Ever since her debut in 2006's The Runaway Bride, Donna has always been unlucky in love. First there was Lance, then Lee in Silence In The Library/Forest of the Dead. Now she has a new love to add to that list: Prince Rudolph. And no, it's not third time lucky (she does get fourth time lucky in The End of Time though).

Death and the Queen by James Goss is basically one of those fun RTD era romps you would get halfway through a series. It brings to mind series 4's The Unicorn and the Wasp, as a mad caper with plenty of banter from the Doctor and Donna Noble. There are some truly classic Doctor and Donna moments in this tale, such as Donna's moaning that she can never have a wedding that goes to plan with the Doctor around and her frustration at her servants as future Queen doing everything for her including helping her get dressed. My absolute favourite are the early scenes where the Doctor keeps interrupting Donna and Prince Rudolph when they're trying to have romantic moments together. So Donna has finally met her prince and she's about to get married; I bet you're wondering what goes wrong this time...

Well, you see, Death has an army coming for the fairytale kingdom as it is revealed a deal was made between the people of the fairytale land and Death. James Goss plays expertly with creating atmosphere here, with Death at first being obscured by cloud making for a very mysterious and unearthly appearance for the audio's antagonist. It allows for a very powerful performance from Catherine Tate too when she delivers the line 'Death is staring me in the face'. It's a very chilling line and one that works best on audio than it probably would on TV.

Now let's talk about Death: Death is...well, obviously the personification of death as a character and is a very creepy one, especially when his true motives are revealed. The reason behind Donna's marriage is truly shocking and like something from the Philip Hinchcliffe era of Doctor Who. As you can probably tell by what I have said in earlier 10th Doctor audio reviews there's a real 4th Doctor feel going on in these three stories which seem fitting for the best Doctor of the new series. This tale in particular whilst basically as said earlier an RTD-style romp has a very gothic feel to it with some of its ideas and themes. It sort of similar to if you combined a Tim Burton film with an Edgar Wright one.

One of my favourite things about this story is Alice Krige as the Queen Mum. She's wonderfully unlikeable, more determined to hold the wedding than to even batter an eyelid at all the people dying at the hands of Death's army. She even takes a dislike to Donna and that's just not on. The Queen Mum is a brilliant villianess for David Tennant's Doctor to argue with; he, of course, is just perfect as the 10th Doctor as usual and brilliantly portrays the Doctor's desperation at wanting Donna back as a companion. Of course, she rejoins him in the end because Donna's exit doesn't take place until Journey's End and these audios take place between series four but you really feel for the Doctor when he just wants his best friend back.

Overall, Death and the Queen is a fantastic conclusion to the first Tenth Doctor Adventures box set and represents the 10th Doctor and Donna Noble at their best. Here's hoping for a volume two with Bernard Cribbins returning as loveable granddad Wilfred Mott.

I'll be honest, I was pretty skeptical going into Death and the Queen.  I knew this was fairly well regarded among the fan community, so when it starts with Donna engaged and the Doctor in full Mister-Grumpy-Pants mode (a trend that weirdly seems to plague the character in Big Finish), I thought I was going to have to get a bit contradictory.

Things didn't look much better when a big head in the sky showed up and wiped out an entire army.  Donna having to explain basic compassion to her new fiance Rudolph had me very confused as to the purpose of this audio and what we were going for here.

Yet it ends up being a fascinating story with a lot of these plot points proving essential in setting up a very interesting second half to the story.  Donna ends up having a dance with Death while the Doctor uncovers a scheme by alien con artists to gobble up a soul.  I really like the detail that the aliens are not that interested in the Doctor, instead valuing the love and sacrifice involved in taking Donna much more.  It was interesting, and the audio does a great job of evoking these powerful visuals just through speech, sound effects, and music alone.  That's kind of the whole point of Big Finish, sure, but I can appreciate when a story does it as well as this one.

Its three for three in terms of this boxset accurately reflecting the period its based on perfectly in audio. If I was to show any Big Finish to a "non-fan" it would be this, as its a great showcase for how alive and dynamic the audio format can be - and with beloved actors at the helm.

The story itself is pleasing, it has some fantastic guest characters, my favourite being Death, who is as hilarious as he is monosyllabic. It continues the amusing trope of Donna continually getting married. And you get some nice character moments between Donna and The Doctor.

What this story, and this boxset, has captured perfectly is the dynamic of Tennant and Tate - the stories utilise their chemistry perfectly, to ensure that the stories are exciting, and flow. Their performances are, similar to their TV series, a highlight of what are already well paced, well conceived, enjoyable stories. This story particularly was a lot of fun - it captured the comedic elements that these characters excel at, in a story which was already well layered, and a fun romp. The supporting characters weren't quite as strong, but were still developed nicely to bring me into the world we were exploring. It captures some of the best components of Doctor Who - bringing in some dark horror concepts, coupled perfectly with the lighter comedic elements. A great story!