Dying Hours: The Crowd

"The Doctor isn't for hire."

Writer: Lizzie Hopley

Format: Audio

Released: September 2023

Series: BF Doom's Day 1.04

Featuring: Eighth Doctor, Charley, Doom

Synopsis

"Follow the crowd", that's what they say, right? In this case, however, devastation, murder and destruction follow this particular Crowd – Doom's next target. But amongst them – an unfamiliar face, with a familiar name. Could this be Doom's salvation?

Verdict

The Crowd was an excellent episode to conclude the Dying Hours contribution to Doom’s Day from Big Finish! It does feel weird that after the journey we have been on with Doom that things are going to end in an online text story, but for now this was a fine finale to the performed adventures and it was lovely to hear her in full alongside an incarnation of the Doctor. She was a little saddened to find yet another face of the Doctor’s that wasn’t the ‘old guy’ she was looking for, but he’d remembered her from his first incarnation which was quite fun. Throughout the episode he’d known all along that he was going to help her because he remembered meeting her again at New Venice which was rather amusing. I thought Paul McGann was great as the Eighth Doctor and having him around medieval England hunting the Crowd was excellent. It was wonderful to hear him paired up again with Charley as that was a dream team in the Monthly Adventures so any excuse to revisit them is all good in my book! The relationship between Doom and Charley was sublime and I loved how they battled verbally. It was quite the mouth off! There was a lot of conflict concerning Doom from where Charley stood and that all centred on her being an assassin. Exploring morals here was fun and Charley wasn’t overly impressed by the Doctor’s actions in saving the life of an assassin. The Doctor didn’t exactly get on with Doom either and that’s certainly because of her profession with him not having kind things to say about the Lesser Order of Oberon. Getting an extended time with Terri on the phone was amusing and she wasn’t too impressed about going beyond her jump handler duties. Doom’s reaction when she realised the Doctor was present was excellent and I was impressed with how well her desperation was presented in this episode. Sure, she was quick to start carrying out her mission of assassinating the Crowd but she really knew time was running out now and needed to get back to the First Doctor. It was also really good to link the Crowd with death following Doom. That’s a theme that hasn’t been explored for quite a few hours now so it was fitting that it returned here. She was genuinely frightened by them associating her with death and knew it wasn’t far behind her. I thought the concept of the Crowd was terrific with them being a people drawn to tragedy and they’d exploited so much now that they needed to create their own. That was fantastic and the Doctor and Charley being on hand to track and stop them was great. Their nicknames for certain members was also a nice touch. Doom not wasting any time in killing seven of the twenty on her list was good and we finally saw her in full assassin action. That was overdue on this scale considering the reputation she possessed. I liked how things ended with the Doctor going to take her to her past incarnation to see if she will survive, and Doom having drawn the Crowd into their own explosion was a very neat way to make her mission a success! Overall, a fine finale to what was on a whole a really fun boxset. I look forward to reading how this saga concludes. 

Rating: 9/10