Captain Jack Harkness – time-travelling con-man, saviour of the Earth, and intergalactic adventurer. He has lived many lives. Here are three more of them.
2.1 Piece of Mind by James Goss
When the Sixth Doctor falls dying into his arms, Jack must carry on in his place. Is the universe ready for a whole new kind of Doctor?
2.2 What Have I Done? by Guy Adams
On the battlefields of World War I, something is hunting in the trenches. Jack must try and save the life of a wounded soldier.
2.3 Driving Miss Wells by James Goss
Alien invasions, stolen planets and burning skies – Newsreader Trinity Wells used to tell everyone the world was ending. One day she stopped believing it. Will her new chauffeur change her mind?
THE LIVES OF CAPTAIN JACK: PIECE OF MIND
The second volume of The Lives of Captain Jack kicks off with a bang: the sixth Doctor falls dying from the TARDIS into Jack’s arms, seemingly about to regenerate, and Jack must slip on the Doctor’s coat and resolve the situation that got the Doctor “killed” in the first place. It’s “Piece of Mind,” by James Goss, and it’s fantastic. Jack absorbs the Doctor’s regenerative energy, which he can do because he cannot die, and continues the adventure while the Doctor recuperates in the TARDIS. From there, we get what we never knew we needed: an utter farce featuring Jack doing an outlandish impression of the Doctor and attempting to save the day. It’s hilarious, and John Barrowman’s comically over the top performance had me laughing out loud on multiple occasions. It’s also a character piece that draws sharp lines between the Doctor and Jack: when things get desperate, Jack resorts to very un-Doctor-ish methods like gunfire and sex. He’s also careless, coming up with a seemingly flawless plan to save the day that ends up making things significantly worse because he didn’t have enough knowledge beforehand. And all of this sets up the conclusion, when the Doctor, back in good health, swoops into action as “Captain Jack Harkness” and saves the day. Barrowman’s “Doctor” accent is amusingly all over the map, while Colin Baker adopts a ridiculous Colonel Sanders accent that sounds absolutely nothing like Jack but still makes me laugh. The ending is pure fanservice but still delights, with Baker apologizing preemptively for Eccleston abandoning Jack, and dismissing the obvious continuity problems with a handwave. “Piece of Mind” is excellent. It’s thin as tissue paper, sure, but that’s okay – I could listen to Barrowman and Baker play off each other all day. What a great start to the set.
9/10
THE LIVES OF CAPTAIN JACK: WHAT HAVE I DONE?
“What Have I Done?” by Guy Adams is a very simple story: in World War I, in the wake of Gallipoli, Jack finds a wounded Ottoman soldier in no-man’s-land and tries to bring him to safety, all while a strange monster stalks them by their fears. It’s a two-handed character piece dedicated almost entirely to Jack, Ata (Atilla Akinci), and their relationship. Adams really captures the horrors of World War I, and the creature provides a window into the characters’ psychology. John Barrowman is utterly fantastic – this is probably his best audio performance – and he shows us parts of Jack’s character that we’ve never seen before. For example, we learn that Jack is terrified of death, because he knows exactly what death is like, and when he dies he never knows if that’ll be the time he doesn’t come back. Ata carries a lot of guilt over his relationship with his brother, and tries to reject Jack’s help because he doesn’t want even more guilt on his conscience. The ending is particularly bleak for this reason, because we know that Jack always comes back but Ata has no idea. There’s not much to discuss with a story like this, but it’s one of the best forms a drama can take: throw two characters together in stressful circumstances and watch how they interact. I don’t know if it’s the Torchwood influence or what but this is turning into a stunningly good box set.
9/10
THE LIVES OF CAPTAIN JACK: DRIVING MISS WELLS
The final story in this box set is “Driving Miss Wells,” by James Goss, and unlike the first two installments it feels significantly less important. Trinity Wells (Lachele Carl reprising her TV role) has published a book in which she claims that the various world-shaping events of the RTD era were simply examples of mass hallucination, and that aliens are not real. Given the scale of these events, people are hesitant to accept this idea, and the story follows her on a UK book tour. She’s been hired by a media conglomerate to head up their “real news” broadcasts, even though there’s something unusual going on behind the scenes. And she has a new chauffeur: Jack Harkness. The story is simple, following Trinity and Jack from place to place as she denies alien involvement and Jack tries to convince her otherwise. Trinity is also having visions of alien flies infesting various people – but are these visions real or are they paranoid hallucinations? The story doesn’t answer this question until the very end, lending it an oppressive, suspenseful feeling. But there’s not much meat on these particular bones, as we don’t learn much about Trinity outside of a thinly-sketched relationship with her mother, and Jack is working undercover for Torchwood at a time in his life we’ve seen a great deal. It’s basically a forgettable Torchwood story, in other words, but at least for Big Finish a forgettable Torchwood story is still a decent Torchwood story. It’s a shame that the set doesn’t feature three brilliant stories, but it’s entirely worth it for the first two alone and “Driving Miss Wells” is a good palate cleanser.
6/10