Reviews - Doctor Who: The Last Day at Work

10 reviews for:

Doctor Who: The Last Day at Work

Harry Draper

3.77 AVERAGE

riley_smith's review against another edition

3.75

emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

theinfiniteood's review against another edition

1.75

slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

This short story was written by the winner of the short story competition Big Finish hold every year, and it really does show. This person is clearly no professional writer because this story was just a complete mess. The first half of the story was just extremely descriptive detailing, and suddenly remembers there is a plot; cramming in so much in the last ten minutes, that you can barely keep up.

The Doctor and Jamie are written is such a generic way that even with the occasional comedic aside, they still feel completely nothing like the characters we know and love from the show. The remainder of characters have no actual personality and are written in a way that attempts to make them all charming in their own ways. This leads to all the characters being so forgettable that they mesh into the background and even with their plot involvement later on, still feel inconsequential.

The central idea of the story is actually quite nice, which makes it all the shame that it’s executed in such a poor manner. The main character has no charisma, no charm, and feels so flat and dull that when he is faced with his life changing choice; I couldn’t give the slightest. The ending is so rushed and resolved in a way that offers no satisfying conclusion to an idea with so much potential. The story really banks on you caring about the main & peripheral characters, so it can hit certain emotional beats towards the end but fails massively.

This story isn’t the worst thing I’ve anything listened to, not even close really, but was just so boring. The writing style was just conflicted that you couldn’t really get interested when it went from describing every object and room the main character was in, then to heavy plot, and back to description. It really gained my attention with the twist, so I was engaged for a few minutes of the runtime, but ultimately I was just glad when it was over.