Among Us: Propaganda

"A doomsday cult called Torchwood."

Writer: Ash Darby

Format: Audio

Released: June 2023

Series: Torchwood 7.05

Featuring: Orr

Synopsis 

Orr is desperate to get to Voloshnik. The city's sealed off in the middle of a war the world's forgotten. There has to be someone left to save.

Verdict 

Propaganda was a sensational start to the second volume of Among Us to continue the official seventh series of Torchwood! After a really strong first opening that almost served as a reintroduction to this era of the show after an absence of a few years, I liked how this one opened and it may have suggested a bit more of a story arc for the series direction. I thought this was just superb from start to finish and Orr was a sublime main character. She’s really come into her own this series and I liked that she was heading for Veloshnik. Tapping into the current political tensions of Eastern Europe was brilliant and I loved going to Belarus. You don’t get much more controversial than this country as a Russian alley that’s rather difficult to get into. The situation a couple of years ago with them diverting an aeroplane was scary stuff so having Orr visit the country was fascinating. Minsk was supposedly home to some devastating nuclear and experimental weaponry and the basis of this episode was that one had gone badly wrong. Robert was seemingly the only survivor left in the town, or at least the only one communicating, and the disaster recovery specialists were on their way. So when their plane crashed things got very serious. Orr waking up two days later as the rebels were still scouring over anything they could get their hands on from the likes of credit cards and cash to duty free alcohol was quite something. The General being the one to travel with Orr was fun stuff as we didn’t know his rank until much later. So it turned out to probably not be a good idea to kidnap him as she was intent on getting to Veloshnik. Orr’s abilities showing herself as manly was good as she dealt with the physical empathy. Her introduction to Tania came in unusual circumstances as the doctor was actually conducting Orr’s autopsy! That was a fantastic scene and Tania was rather shocked to say the least. Their journey to Veloshnik was brilliant and I must say I was pleasantly surprised that Tania’s mum didn’t betray them. I was convinced that was going to happen! Their arrival at Veloshnik was very good and the scene they greeted was incredible. It was eerily quiet and that was presented well on audio. I thought the moments where Orr and Tania managed to find their way to Robert were terrific and I really enjoyed the slow build to reveal the truth about him. The constant mentions of propaganda throughout the episode were fantastic and it’s always a tool I’ve found hugely interesting throughout history. Media is essentially a form of constant propaganda and it was used great here. Robert actually being part of a propagandist group was extraordinary and was a big surprise to me purely because the scale was audacious! The dust that Orr and Tania found actually being the dead people was outstanding and injected a big sense of horror. When Orr worked out the truth about Robert I was a big fan of her need to vent her anger and frustration at what she’d learned. She was rightfully disgusted and the fact he said he’d personally killed ‘just’ one person and had to listen to the screams of others showed what kind of man he really was. He hardly showed remorse for the fact the plane that came to save him was shot down when the help wasn’t even needed. The ending with Robert potentially being immune to the new strain of measles was intriguing and he got shot when advancing too quickly on the troops. It was a somewhat fitting end. Overall, a sensational start to the series!

Rating: 10/10