'The Year After I Died' review [Guy Adams]

After the Daleks' slaughter of Satellite Five and attack on Earth in the year 200,100, the Doctor and Rose left in the TARDIS, leaving the newly-immortal Jack Harkness behind. On an Earth littered with the dead with starvation and radiation plaguing the survivors, Jack, after a year wondering how he survived aboard Satellite Five, must save the remnants of humanity from their oldest enemy.

Writer Guy Adams has written a number of instalments in Big Finish's Torchwood series, namely 'More Than This', 'Moving Target', 'Made You Look' and 'Outbreak' (with A.K. Benedict and Emma Reeves).

Spoiler Zone

The drama

The first adventure we've seen with Jack pre-Torchwood since 'The Parting of the Ways' proves to be a good one, filling in a smidgeon of the gap between Jack's first resurrection and his joining Torchwood in 1899. It even uses Jack's theme from the show as the title music. It deals with the aftermath of the Dalek Emperor's attack on Earth; people rely on food parcels and queue to collect clothes. Strange creatures (mutated terrestrial animals or Dalek experiments) wander the plains. A very unpleasant world to live in, so it's no wonder that the people are so enthusiastic to be flown away by the Hope Foundation.

Vortia Trear, head of the Hope Foundation, is a despicable and irredeemable character and the fact that she doesn't get ripped to shreds by the rioters is a crying shame. She does get her comeuppance, though. For a significant amount of the drama we follow Silo Crook, a reporter seeking to bring back journalism after it disappeared with the closure of Satellite Five. Silo reflects on the impact of the Game Station; humans don't ask questions or think for themselves anymore. Whilst not a particularly memorable character and not sharing a huge amount of chemistry with Jack, she fulfils her function well and her mission is an engaging one.

When Jack finally plays a proper role in this drama, he's very much the pre-Torchwood character who travelled with the Ninth Doctor and Rose, if a little hardened and unhappier. This helps with the somewhat jarring differences between the flirtatious and fun Jack of Doctor Who and the uncaring and unlikeable Jack that we meet in 'Everything Changes'. His not wanting to be called a hero does get annoying, much like the War Doctor's constant insistence that he's not the Doctor.

Overall, a good start to this new series. Jack's speech to the little people (transcribed below) was excellent.

A good quotation 

"The Daleks tried to stop us but we didn’t let them because humanity fights back, right? That’s what we always do, we pull together. Yes, Trear’s got guns, she’s got drones, she’s got power. But you know what we’ve got? What we’ve always got. Numbers. There are more of us than them. There are always more of us than them, so let’s get out there and remind them of that."

Cast

• John Barrowman as Jack Harkness
• Sarah Douglas as Vortia Trear
• Shvorne Marks as Silo Crook
• Scott Haran as Malfi Pryn
• Aaron Neil as Gorky Sax