Torchwood Soho: Ashenden

 

This is it! The Hour of the Hollow Men!

Torchwood Soho Ashenden

[Torchwood Soho Ashenden is a serial where each part builds upon the previous parts extensively. Unlike Parasite, where you could get by in vague terms, It is next to impossible to review each episode without spoiling the previous. I recommend fully listening to Ashenden before reading this review.]

Ashenden is the second Torchwood Soho set and honestly, it's another banger. It's hard to predict that considering we've only had two sets of the range so far, but Ashenden displays the clear pattern that the series has while being wonderfully unique. What Ashenden is, is a very smart utilization of a very different side of the Torchwood Soho cast. While Norton is still as important, Parasite was very much Lyme's story, with Lizbeth and Andy in auxiliary roles. Andy didn't show up until episode three of Parasite, yet he's in five out of six episodes of Ashenden and is honestly the main protagonist. Lizbeth was a side character for Norton to play off of until Andy arrived in Parasite, and yeah, she did happen to get her own flashback episode, but here she's arguably more important to the plot than Norton herself. Norton works better in this one in his limited screentime, because with every appearance you can tell how utterly important he is. His manipulative bullshit is also quite thoroughly dissected too. He's the Seventh Doctor but actually cool and good because his masterplanning fits tonally with the series he's in. Lyme holds an interesting role in this set too, because honestly we never see him as himself for the entire set. It leads to a very strange and new dynamic for the series - while I'm fond of Lizbeth and Andy immensely, the previous set seemed to lead into Lyme becoming the Gwen character of the Soho era. Here, while he's emotionally important and the crux of a lot of plot, he's really different. What I'm saying here is Ashenden IS very different, and in fact, I really, really respect that. It's a series that in two boxsets has somehow become more new and vital than any other spinoff you could possibly ask for, and honestly I think we need to get 2+ sets a year of this thing until the end of time. Perhaps that's just me being greedy. James Goss clearly should continue to be the main one writing this range, I'm not asking for anything different here. But seriously. While I'm sure James Goss knows he has something special, I'm not sure he truly understands how magnificent this work is. It's another high quality boxset in the bag, that while not flawless, proves that Soho is the exact avenue Big Finish should be approaching Torchwood in from now on.

Pimlico by James Goss

Pimlico is a very earnest little opener. It certainly knows what it wants to do, to an extent better than you know what the heck is going on with it. It's very sudden opening leaves the audience very confused, and since it's an audio drama there are very little visual clues to catch you up or anything, so you essentially have Andy and Lizbeth freaking out about the events of you know, the whole thing. Lizbeth is back, and it's really lovely to have her back, they've developed an excellent way to do it. The best concept about the story is the continuity bureau, an aspect of Torchwood never before unveiled, but an excellent concept that is very much in character for the organization. Dragging in Andy and Lizbeth to resolve their little problems is very petty, and it's a great sort of hook, especially with Norton and Lyme exceedingly out of character. Andy and Lizbeth make an excellent double act, which I think goes without saying. Andy is one of those characters in Big Finish who sort of does the double act thing almost every story he's in - whether it's with Gwen, Norton, Owen, Yvonne, Liv, or now Lizbeth, he excels at being a bouncy character that makes other characters around them shine, while taking enough spotlight for himself too. Anyway, yes. Pimlico is somewhat shaky. But it's fun - I think that's what counts. It's really rather fun, and while my critique part can't send it too high up, I want you to definitely keep in mind that this is one of the most enjoyable times I've had with a 7/10 story.

O Little Town of Ashenden by James Goss

O Little Town of Ashenden is the atmosphere episode. Now that we've had our breakneck opening, we get an episode where very little but some terrifying forboding happens. And you know?? fine with that, really. The episode really earns itself through the performance of Joe Shire, who really sells himself as essentially a completely different character, a terrifying zealot-like neighborhood man. Shire completely changes his usual performance from Lyme, but lets enough of it in to make the episode all the more tense because of how deeply wrong you know everything is. It's utterly magnetic. My only question at the point of the game is how while the atmosphere of this episode is incredible, the tale is starting to feel a little drawn out. This is a really unique one - so many episodes of Doctor Who try to sell you on a neighborhood feeling utterly terrifying, but nothing has ever done it as well as this. Subtly brilliant: 8/10

The National Health by James Goss

A healthy dose of medical horror, administered via very large syringe that certainly doesn't hurt at all, The National Health is another classic in this range. I admire the Torchwood Soho series for many things, character drama most of all, but one of it's best aspects is to tell a story in the style of a novel in audio - many differing sort of chapters, all with different tones that yet progress the same story in short chunks. The National Health reinvigorates the simplistic unnatural town plot that's pervaded the first two episodes by really helping to establish the stakes that the series is fighting through. Tom Price shines as Andy once more - and while I've previously spoken on Andy's art of the double act, Andy is alone and in a horrible situation for much of the entirety of this tale. It's through Tom Price's performance, the astonishingly smart writing and vividly wicked guest stars that the episode doesn't feel constricted in any form. Matron and Nurse Bledsoe are vividly drawn, very real characters that you can believe you might meet, yet they're also unbelievably twisted and cruel. They're likable in a way, which makes them scarier - a highlight of the story is Nurse Bledsoe taking from a man's food saying he won't need it much longer, and he can always ask for more biscuits, which may seem like some silly little gag about how she loves her custard creams yet is subtle, creepy and insidiously wicked. Matron is even better - her blind insistance that she can do no harm and the grandmotherly performance from Shvorne Marks is impeccable. There's a stunning scene with Norton and Andy later on though that I can't possibly spoil. Everyone who's done the story knows what it is, how utterly scary, yet brilliantly perfect and Torchwood it is. There's some very black comedy to be had here, if you're a fan of that. That being said, this serial format's build in both of the sets I've done it is astonishing. The six-part format really couldn't work better for this series as far as I'm concerned, it's bold and innovative storytelling with a classical model. This is exactly what I'd be doing if I was asked to write for Torchwood: 10/10

Rivers of Blood by James Goss

Rivers of Blood is the requisite flashback Torchwood Soho episode of the set. These episodes have always been interesting to me, as essentially they're glorified exposition in a way, and yet they're engaging and make the story feel larger, more interesting. In a strange way, yes, they're ultimately quite necessary indeed, and help to make the set all the better. Rivers of Blood's primary focus is Lizbeth and Norton's involvement with a woman named Ms. Satterthwaite, who's young and wasted by her abusive male superiors who think that she's an idiot because of her gender. From there, there's twists and turns, and ultimately we get a very sympathetic view into this woman's life - and also how much Norton and Lizbeth have really, really, really fucked this one up. You'd think that knowing that since this is a flashback episode, that Ms. Satterthwaite wouldn't be easy to get attatched to, because we do ultimately know where this all is leading - yet Ms Satterthwaite is a stunningly sympathetic and endearing character and makes you invested and gripped simply because you know she might not be getting out of this quite well. There's an ambiguousness to this episode, it works in vague terms, helping you learn more, yet still not quite seeing the bigger picture. Ultimately it's accomplishes what it's doing very nicely. While the Norton scene at the end feels less like a cliffhanger and more like Goss getting all his Ducks in a Row, there's a sense of puzzle pieces clicking into place that can't help but be utterly satisfying: 8/10 

Now Is The Time For All Good Men by James Goss

Episode 5 is once again the Lizbeth episode, and pretending anything could remotely compare to The Dead Hand is a bit silly, and so I'm glad that it doesn't really try to do anything like that again. It wouldn't have worked, it couldn't have managed. I'm not going to call it by it's stupidly long title, but All Good Men is essentially the episode that realistically shows how an mind-control invasion would actually go down. I've always found it a little silly in media - let's say, in the Animorphs books for instance, or say, the Star Trek TNG Conspiracy episode, that the mind controlling aliens don't take over everything next to instantly. In real life, they would spread like wildfire - they're virtually undetectable, take the place of your fellow workers, your friends, the government officials that can make serious change in your life - it would be effortless, and there really wouldn't be any sort of defense.

All Good Men very depressingly shows that. I love the sheer dogged pursuit that the Ashenden has for Lizbeth and Andy. It's implacable, and it's to be fair, really horrifying. This is the sort of thing that Doctor Who wouldn't do - it doesn't take invasions like this this far, pretty much ever. In terms of scale, it leaves our heroes with an unmatchable threat. Lizbeth's sour demeanor and resourcefulness make this story fit very nicely with her as the protagonist. There's quite a few scenes where she just gets angry at people who won't believe her about the alien invasion - which is utterly perfect storytelling from every angle you look at it, be it Lizbeth's character drama, logic, tension building, commentary on how we ignore things that frighten us, all of it. Most of the episode focuses on Lizbeth, but as with the rest of the set, there's also a much larger focus on Andy than in Parasite. Tom Price again is really good as the frightened nervous wreck. Although at this point that goes without saying. All in all, this episode feels slightly transitionary. You need to get from the flashback episode (or technically episode three) all the way ready for the finale, which has a lot to get done. As a result, All Good Men doesn't really have too much of an identity of it's own. What it is, is a continuation of the rest of the set taken to a logical and brilliant conclusion: 8/10

The Hour of the Hollow Man by James Goss

Emotionally speaking, this is one of the hardest things in the Torchwood canon to get through. At least for me - it's closest comparison is something as visceral as Hostile Environment or The Hope. Either that or A Mother's Son. It's a empty sort of experience and the complete opposite of a usual finale story that you get in this sort of series. It's sad as hell, and it sort of wallows in that emptiness, in one of the worst worlds imaginable in the Torchwood universe. It's also not one I was ever warned about. While this story isn't like that one, stories that are incredibly dark and agonizing have a reputation in the Torchwood fandom. So it's really funny to me that this one just didn't happen to be advertised. All the better, I suppose. I can sort of see why. It's a very different type of dark than usual. It's ideas are incredibly dystopian yet it doesn't focus on them so much as the killing of any optimism. What makes The Hour of The Hollow Man work is Andy's repeated attempts to fix essentially anything at all, to save even one person, and be told repeatedly that he's an idiot for being an optimist, constantly pushing the character's down and making them give into essentially death of their personality itself. The Hour of The Hollow Man is just a really dour experience in an incredibly oppressive, horrible and deathly world that really goes out of it's way to insult you and make this whole thing as really painful as it possibly could be for you. Yes, you in particular. You're an idiot for thinking you can have happy things. The sadist (aka the actual objective writing critique person in me) loves this, as it's incredibly well designed and everything, and couldn't be better written, yet what makes The Hour of The Hollow Man work is that you're constantly with Andy in every moment, constantly hoping for something to at last go right. It's really good at placing you within this world, and as a result, no, I really couldn't recommend it in any sort of way, as it's really one of the least enjoyable audios I've ever done and if it was any more than a half an hour long I'd probably, as a person, just have shut down completely. This being said, you probably know what rating is coming. Not only from an objective standpoint, but it's just true that Torchwood as a series lives in stories like these - and this isn't edgy for edgy's sake, it's realistic in how all of the characters would act as people. Stories like this are always the most heralded - Adrift, Children of Earth, The Hope... well, buddy, by those same standards, fucking hell man, this is another classic: 10/10