Reviews The Green Life by Tony J Fyler

Tony goes green.

The idea of bringing back classic Doctor Who monsters and dealing with them in new, Torchwood-appropriate, more adult scenarios is a fundamentally great thing in principle.

Whether what you get as a result of doing it is a fundamentally great story depends on how you handle and balance the elements.

The Green Life brings Jo Jones, who has now appeared on TV with a New Who Doctor and alongside the Kate Stewart iteration of UNIT in audio, on a mission with Torchwood’s Captain Jack Harkness, back to the one-time mining town of Llanfairfach, where the computer known as BOSS and the giant green maggots grown at the bottom of its mining operation were once intent on taking over the wooooorld!

It’s been a while between visits. Llanfairfach isn’t the same place it once was – there’s an evolution of the Nut Hutch in the town, and a focus on providing ecologically sound, ethically sourced protein-based ready meals and ingredients to the world at large.

So why are Jack and Jo coming to town?

An unexplained death, a degree of disbelief…and a memory of the maggoty shenanigans of an earlier time.

Here’s the thing. Every Who-fan, every Torchwood-fan, every nostalgia-fan is going to want to love this story – it’s the coming together of Jo and Jack, it’s the follow-up to The Green Death, it’s got giant maggots in it, and, not for nothing, it’s written by David Llewellyn, which is usually a cast iron guarantee of a good time.

But…

It gives me little pleasure to say this, but this Torchwood story feels rather like it misses its mark. On the one hand, the giant maggots of The Green Death are an intensely visual scare – everyone who ever saw them remembered The Green Death as ‘the one with the giant maggots’ because they’re enough to make you squirm, just by looking at them. On audio… meh. They sound fairly nondescript, because of course, what’s a maggot going to do to make them an exciting audio proposition? Now, Big Finish has strong form in overcoming the silent or simply roaring monsters – it’s delivered Weeping Angel stories and Drashig stories that both told effective stories and also scared the pants off listeners. But with the maggots, other than their trademark, still rather small-scale hissing, there’s little to be done to make them audibly awe-inspiring. That means you’re left with little option but to narrate-along-a-maggotfest, with Jo and Jack having to describe what they see, hear, smell and so on to deliver the oomph that a visual giant maggot carries with it in just a second or twosworth of screen time.

Apart from which, what we have here is a story that’s linear to the point of oversimplicity – it’s Jo and Jack, travelling to find the source of the maggots, squelching their way through a squishy soundscape of damp and mulch and occasional hissing, and then reaching that source, having one fairly important, exposition-heavy conversation with a third party (the revelation of which will absolutely double, if not triple down on the nostalgia factor of this release), Jack doing a thing for which he’s already fairly well-known, and then them going away again. Conversations along the way are great, and we get to catch up on some post-Green Death developments for Jo and Cliff – which again, is at least partly what anybody buying this release is looking for from the purchase -  but conversations en route to a conversation, followed by more conversations heading in the opposite direction leaves the listener echoing Elvis – a little less conversation, a little more action, please.

Ultimately, as we said at the beginning, any Jo fan is going to really want to love this story, and for the sake of everything we learn about her and Cliff, her and Jack (not for nothing, there’s a sprinkling of distinctly Katy Manning fabulousness in her conversations with Jack), for the fact that this is a legitimate follow-up to The Green Death and for a surprise or two towards the end, there’ll be enough here to satisfy the cravings they have. But in the fact that it doesn’t move far beyond the remit of Jo and Jack, giant maggots and Llanfairfach, it feels constricted by the short run-time into being only a hat-tipping sequel to the sprawling creepy madness of the original Green Death, rather than something which, given the time and space to evolve into, could have updated the ideas of the original on a broader canvas than either the budget could allow back in the Seventies or than the demands of nostalgia and fan-service within a one-hour release allow on audio today.

Interviews Freelance author Cavan Scott by DJ Forrest

Captain Jack is back with the Doctor

The Doctor Who Titan comic comes out in March how many stories have you planned for the 9th Doctor and Jack, and will there be any stories involving the 10th Doctor with Jack, or is there a point of order with the Titan comics where you can only write one series of stories for one Doctor at a time?

Cavan: Well, at the moment it’s just one story that stretches over the five-issues of the mini-series, although I must admit I have a little batch of potential stories stored up just in my head in case Titan ask for more!

There’s no rules that you can’t write for more than one Doctor – Robbie Morrison writes for both the Tenth and the Twelfth. I’d certainly love to have a crack at Doctor number 10!

How much fun was it writing the 9^th Doctor story involving Jack Harkness?

Cavan: Oh, more than you can imagine. I love Jack and the Doctor together – there’s lot of banter, between all three leads. And Jack’s such a great contrast to the 9^th Doctor, although they’re more similar than either will admit.

You’re signing copies of the comic at Forbidden Planet in March for the launch of the new Who stories, when and where is that?

Cavan: It’s happening at the Bristol Forbidden Planet Megastore at 6pm on March 18. I’ll also be at the London Super Comic Con signing comics on March 14, as well as appearing on a special Titan Doctor Who panel.

When Jack was with the Doctor his character was so much darker than when he was with Torchwood, will he be like this in your story too?

Cavan: Absolutely. Our Jack is definitely a cheeky chappie, yet to be weighed down by immortality.

From the covers I saw on your website there are more than one 9^th Doctor story, will Jack feature in these too?

Cavan: It’s just the one story, although every issue has multiple covers. Variant covers have become a big thing in comics these day, with fans trying to collect as many as they can.

Whose decision was it to bring Jack back to Doctor Who?

Cavan: As far as I recall, Jack was part of the conversation from the get-go. We saw so little, relatively speaking, of the Doctor, Rose and Jack together in the 2005 series, but it’s obvious from Boom Town that they’ve been travelling together for a while. This seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

Captain Jack Harkness back in Doctor Who is fantastic news and with the prospect of Torchwood radio plays in the near future, it’s almost a sweet revival of the time travelling agent.  How will he fit into the stories and given his time line, the novels, audios and tv episodes for Torchwood and Who?

Cavan: The comic takes place just after The Doctor Dances, so it’s early in his relationship with the Doctor.

Also with time lines and Who fiction novels involving Jack with the 9^th, were you given instructions as to when and where you could base the stories?

Cavan: Not really. Editor Andrew James was kind enough to ask me which Doctor I’d like to pitch for. The Ninth Doctor was a bit of a non-brainer for me. I loved writing for him – and Jack and Rose – in the Big Finish / AudioGo 50^th Anniversary story Night of the Whisper. I always said that if I had a chance to write for that TARDIS team again, I’d jump at it, so here I am!

You’ve been involved in a lot of spin offs from Doctor Who over the years, which must keep you busy!  Plus also writing for one of my favourite comics, (Beano) how do you manage your time when you’re writing and meeting your deadlines and being a family man?

Cavan: Writing is my full-time job so I make sure I treat it as such. I’m sat at my desk at 9am and work through until 5.30. I used to be a magazine editor so I’m pretty hot on deadlines and keeping plates spinning. Most of the time, none of them smash – although some of them get a little chipped from time to time!

Can you divulge what the story will be about or must we wait and see?

Cavan: Well, I can’t give too many spoilers, but the thrust of the story is that the Doctor and his friends get caught in the middle of a battle between two alien races called the Unon and the Lect. It soon becomes clear that there are weightier issues at hand. Someone is attempting to replace the Time Lords in the pecking order of the universe – and the Doctor isn’t happy about that at all!

Fans Fiction Faith in a Higher Power by Christopher E. Fain

By Christopher E. Fain

The Captain rarely asks him to work late.  More often it's his own choice to linger, to make himself available for Jack's needs, verbal or physical.  It's his choice, how he explains himself to the others or even whether he bothers with an explanation.  He doesn't mention it and they keep silent all questions. 

Except for Owen, of course, but that's only because Owen can't bear for anyone to pretend that things are other than what they truly are.  Owen must expose everything, strip back the secrets to their core and dirty the truth with his cynicism, even if only as a way to prove that Jack is fooling no one but Ianto.  Tosh tells him to ignore Owen, Gwen pretends that she's not uncomfortable on some subconscious level, but they are both polite and sweet to him.

He knows when Jack needs him; it's like an alarm goes off under his skin, an awareness of Jack's fragility and pain.  There are times when Torchwood's functionality hangs on the sanity and hopes of Captain Jack Harkness.  In those times, Jack needs someone who accepts and forgives all his black sins.  When the charm fails and Jack is left with the impossible, terrible choices that no fair and just god would ever delegate to a human---not even one from the 51st century---there is Ianto Jones.  Ianto, who carries so many scars of his own.  Jack is forced sometimes to make unbearable decisions; the others don't always accept, but Ianto does.  What else would he do?  Since being given a second chance, his loyalty is to the team, to Jack, and he makes it unshakable, because if he doesn't, Torchwood will fall with Jack.

Jack needs his unshakable faith and loyalty. 

Faith. 

Ianto's lost his small and weak human faith.  Canary Wharf did that to him.  Losing Lisa.  The Cybermen, the Daleks.   Torchwood is a lethal way of life; it's no mere job, it's a calling.  And like all the most important callings, its needs must destroy the outside life of every last member of the team, field agent or not, and yet not a single one of them would choose another path.  Not even him.

He stays.  He stays and he does what needs to be done.  He shores up the falling defenses, mends the tattered flags, patches up the wounds that no one else can see.  He stays, does what needs to be done to maintain equilibrium, and has become nearly a law unto himself.  He doesn't believe he will see thirty.

Belief is a new thing for him.

There was no human faith in his heart when he stalked the Captain, but he hadn't yet understood that simple truth.  Not then.  If asked, then, he'd probably have said he had some sort of faith, even if only a bare-bones faith in the concept of gravity---but he'd have been telling an unconscious lie.  The last of his human faith had died at Canary Wharf.  Stalking Jack, that hadn't been about faith.  He'd been desperate for the job, for a place to stash Lisa.  He'd been desperately seeking a truth he could believe in.  He just hadn't known he was looking that truth in the eyes, meeting Jack Harkness.

He doesn't believe the Captain is a saint.  The idea that Jack could be a saint is laughable.  Jack, whose feet of clay show when the hardest choices must be made.  When, to save the earth and its people, the director of Torchwood 3 makes a decision that harms vulnerable individuals.  How could someone like Jack, so irreverent and so damaged, be a saint?  No, it's easier to believe that God is dead.  If God ever existed at all.

Yet, he does have faith of a sorts...in Jack.  He has faith that Jack will always fight for them.  For humanity, the earth.  It's what Jack does now, no matter what he might've been in his past.  And Jack has faith in him to do the correct things when they are needed.  For the good of the team.

Jack let the chthonic ones take the child, Jasmine.  The silence in the Hub, when they'd returned, had been deafening.  Jack had sequestered himself in his office away from the others' silent accusations and frustrated stares.  Ianto had stayed that night---to ease, in a small way, the burdens that never lifted from the Captain's heart.  They'd talked; well, Jack had talked.  Mostly, he had listened.

When he stays late, he is performing an administrative duty never outlined in the Torchwood regulations.  He tweaks Jack's emotional valves and asks the right kind of questions at the right pace---the kind that Jack will answer, made honest by being startled into quick, dirty truth.  Sometimes it is conversation and the gentle prying-out of self-recriminations that none of the others, not even Gwen, would ever hear.  Coffee or scotch, depending on the mood, and a call for take-away.  Long hours of music and genteel conversation that inevitably turns to Jack's confessions and self-doubt.  That was how he had learned about the Doctor.

Other nights, he responds to Jack's lingering stare.  On those nights, he flirts a little more aggressively, to let Jack know that all advances will be welcomed and reciprocated to the best of his ability.  That he will play the games and give Jack the balance of pleasure due for the pain endured.  And the bandage is formed of a different catharsis.

He doesn't flatter himself; he's honest.  Whatever it is that exists between them---stress relief? budding romance born of some instinctive internal connection between their souls?  fuck-buddies?---whatever the relationship's form, the Captain can't afford to put a label to the nature of their beast.  To do so would make Jack vulnerable.  Ianto won't allow that vulnerability to exist, if it's in his power to prevent, and he's not entirely sure himself if he wants to verbally acknowledge what happens between them.

There is a part of him that acknowledges the irony of their sexual encounters.  He takes care of Jack the way a wife or a butler would while never losing himself to the role.  He is himself and his place in Torchwood is that of an administrator, of sorts.  Taking care of Jack is part of the job.  His mortality prevents it from being anything else.

The End