An excellent story, 4/5! Heavy spoilers throughout.

I'll start where my heart lies - with the thoschei content! (Okay, and my general Master character thoughts, but, you know, thoschei!!)

The Master gave a very convincing performance as the Doctor; if I hadn't known MacQueen was in this and pretending to be the doctor before I begun listening, I would have believed he was the doctor, 100%. I like how the characters themselves pointed out that the fact that the Master was so good at pretending to be the Doctor, pretending to be good, that this goes beyond deceit - some of it must be real. Admiration, connection... love? Specifically where Klein pointed out how much the Master enjoyed helping UNIT, not just faking that enjoyment... yeah, that was the stuff right there. She gets it. I do genuinely love when we have characters within the story who are doing the same thing as the audience, expressing our feelings for us - it feels interactive. Usually characters' decisions and observations invoke feelings in their audience, but this time, it almost felt the other way around - or as if we were having a conversation, sharing our ideas. I suppose that's what comes of a story written by fans!

When the Master reveals himself and is taunting the Doctor after not killing him, his voice goes soft, almost purring... Thoschei fans stay winning (: loved all the nods to RTD-era thoschei too! The way 7 growls the Master's name is so many levels of insane. Plus, the classic "Join me, let's rule the universe together" offer my beloved!
"My dear dear dear Doctor" eeeeee us Thoschei fans really were fed with this one! A little fanwanky, but hey, that's what I'm here for. Despite all this, there was a line implying that the Doctor and the Master were brothers. It was very jarring amongst what did seem like an intentionally romantic depiction of their relationship, but I suppose that it's likely that as a thoschei fan, I was reading that into the audio more than was intended.

Now, let's give at least a little bit of this review over to the other characters and the plot - as much as I'd like to, I can't only talk about the Master!

Despite not knowing anything about Raine, I found it easy to understand her personality and motivations. I feel like I should have listened to more Klein material before this, as there were definitely a couple times where I felt I was missing references, but I still understood the story perfectly well. Generally speaking, I found myself caring about even the most minor of characters - I started crying on the tube when the Tolian attacked Sylvie, I was so attached! I do get more invested in the emotional side of stories than most people, but I still think anyone would enjoy the level of thought and work that has been put into developing each and every character in this story.

This audio uses UNIT very skillfully; we are really made to feel for the soldiers, actually form relationships with them as an audience - not something the TV show usually succeeds at doing for one-offs. In the interviews, they mentioned that they tried to make this not just a doctor/master story, but specifically a UNIT story, and I think it shows. They did that well.

The interviews were great fun to listen to, I do recommend them. Loved Maynard's actor giving a shout out to all the ensign expendable UNIT soldiers who've died over the years, and people talking about how lovely Sylvester is to work with, including of course his spoons!

Over on the plot side of things, I was not very engaged by 7 and Raine's parts in the first couple discs, as I often felt that the characters were giving us the information rather than us learning it ourselves. It was as if this was written for a visual medium, rather than a purely auditory one. I especially noticed this when the giant floating heads came into the story - it just did not feel like something that had been written to be heard, rather than seen. However, the plot and characters were strong enough that this did not bring the audio down as much as other audios written this way, which is why I only dropped one star off the rating for this.

The general shape of this story was quite similar to sound of drums/last of the time lords - the master disguises himself as someone else, recruits a dying alien species he somehow "saved" turning them into weapons to be his army, and begins taking over while keeping the Doctor prisoner and threatening his companion. It's a little derivative and a little fanwanky, but I did enjoy it a lot. I am very much a fanwanky person - I enjoy shout-outs and namedrops and nods and references and shipping fuel. It can sometimes overwhelm a story and take away from the plot, but I am just one of those people who really likes that kind of stuff, so it does not take away from my rating at all. I can understand how people who aren't in it for the references would be rolling their eyes in this story, though.

(As an example of a reference that got me squealing, when I heard "Terserus", I went "omg!!! Planet from my Curse of Fatal Death!!!" (Not realising it's appeared in other Who media too)).

There was never a point where I was bored - the pacing was good and I stayed engaged in the story without feeling lost at any point. This was something I was quite worried about, considering the unusual length, but they really pulled this off!

Overall, a wonderful story that definitely lives up to the hype with commendable development of even the most minor of characters. An incredible introduction to a brilliant Master that well deserves those four hours, and those four stars! I recommend this to anyone with a long car journey coming up who needs a good way to pass the time! I promise, you won't regret it.

É muito provável que esse seja o áudio mais longo que a BIG FINISH já lançou em toda sua história, tendo até mesmo mais minutagens que o conhecido Zagreus (Especial de 40 Anos de Doctor Who) – Idealizado em coletivo, a escrita de Nicholas Briggs e Jason Arnopp consegue de forma surpreendente ser instigante do início até o fim de seu enredo mesmo contando com quase 4 horas de duração. É interessante notar ao decorrer da experiencia como cada uma das quatro partes se completam perfeitamente, polindo os detalhes essências e de grande importância para a jornada, gradualmente sua estrutura narrativa vai convencendo seu ouvinte a necessidade de uma trama tão longa. Vale lembrar que é importante chegar em “Dominion” tendo consumido a parte inicial do arco da “Elizabeth Klein”, sua primeira aparição é em “Coldtiz” e depois mais a frente, ela ganha uma excelente Trilogia formada pelas Main Ranges “A Thousand Tiny Wings”, “Survival of the Fittest” e “The Architects of History”, sem contar no essencial prelúdio “Klein’s Story”. Além disso, também temos o retorno da companion “Raine Creevy” que teve sua tímida introdução em uma remessa de Lost Stories dos roteiros que seriam da 27° Temporada. Aqui a jovem ganha os merecidos saldos positivos, se tornando uma personagem notável e útil diferente do que infelizmente ocorreu anteriormente. Agora falando do enredo em si, “Dominion” é aquela típica aventura envolvendo uma situação alarmante de alta escala bem ao estilo Russell T Davies, sabe - Mas em comparação, o áudio apresenta situações muito menos exageradas do que os episódios do showrunner, porém, as vezes também peca quando tenta maquiar momentos/acontecimentos simples em algo muito épico. Infelizmente é impossível ignorar o fato de que alguns lançamentos da BIG FINISH se tornaram bem datados para os dias de hoje – Sim, é inegável que foram produtos e ideias que funcionaram muito bem no período de lançamento, mas se tornaram muito previsíveis ao decorrer do tempo. Sim, estou me referindo ao plot twist principal da história envolvendo os personagens do Macqueen. Inicialmente como um “O Doctor” dito de uma dimensão diferente, o ator empenha um papel fantástico contendo uma toda uma energia única, com arquétipo maníaco maravilhoso, se resultando em uma presença de personagem que chega até mesmo ofuscar a do próprio McCoy. Mas depois de muito tempo, depois de sua popularidade e ganhar outras histórias, o plot twist de Dominion enfraqueceu sendo visto como manjado. Mas não se engane, tudo isso é compensado pelo excelente plano meticuloso do vilão, a forma como ele move as peças essenciais para conspirar a seu favor, também o jeito como conduziu e executou sua façanha é algo muito bem arquitetado pelos escritores. Em resumo, confesso que fui ouvir Dominion com expetativas altíssimas, esperando um resultado final de 10/10, infelizmente o fato do seu plot twist ter naturalmente se tornado manjado, alguns de seus momentos apresentarem tons épicos exagerados e (como sempre) reprodução tediosas de conflitos de invasão, fizeram essa antologia perder alguns pontos na minha avaliação final. O que não desqualifica o produto por completo, afirmo que são 4 horas de enredos muito bem aproveitadas, onde temos um caso raro de 3 pilares disputando para ver quem é o melhor protagonista da trama, 7° Doutor, Alex Macqueen e claro a Klein, recomendo!