Out of all the stories set in the Time War, this one might be the most horrific in terms of its setting and premise. Focusing primarily on a woman called Ignis, an inhabitant of Lacuna, she along with all of Lacuna’s people are under attack by a force of Berserker Daleks tearing across their planet destroying everything and everyone in their path like a swarm of locusts. But at the end of the day just as the Daleks about to obliterate Ignis and the last of her people, the day resets itself and they’re forced to live out the invasion all over again. But what makes it worse is that Ignis and everyone on her planet remember, every day when time rewinds, they remember all the events that play out, all the casualty reports that come in, her boss receiving the same phone call everyday telling him his family are all dead, the same tactics failing against the Daleks. For over 400 days they’re forced to live out, die and remember the same day over and over again. Their only source of hope, and perhaps the source of their curse, lies in a nearby castle where a nameless wizard is working tirelessly to find a way to stop the Daleks, even if it means trapping this planet in a time loop until he finds that solution.

A very horrifying premise that’s beautifully articulated through the people of Lacuna and how they behave and cope with each rewind, how some have lost hope entirely and become completely docile while Ignis tries her best to hold on to hope that each day might be the last. Ignis is a fantastic character, I love the journey she goes through in this story and how she discovers that the Doctor is the one generating the time loop in order to buy himself more time to find a way of saving the people of Lacuna. It’s a great blur in the lines of morality, you know the Doctor’s doing this with the best intentions as his only other option is to leave and let the Daleks wipe out the population, but when you factor in the endless suffering everyone experiences every single day because of this, I mean good lord there’s a lot to love about this and it ends on a perfect semi-cliff-hanger, semi as they clearly don’t intend to follow up and leave the resolution to your imagination.