Escape Room

Torchwood: Aliens Among Us #3.3 - "Escape Room" by Helen Goldwyn
And the streak is over. Following on from a five episode long run of top tier stories, Aliens Among Us has managed to fall off again. It really started out well, I love some of the ideas surrounding Escape Room but the execution leaves a whole lot to be desired. Let’s get into it.

Gwen, Rhys, Mr. Colchester and Colin are all visiting a local escape room at the behest of Yvonne, but it's an escape room people don’t tend to leave. Paired and separated, the group will have to work together, if they want to survive.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Firstly, I want to make it clear that I love the idea of Escape Room. An alien escape room where the puzzles are out to kill you, with some hard dilemmas and genius conundrums along the way, certainly doesn’t sound like the most profound piece of fiction ever written but it certainly sounds fun. Unfortunately, Escape Room is not that, by far. All in all, this feels like a worse version of John Dorney’s Solitaire, an audio in which Charley and the Celestial Toymaker face off; instead of some really cool mindbenders and a great twist that frames the whole story in a new light, Escape Room has a series of poorly conceived puzzles with little flow and some pretty dodgy character stuff. The best part of the audio is easily Mr. Colchester and Colin, who are once again a delightful pair of characters that have just the most heartwarming dynamic. The performances are great and their obvious love for each other is incredibly wholesome - they’re really the light in the darkness here. Performances all round are pretty good actually, but I’ll highlight Terrance Hardiman ( who I knew as one of the Winders from The Beast Below). His booming, grandiose voice really lends this element of mystique to Escape - our villain - and it builds a great atmosphere.

However, this is where my positives end. Since the whole design of the titular escape room is the crutch of the episode, that detail would have to be pretty well written for the story to succeed. Unfortunately, it really isn’t. Incredibly dumb puzzles that don’t make much sense logically or spatially, really easy puzzles that just get skipped over and then puzzles that are literally just pushing buttons. The stuff on the ladders was weird, the humming flames one was ridiculous because genuinely what are the chances that somebody in that escape room would have perfect pitch and be able to tell exactly what flame shoots from what symbol; there’s never any indication the escape room bends around the talents of its occupants, so what gives? Then there’s the scene where both Mr. Colchester and Rhys are told independently that they have to kill the other if they want to leave, but the story messes it up and never actually tells Rhys and then Mr. Colchester just pretends to kill Rhys but uses a Deus ex Machina alien gizmo he had on him for some reason to save him. Also, the plot just handwaves away threats if it wants to. There’s a scene where Rhys and Mr. Colchester has to get through a room covered in acid pits and I can’t remember it saying how they escaped, I think they just jumped to the next scene when they got out. There’s also a scene where Mr. Colchester is literally shot in a puzzle designed to kill someone and he’s just, fine, with absolutely no explanation that I noted. And the whole point of the escape room is dumb. Escape is trying to recruit people to a Sorvix religion by putting people through these trials and scratching religious messaging on the walls? Doesn’t make much sense to me and it’s never really explained how the hell this one guy opened a massive, seemingly impossibly built escape room in the middle of Cardiff. As for the stuff with Ng, I’m just tired of it by this point. It’s a really cool concept but it’s just stagnating until the finale and I really think they should’ve dedicated a couple stories to it, like having all of Aliens Among Us 3 be about Ng getting uncovered.

Escape Room really is a disappointment after the run of brilliant stories we just had. Colin and Mr. Colchester are great and, unsurprisingly, our main cast is on point but the script and puzzles are moronic and it continuously refuses to be clever. Just listen to Solitaire, it’s better.

5/10

Pros:

+ Great performances from our cast all round

+ Colin and Mr. Colchester are absolutely wonderful as a couple and the highlight of the audio

+ Fantastic vocal performance from Terrance Hardiman as Escape

+ The concept is cool if not properly explored

Cons:

- The whole escape room is really badly designed and convoluted

- Plot chooses to just skip over problems with cheap explanations

- The Gwen/Ng subplot has really run its course now, they should’ve done something with it three audios ago

- Really moronic and strange villain plan that makes very little sense

- No sense of urgency; people can die and then just come back

Torchwood: Aliens Among Us | Ranked
12.
11. Aliens & Sex & Chips & Gravy by James Goss - 5/10
10. Escape Room by Helen Goldwyn - 5/10
9. Love Rat by Christopher Cooper - 6/10
8. Orr by Juno Dawson - 7/10
7. Changes Everything by James Goss - 8/10
6. Zero Hour by Jay Harley - 8/10
5. Superiority Complex by AK Benedict - 8/10
4. Tagged by Joseph Lidster - 9/10
3. The Empty Hand by Tim Foley - 9/10
2. A Kill to a View by Mac Rogers - 9/10
1. Poker Face by Tim Foley - 10/10

Overall - 7.6/10