The finale has the Doctor facing off against the surviving members of the Doom Coalition. It's a well-paced and exciting piece with the hugest ticking time bomb you can imagine about to go off.

There are so many highlights in this story. Mark Bonnar has probably his best episode as the Eleven since his initial introduction. One scene, in particular, shows how dangerous and twisted that character is. The Doctor tries several desperate gambit, but the story's resolution really comes down to Liv and Helen.

The resolution is very clever. On one hand, it took me totally by surprise. On the other, I saw how the writers (particularly John Dorney) had been laying the groundwork for this from the first story, so it didn't come out of nowhere. One of the biggest surprises, The Red Lady , a story I thought was a brilliant Blink-like diversion, does actually tie in to the larger story, though we don't find out how until the final scene.

There's also more foreshadowing of the decisions the Doctor would make during the Time War thrown in for good measure. Overall, Doom Coalition has been a superb run of stories. Big Finish has produced one of the truly epic Doctor Who tales.

This story finds the Doctor, Helen, and Liv in New York where Cardinal Olistra (Carolyn Pickles) has teamed up with the Monk on a plan to save the survivors of Gallifrey while doing nothing to save the rest of the Universe. In addition, the Weeping Angels are involved and before you know it, the Eleven comes to call.

This story is one of Matt Fitton's best. This is the type of set up that has often gone awry both on television and in Big Finish where massive big ideas overflow with too many concepts and too many plot points and not enough time to explore them. This story manages to keep everything in place and we get a deep well-structured hour that does so much.

Big Finish continues to make great use of the Weeping Angels over audio, really making them terrifying in ways you never expect to work. Rufus Hound is superb as the Monk and embodies that character's worse instincts: his willingness to meddle unthinkingly, refuse to take responsibility, and do whatever it takes to save is own skin.

The story doesn't require a massive knowledge of Big Finish outside of the previous Doom Coalition box sets, but there are Easter Eggs for those who do. For example, longtime Eighth Doctor Adventures listeners know the exact reason for the tension between the Monk and te Doctor, even though the Monk doesn't. In addition, there's a nice foreshadowing of the Time War.

My biggest complaint is the Deputy Mayor who has one of the worst American Accents featured in Big Finish since Invasion from Mars and her speech at the start of the episode takes too long and doesn't ring true. Still, it turns into an after thought, in otherwise magnificent episode.

This was a necessary chapter as we see how Padrac seizes power and River survives by pretending to switch sides. Throughout most of the story, the Doctor is absent and the story does just enough to hold a listener's interest. The story is necessary, but much of what happens throughout the bulk of the story is the type of thing you would expect. The story also has an odd dynamic with Helen and Liv are practically dragged along like toys to reuniting with the main plot.

Where the story does get far better is in the final 5-10 minutes with River's last scene in the story and the return of the Eleven. Those final few minutes are tremendous and raise the level of the entire story as well as set our expectations for big things to come in the final half of the box set.

The story begins with a solid character-driven piece that finds the Doctor, Liv, and Helen trapped in a life boat in the vortex sailing to the end of time. It's a good story that focuses on who this TARDIS crew is. Doom Coalition 3 also started with a more character driven story in, "Absent Friends," and what works with starting a box set with that when you're invested in the characters is that you can take an episode to explore the characters without feeling like the narrative is being interrupted.

The story gives the characters space to work out issues that have been coming up throughout the entire series, most notably in the last box set. This story works and each actor carries their weight, although I think Nicola Walker delivers the strongest performance of them all.

The story's biggest problem is that the stakes are so high in this that the conversations about giving up and acceptance really don't come off as believable. It's hard to buy that any of them would accept floating through space until they get sweet oblivion at the end of time. Still, other than that, it's a solid exploration of a very good TARDIS crew.