Torchwood One – we defend the British Empire. We keep everyone safe. For your own good.
Something’s happened. Something’s twisted its way into Torchwood One. Something old. Something which should have been forgotten, wiped, abandoned. Something which has been waiting. Something which knows how the world should be ruled, how people should be used.
When humanity’s threatened, Yvonne Hartman is required.
The Law Machines by Matt Fitton
The Mayor of London is launching her bold new law and order initiative. The capital will be kept safe from crime, from fear, from terrorists. The Law Machines are launching. What could possibly go wrong?
Blind Summit by Gareth David-Lloyd
Ianto Jones has just moved to London. He’s broke, has no friends, no future. One day he loses the one thing he’s been holding on to, and suddenly people around him are dying. Could a mysterious woman really offer him salvation?
9 to 5 by Tim Foley
It’s Monday morning. Stacey loves Mondays. Stacey loves every day. Stacey lives to work. She’s a temp and she loves it. Only there’s a man in the coffee queue who has a terrible warning for her. Stacey is going to die today.
TORCHWOOD ONE: MACHINES
After the success of “Torchwood One: Before the Fall,” it was only a matter of time before Big Finish returned to the Torchwood One era, and that moment has arrived with “Torchwood One: Machines,” a new box set of three stories that are much more standalone than their predecessors. It’s fairly lightweight as Torchwood goes, but the stories are generally enjoyable and we do get a window into Ianto’s history.
The first story, “The Law Machines” by Matt Fitton, is completely ridiculous. We’re thrown into the middle of a plot in which the city of London is introducing a new, robotic police force, which of course gets out of control and starts terrorizing the population. There’s no time to breathe in Fitton’s script: the characters are constantly at warp speed, trying to figure out why the Law Machines have gone rampant and how to stop them. But what evil force could be behind this? What monstrosity would release a plague of murderous robots onto the streets of London? Well, it’s happened before: that’s right, WOTAN is back, and once again playing itself. The evil supercomputer from “The War Machines” has been resurrected by an enterprising young programmer and has immediately set about taking over the world. But rather than sinking into clichés, Fitton smartly remembers that “The War Machines” was set in 1966, and portrays WOTAN as hopelessly out of touch and unfamiliar with early-2000s technology. While his avatar is talking about the internet and mobile networks, WOTAN is whisper-yelling about vacuum tubes. There’s really no depth here at all, but the breakneck pace and hilarious interpretation of a classic villain make it a worthwhile listen. It’s also one of the most enjoyable Matt Fitton scripts in recent memory, for what that’s worth.
Next comes “Blind Summit,” by Gareth David-Lloyd, which tells the story of how Ianto first joined Torchwood. He’s living in a small London flat with his father, a man I assume from the text is suffering from dementia. Ianto is broke, with no connections and a minimum wage job as a barista, and is barely staying afloat with his landlord – so even though he’s horrified by Torchwood and the things they encounter, he’s receptive to financial advances. We also get an early look at Yvonne as someone who will kidnap a man’s father to bring him on side, as well as someone who will go to a bar, pour her heart out to a random stranger to soothe her conscience, and then drug them so they forget the conversation. It’s a difficult listen – Ianto is put through the wringer and Yvonne is even more ruthless than usual – but it actually works as an origin story of sorts. David-Lloyd understands his character exceptionally well, and he’s a talented writer to boot, so why not have him pen the big Ianto stories? Great stuff.
Finally, there’s “9 to 5,” by Tim Foley, a story that seems to start in medias res with a temp named Stacey heading out from her job on a coffee run. In a particularly smart bit of writing, however, we eventually learn that we’ve experienced Stacey’s entire life, and we didn’t start in the middle. The temp agency isn’t supplying human workers, it’s supplying temporary people who are given artificial memories and are programmed to break down into goo after their tasks are complete. Stacey is one of these artificial workers, and Foley’s script embraces this idea, showing how her mind is broadened by meeting the Torchwood crew and how she realizes that the memories in her head are nothing more than lies. It’s a wonderful piece of character drama – yes, it goes back to the “Ianto does something morally questionable for the greater good and then feels awful about it” well, but when it works like this, so what? It’s great, but there’s a problem: the story is practically singing along, and then we discover that WOTAN is behind everything and it immediately turns ridiculous again. It’s a completely unnecessary twist ending that adds nothing to the story and cheapens the experience – the fact that they spent the first story gently mocking WOTAN for being uselessly out of date should have been a clue that it didn’t need to come back.
Overall, “Torchwood One: Machines” is a worthwhile box set. The first story is highly entertaining if disposable, while the latter two are both excellent character pieces. Everything Torchwood touches seems to turn to gold of late, and this is no exception.
8/10