Torchwood: Aliens Among Us #2.1 - “Love Rat” by Christopher Cooper

After far too long a break, I have come back to the audio-only fifth series of Torchwood - Aliens Among Us, to continue the story of the Sorvix invasion of Cardiff. Having left on a decent mystery episode, we return to Jack getting f**ked to death in the first 60 seconds of Love Rat. This is an interesting one.

With Ro-Jedda now the mayor of Cardiff, Jack finds himself in a peculiar situation - on a mortuary slab following a drunken one night stand. With an alien plague spreading across the city, can Jack resist temptation long enough to stop it?

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Christopher Cooper must’ve been going through something when he wrote this because it is genuinely hornier than Day One. A sex parasite is our major threat this time around and this story is basically just Jack infecting several people (including Gwen, which we’ll get to) over the course of the story by sleeping with them. An alien STD is definitely an interesting concept and the story feels more comedic than sleazy, with sex scenes that don’t just feel completely useless (looking at you Chibnall). Our main cast is standout here, Gwen/Ng is especially played to perfection by the wonderful Eve Myles and Orr continues to go up in my rankings as a brilliant character, although she’s unfairly sidelined. Also, Andy’s here! Everybody loves Andy, including Big Finish as they rightfully should. Quickly, I want to mention the stuff with Ng which is just really quite f**ked up. Having already killed Gwen’s mother, Ng now forces Gwen to sleep with Jack, considering Ng supposedly becomes a member of the main cast separate from Gwen, I don’t know how that’ll work out in the future, but it’s fittingly disturbing here. All in all, Love Rat is just plain fun. It’s a simple story that manages to do comedy right, however it is not perfect.

Yeah, it’s incredibly horny. I already mentioned this but Jesus Christ does it become overbearing in the story. And whilst the characters and comedy is there, the plot is really stripped down to basics. It’s a non-mystery solved very quickly and everything is resolved almost as soon as it becomes a problem in a very easy way. It’s not bad per say but it is very basic. This story isn’t particularly memorable outside of its weird obsession with sex and its comparisons with Day One. I’m not particularly bothered by it but I can see how it being the audio’s main focus drags it down quite a lot.

Love Rat isn’t the funniest or most fun audio out there, but it’s alright. The sex stuff takes way too much of a major role to the detriment of the story but it’s not as bad as some people say, just a little strange.

6/10

Pros:

+ Achieves comedy pretty well; not everything lands but it’s genuinely funny at times

+ Our main characters shine and feel particularly human here

+ Andy’s back in the series and as brilliant as ever

+ The stuff with Ng was particularly disturbing

Cons:

- The sex stuff becomes incredibly overbearing eventually

- Too many characters given pretty poor roles in the story, particularly Orr

- The plot feels incredibly simple, problems are solved within scenes of their introduction.

Torchwood: Aliens Among Us | Ranked
12.
11.
10.
9.
8.
7.
6.
5. Aliens & Sex & Chips & Gravy by James Goss - 5/10
4. Love Rat by Christopher Cooper - 6/10
3. Orr by Juno Dawson - 7/10
2. Changes Everything by James Goss - 8/10
1. Superiority Complex by AK Benedict - 8/10

Overall - 6.8/10