"You can go on a visit to your own past, if you remember what it looks like."
Writer: Maddie Wilson
Format: Audio
Released: July 2022
Series: Torchwood Monthly 63
Featuring: Ianto
Synopsis
The Restricted Items Archive is where all the items too dangerous for Torchwood are stored. Ianto Jones carefully catalogues each and every one. And he always works down there alone.
Only, something's not quite right. There's a secret in the Restricted Items Archive that won't be ignored any longer.
Verdict
Restricted Items Archive Entires 031-049 was a good little story to continue my way through the monthly Torchwood range! I was intrigued by this one knowing that only Gareth David-Lloyd starred as the sole actor and whilst this didn't have anything like the vibes of Heaven Sent on screen where Peter Capaldi pulled a blinder, it's still an impressive feat to keep the listener engaged and entertained for the duration of the hour that comprises this episode. Ianto is a really strong character and with this definitely being set somewhere in the middle of Series 1, he's a mature character. He's built his relationships and fought a lot in the job. It's also just very Ianto to be the one solely in control of cataloguing and documenting the items that made up this archive. It really does say a lot when Torchwood have to deem something as a restricted item because even for them it's too much. Surely the resurrection gauntlet would have been placed within if anybody at the team had sense? That should be the very definition of a restricted item! It didn't feel a million miles away from the device that told people how long they had until they died which the team thought was actually a thermometer! Talk about getting it wrong. It set the timeline though as Owen was told he had a year left to live in a powerful and quite subtle foreshadowing of the events to come in Reset. That's pretty harrowing but even without featuring his cheeky personality was on show as Ianto knew he'd been in the archive and caused some small chaos. Usually to do with the pens! Stationery is very important in office jobs, especially twenty years ago. I would have perhaps liked a little more time exploring each item in the archive so a better approach might have been a few items less to explore? Hell, we could have an entire little Short Trips series exploring these items and how they came to be acquired. Ianto making a voice note was a fun thought and I like that the audio we were listening to was very much in the real world. This would be listened back by Ianto (for what purpose I'm not sure) and that's the same thing we were listening to as well which was great. It felt authentic and I like that a lot. I thought the world's most useless time machine was a good item to explore and it was quite humorous when Ianto was returned back a few seconds to start saying the same sentence over and over. They probably played the gag one time too many, but the point was made. I wasn't expecting that to prove so crucial in the resolution though which was impressive. I thought the idea behind a device stealing the thoughts of someone who said them but them not being audible was interesting too and something I'd like to explore more in another adventure. I don't think I'll get the chance though! Ianto knowing that there weren't actually mice in the archive was good and he'd been playing the Drifter all along. I thought that was a tad predictable and the words of Ianto being played back to him was eery, but I was a little put off by the fact this had all happened before. It took away a little from what I had listened to already because Ianto was fully in control and knew what he was doing. It was clever for sure, but I just felt ever so slightly cheated that no quick thinking resolution was requited. Everything was in order. Predicting the rift flares is good and directing it into the archive to eliminate all life matter before using the time machine to get out rounded things out well. A good listen for sure!
Rating: 7/10
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