Drive

dear god this cover is beautiful

 Drive by David Llewellyn 

It’s certainly a pattern that Tosh’s main range escapades pale in comparison to that of her colleagues, and while Drive still isn’t the 10/10 that one of Torchwood’s best characters deserves, it’s definitely a step in the right direction. Drive is a very good script, and one that reminds me a lot of Torchwood on television, but not in a derogatory way. Despite not having the full cast behind Tosh, Drive still feels nonetheless like something TV Torchwood would attempt - just looking at stories like Random Shoes, Sleeper and Ghost Machine. It’s a one sentence concept, much like those stories, taking a simple look at Tosh trying to track down a man committing a crime spree with a teleporter. Torchwood often did stories like this, revolving around ordinary people discovering alien technology to disastrous results, and the scale to the story is not limited by its small cast. The entire cast bar Naoko Mori play double, or even triple and quadruple duty in rounding out the vast city of Cardiff as Tosh and Fawzia rampantly drive across it to try and catch this weeks’ teleporting maniac. The story never feels limited - it’s part large scale romp, but it’s also quite CSI, and in addition is quite introspective, and spends a good deal of time fleshing out Fawzia as a person. Spending that time is Drive’s smartest move, because it’s the success of Fawzia’s character that the story hinges upon being truly impactful. Without it, you don’t really have much of a story, and by focusing on that and letting it take up more time than the plot with Chris, it lets her be more three dimensional, although I wouldn’t call her perfect. The story has Fawzia as a focal character, and so often the story stays on Fawzia picking up a phone call while Tosh enters a building, causes trouble and we only see her running out of it. This is very smart usage of time, the story only giving us what we need to see and maintaining a sharp quick pace throughout its runtime. All in all, The story’s best work is with Fawzia, but it’s also good material for Tosh too, allowing her to be an efficient Torchwood agent and badass without being physical like Gwen or Ianto sometimes have to be to resolve the plot. Tosh’s best work has always come out of her being skilled and intelligent. I like that the story gives her a repertoire of gadgets, makes her efficient and an excellent agent, but also isn’t afraid to make her beat up and in need of help. Tosh’s sympathetic outlook has always made her different than the other Torchwood members, and this is a story that can only work with Tosh as a result. The choices she makes at the end Gwen and Owen certainly wouldn’t have. Nonetheless, as good as Drive is, I’m rather disappointed with it, because even though it’s the best Tosh story I’ve done yet, it’s still not the knockout that every other Torchwood Star has gotten - They haven’t discovered how to write her something perfect yet, and it’s certainly noticeable, considering the other characters are either a lot more amoral (Victoria, Norton, Yvonne) assholery (Owen, Jack, Tyler) confident (Gwen, Ianto) or Inexperienced (Andy) and I think it leaves Tosh in a certain spot of “what do we do with her?” Although this is definitely, and I can’t stress it enough, 100% the best Tosh audio at the moment, it’s not perfect and that makes me feel sad as Tosh is yet again being placed in the background without getting her moment to shine. 8/10