Moving Target
Episode 4 of Big Finish’s second season of Torchwood brings back Indira Varma’s Suzie Costello in Moving Target,
written by Guy Adams. It also features Alex, played by Naomi McDonald, a
human caught up in an extraterrestrial game hunt. Her only hope of
survival? You guessed it.
I’m going to be brutally honest and say that choosing Suzie Costello
to return feels like scratching the bottom of the barrel. I never liked
the character on television. Suzie made so little impression on me that I
had to go look up who she was on Tardis Wikia when it was announced
she’d be returning. But Big Finish has turned redeeming nonredeemable
characters into an art form so I was willing to give Moving Target a shot. Suffice to say they missed.
This story’s biggest flaw is perhaps the fact that it makes a really
unlikable character the star and partners her with an equally annoying
co-star. But credit where it’s due. Naomi McDonald plays a really
realistic Alex. To the point where I wish she’d been a little more
animated. Alex at times made the story feel like a gritty reality show.
Nicholas Burns plays the Referee, really pompous, but tremendously
entertaining character who mocks and ridicules the cast in a very Dream
Lord-esque manner.
The plot is really creative I will grant you. Freezing time so a
bunch of alien game hunters can hunt down a human prey for sport feels
ordinary, but I can’t recall another Doctor Who story which featured
this as the main plot. Unfortunately, the story contradicts itself
really badly when Suzie questions the legality of killing people all
willy-nilly. The Referee answers that they are within their legal
rights, but the story ignores the THING which sent the Atraxi packing in
The Eleventh Hour: Earth is a level-5 world. Hunting for sport
should be illegal given this status and for some reason this stayed
with me throughout the episode.
The narrative itself is quite predictable. It doesn’t take a genius
to predict the climax, but I will toot my own horn and say I got to the
answer roughly thirty minutes before it actually happened. If you’ve
watched episode 1 of Torchwood, you should be able to as well.
The story itself drags in the middle, as though the writer wasn’t
sure how to move the narrative from its current point to the next. This
makes Moving Target feel like a much longer story than it actually is.
In fact, this story could’ve been condensed to thirty minutes. It
would’ve done wonders for the pacing.
Moving Target provides a lot of foreshadowing to Suzie’s eventual fate, to the point where you could say that the reason They Keep Killing Suzie happened is because of Moving Target.
For the most part, this story is filler, but not one of my
favourites. It would be worth your time if you’re a fan of Suzie
Costello, but you don’t run the risk of missing any important
information regarding the Committee, who seem to be slowly transitioning
into a throwaway line as opposed to an actual character(s).
Broken
Joseph Lidster presents…Broken! A better name for this story
would’ve been ‘Fixed’ as this is exactly the kind of story I needed to
hear to get those Torchwood juices flowing. Broken in many ways
embodies what Torchwood is about. It has heart. It has soul. Great
character dynamics, real world problems and a careful handling of
sensitive matters. I’ve never been that hardcore of a Jack/Ianto fan,
but I suspect had this story made it into Season One in 2006, I might
just have turned out to be one.
Ever wondered how Ianto forgave Jack for killing his Cyber-girlfriend
in that ridiculously stupid Cyber(wo)man episode? How do the Torchwood
team cope with and adjust to the things they’ve seen? If a bunch of
cannibals almost cut you up, would you be able to brush it off and head
back into work the next morning with a huge smile on your face? Probably
not, but how long would it take? What would it take? Broken asks and answers most of these questions in an emotionally fragile, but sympatric story which did make me bawl at least once.
The majority of this story takes place in a pub with a glass of
alcohol in hand, but quickly takes the listener on a trip inside the
mind of one of the most messed up characters in Torchwood – Ianto Jones.
Broken highlights just how miserable, depressed and frustrated
he really is, as well as people like him. At times it may come across
as a grown man whining and complaining about stuff adults should be used
to, but aren’t we all like that? How many days end with us complaining
about our boss to our family and friends? Well Ianto doesn’t really have
much in the way of family (or does he), so he does what any other
person in his position has been known to do…complain to the girl who
serves you your drinks. And I must say that the conversations between
Gareth’s Ianto and Melanie Walters’ Mandy Aibiston were really good.
Real, proper, 3-dimensional discussions. It’s sort of the opposite of Moving Target
which somehow tried to be too realistic and gritty. Broken always feels
like a piece of fiction, but a really believable, ‘real’ piece of
fiction.
I didn’t listen to the trailer for Broken so I had no idea
what it would be about, but Lidster’s script succeeds in making you feel
so many different emotions, all at the right time. It really is one of
the best character stories we’ve had.
And that’s not even touching the plot twists. While not as plentiful
as some others, Lidster’s script did manage to throw me for a loop more
than once. The man has a way with a narrative curveball, but that’s no
surprise given his previous scripts such as The Reaping (darkest Cybermen story EVER), Master and The Nightmare Man.
I highly recommend you pick up Broken, but be warned it’s even more completely standalone and filler than Moving Target. But at least the characters are more likable.
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