Geraint is Ianto’s best mate. He’s washed out of rugby, he’s got a job at the weird factory and he might, just might, have found someone amazing to be in his life. Chrissie (Gemma Knight Jones) is no one’s fool, no one’s victim and the last person Geraint would ever expect to notice him. But this is Wales. This is Torchwood. Love is in the air and Ianto Jones is the best dressed Cupid on Earth…

Aaron Lamont’s script is one of those Torchwood stories you don’t see coming, and that’s the point. I’m always very fond of the interviews on these stories and this is an unusually good one, as Lamont goes into detail about why and how a working-class rom-com works as well as it does in Torchwood. There’s a hint of social awkwardness to it which grounds the whole thing and honestly put me in mind of that moment in an early episode of season 2 of the original show where the team speed through a crossing in hot pursuit. An old woman watches them go, sneers and says ‘Bloody Torchwood…’

That’s the pragmatic canvas that Lamont’s script works on and it’s ground that I’m honestly surprised the show hasn’t spent more time on. These people, including (and especially) Callum Lloyd’s wonderfully jobsworthy Joe, are the exact folks who live on the edge of the singularity and just want chips every now and then. There’s no sneering here, nothing that’s mean. It’s just a story about people you know, or who might have been, trying their best in weird circumstances. Sometimes those circumstances are the terrors of adult life. Sometimes they’re the way your ‘best friend’ has inveigled himself into your life and engineered a meet cute to help save the world. But it’s always tough and crucially it’s always worthwhile.

That’s the key to this story: respect. Lisa Bowerman’s always impressive direction and Lamont’s quietly kind script respect everyone in there. Chrissie and Geraint are untidy, tired, frightened people who are doing their best even though they know it’s probably not good enough. They do it anyway. Because this is Wales, and this is Torchwood. It’s lovely stuff, and when the danger does hit it hits all the harder as a result.

Before I close, special mention as ever to Gareth David-Lloyd. Ianto continues to be one of the most interesting characters in the show’s history and this version of him cleverly embodies both the mechanics of the rom-com and elements of his old life at Torchwood One. This is Ianto as architect, manipulating Geraint and Chrissie into where they need to be and it’s pretty cruel even if it’s for the right reasons. The story stands up on that though and David-Lloyd does great work as the mildly embarrassed mastermind behind all Chrissie and Geraint’s misfortunes. It’s not nice, but it’s not dishonest and that means the working-class deadpan heart of the story always beats true.

Verdict: Clever and kind, awkward and cringey this rounds out the Torchwood Love trilogy with mildly desperate, panicky style. Great stuff, more like this please. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart

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