Torchwood Monthly Range #1:
--- "The Conspiracy" by David Llewellyn

I recently decided to rewatch all of Torchwood, as well as watch for the first time all the many, many episodes I had decided to skip (all but the pilot of Season One and the second half of Season Two, as well as the end of Miracle Day). I did this because I wanted to get into the stellar looking Torchwood audios and thought I'd need context for them. It seems I didn't need any for The Conspiracy but either way, I jumped head first into this range. And the story I found was... fine. This might be the most fine story to ever exist, it's really nothing special.

George Wilson is a voice for your average conspiracy nutter: the world is being run by aliens, Paul McCartney died back in the 60s, your neighbour Doris is probably a little green alien, stuff like that. Trouble is, he's right about that first one, and Jack knows it. Somebody's fueling a conspiracy, but is it George, or is somebody else the puppet master?

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

There really isn't much to say about The Conspiracy. It's short and it's inoffensive with a decent story, it also has some good acting but ultimately it's dragged down by it's existence as a pilot. It exists to set up The Committee - the overarching villain of the Torchwood Main Range - and can't really move past that in terms of story. It follows Jack, played to perfection as usual by John Barrowman, trying to find out why a conspiracy theorist knows so much about The Committee, the group of aliens from the planet Erebus running things behind the scenes. The Committee's actual plan is shaky at best; using a conspiracy theorist to discredit your secret organisation feels like it would only work in circles aware of that conspiracy theorist, outside of that demographic their grand master plan would have no impact.

The story itself is really quite dull, it's lorded over by pretty generic voice over and I really had little interest in the goings on. A character dies about two thirds of the way in but I just didn't really care because the story had failed to make me like them. The twist at the end, however, that Wilson's daughter was an agent for The Committee and had been pulling the strings the whole time was pretty damn good and it did put a lot of things into perspective.

The Conspiracy was fine. Nothing more, I wasn't bored nor was I amazed. It's a perfectly serviceable pilot for the main range and I'm far more excited for what's to come than this one story. Here's hoping the other audios step it up a notch.

6/10

Pros:
+ The concept of a conspiracy theorist's theories being true is an, if simple, gripping idea
+ John Barrowman plays his heart out throughout the story
+ The twist was pretty good and caught me off guard
+ The Committee are looking to be pretty good antagonists

Cons:
- Bogged down by its existence as a pilot
- The side characters were nothing to write home about
- The narration felt overbearing and unnecessary

Top 5 Best Torchwood Monthly Range Stories:
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1. #1 - The Conspiracy by David Llewellyn

Top 5 Worst Torchwood Monthly Range Stories:
5.
4.
3.
2.
1. #1 - The Conspiracy by David Llewellyn