My favourite Torchwood story ever. I’ve always thought that Torchwood is about how terrible, horrible things just happen, and how ordinary people deal with them. I don’t think any story exemplifies that more than this one – but this story is also one of the saddest, most tender and most human Doctor Who stories out there, and one that touches me very deeply. 

It sounds so funny to say that Roger Pugh from the Cardiff Planning Council is one of my all-time favourite Who characters – but he is! He really, really is. He’s just such a normal person. A normal, ordinary, grieving person; a man who believes there is never more than this. And when faced with the universe – with the infinite everything – he lets go. Lets go and falls into the nothingness.

But then – and here’s the thing!! – he comes back. He pulls himself back. Hand over hand. And it’s difficult, it’s so, so hard. But he does it – he pulls himself back. With a little help from his friend. Because as Gwen says: we’re not meaningless, we’re here and we exist and we can still do good, for as long as we have. Terrible things just happen and we have to deal with them, but we can deal with them.

And there may not be more than this – but sometimes – putting flowers on a grave. Saving a mum and kids from aliens. Car parks and city planning. This can be enough.