The Last Voyage [AUDIO/2010.1.7]

★★☆☆☆

  The Last Voyage is, perhaps, an amalgamation of everything I sometimes find dull about narrated Doctor Who audio stories: a lack of engaging sound design, a script that feels too condensed, and (very sometimes) an uneventful narrative. It is my belief that Dan Abnett tried to go for a focus on atmosphere, the creeping dread of an abstract enemy force, but it simply doesn't work when not only does it prop up very few times, its presence in the psychological and intellectual sense (i.e. their threat to our heroes) is almost nothing to speak of as well!

  I normally don't like saying this, because I think every creator has a right to make their work as long as they want and they probably had a very good reason for making something as long as it is... but The Last Voyage really didn't have to be two hours long. It could easily have been half its duration with just as much enjoyment it had for me; fact of the matter is, nothing much happens in this story at all and it's told in such a boring, run-of-the-mill way. While the concept of a transdimensional disaster causing people inside a galactic spaceship (Sugar would beg to differ, I know) to sync out of their proper places sounds like it would be at least fun in some places... it is simply not. There are quite a few fun adventures in the BBC Audio Originals, but this is evidently not one of them.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ  

  I do get thrills from David Tennant hopping from accent to accent, though. He's remarkably adept at them, from narrating with a Scots to portraying Sugar with American and playing his Doctor with the iconic Cockney.