Torchwood are still scattered but plans are starting to form. Not just their plans either…

Spoilers

‘Propaganda’ by Ash Darby throws Orr headlong into the sort of Middle-European ethical minefield that Jack Ryan and Jackson Lamb have spent their careers making their way across. The difference, thanks to franchise MVP Samantha Béart, is that Orr is both out of her depth and having so much terrible fun. From the opening plane crash on, Darby throws Torchwood’s most enthusiastic heroine into an action movie with a spy thriller’s black heart. Sent to investigate an ambiguous disaster in the city of Voloshnik, Orr is the only survivor of an off-handedly terrifying missile attack. Stitching herself back together she and a variety of occasional allies make their way to Voloshnik and Robert Wilson (Milo Twomey), the last person left in the town.

Amy Beth Hayes is especially good as Tania, the exhausted doctor who ends up working with Orr and their fatalistic humour (Tania is described wonderfully in the Behind the Scenes interviews as ‘a bag of sighs’) is a highlight of the set. Twomey is great too as yet another unctuous, all too familiar villain. Torchwood became the most political Doctor Who has ever got with Children of Earth and the audio series is always at its best when it steers into that, just as it does here.

The other thing it does best? Comedy, as shown by ‘At Her Majesty’s Pleasure’, the first of two Tim Foley stories here. Andy Davidson (Tom Price) knows Yvonne Hartman (Tracy-Anne Oberman) is planning to escape. He knows because she told him and, despite claiming innocence, it is very clear Something is Going On, capital letters very much Andy’s. What follows is Silence of the Lambs reimagined as a heist/romance and it’s completely delightful.

Oberman and Price are superb individually but together they’re even better. There’s a romantic spark to this which is shot through with the same remarkably clear vision as ‘Propaganda’. Where that’s a snapshot of the world, this is a snapshot of Torchwood and it somehow ends up being melancholy, hopeful, funny and sinister all at once. Yvonne likes playing with Andy, Andy likes the square-jawed hero he gets to be whenever he spars with Yvonne. They know exactly what they’re doing to each other and they’re both happy to have this particular dance partner.

There’s a great supporting cast too, with Natalie Grady’s Charlotte and Avita Jay’s Tilly defining the structure that Yvonne and Andy break in wildly different ways. Andrew Wincott is great too as Williamson, a poetry loving guard who Andy annoys early on and who gets progressively more fun as time goes on.

The second Foley script, ‘Cuckoo’, couldn’t be more different and is at least as good. Dee (Cecelia Appiah), Vijay (Nathaniel Curtis) and Bryn (Henry Nott) are urban explorers who have hit the motherlode: the ruined Torchwood Hub. But as they make their way through the wreckage, Bilis Manger (Murray Melvin) shows them everything they want and nothing they want others to see.

This is an absolute black-hearted joy. Appiah, Curtis and Nott are fantastic as the reluctant heroes and Foley’s script captures that complex, not-quite-anything period of just being out of Uni perfectly. Curtis especially is fantastic and the script’s third act reveals for Vijay both play into that and number among the cruellest things the show has ever done, in any incarnation. This really does feel like three protagonists wandered off the set of their own show onto the ruins of Torchwood and the presence of Bilis Manger, and an A.I. echo of Ianto Jones, speaks to that on a visceral level. The late, much-missed Melvin and the always fantastic Gareth David-Lloyd do typically excellent work here and the ending brings every performance together into a terrifying vice of pressure that changes the show and the characters. This entire set is very good. ‘Cuckoo’ is an all-time great for the show.

‘Pariahs’ by James Goss brings the middle act of the season into land and brings everyone back onto the table. As the enquiry into the Phlobos Scandal begins, Torchwood are working both ends against the middle, there’s an arsenal hidden in the tea urn and no one is having a good time. Except, perhaps, for Mr Colchester.

‘Pariahs’ is a gear shift after the previous three, arguably previous seven, episodes and it’s one that takes a little while to adjust to. Especially as there are two beefy, and ethically opposed, supporting characters who are central to events. Glen McReady plays Kyle Landsman, the Phlobos whistleblower all too aware of the price he’s going to pay for doing the right thing. Richard Clifford, across the aisle from him ethically, plays Graham Graves, the architect of very nearly every one of the world’s misfortunes. Kyle is paired with Orr and once again Béart is having so much fun as Orr runs headlong into getting to do actual spy things.

Paul Clayton’s Mr Colchester has the same job as Orr: keep their charge alive. But where Kyle is polite, aware, helpful and probably doomed, Clifford’s Graham Graves is an epochal Torchwood monster. A sociopath made of old Etonian education and New Conservative brutality, Graves is terrifying because he’s resolutely familiar. This is a man who would refuse to submit his WhatsApp posts to an enquiry and he’s got a shared past with Colchester that illuminates both men. This plot is the highlight of the story, and gives Clayton a chance to do some dramatic heavy lifting that’s as cathartic as it is tragic. Clifford hits the polite bigoted cruelty of Graves perfectly and the reveal on the experience these men shared is as horrific as it is plausible.

All of this is fantastic but ‘Pariahs’ is ultimately the one story here that struggles a little. It’s got a huge cast, a huge job and it draws all the threads together at the end of act two which is always a near impossible job to pull off. ‘Pariahs’ does a lot very, very well but it feels so crammed that a couple of moments never quite get the space they need. In particular, Tyler’s presence here, with almost no reference to what happened to him at the end of the last set is especially odd.

That being said, it’s still a big, crowd-pleasing and often very successful end to another ridiculously good set of Torchwood stories.

Verdict: Angry, funny, compassionate and wildly diverse, this really is a standout line. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart

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