I liked this one, but I think the 'I love Benny' bias may be in play. The story itself, I didn't even begin to start following it until 2/3 of the way through, and at about the halfway mark I did think to myself, 'I'm not getting this. What is going on?' which might not be a good sign. I think it is interesting to have an - I was going to say unique, but as other reviewers have pointed out, I can think of several other BF stories that also use this 'backwards' kind of structure, most notably to me the deeply uninspiring What Just Happened? from Stranded 3, which was a rare John Dorney dud.

But I digress. Bowerman and Warner are on fire in this, as always, and there were some sparks of ideas that were briefly touched upon and very intriguing - TARDISes being able to talk, and being kind of neurotic? Benny foreseeing Ace's death in the Time War? Benny and grief over her mother? All of those captured my interest, but now as I'm sitting here writing this immediately after finishing the episode, I am still a little struggling to see how they connected. I suppose it was the Imbomination - a creature (?) born of paradox (again, original...) - manipulating reality to trick Benny into letting it out...?

I think perhaps part of the issue with backwards episodes, for me anyway, is I spend so much time trying to figure out what's happening that I completely forget what the actual conclusion of the story from the first scene is.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy myself. Though I am deeply uncertain how John Hart, or even the Master (who wasn't even in this one) are going to connect to any of this at all.