In the early days of the British space program, Professor Lynne Sharman (Safiyya Ingar) is having no manner of luck at all. She’s a brilliant scientist, her rockets should work but something in polar orbit is knocking anything entering Earth orbit down. Something not from Earth. Something Norton Folgate (Samuel Barnett) is really rather interested in…

Buckle up, folks! This is absolutely my jam! From the front cover riffing on classic status Raygun Gothic to the closing moments, this is a Torchwood that isn’t so much in my wheelhouse as at the wheel and yelling ‘RAMMING SPEED!’.

Let’s start with the script, because Lizbeth Myles is one of Big Finish’s absolute best. Her work is always witty and inventive, always intensely well researched and always grounded in character as witnessed by her excellent recent Survivors story. Here, all those talents are brought into play along with her knowledge of the deeply weird nascent British space program and the Black Knight, one of ufology’s oddest moments. Depending on who you talk to, and what you believe, there has been a satellite in polar orbit longer than we’ve been able to place satellites in orbit. Like everyone, your version of the truth will vary. What won’t is how much you enjoy Myles’ take on the concept. She plants it solidly here in the foundation of ’50s/’60s This Island Earth style science fiction and uses it to tell a story which is the exact flipside of everything you think a Torchwood story is. The Black Knight is alien, so surely it’s ours? The future is coming and surely we have to be ready? Time and again, Myles places what we think we know about stories like this under the microscope and, time and again, finds something new.

It’s extraordinary work and it’s delivered by extraordinary performances. Safiyya Ingar desperately deserves to be a franchise player somewhere for Big Finish because she absolutely has the focus, drive and gravity to carry a full series herself. Her interview is great too, and there’s a welcome extra dimension to this story of humanity pushing past its boundaries she offers which speaks both to the darkest elements of Torchwood and the darkest elements of modern culture.

The always reliable Jacob Dudman and Russell Bentley are great, too, especially Dudman’s two-fisted Dan Dare-alike. He also expresses the fundamental conversations of the story in surprising ways and both of them shine a very different light on Barnett’s Norton Folgate. Norton is… Norton. Cheery, enthusiastic, murderous. But Barnett does an exceptional job of showing what that costs him here and it’s chilling and poignant and alien and human all at once. Norton’s a monster but he’s our monster (at least here) and that is no manner of comfort at all. Because while Norton doesn’t change, Torchwood does and no one finds themselves where they expect by the end of the story.

Rounded out with typically subtle, effective direction from Scott Handcock this is a fantastic story that runs headlong at every big issue in the franchise and finds new things to say about all of them. Everyone and everything impresses but its Ingar’s star-making turn and Myles’ best script yet that you’ll remember.

Verdict: Startlingly good, conceptually complex and absolutely what this line does best. Superb stuff. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart

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