Out of Time

"Someone sent me to kill myself."

Writer: James Goss

Format: Short Story

Released: October 2023

Series: Doom's Day 24

Featuring: First Doctor, Doom

Synopsis

Someone has sent literal Death after Doom. She can only outrun it for twenty-four hours. Unless she can find the Doctor. 

Her time is almost up...

Verdict

Out of Time was a strong conclusion to the Doom’s Day saga to help celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of Doctor Who! It’s not been a typical anniversary or celebratory story arc but I’ve really enjoyed it and I’m definitely glad to have covered nearly all of its bases! Unfortunately, I’m not one for the Doctor Who mobile games so I had to give those two hours in the longest day of Doom’s life a miss, but I liked the similarities here in the finale with how things started in Hour One way back when. That really does feel like a long time ago now and Doom has come a considerable way since then along with the listener/reader. We’ve spanned audios, comics and even a novel meeting numerous incarnations of the Doctor, but at long last Doom finally met be bb the correct one. And it was the first one. I liked how the description here left it in doubt which Doctor had first encountered Doom and the simplicity in which he was going to fix the situation of being chased by literal Death. Except, he knew that wasn’t possible and quickly passed off the truth. It was a Gatherer drawn by time anomalies and that’s exactly what Doom was. She was the reason why the TARDIS couldn’t depart and it was fun that the Doctor had a date with Susan, Ian and Barbara to see Mamma Mia! I’ll be damned, I can’t think of anything this incarnation of the Doctor might enjoy less! I’m not a fan of musicals and this one in particular is pretty terrible. I fell asleep watching the play on Broadway if that’s any indication of my distain. Utter rubbish. It was nice knowing the very first TARDIS team had a plan like that though. The revelation that Terri was the perpetrator and that she had tried to get Doom to execute herself was intriguing and I must admit not something I saw coming. It was fun and whilst she’d been sending Doom on mission after mission for an entire day, she’d been busy wiping out the Lesser Order of Oberon. All of them. The entire thing. She was the Grand Master now, but she didn’t last long. It was almost like the Doctor was expecting it and had planned the entire thing. He was making exceptions here when it came to condoning violence. His resolution for Doom actually shooting her past self was to then go and shoot her past self shooter. It was all very convoluted and timey-wimey but actually quite fun too! Doom’s reaction when she heard the suggestion from the Doctor was marvellous. And the Doctor’s response to her begging his pardon was perfect characterisation for the first incarnation. My only slight issue was the scale of the story to conclude a really lengthy saga celebration. It just doesn’t feel right that we finish things off with an online text story. There’s nothing wrong with it but it feels like this could have had a big impact, but instead it kind of goes away with a whimper. I didn’t even realise the story was released until I found myself scrolling through the official Doctor Who feed on Twitter. It’s a shame but I did enjoy the conclusion! It’s really nice that Doom gets to enjoy a new day now and one where she can rest again. I don’t think we’ll see her again anywhere as her story is kind of complete now, but it’s been fun whilst she was here! Overall, a good read and as a whole a celebration I’ve enjoyed despite some silly and needless fan backlash. 

Rating: 8/10