I'm still mentally recovering from this episode. It was just amazing from start to finish. The culmination of everything we've seen before and setting up for boxset 7 and beyond, it was brilliant. I was thinking throughout about "the invaders" and wondering who they could be. With Dan Starkey voicing them, I had a hunch it may have been the Sontarans but wondered if that was just my Dan Starkey bias as I'm so used to seeing and hearing him as the potato shaped monsters. However, I was very pleased to learn I was right, with the big twist at the end being that the Sontarans have now taken over Gallifrey! What a brilliant twist and setup for the next story. Also brilliant was having the Sinsa confirm what I suspected from Nowhere, Never onwards, that being that Hieronyma Friend is somehow using the different faces of the Eighth Doctor's companions. We did get a hint to this back in 2023 when in the Audacity reveal news article, they mentioned how Jaye Griffiths was in Time War 5 and I always thought that was odd as companions have often been in prior episodes of the show, especially since Jaye Griffiths was in the TV series as well. Of course now we know that she was using Audacity's face, but we wouldn't have ever suspected that back during Time War 5. Now, she's used Helen and C'rizz's faces too and I can't wait to see who they'll have playing her next! And all of this without even mentioning the main twist of the episode. Alex turning on the Doctor was an absolutely brilliant scene and I cannot wait to see where it goes from here! It's going to be an amazing story going forward and I'm looking forward to seeing how that all pays off!

Something borrowed, something blue

Prerequisites: The previous audios in this set, as well as assorted other stories (outlined in my review for Nowhere, Never)

Borrow or Rob is a great ending to the boxset, and easily the best audio here. Everything comes to a head, and Foley's script manages to keep our heads above water as all the plot threads start to converge. I really liked the moment where I realized that Alex wasn't going to let the Doctor into the Tardis. It's a great moment, and I'm genuinely looking forward to see how this all gets resolved in the future. I only have two notable critiques. The first is that I wish it wasn't implied that Friend's apple had somehow caused Alex to behave this way; it would've been far more effective in my opinion if Alex genuinely was just fed up with the Doctor (but that would have required more groundwork, to be fair). The second is that I'm growing tired of the Eighth Doctor Time War range just continuing indefinitely. It's been over seven years now since the first Time War boxset, and given the new moniker of "Uncharted 1" on the Big Finish website, I doubt this range will conclude anytime soon. For heaven's sake, it's been two entire boxsets now with barely a hint of what even happened to Bliss, and I feel like it'll be years still before that's resolved. Still, this is a solid enough story, and a solid enough boxset, to satisfy me for now.

Okay I’m hyped for this arc I feel like as someone who doesn’t care for the time war anymore this might have pulled me back in