Changes Everything review [James Goss]

I think that the sign of a real fan is the ability to enjoy a show whilst still being able to make fun and criticise it. I absolutely adore Torchwood and can readily admit that a significant portion of the first two series was substandard TV, sometimes with good ideas but ruined by juvenile humour, trying way too hard to be "adult" and horrible character choices (looking at you, Gwen and Owen) making for a group of unlikeable characters engaging in unsubtle and silly stories.

Let me reiterate that I absolutely adore the show, because despite its faults it managed to produce some stellar television that was touching, sophisticated and really down-to-earth. It hit its stride with the last few episodes of series 2 and produced the extraordinary Children of Earth and epic (if stretched) Miracle Day. It is such a shame that the show ended when it had really found itself. Thank God for Big Finish.

The New Torchwood

This is a fresh start for Torchwood and its name (a play on the first episode, Everything Changes) invites comparison to the earliest episodes of the show. Just as was done with the soft reboot of Miracle Day, we're introduced to new characters. Don't worry - they're better than Rex and Esther.

We're introduced to Tyler Steele, an overconfident and sexually-charged journalist looking to redeem his career after being disgraced. We are reintroduced to Torchwood Cardiff through his eyes just as we first met the group through Gwen. Tyler can be thought of as an anti-Gwen - whilst she was supposed to be the heart of the show (we'll ignore her disgusting affair with Owen and shameful pining for Jack), Tyler is a dick. And he works perfectly. He's the sort of person you would hate to know in real life but makes for a good flawed protagonist in that he's open and accessible in a way that Dr Owen Harper was rarely allowed to be onscreen.

We don't see as much of Mr Colchester, but he's fine. An old civil servant is just the sort of character that can shake up the dynamic of Torchwood and admonish any of the other members for engaging in the sexual immorality they all got up to early in the show. He's gay, which makes me wonder if Owen the only straight man to ever work for the organisation and what it is about being LGBT that attracts you to alien-fighting.

As for the oldies, Jack has, thankfully, not completely reverted back to the cold and inhuman leader that he so often was for the first two series and is written somewhere between that and the more relatable and likeable Jack of Children of Earth and Miracle Day. He's having sex, standing on roofs overlooking Cardiff and fighting aliens - what more could you want from him?

It's a shame that Eve Myles's role in Aliens Among Us is practically non-existent, but Alexandria Riley makes a very good Gwen Cooper. They sound enough alike that it's very easy to imagine her as Gwen rather than as an impressionist or stand-in. My initial reaction to the reveal at the end that Riley has been playing Gwen made me very worried that Gwen had been recast, so I was very pleased to learn what we do in future stories.

The Plot

Children of Earth began just before the 456 stopped all of the children. Miracle Day began with the Miracle. Aliens Among Us starts much later than both of these series, with Cardiff long since having been taken over by aliens. We're introduced to controversial and relevant issues like racism, immigration and refugees. It's an interesting approach that fills us with questions - who's taken over, how and why? It's a far looser arc than the aforementioned series but these questions are, of course, answered as it plays out.

Changes Everything can't just introduce the arc, though. It has to have its own self-contained story to avoid being forgettable and as more of a prologue than an actual story, much like Everything Changes was. (The story just wasn't all that good and we really didn't get to know Suzie well enough.) We have Tyler's attempted assassination at the beginning of the story, reintroducing Torchwood and learning about what's happened in Cardiff and then discovering and stopping the would-be assassin before a sad ending where Tyler is rejected by Torchwood.

A Good Quotation

"Tyler Steele, keep yourself in shape?" 

"Yeah."

"Weights or cardio?"

"Hot yoga and crossfit."

"A bit London but it'll have to do."

This Reminds Me...

Didn't we get pretty much the same Gwen driving scene in More Than This? Not that I'm complaining.

I'll Explain Later

How come Tyler doubts the existence of aliens? Has he never been in London at Christmas? Did the 456 incident and the Miracle pass him by? I know the Miracle wasn't alien but you'd think it would open people's minds a bit.

The Judgement

Is this a story that will set your world on fire? No, of course not, but it's a great start for Aliens Among Us, introducing us to an intriguing post-Miracle Cardiff and a brand new Torchwood that's had its base blown up and that's matured greatly before returning. This is the type of story that Everything Changes should have been. Long live Torchwood! B

Believe review [Guy Adams]

The deceased Dr Owen Harper has come across a religion, one that preaches that humans must leave this dull rock and soar amongst the stars for the next stage of evolution. But there are anti-extraterrestrial organisations in the way of this exodus, like UNIT. And like Torchwood.

When: Gwen will later mention the Nostrovites, meaning that this takes place between Something Borrowed and Fragments. Tosh tells Owen that she's sorry for what he's going through, so it's presumably sooner rather than later.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "Am I the only one who still treats Torchwood as top-secret?"
• "I've got a brain." / "Yeah, but he doesn't want to have a go on that so, you know, we'll just have to fall back on other body parts."
• "Auberginus from the planet Balti."
• It retrospectively seems a missed opportunity that neither Doctor Who nor Torchwood have done the Church of Scientology before. A controversial and controlling cult that believe in intergalactic wars and aliens seems obvious for a science fiction show but it's not been done until now.
• Owen could often be an unlikeable character onscreen, but here Burn Gorman's given some very good material. His talking to Tosh through her earpiece is frequently hilarious and his confession that he hates the Church for giving people false hope when he knows there's nothing beyond life adds more richness to his character. He was always a better character dead than alive, so Big Finish's choice to have him so was definitely the right one. Another character that was done a disservice on the show is the quiet and under-explored Tosh. In Part 1, we learn a lot about her attitude towards sex and her making Owen listen to her is a weird new dimension to her.
• The Greys strip away everything about themselves. They sew alien masks onto their faces and insert robotics into their limbs. The idea that someone could be so lonely and so full of self-hatred that they could go to this extent to do away with their old-selves and start anew is intriguing.
• Ianto's time at the Church is a great listen. The sad young woman who never felt she belonged until she joined the Church; the weird consultation in the same vein as Scientology's audits; the body horror of the greys; and the fact that the Church seems to be preying on those who think themselves worthless.
• The ending of Part 3 is made up of a handful of great scenes. We've got Jack's powerful speech to Val about how she has to accept responsibility for the actions and welfare of the members of her church; Tosh tells Owen about her anger and tells him that he was a bad leader; and Gwen tells Andromeda that, ultimately, no one cares about outer-space.
• Jack involved himself with the Church because he feels somewhat trapped in Cardiff. This is a facet of Jack rarely seen and is far better than overlong shots of Jack watching over the city from a rooftop.
• Arthur Darvill is unrecognisable as the absolutely disgusting Layten. Was that really sweet Rory Williams? I didn't realise until I looked at the cast after listening. What a scumbag.

The Valeyard's Case:

• This is the first time we've seen the original Torchwood together since the end of series 2, but when Part 1 begins it's business as usual. It would have been nice to reintroduce the team and remind us of the warmth between them before the plot kicks in. Instead we get an awful lot of exposition over the Torchwood theme song, about the real-life Kevin Warwick and the fictional Church.
• Jack is involved with the Church. This doesn't come as a huge surprise after he knew about the disappearances in Adrift and he turned out to be working with Red Doors in Aliens Among Us. It's presented as something groundbreaking but we've seen it before, plenty of times.
• Cutting away from Ianto to the other teammates in Part 2 is something of a nuisance. Scheduling was obviously not very easy, but if you can't get them all together then perhaps focusing each episode on a different character (or pair of characters) is the way to go.
• Gwen's thread throughout Believe was important in that it got Andromeda to the Hub, but it wasn't too interesting to listen to and was easily the weakest part of each episode.

This Reminds Me...:

• Jack knows more than he's letting on again.
• Bandrils appeared in Timelash.
• Jack's speech is very Oswald Danes.

The Deliberation:

• Episode 1 is a promising start to the box set. It's dominated by an Owen-Tosh team-up, which we've never really seen before, and we learn new things about both characters, like why Owen hates religion and what Tosh thinks about sex. Although the whole team are together at the beginning and won't be again until the end, little is made about the long-awaited reunion with it mainly being about expositing information as quickly as possible.
• Episode 2 introduces a load of new questions and with it a thirst for answers. Just as we learnt more about Owen and Tosh in the first episode, in this one we get a glimpse of how Ianto felt before he became close with his colleagues. Things seem to be build to a crescendo.
• Episode 3 is somewhat underwhelming in how the Church is defeated, but the ramifications of its destruction are bittersweet. The most interesting thing about the story other than Tosh and Owen was the members of the Church, why they joined and what they got from it. This is explored well with Davey Russell, Erin and Jack's speech to Val, but the Greys weren't explored as well as they could have been. It would have been fascinating to learn more about them and why they do what they do, as well as what they'll do now.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: Believe avoids being self-indulgent about the reunion of the original Torchwood and chooses to play out as just another adventure for them, which is the right decision to make however disappointing their time all together at the beginning feels. It finds new things to say about characters that we've seen introduced, evolve and die, but it can't be said that Believe belongs to anyone but Owen and Tosh. On the show they might have been largely unlikeable and boring respectively but Big Finish have done wonders for them, adding depth and here giving us a reunion between the two that I didn't know I needed. The Church (a great idea) isn't explored a whole lot, Gwen's plot is utterly forgettable and the finale was slightly underwhelming, but otherwise this is a very good story deserving of an A.

Torchwood Special Releases

Herald of the Dawn  |  Believe  |  Machines

'One Enchanted Evening' review [James Goss]

In the Zaggit Zagoo Bar aboard a vast space station, Captain Jack Harkness was prompted by the Doctor in the direction of Midshipman Alonso Frame of the spaceship Titanic. But why did the Doctor want these two together?

Spoiler Zone

The drama

Russell Tovey is a delight to have back as Alonso, a man down on his luck who, when given a flicker of a chance of romance, makes Jack wait at the door so he can properly set the tone in his room. He's nervous and something of a bumbler but without being quirky. He feels like an honest and real character, jealous when Jack flirts with a woman in front of him despite only having only met him that evening. He's fallen quite quickly for Jack and wants one enchanted evening.

Mother Nothing isn't a particularly groundbreaking enemy but the main focus of this audio drama is the relationship between Jack and Alonso, who spend the vast majority of the time apart but in contact. The flirting is cute and entertaining, and the ending is almost heartbreaking as their escape pods fly off two light years in either direction. At least Alonso wasn't killed off as it seemed he was going to be. Hopefully this isn't the last we see of Alonso, as he has incredible chemistry with Jack.

A good quotation

Alonso: I don't have that much luck with captains.

Cast

• John Barrowman as Jack Harkness
• Russell Tovey as Alonso Frame
• Katy Manning as Mother Nothing

'Wednesdays For Beginners' review [James Goss]

Jackie Tyler of 48 Bucknall House has been feeling lonely since her daughter flew off with a Time Lord, but now she has a stalker; tall, dark and American.

James Goss previously wrote Torchwood's 'Fall to Earth', 'Ghost Mission' and 'The Torchwood Archive'.

Spoiler Zone

The drama

Jack tells us that he used to hang around the Powell Estate watching Rose grow up. Here, we see him presumably waiting for the Doctor to bring Rose home.

Jackie is at her most sympathetic when we get hints of her loneliness with Rose in outer-space. Most of the time, though, she's being funny. The first fifteen minutes are simply Jackie talking to herself or being on the phone, and they aren't at all unentertaining, adding a bit of depth to the largely comic relief character. 

Jack only really appears after the fifteen minute mark, when we find that the Powell Estate is in a sort of reality bubble in which atoms are being converted into energy. Jack was similarly absent for a large part of 'The Year After I Died'. Will these be a recurring thing in this series? Jack is as great as ever, flirting with Jackie and being a technobabbling hero, leading Jackie to compare him to the Doctor. The two have an instant chemistry.

The aforementioned technobabble and the awfully convenient resolution allowing the Powell Estate to return to N-space (a mixture of the TARDIS and the vortex manipulator somehow fixed things; Jackie shrugs it off and so should we) but overall this is an enjoyable two-hander.

A good quotation

"Mrs Tyler, this is not investigating. Our link to your universe is diminishing with every second and you're staring at my chest? You are a woman after my own heart and I like that."

Plot holes and continuity

• Jack has been watching Bucknall House since Rose was very young and Jackie's only now noticing him?
• How did Jack know that the Doctor arriving in his TARDIS was the wrong one? How does he know that Tenth is the right one? What's not right about Ninth?

Cast

• John Barrowman as Jack Harkness
• Camille Coduri as Jackie Tyler

'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