The Lives of Captain Jack: Volume 3

This is, I believe the last of the Big Finish audios to feature John Barrowman as Captain Jack. It contains three separate stories about his life, each with a different tone and style but exploring, in different ways, his relationships with other characters. (Indeed, arguably, each of the stories is as much about them as it is about him). Although it wasn't planned that way, the exploration it makes of Jack is a worthy send-off for the character, assuming you're able to look past his actors' past behaviour.

Crush - A sort of sequel to the story ‘Wednesdays for Beginners' in volume one, this sees Jack taking Jackie Tyler on a space cruise, partly as a date and partly to show her some of what Rose is experiencing during her travels. Of course, it all goes horribly wrong, in this case because they end up on what's effectively a replacement bus service instead of a cruise. It's initially a comedy, but becomes more serious as the passengers are placed in increasing peril. In the end, it's more about Jackie than it is about the nominal star, exploring some of the regrets in her life and how she feels about Rose being away, with him serving mainly as the vehicle to get here there. As a result, while it's certainly no failure, it's perhaps the weakest story in the collection, a nice bit of filler with some good jokes at the beginning, but nothing more. 3.5 stars.

Mighty and Despair - This time we jump way into the future, seeing a Jack who is already elderly, some time between his last meeting the Doctor and becoming the Face of Boe. The story is told primarily from the perspective of two survivors of a crash that arrive on the planet he has gone into isolation on, but it ends up being a character study of all three. In fact, there is very little action, with the story mostly being about adapting to change and the nature of mortality. This makes it slow, but engaging, showing an older, much more reflective Jack than we normally see as well as examining the odd relationship between the two guest characters. 4 stars.

R & J - The last story is likely the one most people will have been waiting for after seeing the cover: Jack Harkness meets River Song. What we get is a series of vignettes as the two bump into one another at various points during their lives. The sequence that these are told in is thematic, rather than chronological and, of course, the fact that they are both time travellers means that wouldn't be in the same chronological order for both of them even if it were... all of which may, of course, take some following. It's not timey-wimey in the sense of having paradoxes, but we do often see effects before causes. There are also plenty of references to specific events in the TV series in here, with River butting in in imagined “cut scenes” in the middle of episodes. As with the previous story, the result is a great examination of the two characters and their relationship with the advantage being that we already know River and can fill in plenty of the blanks along the way. Some great one-liners, too! 5 stars.