The Death of Captain Jack

"First rule of snogging: always check for a hidden weapon."

Writer: David Llewellyn

Format: Audio

Released: April 2018

Series: Torchwood Monthly 19

Featuring: Captain Jack

Synopsis

Captain Jack is finally dying, and it's time for his oldest friend to visit his deathbed. King John has come to tell him a story. The story of the life he should have had.

It's the story of Alexander the Great, sinking ships, falling empires, robot dinosaurs, and alien invasions. It's a story of love, royal weddings, murder, mass murder, genocide, and very tight trousers.

It's the story of the life of Captain John and it's the story of Torchwood. Be careful what you wish for.

Verdict

The Death of Captain Jack was a very fun continuation of the Torchwood monthly releases from Big Finish! I'm a huge fan of Captain John Hart as a villain alongside Captain Jack and getting more content from this delightful enemy is always welcomed. I liked how despite the title this story was more about John than Jack and essentially it was a story of gloating about everything he had done after changing the past and going against the fixed points in time. He basically defied every Law of Time and what I assume would be Time Agency rule, so much so that even the fixed point of Captain Jack was dying. I thought that was an excellent concept. I must admit that I thought there was too much jumping around in time, and I actually feel that you could have gotten an entire boxset out of this idea rather than just an hour-long adventure. There was so much potential there for exploration with Jack and John getting down and dirty with Alexander the Great, John running around as the King, taking on a senior role under Queen Victoria and then convincing Gwen to jump into bed with him before killing Rhys! There really was an incredible amount of stuff going on, and John absolutely revelled in the chaos he had caused. I thought the cameos were very good and a mini celebration of Torchwood with Yvonne and Ianto even getting on in the action but not exactly lasting long. Torchwood One was wiped out. The incorporation of Children of Earth and Miracle Day was so much fun with John not being too bothered by the request for 10% of the world's children and actually seeing if they had any specifics when it came to nationality! The comments about the less being said about the Blessing were amusing too. I thought Andy's cameo was great and the local knowledge of Cardiff was utilised very well here. John wasn't bothered by a Blowfish being around and his analogy to a bear running around Cardiff was fun. He wanted the club bombed and any hostages would go with it just for going to that kind of institution. John was quite the leader of Torchwood! I thought the history between Jack and John getting explored was brilliant and the former leaving the latter to drown on the Titanic without his vortex manipulator was pretty dark I thought, so it was a nice touch when Jack knew all along what John would do with his backup bracelet and where that would take him. After all these years, some 130 of them, Jack had been playing a long game just to take something from John that he so dearly loved. A world where he was King, and now Jack would die and take it all away. That's an incredible concept really and the privilege of immortality to go all that time knowing what was to come. John's reaction was excellent and it really did have a Doctor versus Master feel with Jack getting the upper hand in the end, and always heading that way. One other event incorporated that was a lot of fun was the Roswell explanation and Norton's appearance. He'd planned the whole thing because he was bored. There really was nothing out of bounds here and whilst there was so much going on, it was just a great deal of fun. Overall, a fun adventure! 

Rating: 8/10