The Last

"Maybe you haven't heard, I don't give in easily."

Writer: Gary Hopkins 

Format: Audio

Released: October 2004

Series: Main Range 62

Featuring: Eighth Doctor, Charley, C'rizz

Synopsis 

Trapped on a dying world, the Doctor and Charley come face-to-face with those responsible for the war to end all wars, while C'rizz tries to understand what has happened and learns the terrible truth.

Powerful forces are at work on Bortresoye that not even a nuclear holocaust can tame; natural forces that have excited the interest of Excelsior, the self-proclaimed saviour of her people.

With Charley immobilised and C'rizz left to battle against the elements with some of the victims of war, one final, desperate hope of escape presents itself to the travellers. 

But who will be the last to leave the planet? Who will have to stay behind? And will the Doctor, Charley and C'rizz live long enough to find out?

Verdict 

The Last was an absolutely sublime audio adventure! I was thoroughly delighted with this story and it was a real pleasure to be able to award my first perfect rating for a Main Range audio since The Chimes of Midnight! It's been far too long without the full marks score but to my surprise this was the only the sixth out of sixty-two stories that I have been able to rate in the 10/10 range. I've been very critical lately of the Eighth Doctor story arc in the Divergent Universe but this story was everything I wanted from it. Finally we had something that felt it didn't belong in our universe with the concept of life on the planet Bortresoye and with that came a superb story. I must have had a smile on my face throughout the audio because I could tell early on that I was going to enjoy what was to come. I was rather sceptical about the length of the story before listening as 2 hours 25 minutes seemed an awfully long time for a four-part story but where I had issues yesterday with Point of Entry, each of the parts didn't seem to be too long at all. All three cliffhangers were outstanding and made me want to listen to the next part right away which I always look for. We had a really strong villain in the shape of Excelsior and I liked how practically insane she was whilst maintaining the facade of normality. That was really impressive. She knew all about the devastation the nuclear bomb had caused but was seeming to simply ignore it. She was ruthless and obsessed and that made her a fantastic enemy. The Doctor admitted to hating her which is an extremely strong word for him to describe somebody as. That should give you an idea of how good she was in the part of the villain. Paul McGann gave another stellar performance as the Eighth Doctor and I think I still take for granted how lucky we are to have Big Finish providing us with performed stories with a Doctor we've only seen on television on two occasions. Of course there are comics and novels but they're not quite the same as performed adventures. I really loved the scene at the beginning of the story with the Kro'ka showing the Doctor memories from his past that he'd much rather forget. The first mention of Katarina immediately put a smile on my face and I loved the references to The Myth Makers and The Daleks' Master Plan that quickly followed. But once Adric was soon mentioned, along with a nice reference to Earthshock, we knew it was all a trick. These moments though foreshadowed events that were to come with the death of companions. Although they finished the story very much alive, both Charley and C'rizz met their end in this audio which was rather incredible. I never bought into the idea of Charley actually being dead but once C'rizz joined her in the afterlife I must admit I did find myself asking questions. I was wrong to of course and the Doctor ended up committing suicide to save them, but had they died in this story I would have been happy to accept the circumstances. I don't think it would have altered the rating at all but the moment the companions were heard alive really did put a smile on my face. I thought this was C'rizz's best story yet as companion which just consolidated that perfect rating. Voss and Tralfinial were quite humorous together which was great but I think the best relationship in the story was that of C'rizz and Requiem. The part two cliffhanger enhanced that and I liked how the latter was quite at home with accepting that he was dead. Landscar was perhaps the most interesting character though as he was filled with mystery throughout and it all became clear why at the climax. He was representing the planet and life could only begin again once the last life had ended. It was a pretty incredible concept and one I thoroughly enjoyed. The advancement of the story arc was really great as well and I think it's obvious that the TARDIS isn't going to be found in any of the Interzones. But Landscar revealing that Bortresoye was the planet on which the zones existed was most intriguing. I'm very interested to see where things go from here which is a good sign! Overall, a simply wonderful audio adventure with great characters, a fantastic plot and sublime cliffhangers!

Rating: 10/10