Aliens Among Us: Escape Room

"Enter, and find your salvation."

Writer: Helen Goldwyn

Format: Audio

Released: February 2018

Series: Torchwood 5.11

Featuring: Gwen, Mr Colchester, Rhys

Synopsis

Gwen Cooper, Rhys Williams, and the Colchester-Prices go to try out an escape room. They've heard a lot about them. Especially this one.

People keep going into the game and not coming out. But Torchwood will be fine. After all - partners can trust each other. Can't they?

Verdict

Aliens Among Us continued in tremendous style with Escape Room! It really was not what I was expecting from the penultimate episode of the series as it didn't really seem to have much to do with the overlapping story arc at all. Captain Jack, Yvonne and Orr didn't even appear but that did leave room for Gwen and Mr Colchester to take centre stage and shine with their partners. The idea of a double date between Gwen and Rhys and the couple of Mr Colchester and Colin was good but Yvonne's recommendation of the escape room gave them something far worse than they were expecting. It was tumultuous and full of action and adventure and it worked very well. I liked the idea of the quartet being tested but poor old Colin initially seemed to be out of his depth. He didn't think Torchwood was always like this and that they met nice aliens from time to time. He was obviously wrong but he grew into the episode strongly and showed he had a lot of initiative as he worked things out quite quickly and correctly. Gwen wasn't happy with him assuming leadership though and she was quick to assert her authority which was quite out of character - something I assume is caused by the alien that is posing as her. Rhys has noticed that things have been a little different since the days of Changes Everything and I'm very intrigued to see how her story wraps up and to learn the truth about Gwen this series. Rhys and Mr Colchester made a very good team and I did enjoy their dialogue. They were pretty humorous together which was a real positive. The Escape enemy was very good and mysterious and I liked how the team only got to hear his voice rather than seeing him. He was testing the team's ability to cope with a number of situations but the concept of one of them having to sacrifice the other was quite a shock. Mr Colchester seemed willing to sacrifice Rhys which was a bit of a surprise and with him apparently dead, the sacrifice conversation between Colchester, Gwen and Colin was very emotional with it getting an absolute outpouring. Just when all seemed lost and that we might lose Mr Colchester as well, Rhys returned to the scene thanks to the ingenious device that Colchester had planted in Rhys' pocket. Gwen and Rhys ending the story on good terms was nice but I was very interested to see how ruthless she was when she turned the table on Escape. She was not holding back in her damning verdict and she wanted to know all about the gods that were testing if humanity was worth being able to worship them. I look forward to seeing how this story connects with the rest of the series but it seems like we have a very eventful finale on our hands! Overall though, a brilliant audio!

Rating: 9/10