A near-impossible task to try and get right is handed to Guy Adams. The entire Torchwood cast is brought together for one recording session and a script needs to be fashioned that satisfies the hordes of fans that want more of the series one/two era of the show. To Adams' credit, he does a stunning job of writing a Children of Earth-style epic that involves everybody, has something to say, feels like a properly modern piece of storytelling and feels every bit as edgy and dark as Torchwood ever did.

No part of this feels like a stunt but rather precisely the sort of measured storytelling that should have been told when Chris Chibnall was spearheading the show. Instead of giving us everybody all at once, Believe is split very smartly into three segments as the Torchwood team split up and investigate the Church of the Outsiders. Tosh and Owen own the first disc and take the espionage route by getting close to one of the Church leaders, Gwen and Ianto take the reins in disc two and try and infiltrate the Church and get close to one of its disgraced ex-members and Jack is saved for the last disc after a brilliant cliff-hanger that I'm sure John Barrowman adored bringing to life.

Jack is used brilliantly in the last segment when it appears that he has gone rogue and is ready to expose his true nature in order to stage a coup in the Church. The only scenes that I really object to (and it is VERY Torchwood) are Owen and Tosh and their disturbing power games during a sex scene with Layton. Everything else is pretty much gold and it leans into that brilliant Children of Earth cloak-and-dagger atmosphere of everybody pulling in the same direction to defeat a genuine threat to the planet. The Greys are a chilling (and slightly comical) idea and the scenes where they invade the Hub are genuinely unsettling.

What surprised me was where all the best scenes landed. After the plot had finished and the Church had been foiled. You get fifteen minutes of character scenes that deal with the fallout of a three-hour treatise on faith and organised religion. Jack condemns Val in an angry scene that speaks for the family of every person who has been sacrificed to a cult, there is an unforgettable scene between Ianto and Erin that shows the hopelessness of somebody who has given themselves to an exposed cause and Gwen gets the best moment of all where she makes scathing remarks about the despondence of the human race that would rather focus on the mundanities of their own lives than the glorious of outer space.

It's downbeat and reprehending in the best Torchwood fashion but brought to life with dialogue this sharp and by actors this good it doesn't feel like it is just shitting on the human race for the sake but that it genuinely has something to say. Of the cast, I thought that Naoko Mori and Gareth David-Lloyd acquitted themselves the best, and I will certainly be seeking out more of their individual stories in the future. This is a huge undertaking; slick, thoughtful and dramatic. Colour me impressed.

Firstly, it truly is a joy to hear the original Torchwood team back together again, and it's still kinda remarkable that this is the only proper full-cast TW outing that Big Finish has done (and, let's be honest, likely will do).

However, the reason I've rated this so highly is almost entirely because of the ending. While the premise has promise, I wasn't all too enthralled by the investigation of it all in the middle episode. In the third part, finding out how Jack fits into everything and the discussions around the 'truth' of the Church of the Outsiders were fascinating to me. The fact that (in a sci-fi TV show context) the Church is, you know, correct, but is still failing in its responsibilities to its members was an interesting wrinkle.

That being said, the Toshiko and Owen plotline is messy, throughly unpleasant and, even in the text of the story, largely doesn't amount to much. I didn't even realise one of the characters was Arthur Darvill until the credits at the end; I was that distracted by the 'ugh' of it all.

oh, how i miss them all :(