Tyler Steele is convinced that there’s something bigger going on in Cardiff than anyone suspects – but can it really be anything to do with a group of weirdoes hiding in an underground base?

One of the great successes of recent time for Big Finish has been the reinvention/reworking of Torchwood as an audio series. It’s not necessarily been everyone’s cup of tea – some have been surprised at the focus in the single audios on characters who weren’t even mentioned on television – while John and Carole Barrowman’s version of the franchise for Titan Comics has also been very different from the series from which it sprang. For me, the audios have, on the whole, lived up to the potential of the series, taking it into “adult” areas that aren’t simply defined by someone swearing, making crude innuendoes or having sex.

This new series, promoted as “series 5” – a follow-up to the fourth series on TV, Miracle Day – goes back to the basics of the TV show: Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper fighting aliens in Cardiff from the Hub beneath the fountain by the Millennium Centre. They’ve got a new helper on board, in the person of Mr Colchester (first name, as yet unknown) who’s suitably acerbic, and less than tolerant of everything that Jack gets up to – but who, as the series goes on, becomes more fleshed out (and by the end is the best of the new additions, at least so far). The Hub is a mess, the SUVs are supplanted by smart cars, but the Torchwood crew can still find ways to deal with fire drones and other menaces…

Enter former hacker/journalist Tyler Steele, to an extent our point of view character into this new incarnation of Torchwood, fulfilling the same dramatic function as Eve Myles’ Gwen Cooper does in the first episode of the show. Through him we see the changes that have been made, and begin to discover the underlying problems in Cardiff. It’s not the city that Jack and Gwen defended a decade earlier (as later episodes make increasingly clear). There are echoes of earlier Russell T Davies characters about Steele (one in particular from the Eccleston era constantly came to mind during the entire box set) and it’s not just Jack who’s cautious about the newcomer.

James Goss has an unenviable task with this opener in getting all this across to the audience (and potentially introducing the franchise to newcomers, although I honestly think that’s not going to happen that much). He and director Scott Handcock ensure that information is not dumped on the audience, but comes out of dramatic situations, and flesh out the character of Steele enough that the listener is invested in him when he gets into trouble.

Verdict: A new beginning with some intriguing new characters. 8/10

Paul Simpson