Zero Hour

Torchwood: Aliens Among Us #2.3 - "Zero Hour" by Jay Harley 

More than anything, Zero Hour made me realise how much I dislike Tyler. Easily the least developed or interesting member of the new Torchwood-3 (or I guess not Torchwood-3, since he's not actually part of the team, so that would just make him a new character- you know what? Never mind.), he really does not hold a candle to Orr or Mr. Colchester in terms of new additions to our cast. Past the first episode, his role has either been insignificant, quite irritating or really boring and, whilst Jonny Green gives a good performance, Tyler is just a little too annoyingly wimpy for me to like. Although, I have heard some pretty f**ked up stuff happens to him further down the line, and I guess it begins here. The villain is a somehow even more evil Amazon, Tyler has the hots for the Spy Master, and Gwen needs a babysitter.

Deliverables- the new delivery service that has taken over Cardiff and virtually wiped out its unemployment crisis with the number of jobs it's giving away. However, when Tyler finds himself infatuated with delivery driver Hasan, he begins to suspect there's something more to Deliverables than meets the eye.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

As you could probably gather from the introduction, this is the first story since Changes Everything to follow Tyler as our main character. Since then, he's been jumping back and forth working with both Ro-Jedda and Torchwood-3 in the background, every now and again continuing his love affair with Jack but mostly just bringing a plot for the team to unravel. Here, however, we finally get some more development for him when he falls for Deliverables driver, Hasan, played, to my surprise, by future master Sacha Dawan, here in a role that doesn't make me want to end my own life. I actually really like Hasan, Dawan's performance is very mild-mannered (and subtle) and it brings this relatability to the character that causes him to be instantly likeable. It also makes it more horrifying when he's cremated alive. Yeah, Zero Hour gets dark pretty quickly, going from scenes of Tyler and Hasan flirting to Tyler being turned into a work-zombie and Hasan getting reduced to ash offscreen. However, this is oddly put alongside a plot where Gwen/Ng falls out with Anwen and has to get Orr to babysit, which is good for their characters but feels off with the rest of the story. However, it did make me realise I really want a series of minisodes or something of these characters just interacting normally, I think that would be hilarious. The concept of Deliverables - a huge pattern generator, using the repetitive movements of its employees to influence reality, gaining control over the rift after it was sabotaged by Bilis Manger is great. The idea of Cardiff slowly falling into a pattern is a cool concept but it’s really never explored, although it’s still a great explanation for the weird happenings throughout.

However, I do think the whole thing’s solved far too easily. The conclusion is just Gwen causing mass road closures throughout Cardiff, causing the pattern to break and Deliverables to immediately close down. This all happens in about two scenes and seemed very convenient for such a large corporation to just be beaten like that. Also, I’m not entirely following the logic of Tyler getting himself hired at Deliverables with absolutely no back-up to speak of - I know he was trying to get Hasan out but that just feels unreasonable. Frankly, the whole storyline feels a little bland, it didn’t explore that much about Deliverables - it certainly feels too small to be compared to Amazon - and the concept doesn’t go particularly far.

Zero Hour was definitely a good entry into Aliens Among Us, though I think the majesty of the previous audio may have swayed my judgement a little. My keen disinterest in Tyler as a character, the conflicting storylines and flaws in the plot keep it from being as good as it could’ve been.

8/10

Pros:

+ Hasan is very likeable and incredibly easy to get invested in

+ Genuinely disturbing, especially when we find out what the “sand” really is

+ The concept of a pattern generator is a really cool sci-fi idea

+ The stuff with Gwen and Orr was very interesting

Cons:

- Lots of little flaws in the script here or there that make it feel a little rushed

- Brush over concepts like the pattern generator or alien Amazon pretty quickly

- Although well written, the stuff with Gwen and Orr doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the story.

Torchwood: Aliens Among Us | Ranked
12.
11.
10.
9.
8.
7. Aliens & Sex & Chips & Gravy by James Goss - 5/10
6. Love Rat by Christopher Cooper - 6/10
5. Orr by Juno Dawson - 7/10
4. Changes Everything by James Goss - 8/10
3. Zero Hour by Jay Harley - 8/10
2. Superiority Complex by AK Benedict - 8/10
1. A Kill to a View by Mac Rogers - 9/10

Overall - 7.3/10