Torchwood: God Among Us 1

 

Torchwood: God Among Us 1

God Among Us, is, as you've probably guessed by now, pretty great. And as someone who was warned of how dark it could be, the nature of the stories in set one for me were surprising, no darker I'd say than previous sets in Aliens Among Us...(although in all probability due to a certain story in set 2 my opinions on this will change.) Nonetheless, God Among Us is mostly 4 really good monster of the week episodes with an ongoing plot thread between all of them, and although a certain important player is absent for the most of it, there's some real nice deft work here for Yvonne, Orr and Ng especially. 

My feelings on it are consistent with much of Aliens Among Us - this set is probably the strongest set yet, but I might like Aliens Among Us 3 more. It depends - but still, it's a wonderful series of stories, and I can't wait to see where it goes from here.

Future Pain by James Goss

Right off the bat, Future Pain is bloody marvellous. It shows the cast utterly reeling from loss at the end of Aliens Among Us and how they have to move on while not much has changed for them. The closest comparison I could give it would be Absent Friends (The Doom Coalition one, not the Torchwood one that's just been announced) but it goes in a very different direction from Absent Friends, it is still all about examining the power of grief. It's a brilliant piece, and we get great performances from most of the cast, but most of all Ramon Tikaram as Colin utterly bashes it out of the park. He's never shown this much raw emotion in anything I've heard with him previously, and I was really astonished with how well the man could act when the cards were down. He carries this episode. And when he isn't, the Orr content is top tier. God Among Us definitely remedies the lack of attention Orr was getting in Aliens Among Us - even if they disappear at the end of this set- by giving some of the best Orr content we've had. Their comments at the funeral are deep and incisive, but also funny as they starts talking about being surprised that she's never been in a room where people haven't wanted Sex before. It's wonderful and funny, but Orr is also very good when doing things plot-wise. Another player I wasn't expecting to be good was Jonny Green as Tyler Steele, who has taken his asshole-ness to a new level that I wasn't expecting while still having some good content in this and the next one about how he's dealing with Colchester's absence. The other plot threads are good enough - Ng doesn't do much but be reintroduced, and Yvonne gives us a killer cliffhanger but that's about it- the weakest link in the cast as usual is probably Jack. I still really love Future Pain. But thank god the path they went down with Colchester didn't end up happening. 9/10

The Man Who Destroyed Torchwood by Guy Adams 

The Man Who Destroyed Torchwood is a bit of a side-step, but it's a decent enough one, doing a weird political thing - and it's fairly enjoyable enough. It takes place mostly in this Youtuber's mind - he's self obsessed and thinks he's the most important person in the world but isn't important whatsoever. It's a pretty searing indictment, and one I think maybe could be too harsh if it wasn't so entertaining and the fact that Conspiracy youtubers are pretty much like this. 

The story is two-inches thick - it's propped up with flashbacks and imagination sequences. It's mostly just a short bit with Tyler spreading a bit of false information to Brent, but wow are these imagination sequences great. Tracy Ann Oberman, Alexandria Riley and Sam Beart play hilariously and weirdly warped versions of themselves - but John Barrowman takes the cake, giving one of the hammiest and most extreme performances I've ever heard on audio. For someone who doesn't always love Jack, he goes all out here, you can tell he's having so much fun, and it's infectious. Not to say that Sam Beart's weird horny female "Corr" isn't incredibly funny too. It's a side-step, yes, and it doesn't forward the plot much at all, but the same could be said for stories like Superiority Complex or Escape Room - it doesn't make it worse. The story stands on it's own two feet and it does pretty boldly say what it's doing, and it's strengths (and flaws) are all the more noticeable for it. 8/10

See No Evil by John Dorney

ALERT! ALERT! JOHN DORNEY HAS WRITTEN A YVONNE EPISODE! JOHN DORNEY HAS WRITTEN A YVONNE EPISODE! Okay, fanboying aside, See No Evil is a pretty strong piece, dealing with how Jack and Yvonne respectively deal with crisis's. It's really a nice piece, and some more of the great Yvonne content I've loved seeing since Poker Face. It's nice and enjoyable how simple the script is - there's some more blessed Orr content where they spend some time with Ng in a dark hub and it suddenly takes a wicked turn. But most of all, the enjoyment of the script for me is the constrast of Jack going through hell to save one man, Colin and Yvonne being willing to do terrible things to save the whole of the city, even at one point considering sacrificing Andy. Andy, speaking of, is the best he's been in the Among Us audios, he's wonderfully good at playing off of Yvonne. The whole concept of darkness on audio is a pretty easy one to make work. But this contrast on our two Torchwood leaders is just wonderful, and the more I think about See No Evil, the less I have flaws with it. It's strong, it's good, and although I was initially giving it a 9, it's getting a 10/10 now that I've realized how well it works for me. 

Night Watch by Tim Foley 

Night Watch is the first Orr episode since AAU 1 and it's positively incredible. It's Gaiman-esque in it's concept, a city falling asleep under a dark sun and Orr wandering the streets to put everyone back in their beds and keep them safe. It's a simple concept, with wonderful atmosphere and fabulous character work for Orr. Jacqueline King as her recurring role has some of her best stuff here...she's absolutely magnificent. The Colchester/Colin plot is heartwrenching and the Yvonne plot is incredible too. Yvonne's best moment in the series comes when Ng says that if she has any doubts about her, she should let her go now, and Yvonne just says "fine" and drops her back to sleep. The Tyler plot is the weakest of the three but it doesn't outstay it's welcome. It's weird, but the surreal-quality of it adds to the wonderful atmosphere of it. As a sucker for stuff like Ocean at The End of The Lane, coupled with Orr and Yvonne being fabulous and those two cliffhangers (Yes! Two!) - I love everything Night Watch stands for. 10/10