This is what an anniversary special should be: something that comments on how all things come to an end, or at least change. Hypocritical for a show that will never die? Perhaps. But eras of the show certainly do die. Runs come to a close. Arcs reach their conclusion. What a brilliant, beautiful idea from James Goss that the Curator should become the artist at the end of time, remembering the universe for us.

I LOVE the idea of the Curator appearing as any old Doctor. It should be a right of passage, a chance for actors who have moved through the role to consider their place in the story when they're old enough to look back on their time with it. Why shouldn't "revisiting the favorites" include them all?

The actual best Once and Future audio story doesn't have a good mix of characters (we got this duo last anniversary team up, and their dynamic is exactly the same) but makes up for the lack of innovation with some beautiful themes on the making of art and why we tell stories. This is far from James Goss' best effort, but it's what you would generally want from an anniversary story, emotional work of some actual heft. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Honestly, this one just frustrates me.

It's a pretty solid Story, even if the degenerated 5 takes a backseat in favor of Colin's Curator, who is the Highlight here. I almost wish this was a simple Exploration of the Curator and his love of Art, his Insecurity of being the reason so many Places get destroyed and so on.

This is genuinely great Story beat and as far as a Curator Story goes, this is pretty damn good I'd say, even if I really wish we fully delve into it. But well this is another Entry in the Fun yet VERY messy "Once and Future" and it's going to have a remix of Characters, so uhh.. Throw in Davison and the Doctor's Daughter!!!

I think Davison is amazing in the Role of the Doctor. And I really like the Doctor's Daughter as an Episode, the pairing makes sense, so much so that we already got it in BF's own 20th Anniversary Boxset. Here it feels like an Afterthought, they don't feel important, there are some nice Exchanges between the Curator and the Doctor but ehh.. That's kinda it?

I hate being critical about a Story with "What it could have been", but really I find this more interesting to discuss than what we ended up getting with this one.

Not at all bad, a VERY good Curator Story, a very "eh" Doctor Story. Overall I can't give it anything higher than 3, part of me is tempted to rate it higher, because the Highs are very high, but the Lows feel uninspiring and bring this Release down for me.

I'm just getting around to these Once and Future specials, but so far they really seem like something else.  Just a real trip for fans.  Sure, I understand the critique that Big Finish is a little guilty of just bashing together existing characters for stories like this.  I can't say it bothers me much, though.  Whatever Doylist philosophy one might feel about the matter, at the end of the day this is an audio with Peter Davison and Georgia Tennant playing father and daughter in-universe for Doctor Who - you can't tell me that isn't something.  I couldn't help but be won over by this story through that dynamic alone.

Then you have all these little bonuses.  It's delightful having Colin Baker as a future incarnation of the Curator.  The implications are fascinating as is the story at hand.  The whole idea that every world the Curator creates something on being destroyed was intriguing enough, and then it wound up being this pretty sophisticated story criticizing capitalism, the value of art, and even the nature of the universe.  The far future near the end of the universe is a neat time period we only ever occasionally touch on in Doctor Who, and it's great when we explore that idea a bit like we do here.  This was pretty great overall.  It wasn't the most moving or deep thing in the world, but it had a decent amount of depth for an anniversary special like this.  I would definitely recommend it.

This one goes at a bit of a slow pace. The Fifth Doctor and Jenny have a fun dynamic, and it makes me wish for a box set of those two travelling together. However, the Curator takes too long to enter the story, and the stakes are quite low here. For much of the story, there's no antagonist and it's about dying worlds. It's also a shame that it doesn't really do anything to further the degeneration plot.