Torchwood: Believe

 

Torchwood Believe

Now, this may just be me, but if I were in charge of doing a set where I had the five original crew back for some episodes, I'd probably not do what Guy Adams has done. It's another set of the miniseries format, which can work very well for Torchwood (Children of Earth, Soho, Before the Fall) and it can also not (Miracle Day, Titan Comics). But most times it does indeed work, so I wasn't exactly apprehensive going into Believe. Just sort of wishing it was another thing. I've always been sort of weird in my preference for the average day episodes. I'm the only person I know who's favorite television season of Torchwood is series two. Believe is Torchwood on audio's biggest event set - it's the original five characters interacting again for the first time since 2008! On paper - Believe itself is very different from what it sounds like, and indeed, like The Torchwood Archive, it does indeed sort of separate all the characters into separate threads. This is a method I can respect, but I don't exactly vibe with. Believe is certainly an interesting story, it has interesting ideas, and I am interested, but throughout I was always thinking I wish it did certain things different.

Episode One

The first episode of Believe is interesting - it's very ostensibly a mixed bag. For one, there's the entertaining aspect of hearing the whole Torchwood team together again, which is of course, downright wonderful. For another, there's the whole concept of the set, which is a very good and intriguing hook. There's a momentum to it, and there's the whole fact that Torchwood does indeed work quite well in the miniseries format. The concept about the Church of the Outsiders and the Greys is without a doubt the best element here. But it's also a little too TV Torchwood. The episode opens with a suicide scene that is, well, I hesitate to say graphic as it's an audio scene, but no, it's pretty damn gratuitous. The edginess is something you could actually cite as a complaint about - it doesn't feel naturally earned. I know, I know! I'm like the dark messiah on here, I herald pieces of work like The Hope (which I legit just didn't write a review for because I had nothing to add to such a perfect audio) Soho and Hostile Environment! I don't mind dark - I mind edgy bullshit. There are great individual dark elements, such as the concept of the Grays, and everything about the Greys really. But Elsewhere in the episode you find disturbing implications about Tosh being essentially forced to bed an abhorrent man for the sake of the mission. I'd have cut that - it doesn't add much at all in terms of plot, and it's honestly really distasteful. It doesn't even lead to good drama. It's the edgy bullshit. There are a few other scenes that may remind you of some of Torchwood's early misfires in series one. Some of these scenes go a bit too far in terms of content, and not in a way that I think develops the characters or aids to dramatic stakes. The aforementioned Tosh scene is very dark and I'm not sure how important it even is, considering Tosh gets caught going through the man's nightstand anyway. Minus Owen and Tosh's plot, the most of the episode revolves around a debriefing scene that is essentially all the exposition we need about everything related to the Church, and a brief foray into Gwen territory as she meets with a daughter of the Church named Andromeda. The Gwen plot is short compared to the Tosh and Owen one, and I did find it to be the stronger. Gwen's a character that I've always really liked, and Eve Myles has adapted well to audio - most of the cast has. It's still not exactly perfect, but it's engaging. Ianto's part in the episode is incredibly brief, Jack's even shorter. Jack's manipulative side seems to be the focus of this arc, which I'm not sure is the best direction to go with, but we'll see. Episode One of Believe is very odd. It's clearly a fragment of a larger story, to the extent that the cliffhanger is sudden and doesn't even feel earned. Yet it didn't really even matter that the cliffhanger was dull at all. Despite it's many, many flaws, Believe is still the audio equivalent of a page-turner, and 100% greater than the sum of it's parts. Regardless of the quality of the writing, Believe has a pace, concepts that work well, and is just generally surprisingly engaging. As soon as episode one ended, I wanted to turn on the next and keep going. 

Part Two

Part Two of Believe is where a lot of the problems from the previous episode partially went away, but also didn't. You see, there's much LESS fuckery in this episode, but also the events of the previous episode are being referred to continually. This episode is stronger, way stronger than episode one, but it sort of hangs over it really in a way that it has a sort of unsteady footing. We get to see more of the Gray culture in this one, and it delves a lot deeper into the Church of the Outsiders in general - which I'm starting to wish were given much more time than this three hour boxset to work with. I'd have loved them to be an adversary for the Torchwood gang to deal with throughout the monthlies, much like, the Committee or seemingly the Unity will be going forward. This is good content. The problem essentially is this is a boxset that is sold to us by saying this is the first time the Torchwood gang have been back together since 2008, and quite frankly, they aren't together. You can TELL they weren't in the same room, specifically because their separate plots in the set are just given to them and refuse to overlap. It feels like the set could technically have been made into a Owen/Tosh episode, an Ianto episode and a Jack episode. They're all off with their own plot threads, and they really don't connect, they do all feel at least somewhat separate, distant. Yes, these plot threads do take up multiple episodes, but that's only because they're all being told at the same time - they would each slide into a single episode well - they almost do! In addition, while Jack isn't my favorite Torchwood member at all, he's essentially absent for all of part two as well, so really the man is getting top billing for what's essentially a series of quick cameos he recorded in maybe two hours tops. While certainly eventful as a miniseries, it's far from the connected and brilliant character drama you get from Torchwood One, AAU/GAU and especially Torchwood Soho's usage of this format. This episode is a lot better than the first, but I also have a lot less to say about it. Most of my points on episode One remain, just slightly muted, faded. The same issues are still there, you just have to look for them. While I like the Torchwood team, the team interaction is what sold this set to begin with, yet there's so little of it. I wish I could understand what Believe is trying to do here. You have a great concept for a miniseries - use it properly!

Part Three

Part Three of the series is essentially Jack and the magic reset button. It's smarter than the other two, yes the episodes do continue to go up in quality, but I still wouldn't say it redeems the set in it's entirety. This episode continues the previously established threads of the set, Tosh, Gwen, Ianto and Owen's plotlines, but most of it focuses on what Jack has been doing the entire time the rest of the story has been happening. It is slightly unsatisfying to have Jack saunter into the set and essentially fix much of the problem in an unrealistic manner, most of which is done by either Jack simply existing, or by a scant handwave of "oh, the public wouldn't believe any of this," which I've always found to be one of the weaker tidying up bits when it's used so frequently in Doctor Who or Torchwood. Yeah, the public wouldn't believe most things, but at a certain point it becomes slightly ridiculous. The other characters minus Jack get less screen time. While Ianto and Owen get good enough moments, I can't help but feel the set has used Gwen very well at all. She's supposed to be the heart of the team as well as a professional character who gets things done, and she's not really at her best here, especially since this episode the majority of what she does is yell a bit at Andromeda. The strongest part of this set in general is the thematic focus of this last episode - The Church itself, and a surprisingly heartfelt analyzation of the power of belief in general. Torchwood is often very brutal towards religion if it ever comes up - it often throws it to the side and talks science fact to the point that towards religious viewers it may seem adversarial. Indeed, you can even see this in Owen's point of view throughout the story. I don't care about this when it does happen, as I'm not religious, but a lot of the strongest part of this is the actual emotional context of what it's done for some of these characters. For some of them like Andromeda, yes, religion has made them horrible, but for others like say, Erin, it's made them better, and given them purpose. It's oddly a respectful turn, and it's certainly the most thought provoking and well-written note I could say about the set. I especially like it because I don't feel like it coddles you in either direction - it points out the positives and negatives of religion and it's impact on people in very simple terms and it allows you to draw your own conclusions. It's somewhat silly how good some individual sections of part three of Believe are - especially when the whole thing put together is really rather incredibly flawed. The separation of the characters, while it allows for a decently larger scale, doesn't allow us to get what we want out of this set - there should have been more phone calls and overlap between our five leads' plots in order for the experience of the set to come together into a more cohesive and well-done experience. As it is, Believe is at least good - which is bloody heinous considering it could have been utterly astonishing. 6/10