Once and Future: Time Lord Immemorial

"Once upon a Gallifrey."

Writer: Lisa McMullin

Format: Audio

Released: October 2023

Series: Once and Future 06

Featuring: Ninth Doctor, Unbound Doctor, Liv

Synopsis

Slipping between bodies, the Ninth Doctor finds his TARDIS caught between universes as the cosmos starts to break down. A Doctor from another reality arrives and they join forces with Liv Chenka and the Lumiat to find the cause. Someone has desecrated the mythical Hall of the Time Lord Immemorial, where the sands of time from the multiverse are held. And those sands are running out...

Verdict

Time Lord Immemorial was another fun adventure to continue my way through the Once and Future sixtieth anniversary celebration from Big Finish! I’ve seen the series getting a lot of negative reviews on social media with a number of fans not entirely sure what’s going on. But I think that mystery is actually part of its charm. It’s not taking itself too seriously and I quite like that. Sure, it’s been a bit shaky in places and not making a whole lot of sense. The order also seems a little odd with the degeneration going around in all sorts of circles and giving us incarnations from the Doctor from all sorts of places and times, but it’s giving us some really fun pairings! The concept of the Ninth Doctor encountering the Unbound Doctor is brilliant and I quite liked how these two darker Doctors gelled. They had good chemistry and you could obviously tell that Christopher Eccleston was excited to be working with David Warner. It’s such a shame that this is a posthumous release for the Unbound Doctor but it’s a fitting way for him to have a send off. He should be celebrated too. The moment the two Doctors interact for the first time as their TARDISes almost merge with one materialising inside the other was a lot of fun and some humorous conversation about the TARDIS interior theme was much welcomed. Neither recognising the other as a past incarnation was good and that revealed to them that they were from different universes. I thought it was perhaps slightly too much to suggest that the universe was degenerating too, but the idea of a crossover point was good and could have helped the Unbound Doctor during the events of Ruler of the Universe in the New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield. As if these two Doctors meeting wasn’t enough, we also had an unlikely pairing of Liv Chenka and the Lumiat. This technically does give us an unlikely meeting of the Ninth Doctor and the Master, but it’s an incredibly unique one! I thought Liv did get a little lost in the shuffle and it’s a shame we’ve already heard alongside the Ninth Doctor back in Flatpack, but the Lumiat was a welcomed addition. The concept of everything that’s good in the Master being in one incarnation is good fun and the Doctor just not believing that was a nice touch. Why would he? She was fun though and the quirks of Missy being there were very much felt in the performance. I thought the titular Time Lord Immemorial was very good and definitely has potential for future exploration even with its mythical status. I’m not really sure how it differed from the Matrix, but the Doctor seeing events of past and future from Axos to the Nethersphere was tremendous. It did feel a little like filler towards the end as the Lumiat was able to reveal to the Doctor more about the Union and how it might cure his degeneration, so I am looking forward to hearing how things play out in the next episode in the anniversary month. I hope it’s explosive! The Doctor getting a message from Susan at the ends sets us up nicely as involving the Doctor’s family is a pretty big deal. The Unbound Doctor returned back to his own universe in perhaps calmer circumstances than might have been better, but it was lovely to have him whilst we did. Overall, just another fun outing that brought us an unlikely and very whacky combination! A worthy listen. 

Rating: 8/10