Torchwood One: Before The Fall

Although consisting of three hour-long ‘episodes', each written by a different author, this is very much a single story and melds together seamlessly. As the title indicates, it is set at the large and glossy Torchwood offices in London, about two years before the Cybermen turned up and trashed everything in Army of Ghosts/Doomsday.

Much of the first episode is shown from the perspective of a new employee starting at the office, introducing us to some of the agents who, of course, we never see on TV. It's also, naturally, an overview of Torchwood itself, in particular showing the differences between the London and Cardiff branches. But, against the backdrop of daily life, the real story begins to unfold in the background, quietly at first but building to a cliffhanger ending that leads into the remaining two episodes.

Those are quite different in style, having a sort of espionage-with-aliens feel. The science fiction elements are fairly limited apart, perhaps, from the use of retcon to disguise the agency's activities. There's a good sense of things spiralling out of control, and a fair bit of action, especially in the middle part, along with a particularly disastrous ‘team-building' exercise of the sort that big companies enjoy inflicting on their employees.

Yvonne Hartman, and, to a lesser extent, Ianto, are the main protagonists here, something that, as in the previous shorter release One Rule allows the writers to expand on the former. While still as ruthless as in that release, her clear contrast here with people who are rather more so does make her a more sympathetic character this time around and she's less often the butt of jokes. Ianto is also good, although the rather obvious potential plotline of his doomed romance with Lisa has to be left out and is only mentioned in passing.

The feel of the story is different from the previous Torchwood releases, in large part due to the nature of Torchwood One as compared with its Welsh counterpart. It's bigger, glossier, and notably less dark, with the ‘adult' elements restricted to no more than some mild swearing and indirect sexual references. It's also distinct from its sister series UNIT, being a more personal story and less about the wide-reaching alien invasions that that has so far dealt with. It's a good story, well-paced, with some unexpected twists, albeit short on the actual science fiction.