We come to the final episode with Victory of the Doctor, the title of course being the fitting polar opposite to Victory of the Daleks where after two massive downer episodes of the Daleks just hammering our heroes and Valarie leaving to meet her fate (sort of), the Doctor comes back with a vengeance in a very satisfying but still uphill battle against the Paradigm Daleks. The synopsis just has one simple line “He told them to run. They should have listened”

What makes Victory of the Doctor a fitting sequel to Victory of the Daleks is that it brings the Paradigm Dalek’s story to a close as it showcases the event that explains why they’re absent from the show from 2012 onwards. It draws on all the events and plot threads built throughout the entire series and makes for an epic conclusion.

The Eleventh Doctor got the short end of the stick as far as his Dalek stories went, but Victory of the Doctor and Jacob Dudman help to make up for his loss with one of the best Dalek stories I’ve ever come across and it ends on a perfect speech from Dudman signing off as the Eleventh Doctor with the perfect final word to close out the series which I won’t spoil.

I can’t give this enough praise, obviously I don’t recommend jumping straight into this as it’s not only a series finale but it draws heavily on prior episodes throughout the series. So it’s better to work your way through from Geronimo, to All of Time and Space, to the bonus story Broken Hearts, then Everywhere and Anywhere and finally this one. Thankfully all of which are worth listening to, not a single bad episode in this entire run, if you’re an Eleventh Doctor fan, this is a must own series. It’s one of Big Finish’s best works to date and really needs to set the standard going forward for their Modern Who works.

New New Paradigm

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

Victory of the Doctor is a fantastic conclusion to this range, and one of the most satisfying audios I've ever listened to. The initial plan against the Daleks is a fun one, and the scenarios the gang puts the Daleks through are fun to listen to. Afterwards, I really liked the scenes with Valerie and Roanna debating whether or not to kill the Doctor. This kind of thing is a great pinnacle of the various frustrations the Doctor has brought into people's lives up to this point, and I love the character conflict it brings. Then of course, the ending was clever enough to be entertaining, and the epilogue was excellent. Shaw did a great job with these characters, and the sendoff he gives them is one of the best. This ranks up there with some of my favorite New Who seasons finales, which is high praise.

Just an absolutely beautiful cold open, what's not to love about a wedding held by a dalek (also very funny that it's the second one in less than a year given DWM's comics).

I also really like how this glosses over how Eleven's plan works this time where it didnt' in the previous series of events. We dont' really need to know how it did, we don't need to see those events play out very similarly again, we just need to know that he did, and to see the plan working itself out.

Generally this ends up just being a really really fun romp, the lead trio making new threats for the daleks to face, constantly taunting them, but slowly loosing ground until the daleks are winning.

We're faced with a similar scenario to the previous story, the daleks seemingly in control again, especially with the Roanna and Valarie turning on Eleven due to the combination of his's plan failing, and the dalek essence taking control of the three of them...

And then we get the reveal that just makes this all so fun.

The fact that the daleks didn't get out of the device and are in fact still trapped in a pocket universe is a twist that I'd seen coming, but it didn't make it any less satisfying when it was revealed, and the second twist, that this was all a ploy to allow Eleven's original plan, using the Darinthian Blight against the daleks, is something I didn't see coming but does just work so so well, especially with how it once again ties this story right back to the beginning of the series. I also like how it also explains why we've not seen much of the new dalek paradigm, or the dalek prime minister since 7A.

Then we once again let our characters sit, we get Valarie and Roanna's actual wedding, we get Eleven being a bit socially awkward at giving a best man speech, we get Valarie's decision to leave, Eleven's to take a bit of quiet time. It's a beautiful bow put on the top of what's probably my favourite series of Doctor Who I've seen or listened to.

Perfect ending the character arc the music the everything is just so perfect I won’t lie I cried those last 10 mins make my heart melt

Victory of the Doctor is an excellent finale to the Eleven & Valarie series. The last serial, The Last Stand of Miss Valarie Lockwood, tied up the dangling threads in the overall mystery for the series, while this serial tied up the threat from this box set. With my mind's eye, I was able to picture the plot very easily, and the epic spectacle didn't disappoint. It really played into the tropes of a series finale, and it lived up to them in an epic way that was above and beyond what had been presented here before. While I will miss the chemistry between Jacob Dudman, Safiyya Ingar and Mia Tomlinson, this story does send them out with a band. While I wish we could get more of this series, what we have is brilliant, and it wouldn't feel amiss in any marathon of the Eleventh Doctors run.