It's far from perfect, but Four to Doomsday has a lot to offer viewers.  These early Fifth Doctor stories have a solid foundation for their companions.  They all really have a sense of purpose here and are each pretty entertaining in their own way.  Monarch isn't the most memorable villain but the weirdness of the Persuasion and Enlightenment characters definitely makes up for that a bit.  Overall, while not the best, it is memorable, creative, deeply silly, and, at its core, a true Doctor Who story.

The idea of a Doctor without limits definitely feels better as a premise than in execution, at least for this audio.  The Doctor being more willing to justify the means to his ends doesn't really come across as much as I think it should.  Really, it feels largely like a Doctor Who story where the Doctor has done some shady stuff mostly in the background.  It's not too different than some other, main line Doctor Who stories where the Doctor is being a little manipulative, like in the Seventh Doctor era.

The ending is striking, but also a little silly.  The one lady sitting there shooting the Doctor through all his regenerations is brutal, but also a little funny to think about if we had to sit there and listen to the Doctor dying over and over again, had the story not cut itself off.

I do like the acting though, at least from David Collings.  He was great.  The other performers felt more average.

This isn't that bad as a little trailer thing. It's sad, and shows the Doctor mourning Amy. It's certainly more interesting than anything in the actual runtime of The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe. It looks decent to acceptable enough for a little prequel still up on Youtube. And it was nice to see a bit of Matt Smith being Matt Smith again. I don't think this deserves much criticism other than acknowledging that it is very weird this wasn't in the original episode to begin with, which is a big compliment to the prequel itself, if you ask me.

This isn't a terrible production and India Fisher definitely adds something with her narration, but I didn't enjoy this story very much.  I feel like it had some very cavalier and unexplored ideas around self-harm that felt intentionally provocative in a way I really didn't appreciate.  The story is also just weird.  A billionaire put his mind in a child?  It could be interesting but I don't think this story adequately fleshes it out and it just takes the wrong tone and approach to such a thing.  A story like this would have to be very, very serious and it doesn't feel that appropriate at the tail end of this Short Trips set.

I had fun with this story. It is very simple and straightforward, told from the perspective of a boy at a science fair and visited by the Doctor. The relatively weak level of substance is made up for by David Troughton's reading and the charming nature of it, though the boy can come across as a bit annoying at times. Still, I found it cute, and just sort of something that fits with the narration of this era. As in, certainly the Doctor might encounter someone a bit ahead of their time at a science fair, of course they might have a little adventure should the experiment go wrong, and most definitely the Doctor would be reassuring to the young man. So, it was pretty fun, and worth checking out at least once.

This was pretty good as a short little story for the Third Doctor. This being Liz Shaw's story but being told by Katy Manning is a bit weird but she does a fairly good job at keeping the audio feeling lively. I enjoyed how the Doctor was able to relate his feelings of being trapped on Earth to a Tiger in a zoo. It feels appropriate to the era and they play up that animosity he sometimes had with the Brigadier. It mostly works, but like a lot of these early Short Trips, wasn't terribly heavy in content or even all that much depth and substance. It's just a short little something, but hey, at least these are easily available for everyone on Spotify.

You know, I'm not rating this serial that high, but it wasn't that bad either.  That opening with the models and CGI was genuinely impressive, exciting, and amazing.  That energy continues well into the early courtroom scenes.  Even though I know what's happening, there's a good sense of intrigue going on here.  What's happening?  Why is the Doctor on trial?  It's good stuff.

The actual execution outside of the framing device is a lot weaker, though.  It feels like the actual mysterious planet of The Mysterious Planet is a little boring.  Some Doctor Who sets and alien worlds look great - this is not one of those situations.  It really feels like everything is just barely holding together at the seams.  And the characters living there felt flat and boring.  It all felt so artificial - like these were costumes and sets rather than people and places.  Still, I found Six and Peri pretty entertaining.  They have good banter here, for once, and it already feels like a huge improvement from last season.  Again, it's just not that bad.  Not that great, but not that bad, either.

Another solid chapter in Children of Earth.  A lot is just devoted to keeping up that build-up to the big moves coming next episode, but this entry on its own is pretty great at ratcheting up that tension and political bleakness.  A solid entry in Torchwood overall.

I found this serial utterly entertaining.  Sarah Jane is fun, Harry is a treat, it is good to see the UNIT crew a bit for one last time, and I just love the setting of Tulloch Moor.  It just felt like a nice, tight example of the base under siege trope.  There's lots of memorable characters, not just the returning UNIT figures like Benton and the Brigadier, but also memorable new individuals like the Duke of Forgill.  I think production did a good job bringing the energy of Scotland to the table and from there it is just a nice, consistent experience.  It's easy to enjoy something like this with the Fourth Doctor.  He's just so charming and there's a dynamic to how the show was structured at this time that made Terror of the Zygons a lot of fun to follow.  With it kind of being one of the last stories to feature UNIT for a good, long while, it feels like the end of an era.  So there's something very nostalgic and charming about this story.  The Zygons don't stand out much as monsters here but like everything else here - they do the job.  They very much fill the role of a classic, UNIT-era alien force to a T.  And I think in this case that really works to Terror of the Zygons' benefit.  Sometimes playing it to the formula, but doing a very good job at that structure and showing what works best about it.  A bit underrated, if you ask me.

There's so much I adore about The Time Warrior.  At a time I'm sure was uncertain for the show - what would it be like with Jo gone, Sarah Jane comes in and very much steals the show.  She's a lot of fun and I love how her introduction is handled with her role as a journalist.  It's very well done.  It feels like this story breathes in some new air into the series, especially since this is the first time we've done any sort of actual time travelling in a good, long while.  It feels like a shame the show would often skirt away from exploring Earth history, as it is one of the more interesting aspects of the series.

This is also a very fun introduction for the Sontarans.  They work really well here in the historical setting and I like some of the characters such as Professor Rubeish and Irongon.  They were a memorable bunch and added a lot to the story.  Overall these episodes are a great start to what would be Pertwee's final season.  It does feel like production kind of saw the writing on the wall.  With Delgado's death and producer Barry Letts soon to be leaving, Pertwee would follow, and so in many ways it feels like they went all out this season starting with Time Warrior.  It didn't always work out, but a lot of these episodes have a certain energy I can really appreciate.