Many years ago Jo Grant met Professor Clifford Jones, fell in love and saved the world. It all happened in the idyllic Welsh community of Llanfairfach.
Josephine Jones has come back to Llanfairfach and she finds it a bustling place with a thriving economy. The little town is now at the spearhead of a healthy-eating revolution. And yet, something’s missing. It feels like the heart has gone out of the place.
She falls in with a dashing stranger and realises that although the past was a lot simpler, not everything’s changed. There’s still something nasty in the mine, and it’s been waiting for Jo for a very long time.
TORCHWOOD: THE GREEN LIFE
At first glance, a crossover between Torchwood and classic Doctor Who seems uneasy – the tones are radically different, after all. But in David Llewellyn’s “The Green Life,” the pairing works surprisingly well. As the title implies, it’s a sequel to “The Green Death,” and it features Jo Jones (née Grant) and Jack Harkness investigating the return of the giant maggots to Llanfairfach. The story doesn’t tell us how they got together, but it quickly flags up the differences in approach: while they both want to accomplish the best outcome for humanity, Jo wouldn’t hurt a fly but Jack will shoot whatever gets in his way. Their arguments are a bit overwrought, but John Barrowman and Katy Manning have great chemistry and so it’s quite entertaining to listen to them bicker. With Stewart Bevan in the cast you’d expect the surprise return of Cliff, but instead he’s playing an old enemy and doing a fantastic job of it. There’s also a wonderful moral dilemma at the end of the story: what do you do when you uncover a plot, run by giant maggots, duping humanity into consuming food they wouldn’t want, but when you also realize the plot is feeding millions and not really hurting anyone? Suddenly, the companions’ positions are reversed: Jo is outraged and determined to stop it while Jack is pragmatic and willing to let it continue under supervision. Llewellyn really understands these characters, bringing their competing philosophies to the fore without making it sound overly forced. Jo and Jack work together surprisingly well. Ultimately, this is still rather slight for a Torchwood story, but it’s thoughtful enough and the performances and the nostalgia carry the day.
8/10