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Reviews for The Lost Stories: Crime of the Century

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One loves oddball stories.

By:Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom
Date:Friday 17 June 2011
Rating:   10

Raine Creevy is a brilliant character and Beth Chalmers is the perfect choice to play her. Shes got just the right kind of voice for the safe cracking individual.

The first excellent idea here is having her break into a house to steal jewels from the safe, only to find Doc Who squatting down inside it. This is a very good idea and is pretty funny too.

The plot twists here are also not predictable, which is always such a brilliant thing. One can get tired of the same plot elements all of the time. That it should turn out that the stuff Raine has nicked is her Dad's is a neat little twist for a start.

The Metatraxi too are a brilliant creation. Wonderfully comedic stuff with their broken translator makes for a pitch perfect funny ha ha moment amidst the far more serious elements of the story. John Banks is so wonderfully camp as the leader of the Metatraxi.

Sylvester McCoy is good as the Doctor who thinks he's got a foolproof masterplan, but as usual it goes rather vastly wrong. And the death of the Prince near episode threes ending is very shocking and a real piece of horror in this sci fi gem.

All the characters here are well rounded and get a decent amount of stuff to do all throughout the story. one is lamenting the fact that these stories were never done on the screen when the series got cancelled. Sylv at last gets the chance to return to his brilliantly different persona that he first brought to life so well on the screen all those years ago.

One loves the banter between Ace and Raine towards the end of this story. Sophie Aldred is just as brilliant and dependably strong and mouthy as ever. She always will be a firm favourite of mine amidst the world of companions.

The plot of this story is also not simple either, one has to really listen to keep up with all the happenings along the way up until the exceptionally good climax. Andrew Cartmel really did well with his earlier Winter For The Adept, and to hear his tales originally intended for the screen is brilliant. And its even more good when the story is as good as Crime of the Century.

Im really looking forward to seeing what happens when the next lost sory comes along in the shape of Animal.

This story captures all the spice of the seventh doctors TV era, the Doc is more mysterious and manipulative but at the same time still as moral and excellent of fibre as he ever was. One loves this excellent slant to the character that had long not been all that present in the series. Its gets you thinking wether you really know the Doctor at all.

So this story has it all, comedy, action, plenty of bangs and flashes. Great dialogue and not too long episodes. What could more ask of a Doctor Who story? I hope their are far more like this great tale in the future from big finish. They dont half know how to make brillliant stories these guys. Its great, given the fact that the TV series now is so largely klamentably moronic and dull and uninspiring to say the least. This comes from the period where Doctor Who was the best programme on TV, and this story fits in their like a piece of the jigsaw.

Well done Andrew, a brilliant story.



Fun but a little cheese on top

By:Clive T Wright, St Lawrence, United Kingdom
Date:Thursday 30 June 2011
Rating:   8

This is a fun, light hearted romp, introducing a new companion, continuing the sub plot and taking us somewhere new.

Some of the dialog is a little weak and at times the story feels just too easy.

This is a good story but the voice box and insect scenes are funny.



Thin Story

By:David Layton, Los Angeles, United States
Date:Saturday 25 April 2015
Rating:   6

"Crime of the Century" was to be part of the 1990 series that got cancelled, introducing the new companion Raine and setting up the departure of Ace. The original writer was likely to be Ben Aaronovitch. The audio version is taken on completely by Andrew Cartmel, who has taken the few kernels of ideas he and Aaronovitch worked on and turned out the script he might like to have done, given the time and money. Thus, "Crime of the Century" has a very large scope, going from England to central Asia and then to Scotland, splitting the Doctor and Ace for 2 1/2 episodes, and including some party-goers, a downtrodden crime boss, some Russian soldiers, a central Asian sword-fighting prince, a race of mercenary beetles, some killer robots, and mysterious alien technology. It's the kind of throw-everything-into-the-bucket-and-shake story that spreads out its ideas too thinly. There are plenty of fun bits, and Ace comes through as a strong character in this one, much more confident than in the TV series. There is a part of the story that is a bit disturbing, at least to me. It is that the Doctor is more manipulative than I have encountered in any other story. This Doctor concocts an elaborate plan but gets other people to act the plan in very dangerous circumstances, while he himself never actually steps in. He simply says, "you do it," and they do it. This is a bit different from the TV series, where the Doctor manipulated Ace to face her fears, in essence to grow up, as in "Ghost Light" and "Curse of Fenric," or when the Doctor tried to manipulate Ace out of danger, as in "Remembrance of the Daleks" and "Battlefield." Putting others into dangers that he himself won't face just seems ethically contrary to the Doctor as we know the character. So, credit goes to Cartmel for using the radio medium to its full potential. The story would have broken the budget to produce for TV. However, some problematic areas reduce the overall quality.



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