Dying Hours: The Howling Wolves of Xan-Phear

"Tonight I feast with my ancestors."

Writer: Simon Clark

Format: Audio

Released: September 2023

Series: BF Doom's Day 1.03

Featuring: Doom

Synopsis

A warring world of wolves. Doom's target turns out to be the puppeteer of the warring Xan: a Silent. But what if she's already completed her mission? How will she know? What if this wasn't even her mission in the first place? No time to waste. The countdown is on.

Verdict

The Howling Wolves of Xan-Phear was a little bit of a lacklustre continuation of the Dying Hours contribution to Doom’s Day from Big Finish. For whatever reason, this episode felt like it was never really going to reach much above being average which is a shame because the first two episodes were a lot of fun! I was excited by the concept of Doom encountering the Silence, but it never fully lived up to my expectations sadly. The Silence didn’t even sound like their television counterparts that we saw during the Eleventh Doctor which didn’t feel right and I get that they could be different members of the house or order, but it would have been good to stick to what we know in my opinion. I thought given that this was hour 22 in Doom’s search to find the Doctor she would have been more focused on that. She barely mentioned him until time was running out and even then her concern was the mission of assassination instead of the Doctor. Even with a reputation like hers and credits to earn, surely with only a couple of hours left to love you would be consumed by finding the one person who can save you? I’m not sure, it just didn’t feel like her priorities were right and there was no urgency for the one thing that mattered to her. Hearing the TARDIS in the echoes was exciting as I thought we would get a meeting with a Doctor, but it was just quickly forgotten about which was a shame. I quite liked the concept of the howling of the Wolves and their ability to manipulate and even cancel out sound was very good. I was less a fan of the Melch as their enemies on the war zone as they just sounded a little ridiculous. It’s an awful name. Throwing Doom into a war zone was fine and I did enjoy the action that came from it. She felt right at home and could show off some of her techniques, but I just wasn’t given enough of a reason to care about the fight. I wasn’t bothered by either party and the only interest for me was in Doom and the Silence. I liked that Doom finally made the connection between the Silence and the Doctor, and referencing the Series 6 arc of the Doctor answering the oldest question and that putting them to rest was good but it came too late. Her conversation with the Silence about the Doctor was decent and I liked that they saw that Doom’s destiny was intertwined with that of the Time Lord. That’s a good hint to what might come in the saga’s final two hours and I am intrigued to see how things finish as there doesn’t seem to be any sudden urgency at the moment. Terri was quite humorous in how unhelpful she was for Doom in locating her target as well as her reaction to the assassin not being massively happy with the Silence being wiped from memory when you looked away. How would she know when her mission was complete? That was fun to play with and probably more could have been made of that. I liked how she used her monocle to show Jeppra that one had died and what they looked like. The Silence controlling the war was good and I liked how Doom exposed that and ensured her mission was completed. And now all signs lead towards medieval England for an explosive finale! Overall, sadly the worst of the series so far but it was still good to have the Silence return. 

Rating: 6/10