Visiting Hours

"The Cleaners will deal with it."

Writer: David Llewellyn

Format: Audio

Released: March 2017

Series: Torchwood Monthly 13

Featuring: Rhys

Synopsis

Everyone's a little worried about St Helen's Hospital. In many ways it is a miracle of the modern NHS. It has plenty to offer its patients. The problem is that a lot of them keep dying of natural causes in the night. And no-one can find the bodies.

People are beginning to notice. Questions are being asked. And there are rumours – the strange whispering figures seen at the end of the corridors, the electrical buzzing, the screams.

Also, Rhys Williams has come to visit his mother. Brenda's had her hip done and is looking forward to a bit of rest and regular crumble. Rhys and his mam are in for a night they'll never forget.

Verdict

Visiting Hours was a decent audio adventure to continue the next chapter in the Monthly Adventures of Torchwood from Big Finish! On paper, this doesn't have the ingredients for a classic with it being a story focused on Rhys visiting his mother in hospital after she had a hip relationship. That could only happen in Torchwood and it really is testament to David Llewellyn as writer to deliver an exciting forty-five minutes out of that. I wonder how it was presented to him before he wrote as there isn't a huge amount to play with! A hospital setting can work wonders for Torchwood as we have seen in the past with the medical wing being a huge first impression on Gwen with the Weevil back in Everything Changes. I thought it was good to give Rhys a lead role in the story as he is definitely an underrated character within the series so having him on his own was great. I was glad to hear how much he had learned under Gwen and the arm of Torchwood and it really didn't matter that we had no Gwen, even that's where Rhys works best. Exploring the relationship with his mother Brenda was fun and just getting to know her better was enjoyable. She was a good character and I thought they had a relationship you would expect. They hadn't seen each other in a while which was clear and there was a little tension there, but for the most part they got on which was nice. Brenda was a typical mischievous Welsh woman and her comments about a dirty weekend for Gwen and Rhys certainly put a smile on my face. The reference to Forgotten Lives was most welcomed and some good continuity in the series as we now recover from the anniversary epic The Torchwood Archive. Rhys suspecting that patients were being harvested from people from the past sounded like an excellent idea, and he was certainly right about the time travel aspect which was nice. It was a feather in his cap which is important to establish. The harvesters just being the puppets of the Cleaners was a good move and I liked how they tried to claim there was nothing personal with one of their own having his daughter held hostage. Rhys and Brenda weren't so forgiving! Brenda was less than pleased at having to hide in a 'bloody draw' for dead bodies, and her constant telling Rhys off for his language was amusing. That was a good way to escape the clean up. The mystery behind Fletcher as an architect of the whole operation was good and I like the potential ambiguity of more involvement from the Cleaners to come. Might they be the next Committee in the range? The plaque of his and finding out that he had gone missing in the 1950s was a really good way to end things. It certainly peaked my interest. As a whole, this was a good listen and a decent adventure with not a huge amount at all to play with! 

Rating: 7/10