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.

The first (and so far only) Daft Dimension strip to make me laugh out loud! That punchline pun is priceless.

A fantastically vicious takedown of several varieties of upper-class, conservative men. Delightfully written!

One of the best Torchwood stories ever.

Tim Foley is at his absolute best when writing character drama! This story in particular reminded me of his play Driftwood – a two-hander between a pair of brothers dealing with grief and childhood trauma. The stories are similar in that they use a single location and an element of surrealism to expose and work through the emotions and griefs of the main characters. And both of them made me cry – in this one, it was Rhys talking to Deirdre using her son's voice, an absolutely brilliant and awful scene; and then Rhys and Ianto talking about Rhys' old mate Dav, who committed suicide. The entire play is a perfect blend of sci-fi weirdness, humour, and emotion; but those two scenes shone.

An instant favourite. Soft and heartbreaking. The day is saved by hugging it out. PERFECT!

Must be one of the best titles for a Torchwood story.

Ex Machina is such a wonderfully solid script. Anna is a really lovely character – I love how the Torchwood MR gets to develop one-on-one relationships between members of the Torchwood team and ordinary people like her. Those quiet scenes between Anna and Ianto in her flat and the Hub work wonders.

The setup and payoff towards the end is very well handled. I love that the story concludes by Anna making a choice for herself, and not letting other people (or alien manipulation machines) decide for her. In that respect it's kind of the inverse of Alfie's Shaw's War Master Script The Life and Loves of Mr Alexander Bennett, where the titular character blindly follows his alien manipulation machine until he destroys his life. For what it's worth, I much prefer this story.

The final scene is super lovely and perfectly understands Ianto. I love that one of the happiest endings to any Torchwood story (everybody lives in this one!) also makes me feel so sad!

More of Alfie Shaw in the Torchwood range please!

AMIRA: I couldn’t understand how you just cut me off like that!
OWEN: Because I had to! Because Katie died, and I had to become the sort of person who couldn't feel it. Okay?

That line explains so much about Owen, and breaks my heart to boot.

Amira and Owen's relationship is beautifully drawn in this one. You really feel the weight of their history and friendship, and Amira's hurt at being cut off is tangible. The other relationship in the story – Lucy and her sister – is also extremely touching, and very sad.

I did wonder if Amira being a memory creature was necessary for the story; but it did lead to that gutting final scene where Owen, after years on metaphorically turning off his empathy as a coping mechanism after Katie's death, literally turns off his empathy in order to ’defeat’ Amira. It's an incredibly tragic moment I'm still reeling from an hour after listening.

I would love to see more Grace Knight in Torchwood!

The setting of the titular House was my favourite thing about this story – I love weird, constructed little societies like this. It's quite a satisfying mystery, with setup and payoff neatly intertwined. Also, if I had a nickel for each time a Doctor Who story takes place in a massive creepy house made out of the flesh and bone and enamel of a single person I'd have two nickels, which isn't much but it's weird it happened twice etc...

I surprised myself by how much I liked the character of Frances. I love that weird, anxious, repressed upper-class lesbian. And who wouldn't fall in love with Lucie Miller?

An intriguing title and placement in the fourth Doctor's timeline – this story began printing during the airing of Robot, making it the Fourth Doctor's second story by release order – drew me to this one. It's a short read but not a favourite by any means.

The plot is extremely standard, but what's interesting about it are the villainous Sarricoids, vegetable monsters extremely reminiscent of the Krynoids. The artwork depicting them is lovely and I always love to see some monstrous plants in Who!

What made this story (and a lot of TV Comic) difficult to enjoy was the Doctor's treatment of Sarah. It’s a great deal more misogynistic than the TV at the time. (At one point he says "For once I have to agree with Sarah-Jane's so-called Feminine Intuition!")

Sarah also literally sprains her ankle in this one, which sent me to the TARDIS wiki page for Ankles, which is hilarious.

A light romp featuring Jack at his most over-the-top. There are some nice moments that reflect on the state of the team post-Exit Wounds, but they're too slight for me. I don't think the topic of pregnancy was dealt with particularly sensitively but neither was it felt with poorly.

There were some nice moments of body horror and humour (Ianto driving off Penarth Pier!) at the end.

My favourite part of this story was the bonus scene, which had me howling with laughter!

One of my all-time favourite Who stories. Everything set in the Obverse is like catnip to me – I absolutely adore it (and if you want more of that part of the story, I recommend you check out Philip Purser-Hallard's A Cabinet of Changes, which is also a joy!)

I love the way Paul Magrs weaves stories and narrative strands together, and his creatures, worlds and characters are inventive, colourful and joyous. And the ending is absolutely, riotously perfect.

Showstopping!

Smashed begins really well. A fracking company exploiting a small Welsh town, destroying the environment and poisoning the water; all excellent setup for a Torchwood story. As an ecology student who is very strongly anti-big business and anti-fracking, and very protective of soils and clean waterways, it felt like the perfect setup for me. Those first few scenes, especially with the mum whose daughter is ill, were really great.

It goes off the rails pretty quickly!

I'm a great fan of James Goss’ writing, but most of his weaker scripts have the same sort of problems; a good beginning and ending with a lot of random running around in the middle. This story definitely had that, with the addition of a lot of 'drunk Gwen’ jokes, most of which I didn't find particularly funny. There are good moments – again, the ending hit for me – but most of the middle felt like Goss on autopilot. Coming so soon of The Hope (one of my all-time favourites) that's a bit of a disappointment.

Also – it's never confirmed, but those were Primords, right? They were definitely Primords.

Torchwood characters stop being mean to Tosh challenge >:(

Very predictable, but great performances, and it’s extremely satisfying to hear Nazis being ripped to shreds.

A decent finale that definitely leans more into the action side of things, as the infection-outbreak-zombie apocalypse storyline comes to a head.

I have a few problems with this one myself: mainly, I thought the stuff with the kid felt a bit cheap and obvious, and that took me out of the story for a bit at the beginning.

It was interesting how quickly we saw the collapse of Sunlight across the three episodes; the whole boxset must take place over the course of no more than a day or two. It makes the entire set extremely pacy. Personally, I would have preferred a slower takeover, to see the collapse of a society over the course of weeks or months rather than days; but that's a matter of personal taste.

I liked this set quite a bit on the whole! The writers made reference to zombie films and TV shows in the BTS segments, and that's very apparent in this episode, but I think there's plenty more you can do with the Krynoids and I'm interested in where they'll go next.

Not a bad way for a botanist to go. Helping the local ecology.

Hell yeah.

I love a lot about this episode! I love that we delve a little more into the botany of it all. I love the mad, B-movie nature of the plot and imagery. I love the way the film Sunset is used throughout the story, and Reece Shearsmith's performance at the end is delightfully unhinged whilst still remaining real. I like the way Eight is woven into the plot, with his searching for Liv, and eventually going back to save her, unwittingly dooming Sunlight in the process.

Great fun. A big step up from the opener and a really enjoyable story!

They shouldn't have killed the cat.

A beautiful treatise on Doctor Who’s missing episodes, wrapped up in a hilarious time-hopping romp. My only issue was the dialogue was a bit too quiet at times. Otherwise, an absolute joy!

I love the expansive cast and the evocative setting, and the story functions very well as an introduction, but a few things were missing for me.

My main issue was I felt the story was proceeding too fast. We flew through all the expected story beats at such a pace that none of them had a chance to really land. I kinda wish this episode had been split into two to really build the tension and dread. I feel this story's strength is its inevitability; we know from the outset that Sunlight is doomed, so I wish we had stewed in that atmosphere for longer.

Secondly and more personally, as someone who loves (and is partly studying) botany: I wish there were more plants in this one! I understand it's unlikely Who will ever dig into the science of Krynoid biology or the biology of plants in general (that moment in the glacier at the beginning was a tantalising tease that hopefully will be picked up on in future episodes) but I personally would have loved to see it. At least we had one xenobotany professor as a main character!

And I was not expecting to hear Eight so soon!

HLRS!

A beautifully meta piece that looks at Who from an entirely different angle. Evocative and enthralling. Nobody does it quite like Paul Magrs!

This is a story that is absolutely made by its final scene. The finale of the piece, where Gwen confronts Phil about his actions and hypocrisy, is excellent. The rest of the play treads that horribly fine line between stories about exploitation and stories that are genuinely feel exploitative. I'd say it definitely falls in the former category, but your mileage may vary.

"Let you tell you my story."

"Do they get to tell their story?"

I wish it was more of an exploration of character and of the setting than an action piece. The Lost Things dimension is so interesting and the twist with the two Doctors is really cool, but it never properly realises its ideas.

I can't stress enough how good Jacqueline King is as Baba Yaga. Had me cackling like a witch over my gumbo!