The Last Adventure is the special release which gives Colin
Baker the send off that he deserves. The unceremonious way in which he was
dumped is not the way that any actor in the role should be treated. If anyone
was going to give him the send off that he deserves then Big Finish was going
to be the one to do it. There was a slight problem before I even started to
press play on my generic MP3 player. The audiobook version of the download is
in one block which is four hours and eight minutes which is a long track and
with my mp3 player it cant do what an ipod can do and pick up where you left
off if you want to play a different track so I have to remember where I was
before I can even start. They did this stunt with the latest New Adventures of Bernice
Summerfield and its one that I hope they stop soon.
Anyway back to the first part of this series which is called
The End of the Line and is the debut of Constance Clarke who is going to make
her debut in the main range in September but this its hard to imagine that her
debut would have been better in that story. I have to say that this was a truly
superb start to the boxset because its atmospheric and also all the
performances are perfect. I like how the Master is bought into this story but
writers Simon Barnard & Paul Morris have come up with a genius way of
getting around the fact that Anthony Ainley isn’t alive and that is by saying
that Keith Potter is an avatar that the Master has created because his plan is
so dangerous.
I also loved the fact that the Master went with such as
normal name as Keith Potter because it’s not the sort of name that he would
have gone for because he normally would have gone for something that had a tie
in with Master so it was a surprise really. The appearance of the Valeyard at
the end of the piece ended it on a really strong note and it immediately
increased the tension. Even though he has a little speech, Michael Jayston came
close to stealing the show. That is how good he is. I was slightly distracted
by Anthony Howell because I am so use to hearing him in The Avengers and he
uses exactly the same voice but does actually give a different performance as
Tim Hope.
Colin Baker seems to be in a new stride. It almost becomes
boring to write that he doesn’t give a terrible performance. However he seems
to be better than normal and I think that he is just enjoying himself and it
almost sounds like he is stress free (despite whats going on). Miranda Raison
is perfect casting as Constance. I love how it seems like it feels they have
been together for years even though this is their first outing. Its difficult
to pin down exactly what it is about the character that I like but there is
something and both Baker and Raison are going to make a good combination in the
main range.
The opening story of this boxset had to hit the ground
running and it does it very well indeed. By the end of this story I was glad
that I had bought it and was looking forward to carrying on with the rest of
it. I just wish that they hadn’t put it all in one release.
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