Torchwood: Instant Karma

"People. Don't you just hate... People?"

Instant Karma by David Llewellen, James Goss and Jonathan Morris

As far as I’m aware this is the only Big Finish story with three credited writers - feel free to correct me on that, but it’s an interesting bit of trivia. Nonetheless, Instant Karma is definitively a Tosh story - in that it’s quite proficient but not much compared to some of the other knockouts of Torchwood stories, despite the fact that Tosh is one of the best characters Torchwood has. Even with stuff like Zone 10, Cascade and Greeks Bearing Gifts, there’s nothing that peaks over high average. Which is a shame, and Instant Karma stays there: it’s enjoyable enough, the concept is fascinating, and the execution is pretty good- Simon is a frightening villain and whatnot, but I can’t help but feel that for such a cool concept that it did on the whole feel somewhat wasted. The story opens with a very solid hook and opening monologue about the people in our day to day lives who only serve to make ours worse through no real fault of their own. It's a very solid hook, and it's got this real meaty edge to it, a very solid central question to what the story's asking, but from there, it just sort of gets less interesting. Tosh shows up, investigating whoever Simon is, and she just sort of has to figure out how to deal with this rando psychic madman, that's the plot. If I was to write this, I'd have Simon as the perspective character, and we just go through his day to day life for a bit, seeing these "people that do nothing but make his life worse" and why he kills them. It's an interesting concept, but ultimately by framing Tosh as the Protagonist in this story, you're automatically focusing on the Torchwood perspective, which is the least interesting part of the hook. Tosh is a great character, and while certain stories benefit from the Torchwood character investigating - like, say, Ghost Mission thrives on Andy's investigation of the plot, others do better by sliding off the most recognizable aspect of the story to the side, like More Than This uses Gwen only as a secondary Protagonist. I can't help but feel this would work better as the latter. Either way, Naoko Mori gives it her all, when doesn’t she? I will always love the Tosh stories, as I love Tosh, but when even Owen, a character I like less than Tosh gets bangers every other week like Iceberg and The Hope for example, it seems to exacerbate that problem where Tosh was always somewhat forgotten on television... It is slightly incredibly annoying. Better than Zone 10, but really come on, Tosh needs a More Than This or Save Our Souls at this point: 7/10