Torchwood One: Before The Fall Review
Gustaff Behr gives his verdict on Yvonne Hartman’s audio prequel.
Well, let’s get this over with.
It’s gotten to the point where I compare a bad Big Finish title to witnessing a red moon. It doesn’t happen often. The month of January played host to The Star Men and The Beast of Kravenos which, while not as strong as 2016’s January releases, were still very much enjoyable. Torchwood: Before the Fall is sadly nowhere near that level of ordinary.
Ladies and gentlemen, I usually end my reviews by recommending a title or not, but for this particular title, written by Joseph Lidster, Jenny Colman and Matt Fitton, I’m just going to flat out tell you not to buy this title.
Before The Fall focuses on Torchwood One, before the events of Doctor Who Season 2, but focuses on the wrong plot, the wrong characters and presents us with a first episode that is so boring, so badly paced and so focused on perhaps the wettest dishrag of an audience surrogate character that I will not even attempt to find anything positive to say about it. I’m just gonna break down what happens: The first twenty minutes deal solely with character introductions, the actual plot of the story, the little that there is, begins at the 50 minute mark and the climax occurs in the last five minutes of the first story.
This story is the opposite of Forest of the Dead which featured scene jumping; skipping the “boring” or “irrelevant” parts of the story. Before The Fall Episode 01 literally, and I kid you not folks, shows us all the “boring” bits and only them. It’s like watching a documentary about the everyday lives of boring people in great detail. But instead of cutting to them finish making their coffee, we have to sit through their entire journey from their desk, down the two flights of stairs to the coffee machine, take the time to mix the coffee, wait for it to be prepared and then watch them every second of the way as they down the coffee in however many sips we’re usually spared in movies.
Not only that, but the entire premise of this box set is built on a flawed idea and only works because multiple plot contrivances ranging from nonsensical to downright ludicrous are allowed to happen. For instance an intern suddenly being promoted to head of Torchwood One, a blogger being employed to work at Torchwood despite having no practical qualifications, Torchwood having no investigative ability or my personal favourite: Torchwood installing surveillance cameras in every employee’s house to spy on them, but having nothing inside their actual base of operations to maybe…I don’t know…track saboteurs, find lost property or investigate internal affairs.
The first story I would rate even lower than Hell Bent or In the Forest of the Night which should tell you something if you follow my reviews. The box set does improve with the latter two episodes, but if you’re strong enough to make it past the first one, chances are you won’t really care what happens next due to how nonsensical the first is.
Yvonne Hartman’s characterization is also something I feel needs to be discussed. I’ve noticed that Big Finish is trying to paint her as something of a rogue hero. She is murderous and manipulative and cunning, but she’s also doing it for the right reasons so we should like her. Yvonne is a snake. A lovable snake mind you. She does what gets her ahead and what works for Torchwood and the Empire. She isn’t known for showing remorse or even sympathy. For King and Country: that’s her motto. Trying to remove the snake in the grass element and make her more into a Jack Harkness type of individual feels very out of character. The two hate one another because of their vastly conflicting ideologies. That’s established continuity.
I’m not going to talk a lot about Ianto Jones since he doesn’t really do much in this box set. He is a side character in Episode 01, treated like a buffoon (which he is not) in the second and it takes him a while to “wake up” to what’s really going on during the last episode. It’s one of the poorest treatments of the character in memory.
The main “villain” of the box set is a pretty weak foil to Yvonne too. In fact, the only way the story could level the playing field was by bringing Yvonne down instead of introducing us to a character that can go toe to toe with Torchwood despite their overwhelming numbers and tech. I’m reminded of Captain John Hart from Season 2 who singlehandedly ran circles around Jack’s team despite their numbers and intelligence. Our villain resides on the other end of the spectrum.
In conclusion, I cannot in good conscious recommend Torchwood: Before The Fall. While I consider Matt Fitton’s episode the strongest of the lot, the dreadful first episode makes it seem like it’s too much trouble to get there. Some of the things in this box set put the nonsensical stuff we’ve seen on the television series to shame
