Destiny of the Doctor: The Complete Series Box Set

This, in fact, is the edition that I bought. However, I have reviewed each of the episodes under their own entries, to keep the length of this review down to something sane. But here, I summarise my thoughts on the series as a whole.

It consists of eleven hour-long episodes, each featuring a different Doctor. All of the stories bar the last one are standalone, each having just one brief scene that ties into the plot arc and all of which get tied together (rather hurriedly, to be honest) at the end. It isn't, strictly speaking, necessary to listen to the first ten in order, and you won't lose too much from the final episode even if you've skipped a few up to that point - although the First Doctor's story is particularly key to the surprise resolution.

Okay, so it's clear from my individual reviews that I mostly enjoyed the stories, and found that, by and large, each did a good job of reflecting their Doctor's era. Is it therefore, a good introduction to the first eight Doctors to those who have only seen the new series?

Well, it depends in part of what you think of the format. These are audiobooks, read in third person, but supplemented with sound effects, incidental music, and, for each episode, the relevant theme tune. It may be that, if you're a fan of regular audiobooks, you find the sound effects and music distracting and unnecessary. And, if you don't mind them, I suspect you'll probably prefer the regular audio plays, or even the “Chronicle” series (which use first person narration). The main down side of this series, I feel, is that the format falls between two camps and feels a bit odd as a result.

There's also the issue that not all the stories are as good as one might hope. Three and Six are a bit weak, Eight has a dodgy ending, and Ten feels a bit generic. (On the other hand, if you're a new series fan looking for an intro to earlier Doctors, Ten's episode is irrelevant for that, and Eight has nothing much on TV to introduce you to). Mostly, though, they are good, and even the weakest story, Six's, does at least reflect its TV era.

So, assuming you're okay with the format, I'd say it's not a bad introduction to the Doctors of the classic era. There are probably others that are better, for each Doctor individually, but this does have the advantage of being one whole thing that can be bought together.

And, to end on a positive note, in my opinion, the stories for Two and Nine are the best of the bunch, with Four not far behind. And, since they are (mostly) standalone, you could just try those.