Doctor Who: Destroy the Infinite

When recurring Big Finish foe The Eminence first appeared in The Seeds of War, it was clear that the Doctor had fought it once before. Here, we see that first encounter, making this a prequel of sorts - although, apparently, it was written and recorded first, and so only became such through the vagaries of the publication order.

The first half of the story ‘introduces' us to The Eminence, before the Doctor and Leela arrive on a scarred colony world under its tyrannical rule. They become involved with the resistance, but this is largely scene-setting, in a manner that might be more typical of a 4-part than a 2-part story. In the second half, things open up into a space opera, as the Eminence's flagship takes on the might of the Earth Alliance fleet. While the first half, therefore, feels quite like the sort of thing we got on TV in the 4th Doctor's run, the second is more '70s Star Wars than '70s Who.

While The Eminence is an effective villain, and the space opera elements work well enough, the story is, at times, a little lacking in tension. It isn't even really that we know the enemy has to survive to appear in further stories, because the focus is successfully held on the immediate threat, rather than the bigger picture. It's more that there's never really any doubt of how the Doctor is going to defeat it this time round (and Leela more or less keeps reminding us of that fact). If anything, Leela is the more proactive of the two in the second half, and it's her half of the story that's the more interesting one, once again giving her a key role to play in the resolution.

While it wasn't a problem for me personally, the biggest issue many people are likely to have with this story is the open ending. It feels like we're being set up for an epic story arc - and of course, that's because we are, but it's an arc that's followed up in the 6th and 8th Doctor stories, not here. So, those who listen only, or primarily, to the 4th Doctor line will get a set-up with no pay-off. For those of us who listen to the other two series The Eminence appears in, this is a decent, but unremarkable, prequel story.