Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time! 

“ALL OF TIME AND SPACE: THE DOCTOR WHO STORY THAT SHOULDN’T EXIST”

All of Time and Space picks up directly from The End’s explosive cliffhanger, throwing us into a surreal, meta-textual adventure where storytelling itself becomes the battlefield. At the heart of the narrative is Elery Quest, a playwright determined to bring his grand vision to life—a stage play about a man travelling across time and space with his best friend, righting wrongs. He calls it Doctor Who. But his ambition is thwarted at every turn by the ominous and inflexible Mr Darling, who seems hell-bent on ensuring the production never sees the light of day.

This isn’t just an ordinary adventure for Eleven and Valarie; Big Finish takes things to an entirely new level, crafting a story that is as much about Doctor Who as it is an episode of Doctor Who.

A STORY ABOUT A STORY ABOUT A STORY

The meta-narrative is the driving force behind this episode, with Quest’s pitch for Doctor Who unfolding in parallel to the Doctor and Valarie’s struggle to escape from within the very concept of storytelling. Their adventure is constantly interrupted by Mr Darling’s objections—his complaints about plot choices and story logic mirroring real-world BBC executives who once doubted the show’s viability.

Things spiral further into madness when Quest realises that the characters he believes he has created—Eleven and Valarie—are very real, trapped within the confines of his imagination and the various media that tell their stories. The Doctor and Valarie, communicating through mediums like sock puppets and newspaper comics, are forced to work with Quest to break free, while Quest must outmanoeuvre Mr Darling and his army of duplicates.

This premise is wildly creative, making for the most fun and inventive story in this run yet. The way it plays with different storytelling formats is reminiscent of Titan’s Twelfth Doctor comics, which also toyed with the idea of the Doctor being trapped within fictional realities.

A VILLAIN WITHOUT A MOTIVE—OR A PURPOSE?

Mr Darling is a deliberately one-dimensional villain, a walking personification of creative suppression. His ability to duplicate himself means he can be everywhere at once, a constant barrier to Quest’s ambitions. But his lack of a clear motive makes him more of an obstacle than a true antagonist—he is, after all, a creation of Quest’s own imagination, existing only to stifle his creative vision.

This makes for an interesting thematic conflict but does mean the story is carried almost entirely by Elery Quest himself. Thankfully, Leroy Bonsu delivers a fantastic performance, making Quest a compelling, conflicted protagonist. His journey from self-doubt to self-realisation is the emotional core of the episode.

A NARRATIVE MAZE OF IDEAS AND EXISTENCE

The final third takes things even deeper, layering the story with almost Inception-like levels of reality and fiction. The narrative explores the power of stories, the emotional bonds we form with them, and the blurred lines between what is real and what is imagined. The revelation that the Doctor and Valarie have been trapped inside a biography about the Doctor—a book he himself tried to erase to maintain his anonymity—adds another fascinating wrinkle to the plot.

The resolution is particularly clever, with Valarie helping Quest write his own heroic escape as it happens, effectively rewriting reality itself. But this raises painful questions for her: if stories can be rewritten, why can’t she rewrite her own past? Why can’t she bring back her loved ones? This moment of existential frustration drives a wedge between her and the Doctor, setting up some compelling drama for future stories.

📝VERDICT: 9/10

All of Time and Space is a wildly inventive, mind-bending episode that fully embraces the possibilities of meta-storytelling. It’s packed with clever ideas, humorous satire, and poignant moments of existential reflection. While it does run a bit long and can be overwhelming with its layers of complexity, it remains an impressive and unique entry in the Doctor Who audio canon.