Suzie Costello is marooned beneath an impossible island. Suzie Costello is in a lot of trouble. Or in love. Or both.

Torchwood Three’s best returns, not quite, from the dead in this excellent new story. Audio drama is a team sport and Shane O’Byrne’s sound design and Steven Kavuma’s directipn drop the exact foci required over Rafaella Marcus’ excellent script to create a story you don’t see coming. The halls of the Orion feel both huge and somehow tiny. The bickering-to-banter two step of Anwir and Suzie’s relationship feels earned and mildly panicked. The pair of them having big emotions to fill the vast space they’re trapped inside. The third act reveal hits especially well as a result, and even though you know what Suzie’s many fates are, there’s still tangible jeopardy here which is one hell of an achievement.

Marcus’ script is relentlessly clever in the same way as its heroine. It shares her self awareness too but uses it in a way that’s both cruel and intensely compassionate. Suzie has decided she’s a monster and events that unfold beneath the sea only confirm that in her mind. Marcus, and Indira Varma who genuinely only ever turns in outstanding work, take Suzie to some dark places via some brightly lit corridors. She falls in love, or something like it, with Anwir and you see why. James Backway’s starship captain is charming and funny and her equal in every way. But you also see her do this under the weight of the awareness her job curses her with.

Suzie Costello is the patron saint of existential cosmic horror, a woman freed from moral restraints by what she knows but bound to them by what she does. She’s relentless, brilliant, determined and has no manner of luck at all and Varma and Marcus show us this. They also show us the negative space, the places Suzie can’t see what she’s like. Her moments of kindness, heroism, goodness that would lead a certain TARDIS borrower to applaud. Suzie Costello is a heroine, but she lives in a world that uses heroines as bait, fuel or both. This story, which begins on an impossible end and ends with that island and Suzie’s hopes sinking, is the last chance she gets to do something better. Or at least the last chance she tells herself she’ll get. It’s a great script, kind and cruel, funny and tragic. As full of contradictions as its lead. Not to mention a dragon and a powerhouse double turn from Danielle  Kassaraté as two wildly different characters.

Verdict: Yet another winner, and a welcome return for Torchwood Three’s unsung heroine. Stick around for a great set of interviews too. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart

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