Torchwood: Tube Strike from Big Finish Review

Over the next three months, we’re getting an Ianto trilogy. Yay! What’s more, fans of this character are going to be treated to a trilogy of stories written by Ianto actor, Gareth David-Lloyd showing the character at different points in his career with Torchwood. Tube Strike kicks things off at the start of his time with Torchwood in London.

Writing episodes of Torchwood is nothing new for Gareth David-Lloyd, he’s penned several previous entries to the series and he’s a good writer, even the character isn’t all that interesting so it’ll be interesting to see how her fairs with a series of three episodes. The first entry, Tube Strike uses the character of Tommy from the Torchwood One range and sees the pair fighting Weevils in the tunnels of the London Underground.

What was surprising then was that Lloyd uses this story not really as a vehicle for Ianto, but for Tommy and as anyone who heard the Torchwood One range will know, it’s easy to predict how Tommy will react to a situation. So it’s good then that the character of an old friend Bill, played by Derek Elroy, helps to give his character a range of different emotions while Ianto spends much of the story paired with Tia, an Underground worker caught in the middle of a Weevil attack.

However much of the story focuses on the friendship between Tommy and Bill, and looks at their outlook on life no longer align while Tia works as the comic relief having had her arm ripped off by the Weevils and then using it to beat the attacking creatures away.

I’m not too sure medically if that would work or if you would just die outright from pain and shock, but it’s one of a few little niggles with the plot that Lloyd struggles with here making things a little too ridiculous but if you ignore that you might find yourself having a better time than you might have first thought.

I’m not a fan of Ianto’s character but Lloyd does a brilliant job here if not making him particularly interesting then in keeping this story rattling along, especially when nothing is going on despite being trapped by Weevils which does sound quite creepy on audio.

But Tube Strike was a surprisingly enjoyable story nonetheless and I was surprised that Lloyd managed to find a different direction for the character to go in and setting this in his early days with Torchwood was the right move. Hopefully, the rest of the Ianto stories are going to be as fun as Tube Strike was.

You can pick up Torchwood: Tube Strike from Big Finish on both digital and CD now.