Torchwood One: Machines

Three more stories featuring the London version of Torchwood in the early 2000s before its fall. As with the previous release, the feel is much less dark than the TV series or the regular Torchwood audios, although Yvonne Hartmann isn't as sympathetic a protagonist as, say, Kate Stewart in the UNIT audios. Marketed as “for mature listeners”, this is due to the occasional f-word and some implied gore, but not, say, anything sexual or truly horrific.

• The Law Machines – The Mayor of London (a fictional one, not Ken Livingstone) decides it would be a good plan to station heavily armed autonomous robot policemen across the city. Because that sort of thing never goes wrong. In fact, as the title and cover picture imply, this is a sequel to the DW TV story The War Machines, with a battle across London starting before the title music finishes playing. It's primarily focussed on Hartmann, shown here as ruthless and disdainful of the people she's supposedly protecting. Despite the fact that there's a fair bit of military action, this also has several touches of humour, some of them due to WOTAN not fully grasping how computer technology has advanced since 1966. As a result, while it's not a terribly deep story, it's an entertaining listen. 4 stars.

• Blind Summit – The second story is set earlier, recounting Ianto's first encounter with Torchwood, before he was officially recruited. It's more or less entirely told from his perspective, alone and alienated in London, and, at this point, a decent man who is quite unsuited to the threats he encounters. Hartmann shows a sympathetic side that we don't often see and is arguably at odds with the portrayal in the previous episode, while the story itself is a relatively routine piece about alien tech being used for cynical purposes. There is some gore and a brief LGBT encounter, but they feel tacked on because somebody felt that they ought to be there rather than because they're needed. It's a good performance from David-Lloyd as Ianto, and fills in some of the character's background, but otherwise it isn't much we haven't seen before. 4 stars.

• 9 to 5 – The final story is the strongest, following on from events in the other two and tying them together. The key character here is a temp working in an anonymous office building whose life is suddenly turned upside down by the arrival of Torchwood. I'll note that Ianto here seems to have a more important role within the organisation than is implied in the TV series, basically being a fully-fledged operative, but I guess this was necessary to give him something to do. That aside, it's a story about office life, and in particular a, well... dehumanising... view of HR departments. There's also pathos as the ordinary office worker at the heart of it all realises how what has really been going on affects her, and a common Torchwood theme of the interaction of new technology with everyday life. 4.5 stars.