The Eminence has been introduced to us in The Seeds of War, Dark Eyes Two and will return in Dark Eyes Three but Destroy the Infinite brings about the long awaited story where The Doctor first encounters The Eminence. The Fourth Doctor Adventures (as mentioned in the previous review of Last of the Colophon) are meant to be nostalgic but this one breaks this idea completely. This does not feel like it came from 1977 at all. The space opera genre is a terribly underused genre in Doctor Who; I would not say there was a single space opera in the entire of the Tom Baker era (the only stories I can personally say are space operas to any extent are The Dalek's Master Plan, The Space Pirates, Frontier in Space, A Good Man Goes to War). This is why it is so strange, BUT that is no problem here as the story is excellent.
This story is really a story of two halves. The first half is the desperate struggle for survival, the resistance movements, the reign of the Eminence. The second half is a war story. In the extra features Nick Briggs (writer) talks about a series of war films which inspired the plot but he did not mention Star Wars at all - surely people could see the similarities between the small fighter ships attacking The Infinite here and the small fighter ships attacking The Death Star. The various references to war stories in here add a new layer of scope to the entire story.
This story feels epic, the scale of the adventure is huge - surprising for such a small cast. The writing, direction, performances and soundscape are responsible for this. The performances are strong all round and like what I am becoming accustomed to with these recent Fourth Doctor Adventures it ends with The Doctor giving a moral speech about victory and celebrations in a war. In the words of Captain America (Avengers Assemble) "When I woke up they told me that we won, they never said what we lost", such ideas are prominent in this memorable closing speech.
Overall a brilliant story. Big Finish have been excellent at developing brilliant new characters (Charley, Lucie, Klein...) but until very recently never developed a successful recurring villain - The Eminence is the great Big Finish alien that we have been waiting for!
9/10