This was quite a fun and pleasant read. The whole reveal of it being the Nimons would've been effective were it not for the fact they were already name dropped three times earlier in the story so it really should've been obvious. It's quite authentic to Thirteen's era but much better written. It really does seem like all of Thirteen's best works are in literary format, hopefully it won't be long before Big Finish can add to some of her strongest works.

This one nails that crossover feeling of Doctor Who mixing with the world of the Wizard of Oz in a fun adventure with the Doctor's companions taking on the role of Dorothy's in an exaggerated fashion whilst encountering familiar creatures in the world of Oz that have been distorted to resemble those from the Doctor's memory. The answer lies in the castle of the Wicked Witch of the West who is someone all too familiar to the Doctor. The real star of the story is the youth accompanying them throughout their adventure, Theodore, who goes through quite the emotional journey culminating in a well executed twist.

Quite a fun short story told through a series of emails and messages with Missy concocting her latest scheme whilst imprisoned in the vault whilst the Doctor bides his time letting her play it out and Nardole on the other hand is close to a panic attack.

As Scott Gray stories go it's hardly among his very best but as a final work from his it's a great exit from the Magazine with one of the Thirteenth Doctor's strongest comics that features a welcome historical celebrity guest in Bruce Lee in an action packed story.

Quite a good and surprisingly clever story that manages to convey a lot of emotional moments for only a short number of pages and features quite a twist ending that breaks the fourth wall. One of the best short stories to come out of the Lockdown collection

We have the two-part finale to Series 10 and for a long time, at least up until 2023, the last excellent episode of Doctor Who. But even with the few great episodes we’ve had since Russell took over, none have managed to top this episode. Of course, this had a lot of buzz going in with the promotional images of the original Cybermen and the return of John Simm as the Master, all signs seemed to indicate this was going to be another overblown series finale as we’d become accustomed to at this point and yet surprisingly this ended up way better than it had any right to be.

It starts off giving these by-the-numbers Moffat vibes with a lot of hockey dialogue and Missy being her usual over the top self as she’s put to the test by the Doctor in his efforts to rehabilitate her. But suddenly the tone of the episode seems to snap when it all goes wrong with Bill paying the price and what follows is one of the heaviest and most unforgiving ordeals any companion of the Doctor has ever gone through. I love the setting Moffat creates in this story, having a massive spaceship on the edge of a black hole where time moves slower on one end than it does for the other, resulting in a scenario where the Doctor, Missy and Nardole spend only a couple minutes at their end of the ship coming to grips with the situation while Bill is forced to spend years at her end where a society has grown over the decades but the population is dwindling.  And when humanity is desperate to survive by any means necessary when the world is falling apart, sometimes that involves discarding everything that made them who they are for a life as an unfeeling machine.

Now I should make it very clear, World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls doesn’t contradict the events of Spare Parts, where the Fifth Doctor lands on the planet Mondas at the birth of the Cybermen. The story makes it clear that the Cybermen are an unfortunate result of humanity’s future no matter what planet, they’re like a shadow over human evolution, gradually drawing nearer. Now I wouldn’t say this is as strong a story as Spare Parts, but I think it’s a very worthy TV parallel and, in my opinion, the best Cyberman story the show has ever done. I have talked about it loads of times now in regards to the Cybermen stories I prefer, the ones that focus on the horrors of conversion, something I felt the show wouldn’t be able to get away with for a family friendly audience, but Moffat really pushes the limit with what he could get away with. Some of these scenes where Bill’s exploring the rundown hospital with these eerie patients that are almost unrecognisable, some of which can only talk through a voice box, and some have actually had their voice boxes turned off because they were screaming things like “kill me!” I mean good lord Moffat!!! Which builds to a chilling scene where Bill is about to have her final treatment where she will be “made better”, by a hospital doctor no less, people you’re supposed to trust with your lives, and we just see him holding up that oh so familiar headgear for her to stare at in horror.

I was wrong when I said this was one of the most brutal ordeals a companion’s ever gone through, this is honestly THE most brutal thing a companion’s ever gone through, being shot through the chest, spending a decade trapped in a creepy hospital and then turned into a Cyberman!!! Pearl Mackie really doesn’t get enough credit for her time in the show, she is absolutely fantastic in this story, especially in part two where it seems her conversion isn’t quite as perfect as most Cybermen, and we get some of my favourite bits of directing in the show where we cut back and forth between her perspective as herself and her Cyberman form.

We go right back to the Eleventh Doctor's first year with the very beloved Vincent and the Doctor. I don’t think there’s many who’d argue this as being among Eleven’s best, it often comes up in a lot of conversations for the best episodes in the show’s history. Possibly the best celebrity historical in all of Doctor Who as the Doctor and Amy pay a visit to the artist himself because of a painting of his in the future with a mysterious out of place creature being featured. They arrive at the right time though as this creature, who’s invisible to everyone but Vincent, has been tearing through the local town killing anyone in its way.

From a plot perspective this is as basic as it gets with the Doctor teaming up with a historical celebrity to fight a monster. I think given the gimmick of having the monster be very similar to what the historical figure’s famous for (Charles Dickens and ghosts or Shakespeare and witches) we can be thankful they didn’t go with paint monsters! Though that still didn’t stop people from complaining about the fact that the monster is a giant invisible chicken. While I do understand people’s complaints regarding the monster and their arguments as to why a monster was needed in the first place, I do think the monster has more thought put into it than people may realise.

While it has a basic plot, the story itself focuses more on the interactions between the Doctor, Amy and Vincent Van Gogh, just months away from him taking his own life. We see the Doctor and Amy become close friends with him and do their best to help him emotionally from the turmoil he’s going through. It builds to one of the very best endings in the show’s history where by the end of the adventure, they say farewell to Vincent and Amy believes that they’ve given him a new lease on life and that he will go on to paint more works of art. But when they return to the museum in the present day, she’s heartbroken to learn, no he still killed himself. It’s such a powerful ending as it shows that depression is not something that’s easily understood, it’s not something that just goes away because of one life changing experience. Depression in many ways is like an invisible monster slowly eating away at a person’s will to live. If anything, it would be better if it were an invisible monster because that’s at least something tangible. The Doctor can save people from any monster, even the invisible ones because they’re easy to understand, but in the end, he can’t save Vincent Van Gogh from himself because depression isn’t.

Lots of people cite the scene where the Doctor takes Vincent to the future to show him how much his work is appreciated and what he means to many aspiring artists as one of the show’s best scenes, and while I don’t entirely dispute that, I was admittedly taken out of it by the ridiculous pop song playing in the background. Even if you took out the song, that ending still blows this scene out of the water, but yes, it is still a fantastic scene in its own right with a great guest appearance from Bill Nighy. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, I’d definitely put it at the top of your recommendations list.

Quite a good ending to the series with Jodie Whitaker delivering a promising performance setting up her adventures with Big Finish.

The Doctor Falls is considered the weaker of the two episodes and while I agree, it still has its fair share of incredible moments and that barn scene with Bill realising what’s happened to her is just pure gold.

……………. Oh yeah and the Master’s in this.

Now this might be seen as a hot take, but I don’t think this story really needed the Master, specifically the John Simm incarnation, Missy fits well with the story. But yes, it is entertaining having two different incarnations of the Master interact, the first time the show had done this idea and even for Big Finish they’d only got there first by about a year. Their scenes are a lot of fun, and it has a perfect ending for both incarnations.

I’ve never considered myself a fan of John Simm as the Master, admittedly most of that is down to spite as I was absolutely in love with Derek Jacobi’s performance in Utopia and three minutes later John Simm suddenly hijacks the role and gives us something significantly weaker. His Master felt like a villain role you’d give to Jim Carey, it just never sat well with me. Also, the drums idea was so stupid, particularly having it be the reason for him being evil when it never once came up in Classic Who, the audios or novels. Even today it’s never come up outside of musical scores, it’s like brining back Davros, giving him a clown afro and then have everyone act like it’s always been there!!!! And that’s just how he was in The Sound of Drums, he was so much worse in The End of Time! But with that said, he is actually really good in his return story. I love how he spends part one disguised as an odd caretaker who befriends Bill during her time at the hospital before pulling off the mask and revealing his true identity, that’s old school Master at his best. On top of that, his performance is significantly toned down which was one of the issues I had with him previously. He still has his zany moments, but they feel more natural, and he gets some really cold lines in this episode. So, it was a welcome return of a Master I was never a fan of, I just think you could’ve had the episode without him.

For actual issues I had with the story, the climax is literally the Doctor blowing Cybermen up with his sonic screwdriver shouting “Tomb of the Cybermen! Earthshock! Army of Ghosts!” at them, which sounds like the sort of thing a child would play out with their toys. Also, while the retcon of Bill’s “death” isn’t nearly as bad as Clara’s from Hell Bent, there is one line towards the end that utterly kills it, where her space girlfriend says she can restore Bill to her normal body and put her back home. I would’ve cut that line, I’m perfectly fine with Bill existing as a non-corporeal entity, free to travel the universe with her girlfriend (it’s a long story), especially considering how brutal and unforgiving the story was to her, I think she deserved some levity at the very end. But yeah, having that line about going back to living her normal life in her normal body just ruined the moment! I guess some things can’t be helped with Modern Who’s approach to companion exits.

My one other issue is the fact that this wasn’t the Twelfth Doctor’s regeneration story, it was originally planned to be, but when Moffat got wind that Chibnall was going to ditch the Christmas specials entirely (a move I frankly support), Moffat decided to step in and quickly write one more Christmas special to bow out his era and the Twelfth Doctor and boy did it show! This last one we had certainly felt like a story written at last minute, and it seemed to end the Twelfth Doctor’s era on a very cold note. Not to mention the abysmal inclusion of the First Doctor which made very clear that Moffat wasn’t a fan of the Hartnell years.

Popping my tin foil hat on, I do wonder if that reveal trailer we got for the Thirteenth Doctor back in 2017 was supposed to be her original first scene and how The Doctor Falls would’ve ended as it bears a lot of resemblance to where this story is set. I’m probably wrong but it did feel like that was how the story was going to end. If this had been Capaldi’s last story we would’ve had one of Doctor Who’s best regeneration stories, as is it ends up being probably the best penultimate story.

To date this is easily the best Big Finish audio the Twelfth Doctor has had, it's a real shame his collection of audios has been so small, even if they can't get Capaldi on board that still shouldn't stop them from doing more with this Doctor. If you're familiar with Jonathan Morris you know that in almost all his stories he employs some kind of spin on time travel, we now come to Emancipation of the Daleks which may not be my favourite work from him but it is probably his most quintessential bit of writing. The setup being Bill encountering an older Bill from the future, as the Doctor sets about investigating this unusual phenomenon, the TARDIS collides with a crashing Dalek saucer. Tracing the saucer they find themselves back in Bristol but something is very wrong with the world. What appears on the surface to be an altered future under Dalek control with facotires, slave workers and robomen couldn't be further from the truth as the Doctor is about to uncover a terrible secret.

It's amazing how even by 2022 you could still write a unique Dalek story, here Jonathan Morris has created a world where the English government after uncovering the crashed saucer that fell on St Luke's university killing everyone including the Doctor, have now harnessed the Dalek technology and have begun using the Daleks as slaves! Part two is easily the best of the story as we get a very bleak painting of how rotten the world progressively gets throughout Bill's new life from childhood to adulthood.

Like with any of these Audio Novels, it's quite the marathon to get through in one go, especially this story which is split in three two hour chapters. Probably not the best idea pacing wise but thanks to an engaging plot, some great narration from Dan Starkey, a wonderful characterisation of Bill and the Daleks especially getting a fantastic showcase, Emancipation of the Daleks represents a major high point for the Twelfth Doctor