So, The Lives of Captain Jack Volume 02 ends the way it began, with a James Goss story. This is Driving Miss Wells, only slightly along the lines of Driving Miss Daisy in which Jack is chauffeur to newsreader Trinity Wells. This one is a Torchwood story escaping from the range into this boxset. How is it? Let’s discuss…

Driving Miss Wells

Here’s the short blurb from Big Finish:

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?

Trinity Wells is played by Lachele Carl who is very good in the role of a journalist doubting her sanity in a world that may, or may not, by exposed to alien threat every other day of the week. Here’s a point worth making: just how attacked is the Earth? Do aliens queue up and take tickets to decide who will be defeated by the Doctor / UNIT / Torchwood each time? It’s clearly a bit bonkers if you stop and think.

Back to the story. Jack is very much in the background and exists to support Trinity and in some ways draw her out as she tries to expose another set of aliens before being arrested or hospitalised for losing her sanity. There is a nice secondary thread about the relationship with her mother (in hospital) but James decides to leave that hanging.

My main observation with this story is the lack of agency Jack has. The story resolves only as an indirect consequence of his presence, not as a result of anything he does. This leaves listeners (if they think about it) somewhat underwhelmed, and the story as a whole is less clear cut (and perhaps the lack of simple resolution adds to the verisimilitude) [and no, I couldn’t spell it!]

It’s still a good listen, has plenty going on but for me there’s something missing.