God Among Us: ScrapeJane

"Are people's lives so empty that they need to believe in made-up monsters?"

Writer: Robin Bell
Format: Audio
Released: June 2019
Series: Torchwood 6.10

Featuring: Mr Colchester, Ng

Synopsis

ScrapeJane is a myth. A monster made up by an urban explorer. A monster that's caught on. A monster with forums, with merch, with a book deal. A monster that people have started to believe in.

A monster that's started killing.

Verdict

ScrapeJane was a very good Torchwood episode and a marked improvement to the final boxset of God Among Us! I was quite surprised at this stage in the series that what we had was predominantly a standalone story. Starting things with the Cardiff Unknown podcast was a fantastic move to go down after it being a bonus in the previous boxset, but Jeff didn't last long as the podcast explored the mysterious story of ScrapeJane. The concept behind her was really intriguing and I was very much a big fan of it being a modern creation. Jeff actually getting torn apart by ScrapeJane was a bold way to start things and I was honestly thinking that we were going to have another episode similar to The Man Who Destroyed Torchwood with the podcast focus. Thankfully that wasn't the case, although I think this particular podcast would have worked much better. Meredith Pope being the creator of the ScrapeJane story and her shock and horror, whilst also displaying a little semblance of knowledge, at finding out that her creation had killed someone was great. She didn't understand, but the popularity of ScrapeJane was so high that she required to file copyrights to the creature! That really does show the scale of the myth and it stemming in Cardiff worked very well. Ng and Mr Colchester leading the episode was very good, but I do wish more of the main cast featured more regularly. Whilst I am still very much enjoying the official continuation of Torchwood, I do wish it was more like the good old days of Series 2 and 3 with some familiar cast. I would never have expected at the start of Aliens Among Us that things would change so much. Anyway, the pair are still very good characters and their chemistry worked really well in this episode. Their hunting of the ScrapeJane creature leading them to a Weevil nest was terrific and fantastic Torchwood continuity. I liked that only Colchester could see the ScrapeJane creature and it stemming down to the fact that he believed in it was good. The description of the Weevils being torn apart was quite disturbing and whilst Colchester's beliefs might have brought ScrapeJane to life, the creature was very much real. It was that belief in the supernatural and the feeling on your shoulder. That was all it needed. Playing on breaking down the walls between fantasy and reality is a wonderful concept and I'm always a fan of that being the case. ScrapeJane finding its way to the flat of Colchester and Colin was really interesting and brought the threat home before Ng saved the pair quite triumphantly. Ng making the connections with the belief of ScrapeJane and God was excellent and showed the purpose of the episode in the overall story arc of the past two series. God had helped spread belief, but Ng had lost her faith which was very intriguing. Her efforts to rid Cardiff of ScrapeJane by having Meredith Pope write/spread its death and make it a fact throughout social media seemed fantastic. However, she had soon been hacked which provided a new threat that she would never be gone. The confrontation between Ng and God and how it was inevitable they'd end up in their respective positions because that's what always occurred was really good. A very interesting conversation. ScrapeJane eventually being compounded to fiction was a great way to end what was as a whole a very decent episode!

Rating: 8/10