Asylum

"It's like she's from here, but a different here."

Writer: Anita Sullivan

Format: Audio

Broadcast: 1st July 2009

Series: BBC Radio #2

Featuring: Captain Jack, Gwen, Ianto, Andy

Synopsis

When PC Andy Davidson arrests a young girl for shoplifting, he thinks it's going to be a routine case. That is, until he sees that she is carrying a gun. The girl is soaking wet, covered in mid, and the weapon is like nothing he's ever seen before. He knows that this is a case for Torchwood...

The team discovers that the girl is called Freda, but can find out nothing else. Yet when she speaks, it's a strange mix of English and Icelandic, but with a Cardiff accent. 

While Jack and Ianto check out the girl's weapon and her blood sample at the Hub, Gwen and PC Andy take Freda to a safe house. But when Jack calls with the results - and Freda goes on the run - PC Andy finds his world turning upside down. 

Verdict 

Asylum was a good and very interesting Torchwood audio. It was different to past episodes and I think that's the beauty of the audio format, it allows something different to what you might see in the television series. The dynamic is much changed from the first two series after the deaths of Tosh and Owen. In the previous radio adventure, Lost Souls, you had a very familiar character in Martha filling the void of two key characters missing. With no Martha in this audio the task of filling the void was handed to the recurring PC Andy Davidson, a good friend of Gwen who've we seen quite a few times on television. He was the hero of the story in some ways as his distance from extraterrestrial knowledge allowed him to see things more clearly. Freda was a wonderful character and I loved the concept, somewhat similar to Out of Time, which was cleverly referenced, but this time somebody came through the Rift from the future rather than the past. The future, 2069 to be more specific, depicted was extremely interesting. As Andy said, Freda came from a time where security could easily be breached yet there was a shortage of tomatoes. With Asylum set in 2009, the year it was broadcast, I think Anita Sullivan was trying to depict how global warming and a population increase would have a big effect on the world and its resources. The plot of this story was good but needed a bit more action to go from being really good to really great. The dialogue though was very good and I liked the blend of English and Icelandic in the vocabulary of Freda. Very intriguing. I thought the revelation that she was half alien was excellent and the way the Rift had disturbed Freda's memory allowed for some good plot development with the more things she remembered. Gwen playing the role as the kind good women, which she obviously is, was fantastic and I was surprised how little of a role Captain Jack and Ianto played. For me, the story was all about Andy who finally got to come into his own. A little silly and misunderstanding of Freda and her alienness at first, but once he learned to accept the fact she was a mixed species from the future he sympathised with her and wasn't all that fond of the Torchwood procedure. The climax where Freda was going to give everything up and let herself drown before being beautifully talked out of it by Andy was lovely. A terrific ending. The talk of the 'ghosties' throughout was very interesting and I did like how Freda revealed that it was the future Torchwood team who sent back in time. Despite what may happen in future episodes and series, the Torchwood team and name will always survive on aiding the Earth. 

Rating: 8/10