Roberta is on the run with the idea of a dead man, her own personal ghost and a plan. She does have a plan… right?

The Big Finish Torchwood line is consistently just ridiculously strong and this is no exception. Guy Adams’s script takes everything that worked in the first half and accelerates it, throwing Le Carré-like moral ambiguity and North Sea Hijack style action at classic Torchwood story beats and then doing absolutely the last thing you’d expect. The ending here, both of them, is a stunningly executed and perfectly executed wrap up that does everything it needs to and sets a new, strange version of Torchwood on its way in the most interesting manner possible.

Adams’ script is as mercurial as his lead. Louise Jameson’s Roberta Craven is that rarest of treasures: a character who struggles with their mental health but isn’t viewed as a communication skills lacking superhuman or a tragedy. Make no mistake, Roberta is a disaster but she’s a deeply honest one and this is where the script, the performance and the direction mesh perfectly. At no point is Roberta okay. At no point is Roberta pitiable. At every point she’s a monstrous, complex, compassionate and deeply flawed lead. I mentioned last time that few of the other Torchwood leaders would connect with her. This time it’s clear that’s because she may be better than all of them.

Jameson isn’t alone in the cast, or in turning excellent work. They’re all doing great work but two other standouts really linger in the memory. Emma Lowndes’ Patty is a glorious, and terrifying, enigma we get more of this time but not quite the answers we’re looking for. Part of that is because Roberta isn’t looking it in the eye. The rest is because Patty is playing her cards very close to her chest. Their relationship is deeply close, intensely fractious and the locked door at the core of the characters. Hopefully it’ll be unlocked in due course.

But if anything the breakout here is Omari Douglas. Neal, in the first part, was a crusading and charming journalist with no sense of self-preservation. The changes he goes through, without being spoiler-y give Douglas a chance to play a different side to the character and he’s every inch the equal of Roberta and Patty. Determined, ruthless, oddly principled. Painfully aware of the corners of his own mind.

A script and a cast this good would be enough but director Barnaby Edwards and sound designer Toby Hrycek-Robinson do excellent work lifting it even higher. The sound design is especially great, in particular during the key action scenes.

Best of all this does some fascinating thematic work with the Nestene as well as giving them the depth they’ve needed for decades.  We get a sense of their society here, their needs and some deeply smart expansion of what it means to be taken over by them and what the consequences are. This is gold, for writers of every stripe and if you’re even half considering using the Nestene in a piece you need to listen to this story. Listen to it anyway, it’s great.

Verdict: Exhausted, furious, complex and finding hope in the darkest of spots, Double is the platonic ideal of how to do a Torchwood story extremely well. A great story, a great start for the year and hopefully for more cases for Roberta and her office of damaged, but never broken toys. Brilliant stuff. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart

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