This story just barely squeaks through with a 2.75 stars and this is supposed to be the culmination of the 11 part series ... Yikes.

On the whole, the entire series needed a good rethinking before production (which was probably a bit rushed at the time with the anniversary coming up fast). I would have liked more exposition on the Doctor's part as it isn't really all that clear how saving people and items from other timelines actually worked to keep 2013 intact.

I will say that Jenna Coleman would make an excellent children's book narrator, but I was glad Clara was not part of the story. She would have just eaten up what little "companion" time there is.

The ridiculousness at the end with the scientist, Watson, and the Time Agent could have been left out and nothing would have been missed.

A disappointing 3.06 Stars for the 11-part series. I'm not disappointed I missed it when it came out at the time. ( )

If humanity ever discovers time travel, of course it’s going to be in Oxford. Professor Chivers is taking direction from his future self to build the machine in the present—but the paradox allows the nefarious Creevix from the next universe over to enter and destroy our own. It’s up to the Matt Smith Doctor and Chivers’s assistant Alice to save the universe… with a little help from the Doctor’s past selves.

This was a Big Finish / AudioGO production read primarily by Jenna Coleman, with support from Michael Cochrane as Chivers and Nicholas Briggs as the Creevix. This storytelling format works very well and is a nice blend of single narrator and full-cast drama. And the story ticked a lot of boxes for me, namely the setting of beautiful Oxford and the whole timey-wimey paradox, setting things up for your past and future selves kind of thing. And as a Hitchhiker’s Guide fan I absolutely had to respond out loud to the question “How many roads must a man walk down” with “FORTY-TWO!”

I did find the Creevix rather tiresome in their smug certainty that they would win, but they were much less annoying than the Discordia from The Diary of River Song Series 4—the Creevix just *know* everything that will happen, whereas the Discordia would cheat and actually *rewrite time* to make sure they always won. I’m not sure how that makes the Creevix better, but it does.

This story is the last of 11 stories in the “Destiny of the Doctor” story arc, which may actually be a series you want to read in order if you’re the read-in-order type. Or you may find it appropriately timey-wimey to read them out of order. That’s my story, anyway.

I’d recommend this particular component of the Destiny of the Doctor arc if you liked Shada or Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, which have some relationship to Oxford and time travel. ( )

Doctor Who is always fun, but this last book in the Destiny of the Doctor series was fantastic! I loved the way the Doctor was able to tie the events of all the previous books, which seemed like standalones at the time, into the book's plot. The icing on the delicious cake was the narration by Jenna Coleman. She was spot on in capturing Matt Smith's speech patterns, without falling into the fake "masculine" voice some female narrators use. It was a pleasure listening to her. ( )