bit underdeveloped and almost unearned. It also doesn't quite justify the set's extensive length combined with the rest of the set and this could've easily been an amazing two-parter all by itself. As a story though, 'Lights of Skaro' is definitely a great one if a tad imperfect in it's storytelling and cast and a decent way to cap off a good set for Bernice and the Seventh Doctor team.

Following on from Better Watch Out, this adds new elements of timey wimey story telling. Bits and Pieces that fall together explaining each other turn it into an elegant mosaic.
Along with this is another framing story, when the first one still hasn't been resolved and some more characters to follow.

The elegance of this does take away from the main characters who were hardly even featured in the first half of this episode.

This is the kind of story where being able to fully pay attention has its rewards.

"Random Ghosts" is easily the strangest story of the first Bernice New Adventures set presenting us with a 'Groundhog Day' situation but playing it in entirely the wrong order. The main idea is that Benny, Ace, and a group of other characters are being forced to live the same day on a strange planet trapped in a strange time loop. In listening to it, you'd swear that the tracklist was on random shuffle with the way everything is structured and it does end up being a little bit of a mess in the long run. But you have to give immense credit to Guy Adams for trying something different and there are plenty of strong individual moments that save it from mediocrity.

It plays with some interesting themes associated with the premise especially in regards to how the truth comes across and can be modified to get across a different meaning and at times the drama between each team member can be gripping. But none of the cast is really all that interesting and Lisa Bowerman's performance is good but not great. Sophie Aldred, in particular, is a major weak link as Ace being back to the worst persona of her character in whining too much about how she's not taken seriously and causing conflict wherever she can. It also gets super confusing in places especially as it more or less plops you in without any good reason or explanation until a third of the way in. It also has a pretty boring soundscape in general and a lot of the minor sounds and elements do grate on you in places before the big final reveal that's more or less spoiled by the final story's title. 

A lot of other reviewers see this one as one of the best Bernice stories out there which I can totally get to a degree. Maybe there's something about it that I just wasn't understanding that a lot of others like more. But for me personally, I just found 'Ghosts' incredibly annoying despite the creativity on display with it and was glad to see it end and set up something a bit more coherent for the final story.