Crime of the Century

Lost Stories #2.4

Released: 18 May 2011

Listened: 11/16/20

This story continues from the previous, and includes several of the same characters, although a lot of time has passed for some of them. It’s also the introduction of Raine Creevy, played by Big Finish stalwart Beth Chalmers, who was intended to take over as the companion, but in this version of the story, Ace is still around. The scene in which Raine is introduced, cracking a safe, is first-rate, and really sets the tone for the story. The Doctor has his “mysterious” act cranked up to 11, but Raine and Markus are enough in awe of him to let him get away with it. Ace certainly wouldn’t, but true to the Doctor’s promise from last story, she’s off in her own plot, infiltrating a group of freedom fighters in a Balkan country (it is 1990, after all). It’s an Andrew Cartmel script, the first time he’d written a complete script himself, and it’s rather all over the place, with many different locations and disjointed scenes, a lot of maneuvering going on in the background that the listener needs to keep track of. And he gets to introduce the Metatraxi, who he clearly has a fondness for. But the character of Raine comes through quite strong, especially at the beginning. Also somewhat at the end, when she and Ace have a rivalry that seems a bit sudden, but Sophie Aldred and Beth Chalmers are having a lot of fun with it. It’s not the strongest story plot-wise, but it may be from a character perspective.