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Project: Destiny kicks the door down, drags continuity in by the scruff of the neck, and demands you remember your homework from six years ago or get out.
When we last saw Hex, he’d been shot during the chaos of Skitari. Now it’s the terrifyingly futuristic year of 2026 and he’s bleeding out in a deserted London while the Seventh Doctor and Ace try to get him to St Gart’s Hospital. London, however, has other plans. It’s empty. Militarised. Crawling with insectoid alien horrors that spread through viral contagion like a biological middle finger to humanity.
And looming over all of it is The Forge.
Not cosy, tea-and-biscuits UNIT. No. This is The Forge. UNIT’s edgier, morally compromised mirror, now under the command of the ever-smirking Sir William Abberton. Spoiler: he has not discovered ethics in the interim. If anything, he’s doubled down.
This is not a jumping-on point. This is Big Finish lore at full throttle. Hex is the son of Cassie from Project: Lazarus. The Doctor’s failure to save her carved a permanent scar into his seventh incarnation’s soul, and adopting Hex was never entirely altruistic. That guilt is weaponised here. Nimrod – yes, that Nimrod – peels back the Doctor’s carefully constructed lie and hands Hex the truth like a live grenade.
If you haven’t been following the slow-burn Forge arc, this will feel like walking into the final season of a prestige drama halfway through episode nine. There is history. There are betrayals. There is baggage.
But my word, when it works, it works.
Episode one is almost horror. Abandoned London. Echoing streets. The creeping dread of something skittering just out of sight. Then it escalates into gunfire and quarantine zones and desperate attempts to contain a spreading alien infection. The insect creatures are nasty, efficient and genuinely unsettling. The Doctor, in peak manipulative chessmaster mode, makes the unthinkable decision to work with The Forge to develop a cure… and promptly becomes infected himself. Because of course he does.
Sylvester McCoy is magnificent. Cold, calculating, quietly furious. You can hear the weight of every compromise. Sophie Aldred gives Ace grit and emotional fire. And Philip Olivier’s Hex? This is his crucible. Betrayal lands hard. The revelation of his ties to The Forge is brutal and brilliantly staged.
Thematically, Project: Destiny is about consequences. The cost of manipulation. Institutional amorality versus individual conscience. The Doctor plays games with people’s lives and finally has to look at the damage. The Forge represents utilitarian extremism: survival at any cost. The Doctor claims to be better. This story asks if he really is.
And Nimrod? He is Machiavelli with a lab coat. Every smile hides a trapdoor.
Yes, it is dense. Yes, it demands investment. But it rewards it with scale, atmosphere and emotional gut punches. This is Big Finish firing on all cylinders, unashamedly building its own mythology and daring you to keep up.
Final Thoughts
Continuity-heavy, morally thorny, action-packed and emotionally savage. Not for newcomers, but for those who’ve done the miles, it’s a cracking payoff in the Forge saga.
4.5 out of 5 skittering alien contagion nightmares in a quarantined London.