The Doctor Chronicles at one time was a series I had absolutely no interest in, and yet this special series with the Eleventh Doctor and his new companion Valarie has been some of Big Finish’s best work in years. After keeping my fingers crossed that they would stick the landing for their final release, they did so in not only one of my favourite Eleventh Doctor stories but overall one of the best Big Finish releases of all time. An easy winner for Doctor Who release of 2024

As the cover shows, this features the return of the long forgotten and most ridiculed Dalek design of all time, that being the Paradigm Daleks. This release in a lot of ways acts as a sequel to both Victory of the Daleks and Asylum of the Daleks, two of the most unpopular Dalek stories ever written, and in other ways this story acts as a vindicator to them as it gives us the battle between the Eleventh Doctor and the Paradigm Daleks that we never got in the show.

The Paradigm Daleks when first introduced back in 2010 were rightly mocked for their garish multi-coloured designs and had the unfortunate timing of being quietly shoved offscreen as Moffat wanted to give the Daleks a bit of a break from being the featured villains of the show. After a couple minor and cameo appearances throughout Series 5 and 6, the Paradigm had their first proper story in 2012 with Asylum of the Daleks, by which point the more colourful versions of them had been scrapped and they were mixed in with the more traditional bronze Daleks. After that the Paradigm Daleks were retired completely from the show with no in-universe explanation and the show reverted back to the bronze Dalek designs.

While you can never convince me that the Paradigm Daleks were not an utterly misguided attempt to reinvent the look of the Daleks, the fact that they were very quickly shoved offscreen and retired within a couple years due to the fan backlash just emphasises their failures all the more and makes Victory of the Daleks even worse in hindsight. There was every possibility that the Paradigm designs could’ve worked and fans could’ve warmed up to them if they just had the writing to back it up and a proper opportunity to showcase themselves.

On top of Asylum of the Daleks being a rubbish story for reasons too many to go into here, it also featured a very controversial ending where the Doctor had been wiped from the Dalek’s hive mind, effectively erasing him from the memory of every Dalek in existence. Once again this was an idea that Moffat got cold feet over to the point where by the following year in Time of the Doctor, they retconned the ending with one line of dialogue. But Daleks Victorious chooses to play into that ending to give us one of the more unique and strongest depictions of the Daleks in Doctor Who history. The setup being that the Daleks have become more aggressive than ever and are sweeping across the universe because they believe they’ve won the Time War due to the fact that the Time Lords are all dead and the Doctor has been erased from their memories, and to make things worse, because the Daleks have no knowledge of the Doctor anymore, they don’t have that boogeyman to keep them cautious in their plans to conquer the universe. But on the flip side, the Daleks have also noticed when they look back through their records they’ve found countless failed incursions and operations but they have no idea why they failed, almost as if a phantom or a predator has stalked the Daleks for centuries and now perhaps they’ve found their mysterious predator.

Daleks Victorious takes the most unpopular variant of Daleks ever and gives them a level of aggression and ruthlessness they don't manage in whole decades worth of the show. It also doesn't shy away from taking a few shots at the designs echoing a lot of the fan complaints but still manages to present them as a force to be reckoned with. The ending in particular is one of the best Dalek scenes I've ever come across and they're not even directly involved in the scene; it's just the Doctor completely broken as the TARDIS is being flooded with distress calls from across the universe while he struggles with the reality that he may have to become a warrior again.

Listened to this over a week ago, so not too fresh in my mind, but god did I love this.

The Daleks feel really menacing here, and again I absolutely adore how they work this story perfectly into it's place in the Doctor Who timeline. The repercussions for The Doctor deleting himself meaning The Daleks think they won The Time War, the 'Skittles Daleks' reporting back to the Dalek Prime-Minister, the 'Skittles Daleks' actually feeling really menacing and like a true threat.

The way The Daleks are treated here reminds me a lot of The Stolen Earth or The Parting of the Ways. It's less a case of trying to defeat them, more a case of just trying to save what you can, and here we have important characters falling to them, dying to give others just a little more time. I especially love how Eleven references the colours in mocking them, especially the eternal, but how it works, they still feel menacing despite it.

I love Valarie's plan to help Eleven, I love Roanna's interactions with The Yearn, I love Hayden's last stand, I love The Yearn getting what it wants, and I love how even that isn't enough to stop The Daleks.

The implication that The Eternal Dalek is somehow what helped them overcome The Yearn is also really interesting and looking forward to seeing how that pans out.

This story made me actually love, fear, and respect the Ski- sorry, the New Dalek Paradigm, and I absolutely adore that I'm able to say that I do now.

Paradigm of Evil

Prerequisites: The previous 11DC audios and Series 7 of New Who

Daleks Victorious is another great entry in this range, although it's probably (relatively) one of the weaker entries in this saga. For most of the runtime, it's a fairly standard, if well-done, Dalek base-under-siege story. On the plus side, it was very nice to see the Paradigm Daleks again; they were horrendously underutilized in the show proper. Seeing them have actual roles and begin to have fleshed-out functions was a great touch. I also appreciated a lot of the story beats on display; this audio does a great job of making you think that the heroes are going to win the day completely (and yes, I had totally forgotten what the title was). The last five minutes here are utterly fantastic; I love how the Daleks actually feel threatening now. That moment when they recover from the Yearn and manage to kill the entire population of Medrüth is truly harrowing, and I loved it. The Doctor's pure despair at the end is palpable. Honestly, my only real critique here (other than the very simplistic story of the first two acts) is the Yearn itself. As was the case in their previous story, I like the concept, but the vocal effects used are extremely garbled. It takes actual effort to decipher what they're saying at any given moment, which is extremely annoying when most of their dialogue is very plot relevant.

Wow just just wow