I loved this so much.  The way time travel was incorporated into the story, the scale of the production design behind the Dalek Emperor, and the epic energy which we didn't often see from this era, these were a solid set of episodes that really stuck with me in a positive way.  This was thought at one time to be the last ever Dalek story for Doctor Who, so production went all out and it really shows.

This is also a great introduction for Victoria.  Her character may not get the best treatment down the road, but here, her family is fully incorporated into the larger narrative and it really got me invested in her character.  At least for these episodes.  I had a very great time overall.  This has all the charms of the best aspects of the Second Doctor era, in my opinion, including some pretty fun moments with Jaime.  I love how he is perpetually in over his head as a character yet is able to continuously bluff his way through being confident in most situations.  Sure, some parts felt a little awkward near the end, but I had such a great time along the way it is hard to really even be bothered by that.  This is a true classic to me, through and through.  An absolute stand-out among televised Dalek stories.

A pretty essential part of Power of the Daleks, at this point. I really like this animation and how they were able to bring out the quirks and mannerisms of Slyvester Mccoy. Plus, it's a fun story. I haven't seen a lot of the other animations yet but I think this does a good job at capturing the spirit of the original with a limited budget.

The Wintertime Paradox has been a smashing success for me so far.  I've really loved or at least appreciated all the short stories.  It does feel only natural that not all of them would work for me.

This one was a bit of a struggle.  I was pleasantly surprised to get a classic era Doctor after every story thus far has focused more on the modern era.  It's a cool idea for a story, taking place on an alien forest world, populated by humans that journeyed here long ago but have forgotten their past and history almost entirely.  The Doctor is being dragged off to be sacrificed to the forest by an unnamed woman.  She is a believer, but has some doubts after her wife was sacrificed.

That's pretty much the story - the Doctor and a woman travelling around, talking of faith and their belief system.  On paper, it really feels like a story I should have liked or enjoyed.  Instead, I was just kind of bored.  If this had a stronger purpose or focus on We Will Feed You to the Trees, I probably would have enjoyed that more.  I do like the doubt present in the woman.  We are told the story from her perspective and her growing sense of dread that her wife was sacrificed for no purpose was interesting.

This is also the first time Sophie Aldred's reading of the story didn't work for me.  Normally her voices and delivery are great, but here it felt a little flat.  Weirdly, her impression of the Seventh Doctor felt a little off.  I've heard her do this voice in stories like The Haunting of Bryck Place and I feel like she did a better job there.

Not bad, not bad at all.  Visiting Hours features Rory coming to visit River Song and bring her a bunch of Christmas stuff for the holidays at the Stormcage.  It's a great premise that leads into a full-blown prison break.  River and Rory are a lot of fun here.  Rory in particular stands out because this short story gives us a unique insight into his thoughts and feelings.  This includes travelling with the Doctor, but also how he feels about River knowing she is his daughter.  We didn't get a lot of follow-up or time to really explore how Amy and Rory feel about River as their daughter so it's pretty delightful seeing that explored even a little bit here.  I also like some of his thoughts surrounding his work as a pediatric nurse and his time as the Lone Centurion.

Visiting Hours is solid in these regards, but is much weaker around Henrck Chyll and his whole villainous scheme.  He feels more like an annoying character than a fun villain.  At least the setting of the Stormcage is a lot of fun.  Writer Dave Rudden does a good job of using an existing setting, and he really makes it feel like a full facility more than it ever was shown to be like in the show.  I also like how Chyll's story ends in a way tied into the larger narrative around the Wintertime Paradox, and it feels like he meets a fairly well-deserved sinister end.

I had a good amount of fun with this short story.  It was neat getting what felt like an origins story for Osgood, I like the ties this has to the Sontaram Stratagem two-parter from the show, and it was a lot of fun exploring the "Grey Archive" as a setting.  I really liked the idea of different archives, like the Blue Archive and Grey Archive, which have different purposes and roles when compared to the already established Black Archive.  That's very good world-building and Dave Rudden shows he is a creative individual who has a lot to offer as the writer of this story.

Beyond that, it is a very simple and straightforward take on the "base under siege" formula all too common in Doctor Who.  At least the whole angle of Sontaran clones being not fully developed was a lot of fun.  It's not amazing, but it is fun enough and a pleasant listening experience overall, even if it felt pretty predictable.  Plus, as always with the Wintertime Paradox, if you listen to the audio version, Sophie Aldred very much enhances the experience overall with her voice work.  It really feels like she is able to inhabit all these characters and adds so much to the story.

It was very fun having Bill Potts and and the Twelfth Doctor together in a story again.  That dynamic alone was well realized by writer Dave Rudden and I didn't realize just how much I missed it.

Inflicting Christmas wasn't quite on the level of some of the other stories I've read in this anthology so far, but it is pretty solid.  I like the setting of a future tech expo and think Rudden and audio narrator Sophie Aldred did a very good job of setting the scene.  Beyond that, though, I wasn't as invested as I feel I could have been.  The stuff with Bill and her mom was good, I just didn't quite connect with the narrative around the other characters as much.

This was a great listening experience.  I am highlighting it as an audio story because I truly think my love for Father of the Daleks is in no small part due to her narration.  Sophie Aldred does so much bringing the Daleks, Davros, and even the Eleventh Doctor to life with her voice work here.  It is damn hard to make a Dalek sound good without a ring modulator, and I am so impressed by how well Aldred is able to make up for that without it ever once being a distraction.

I also very much like this story.  Sure, we've seen the Daleks turn on Davros many a time before, but I've never felt it with so much emotional weight to it.  As this story is told from Davros' perspective, we get a great sense of his insights into the Daleks.  Him thinking about how they only know hatred as an emotion, yet he keeps either projecting his own feelings onto his "children," or is sensing other emotions stirring in them, is so dang interesting.  And I very much like the scenes between Davros and the Doctor - "two old men" - as Davros puts it.  There's a lot of compelling material here.  I particularly like how close Davros comes to recognizing the need for change in his own creations, yet he is unable to accept what that would look like or what it truly means for him.  It's good stuff, especially in the context of this being a story on the eve of the Time War.

I'm surprised more people don't like this one.  This might be my favourite character piece on Davros I have encountered... ever!  I had a lot of fun and would recommend you get the Wintertime Paradox just for this and a couple of other great stories, and I haven't even finished the entire book yet!

I started off the Wintertime Paradox after meaning to listen to the audiobook since it came out.  I've already read Canaries online, which was nothing short of exceptional, and I've got to say, He's Behind You is a fun start to the rest of the anthology.  Aside from the aforementioned Canaries, this is my first experience with author Dave Rudden, and I think he did a good job here of really bringing us back to the era of Rose and the Tenth Doctor.  There's a lot of references to the first series, and some good mentions of recent events with Rose after the Christmas Invasion.

It's such an authentic take on Series Two that it even features that same level of cringe-worthy that I really remember between Ten and Rose.  Sure, it's a bit of a fault in the story, but the larger narrative more than makes up for that.  I hadn't heard of the UK's tradition of pantomime theatre until it was introduced to me on the forum, so it was very cool seeing that in action and informing the entire story.  I also very much enjoyed all the details of this short story.  He's Behind You makes an excellent, novel, and truly original take on the Autons.  Them posing as actors for so long they began to break down was a very cool take on these now familiar aliens, plus it felt very appropriate for a Rose story.

The theatre angle was also great.  It's used well as a bit of character work for Rose, plus, because this is a story about Gallifrey, it gives Rose the opportunity to dress in Time Lord robes and speak a little of the Doctor's home, something that never really came up with her in the main series.  I'm very glad I listened to the audiobook version, too.  Sophie Aldred's narration greatly enhanced my overall experience of this story.

I initially was very down for what Survival was putting out.  The Master is back and has a cat-people related scheme.  It's nice and simple, which, in hindsight, isn't a terrible way to end the original series.  But by episode two I am bored and dulled to the cheap alien planet, the silly make-up, and goofy acting by the cat-people.  It lost me, but at least goes out on a sweet enough moment between Ace and the Doctor.  Those two are charming as always and practically carry Survival on their backs.

Hey, it had some interesting ideas, and stands out a lot more compared to other, lesser Dalek stories from the Classic era.  I at least enjoyed the idea of different Dalek factions here, Davros was his usual delight, and overall it was a pair of episodes that generally sat pretty well with me.  Sadly, the final confrontation between Davros and the Doctor, which Resurrection kind of hinges on as the big climax, is pretty underwhelming and didn't really pay off in a meaningful way.  I have mixed feelings on Teagan's departure.  It's kind of nice for this story to feel like it has consequences with the way it leaves her traumatized and kind of done with the adventuring, but again, the execution was a little lacking.  On the other hand, making these two longer episodes did make for a strong sense of pacing compared that worked in a way a lot of the classic series was unable to do.  By not having to break up the story into four breaks, it means that there are less awkward cliffhangers and silly looks we hold on in between episodes that otherwise kind of plague the original show.

It's not perfect - far from it, in fact - but it's a good example of the last few Fifth Doctor stories taking on a bit of life and leaving a much strong impression than what I found otherwise in Season 21.