Travis: The Final Line (2023) Review

 

Travis: The Final Line is a strange little glimpse into Travis' disintegrating mind.

WRITTEN BY

Alan Stevens, who in the 90s brought us the first true post-Gauda Prime storyline in The Logic of Empire. I wish he wasn't so obsessed with continuity. We could've had some really nice bona fide adventures like The Sevenfold Crown, but instead all of these fanmade audios tried to be surreal character dramas, which isn't really the Blake's 7 forte if you ask me. 

PLOT

As Travis sails towards Star One, he ponders over what his final words should be. 

ANALYSIS

My mind rejects the premise outright, given that I don't think of Travis as being particularly introspective. Would he really care what his final words were? I'd say no. But then again, he was losing it towards the end of Series B. The fact that he chose to take such drastic measures against the Federation at all suggests that he may have been thinking about all the evil that was done to him... or he may have just been so pissed off he couldn't think straight anymore. Like an angry bull. I vote for the latter. 

I don't know, this is just a weird idea for a Travis story. I might be more inclined to like it if it was purely about him being introspective. Even if I think it goes against the character, there is a precedent with audios like Promises giving him plenty of internal monologues. The audio format encourages introspection, so I understand tweaking Travis in that way. But him literally practicing his final words comes off so incredibly silly. 

Then again, maybe that's part of the point, that he is so far gone that he doesn't care if he's ridiculous or not...? Nah, it's just weird. 

NOTES

• "Duffed the bastards!" sounds very Brian Croucher-y and not remotely Travis-y. 

INFORMATION!

• This is set during the events of Star One. 

CONCLUSION

Weird.