Scattered across the planet, Torchwood officers struggle to find their feet, fight back against an enemy they can barely perceive and simply get to the end of the day.

This latest Torchwood arc is focused and furious and completely of its time. The behind the scenes sections talk about how one story was recorded around lockdown and all of them are intimately concerned with the aftermath of trauma and crisis. There’s hope here but it’s stretched thin across a world as frightening as it is frightened and ‘Aliens Next Door’ sets the tone.

 

Ng (Danielle Riley) and Orr (Samantha Béart) are hiding out in a housing estate full of people displaced by the Cardiff flood. They have no idea how to be who they used to be, all they know is something is odd and Hakan (Raj Ghatak) is central to it. The jet black comedy of Ash Darby’s script is superbly realized by the two leads and Melanie Killburn’s cheerily naïve ally, Betty. Orr and Ng are the alien cop/alien cop duo the series richly deserves. Their wildly different approaches give you a clear view of the horror at the core of the story; Riley’s furiously penitent Ng and Béart’s open wound of an empath are terrifying and terrified. But they’re also Torchwood and doing their best. That leads to an ending that plays like the audio equivalent of a ‘oner’, a continuous shot in an action movie. It builds and builds and builds, premise and character colliding in a horrific clash of psychic and physical violence. It’s a stunningly good story, anchored by a phenomenal cast and it gets the set off and sprinting.

 

‘Colin Alone’ is the most disturbing Torchwoof story since the superb ‘We Always Get Out Alive’. Colin (Joplin Sibtain) is Mr Colchester’s husband. He’s alone, and under constant suspicion and just trying to get by and make a life he’s increasingly convinced he has to live alone. He has a job (almost), he has a flat (mostly) and he spends his days processing his trauma by making baked goods for the Kafka-esque police officers whose questions ensure he is always late for work.

This is terrifying. Una McCormack has a fantastic eye for the quiet, tragic desperation of daily trauma and spends the entire running time of the story quietly twisting the knife. Nothing is out of place, nothing’s over the top and nothing is remotely fair and no one cares. There’s a moment about halfway through where you genuinely cringe on behalf of Colin, you will him to avoid the next disaster. He doesn’t and that makes what comes later so much worse and ultimately so much better. Sibtain is stunning throughout as a man who is calm, and nice, and so very very sad. Nothing that happens to Colin is fair and he’s so wrapped up in the polite hellish cardigan of British passive aggression that he doesn’t think to push back until it’s almost too late. Sandra Huggett and Chris Jarman as Mira and Jeff are the perfect, oleaginous counterpart to his polite desperation too. You honestly think this one is going to end very badly, so much so that when it doesn’t there’s a lovely note of ambiguity for a second. Colin does get saved. But he isn’t quite sure he should be and McCormack’s script can sit comfortably next to Terry Gilliam’s Brazil as a definitive exploration of bureaucratic horror and trauma.

 

‘Misty Eyes’ puts the focus on Gwen and Rhys. Leaving Cardiff behind, the pair are in a lighthouse in Iceland and they are not hiding out. They aren’t. It’s fine. Rhys is cooking Icelandic lasagne (It’s just lasagne. In Iceland.) and Gwen is busy being fine and not doing work or missing work in any way at all.

They’re fine.

FINE.

Until Ng shows up.

Tim Foley’s script dials in on Torchwood’s exhausted parents and gives three of the best actors room to play. Eve Myles and Kai Owen are on top form here and the script cleverly explores the fact that Gwen and Rhys’ normalcy is their superpower. Rhys especially has some great moments here, never without agency and always backing Gwen up. Myles is, if anything, even better. Her Gwen is an exhausted, furious warrior who keeps eyeing her weapons but not picking them up. Riley’s Ng puts the lie to it all and Riley and Myles excel every time they share a scene. Riley’s Ng has been changed forever by the experiences she had as Gwen, even as Gwen has been changed forever by Ng’s actions. Neither woman likes the other, neither woman is entirely in the right. Neither woman can survive without the other and, locked into the lighthouse, the three of them have nothing to do but work together. It’s an intense, intensely complicated story which rings with fury and compassion. No one escapes Torchwood, but as Gwen and Rhys learn, you can at least go back on your own terms. The 21st century is when it all happens and, despite their best efforts, they’re ready.

 

‘Moderation’ by James Goss serves as the first mid-season finale. Maya (Petra Malik) is a journalist watching her job get progressively shot away from beneath her. Barry Beans (Silas Carson) is the blokey rich bigot who’s murdering her profession and wants to murder her. The only person she can confide in is Tyler (Jonny Green), her friendly neighbour IT guy/Torchwood agent…

This is an odd one, largely because of its position. The Child (Mia Hope), who plays a vital role in ‘Aliens Next Door’ and is hinted at in ‘Misty Eyes’ and ‘Colin Alone’ makes a chilling return here that makes it clear Torchwood are being targeted specifically. This one also draws subtle threads together to paint a view of the UK that’s solidly in line with all-time great, Children of Earth. Petra is being sacrificed by her bosses. The horrifying immigration game show mentioned earlier in the set returns. The exhaustion, and anger, and terror of every bigoted voice being handed a megaphone is tangible and Goss does his best work here when he gives that load to Tyler to carry.

Green is excellent here, his Tyler struggling to engage with the existential horror of his moderation cover. Moderators have, genuinely, suffered serious psychological damage from their work and as Goss goes on he explores that through Green’s exhausted, traumatized, furious Tyler. This also serves to ground Carson’s Barry Beans who is always good in a mildly terrifying way but revealed in the closing sections as exactly the venal little bigot you suspect he is. The horror here is alien tinged but very real and some listeners aren’t going to like that at all. For me, I honestly think the show has always been this angry and could, in fact, be angrier.

That being said, ‘Moderation’ doesn’t quite stick the landing. It’s clearly the first part of a story and that isn’t apparent until the closing seconds. That also seems to necessitate it shifting from Petra to Tyler as the lead and the gear change takes a moment to dig in. It’s nothing bad by any means, but it’s the one moment in this set where the needs of the structure overpower the requirements of the story. Even then it ends on a haunting, unsettling note that sets the next set up really well.

Verdict: Among Us is a different kind of Torchwood story for a different world. It’s deeply personal, intensely grim, bleakly funny and very, very human – Torchwood at its best. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart

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