The Time Machine.

1 episode, approx. 69 minutes.  Written by: Matt Fitton.  Directed by: John Ainsworth.  Produced by: John Ainsworth.  Performed by: Jenna Coleman, Michael Cochrane, Nicholas Briggs.

THE PLOT

"It was Saturday, 23rd of November 2013 - The day the human race discovered time travel..."

Alice Watson is an Oxford graduate student assisting Professor Chivers (Michael Cochrane) with the assembly of his greatest scientific achievement: A working time machine. But this is not the culmination of decades of research and experimentation. Instead, Chivers is assembling it piece by piece, following the intructions of a future version of himself who is sending the pieces back to him. Now the machine is complete... Which is when the Doctor arrives.

The Doctor knows something is very wrong, and as soon as he meets with Chivers he recognizes what it is. The time machine is not a new scientific breakthrough - It's a method of invasion. The Creevix, an insect-like species from another universe, are using the paradox created by the time machine to break through. They insist that the deed is already done, that their mastery of time is such that they already know every step the Doctor will take to try to stop them. But that won't stop the Doctor from making the attempt.

Except that his attempt that may well be the very deed that allows the Creevix access to our universe!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Reader Jenna Coleman does a terrific job conveying Matt Smith's vocal tics and mannerisms. This Doctor is a blur of constant motion, seemingly unable to remain still. Until he suddenly does stop, which makes the moments of stillness that much more effective for the contrast. A moment I particularly enjoyed comes near the very end, when a character who encountered the First Doctor in 1963 asks after Susan. The Doctor sidesteps the question, his evasiveness saying more than any direct statement could have done.

Alice: The one-shot companion for this story, a young woman who has deliberately shut out the world in favor of science. She doesn't appreciate fiction, and catches none of the allusions the Doctor drops to either popular culture or literature, not even the Alice in Wonderland references that she must surely have heard a thousand times while growing up. She is loyal to Professor Chivers - But from the instant she sees the Creevix and recognizes that the Doctor is telling the truth, she assists this virtual stranger without question, including some very critical help at the story's climax.


THOUGHTS

The Time Machine concludes the Big Finish/AudioGo Destiny of the Doctor series, and it does so in a suitably fast-paced and entertaining fashion. Like most of this range, the story very much captures the feel of its era. The Eleventh Doctor's characerization is spot-on, as is the structure of the story: Beginning in the middle of the action, with a Doctor who already knows much of what's going on, with a pace that barely pauses for breath.

As a story unto itself, this is a fairly standard alien invasion plotline with an effective twist in that the aliens are coming from another universe to completely devour ours, like locusts descending on a field of crops. This could have created a rather good horror story, if the narrative was willing to slow down to allow more build-up and if the story was willing to have at least one or two gruesome moments. Unfortunately, the Creevix are too generic to be particularly interesting, there are no particularly vivid moments, and these villains just never feel as formidable as both the story and the Doctor insist they are.

The ending binds together bits of all the previous Destiny of the Doctor stories, in a way that's possibly a little too much like many of Steven Moffat's payoff episodes: It's admittedly clever, but also a touch hollow. In a way, The Time Machine's greatest downfall is that it may be just a bit too much like the era it's replicating. The climax of the story basically consists of the Doctor smugly informing the Creevix that he rewrote some aspect or another of history - Like The Curse of Fatal Death, only played straight. It works as far as it goes... But anyone hoping for some more meaningful connection among the stories of this range is likely to come away disappointed.

I will say that The Time Machine moves along quickly, and benefits from a terrific reading by Jenna Coleman. But in the end, it just doesn't add up to much, with one of the weakest standalone plots of the Destiny of the Doctor range. As an individual story, it's OK, though no more than that; as a grand finale to an overall pretty solid Doctor Who range, it's a disappointment.


Overall Rating: 5/10.

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