Her Final Flight

"Bring forth the flames of Sohelai."

Writer: Julian Shortman

Format: Audio

Released: December 2004

Series: Subscriber Exclusive 02

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, Peri

Synopsis 

When the Doctor lands on Refiloe, he's not impressed.

In fact, he doesn't intend to stay for more than just a few minutes.

But someone has decided that the TARDIS has made her final flight.

Someone whose future depends on the Doctor's death.

Verdict 

Her Final Flight was a very good audio adventure! Coming as a bonus alongside the lengthy The Next Life which concluded the Divergent Universe story arc involving the Eighth Doctor, this story was of a much shorter length and was a solitary audio rather than being a part of an overlapping story arc. As fate would have it, listening to this story came at an interesting point in my Doctor Who timeline after listening to Peri and the Piscon Paradox just a few days ago. The Sixth Doctot was initially travelling alone and although that technically remained the same throughout the story, we did see him alongside a manifestation of an older Peri. I do wonder if this Peri was one of the five versions mentioned by the Time Lord in the aforementioned Companion Chronicle. It would certainly make sense and the audios wouldn't contradict each other at all which is terrific. That didn't really happen here, other than the mention of Peri trying to get back to Earth after the way she was left on Thoros-Beta in The Trial of a Time Lord. We saw a lot of the softer side of the Sixth Doctor in this audio which was good and I think I stand by some of my previous comments in saying that Colin Baker is my favourite Doctor on audio. He really is just wonderful and we get to hear so much more of his incarnation. He's just superb and the emotion he put into this performance was excellent. He couldn't lose Peri again and although he wasn't to know she was just a manifestation, the desire he had to save was commendable. I have known of this audio for quite some time and the title has always intrigued me. The CD cover seems to point towards it referring to the TARDIS and that has always had my interest. It's taken me quite a while to get to this audio but after finally getting here, I liked how they cleverly got around it not actually being the final flight for the TARDIS. It obviously couldn't have been but there's always that element of doubt once you're enthralled in a story. Time can be rewritten as they say. Rashaa was a very good character and I enjoyed the way she was toying with the Doctor and manipulating him. She in turn was made a fool of in front of the Agent which cost Rashaa her life but whilst the Doctor's mind, or part of it at least, was open to her she enjoyed seeing how the Doctor reacted to what she presented. I really liked Damus as he was a likeable character and Hamiyun was pretty good too. I thought Refiloe was a great setting and the description of the surroundings was fantastic. Nicola Bryant was as wonderful as always and I loved the notable change in her performance in playing an older version of her infamous character. I imagine being older herself made things easier but I'm not convinced it was an easy task. I really liked her, although in saying that it's very rare that I ever don't. The Doctor was willing to sacrifice the TARDIS to put things right here and I must admit even I was surprised with how far he was willing to go. He was going to jettison the interior of his beloved ship to get rid of the source of time distortion that was so cruelly killing or healing people. The risk of allowing it to be maintained was too much so the Doctor would give up his most prized possession. The price for his freedom would be paid. Except, everything he was experiencing was not reality and the TARDIS didn't have a scratch on it. I suspected that was the case as it was pretty obvious but even when it was confirmed, I enjoyed the revelation. Overall, a very decent audio adventure!

Rating: 8/10