The Time Warriors and Beyond

Book Excerpt: Zombie Blues 3: Club Foot Zombie

By and copyright of Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Cover by Conaire McMullan

The zombie rollercoaster continues as the undead continue to give us their view of being a rotting corpse under the control of Mother Nature.
This time round we meet Comic Book zombie and the zombie who thinks the ending of Toy Story 3 is sacrilege. What happens when a zombie’s faith in God is rocked to its very foundation and why is the spirit of Elvis Presley still going strong in the vast
roaming herds?
A zombie tells why the covid pandemic was much preferable to being undead and why having a club foot makes you feel normal as a zombie. Plus more zombie characters than you can shake a stick at.

Available on Amazon now!

Club Foot Zombie

Ok, I should say that I let happened to me. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and this was all my fault. I battled through each bout and came out the other end until the next relapse. All it took was pressure or the wrong way of walking and suddenly there was another ulcer. They would come no matter what I did and at one point I had them on both feet. I learned more words like air cast boot and ended up wearing two of them for a time. I remember an elderly lady sitting in the waiting room looking so frail wearing her boot. Those things are heavy bastards. They lock you leg in place with no muscle movement and I had one for literally a full year. At the end of it I saw one leg was thinner than the other because the muscle has wasted with none use. I was bloody fuming that podiatry had not made me aware of this and that they had allowed me to wear the boot for far longer than was recommended medically. Then again as I found out later certain podiatrists are shit at their jobs and cowardly hide behind the phrase ‘patient care’ for everything. If you’re somehow reading this story you Bonnie and Clyde of the medical industry, I hope you’re being slowly chewed on by a zombie horde you embarrassments.

Anyway a strange mound suddenly began to appear on the top of my foot like a large red boil. I went to podiatry as usual which at this point was almost my second home. The podiatrist took one look and went to get a consultant. I literally had surgery the following day as there was an infection building up a swell of pus around the bones eroding them. The bone was removed and I healed but sleeked silent diabetes was still ticking away. The problem sadly is even when you do wise up and control the disease rather than it controlling you; the damage is done and cannot be reversed. Little did I know the infection had gotten into the bone. Now it’s not all bad news because bone infection can be treated by good blood sugar control along with a course of intravenous antibiotics. However, sometimes the infection sadly can’t be halted. That means drastic measures have to be taken and for the patient that means amputation or partial amputation of limbs.

I lost all the toes on my left foot. I suppose the easiest way to explain it to you is if you make a fist as if to punch someone then that is what the top of my foot looks like now. At some point they may take the rest of the elg because you cannot ever guarantee that the surgery has caught all the bone infection with shows up under an MRI scan.

The way they described it to me was that all the tendons and other bits and pieces were crammed back into the foot and in these early days of healing one wrong move would make the fragile scar open like slamming your fist down on a strawberry jam sandwich.

So I had a partial foot which meant insole blocks with solid ends to replace the lost toes. It fitted into my shoe or trainer and it looked to me very much like a granny’s slipper. I got on with it and the wife always noticed I had a slight limp. Strangely no one else did until it was pointed out to them. I could no longer run and had to be careful how I walked. I was forever checking my feet at night before I got into bed for any signs of anew ulcers. It was a relief when I found none so I went to sleep knowing that I had another day like a normal person.

However, losing all your toes is damaging as it changes the entire pressure structure of your foot. Parts of your sole suddenly find themselves dealing with pressure they had never felt before. Before long you get a neither kick in the balls as new ulcers form and you start you weekly process all over again. I was so conscious of my stump in the showers at the gym and especially in the steam rooms where other gym users could stare and ask questions. I stopped feeling conscious about the stump because I took it as a positive chance to educate others on the dangers of diabetes. It was great because other men opened up about their scars and wounds which made m realise I wasn’t alone in facing stuff like this. I could not run on the treadmill but walk at a faster pace; enough to work up a sweat to help with rehab. I no longer went into the gym sheepishly thinking everyone could see the limp I had. Now I went in with a confidence that the other guys were fighting health issues too and we had all ended up here to keep ourselves alive for a while longer. Of course the fear was always there that when I went to get a shower I would find an ulcer. That discovery would stop my health routine in its tracks just as I had been really enjoying being normal again. I had gotten over all the oppressive surgeries and now was grabbing life again with both hands. I had a slight limp but nothing that was discernable except to those that knew my story.

That what it was for me; I was not the guy with the stump who walked as he did always fearful that when he took his socks off he would find that awful telltale ring of blood which signalled more hospital visits or maybe worse.

I was normal visiting the gym and having the craic in the steam room.

I knew it wouldn’t last and it came for me on one New Year’s Day. I woke up and went to the toilet. Looking down I noticed a splatter of blood. Maybe I caught a nail on my other foot I hoped but upon further inspection, there was that perfect ring of skin peeling off. I knew what to do straight away

Forgotten Heroes: Sapphire and Steel

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Photos copyright ATV Central

I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.

Time- oh, time. As Picard says, it’s the companion that walks alongside us through life; to the Doctor and his friends, it’s the ocean in which they swim daily. To Sam Beckett it’s where he can put right where things once went wrong; to the Star trek crews it’s the one place they find themselves in that cannot be altered in case there’s a war with the Klingons except of course if your name’s JJ Abrams, then nothing is sacred, especially if you’re a Vulcan. Talk about kicking a culture when it’s down.

But what if time was your enemy? A living breathing entity that could enter our reality and literally do what it pleased with the innocent and unsuspecting? What if it were the ultimate silent killer; no maniacal laugh, no grand schemes, no boasting of its plans to the hero. What if it were the ultimate enemy where the war literally would never end? No matter how many times you stopped it, another dark scheme would pop up somewhere else.

And who could possibly stand against such an enemy?

Well, that’s where you call in Sapphire and Steel.

This show slipped onto our screens almost without a fanfare in 1979 and ran until 1982 on ITV. Produced by ATV and written almost entirely by P J Hammond. The only exception was story five which was co-written by Anthony Read and Don Houghton, names familiar to Doctor Who fans. Hammond himself incidentally has gone on to contribute two scripts to Torchwood- Small Worlds and From Out of the Rain.

Starring David McCallum and Joanna Lumley (Man from Uncle and The New Avengers respectively), Sapphire and Steel are elementals in human form who are assigned each time to stop whatever is happening. They have mental abilities far beyond anything we know but they can be killed or at least displaced.

At the start of each episode a fiery web would appear with a voice over that would tell you irregularities have been found and that Sapphire and Steel have been assigned (see below).

Uniquely each story has no title and is known only as story one to five and each was basically a stage play with the third story the only one having any location filming. The greatest tool any show has to scare its audiences is to make normal, everyday things turn against us and in story one it was the use of nursery rhymes.

In a house in the country, a mother and father are singing a nursery rhyme to their daughter when some force invades leaving the child alone. All the clocks stop and the parents have vanished. Calling the police only brings Sapphire and Steel.

The series boasted limited special effects and no background music – again making it a stage play of sorts. This only added to the atmosphere and in a lot of respects when the nursery rhymes like Ring around the Rosie and Goosey Goosey Gander are being used by the entity it is very Amityville Horror/ Poltergeist in nature. This utterly terrified the viewer, as winds would strike up out of nowhere as it tried to kill our heroes. it gives it a claustrophobic feel as the monster is literally hiding in the closet.

Steel was gruff, with poor people skills, while Sapphire was more caring. Joanna Lumley was stunning as Sapphire and their underplayed partnership conveyed a deep trust and caring between the two. Long before Steven Moffat made the phrase ‘Tick tock goes the clock’ frightening in Doctor Who, Sapphire and Steel were doing this in abundance. Hammond infused them with lines that could chill to the bone: ‘A-tishoo, a-tishoo, we all fall down’ took on a whole new meaning as the force tried to lure the children – and our heroes – into its trap and much more effectively than Who has ever done. The faceless people in the Doctor Who story the Idiot’s Lantern were done even more chillingly by Sapphire and Steel in a creepy story about old photographs.

They were occasionally helped by other elementals like the effervescent Silver; a Doctor Who that never happened who Steel thought was too casual in his approach. We also met the joyous giant Lead played by Val Pringle. Add the claustrophobic constraints of a house and a simple abandoned train station platform and the show worked perfectly, and to this day remains a fan favourite. There is a real sense that they will not succeed in saving the day as time attacks again and again, manipulating the simple phrases of a nursery rhyme to open dimensions and trap Sapphire inside a painting. If she moves one muscle she will be trapped forever and this is where we see the magic of this show. Steel is helpless to save her and desperately races to free her. Here he is forced to rely on the children and using his emotion to save her but there are no hugs or smiles when he does. The look between the pair conveys a thousand words which highlights their alien qualities and deep respect at the same time. While Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers were special effect filled extravaganzas, Sapphire and Steel works best on minimalism.

Language is the key to this series and knowing what can scare people. Like Danny Glick scraping at the window whispering to be let in in Salem’s Lot scared the life out of people, so Sapphire and Steel achieve this effect in equal measure. As I have already said ‘We all Fall Down’ resonates to this day as it takes on a whole new meaning in this story when twisted by the evil. The world’s survival depends literally on a child not saying these words, something that is the norm for all children. Looping a policeman in time so he is eternally knocking a front door is another example of the beauty of this show. The house is a battleground where children are being used to subvert reality. There is no conscience, no morality, just a cold determination by evil to imprint itself on our world. The resolution lies in the past itself but unlike other shows there is no heart-felt goodbyes at the climax. The problem is solved and Sapphire and Steel simply vanish like ghosts.

The second story was set in a haunted train station and took the series into the horror realm as Sapphire sees a war torn ghost whose warped face is literally on screen for a split second but it is enough to make the audience recoil. It terrifies Sapphire showing that the agents have feelings of sorts. Here they team up with ghost hunter George Tully against an entity called the Darkness feeding on the resentment of soldiers killed in the war. Among them are a submarine crew killed by substandard machinery and a soldier killed 11 minutes after the armistice was signed. Again it this the stage like setting that gives this story its creepiness. You are never quite sure if Sapphire and Steel will actually survive given the forces that rise against them. Whether it is being trapped in a photo, ghost children ready to murder at the command of a faceless entity that lives in every photo ever taken, almost falling from a tall building when being attacked by birds in story three where a tiny baby is accelerated into adulthood by the combined forces of animals that were operated upon in an apartment from the future which no one can see. In an Agatha Christie type story, something in 1933 is killing guests at a mansion party and stealing their bodies in order to rewrite history. in the fifth and final story, our fears come true as our heroes investigate an abandoned service station and café where time has stopped. I’ll never forget the final scene when we learn the inhabitants are rival elemental agents and the station is a space time trap for Sapphire and Steel. We last see them trapped for eternity in a star field staring out the curtained window of the café. There never was a resolution to this and as a kid I was pissed. Every hero can escape from any trap laid for them but this time Sapphire and Steel were gone seemingly forever. They would return in the Big Finish audio plays but not with David McCallum and Joanna Lumley.

Modern horror trying to emulate a good ghost story should stop for a moment and look back at this story. It is a quintessential masterclass in not only how to write a scary story but how to execute it as well with the simplest of tools. And that’s why this show remains one of the most loved in sci-fi history.

Forgotten Villains: The Ovions Battlestar Galactica

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

opyright ABC

Like the Daleks in Doctor Who, the Cylons are synonymous with Battlestar Galactica but what many have forgotten is that there was another deadly enemy facing the Galacticans in the original series back in the seventies. It’s a real pity nothing more was done with them because they really are creatures straight out of a nightmare.

The Ovions were an insectoid race who had been conquered and absorbed into the Cylon Empire. While humans were to be exterminated completely, the Ovions became willing servants of the Empire. They settled on Carillon where they mined tylium for the Empire. They built a resort of casinos and hotel to lure humans to Carillon for the purpose of consuming them.

When the Galactica led by Adama (Lorne Green), arrives at Carillon in the aftermath of the Cylon destruction of the 12 colonies, they find respite as they try to recover. However, the resort carries a deadly secret. It is a trap. In the catacombs below there are Ovion hives in which their young are hatching. Human guests are vanishing without a trace under the noses of the others. When Cassiopeia (Laurette Sprang) disappears, Starbuck (Dirk Benedict, Face from the A-Team) and Apollo (Richard hatch) follow to the lower levels and make a terrifying discovery.

All the vanished guests are placed inside honeycomb feeding chambers where they are absorbed by the young. They are alive as their bodies slowly dissolve to feed the new generation of Ovion babies. As they are placed in the chambers on their backs, they are aware of it all as their bodies and brains slowly dissolve. Such a horrible death is graphic for Galactica. Rescuing Cassiopeia from one of these chambers, they find the Cylons have been there all along and they must flee and not everyone makes it back to the ragtag fleet on a quest to find the lost tribe of Earth. The planet is destroyed in a massive explosion allowing the humans to escape and gain some ground from their Cylon pursuers.

But alas this was the last time we would meet the Ovions. Humans are instinctively afraid of insects so to see a man-size one trying to kill you would trigger a primeval fight or flight. This was the concept behind the Mentara in the Time Warriors books as arachnids can have a paralysing effect on an individual. Losing the Ovions was a shame as another alien race sworn to the destruction of humanity would have had a different edge. To see the insectoids working alongside the robotic Cylons would have been great; allowing expansion of the Ovion culture. Who’s to say all the Ovions were happy under Cylon control? What if some rebel faction saw the humans as a chance to overthrow the Cylons and free the Ovions once more. After all, why else were the Cylons so set on the genocide of the human race? What was it about them that scared the Imperious Leader so much? To the Ovions that could have been a side they had seen of the Cylons; fear.

Even when the series was rebooted the Ovions did not even feature as the Cylons took another direction with the introduction of the human Cylons firmly established as sleepers in the Galactica fleet. This in itself wasn’t a new idea as human Cylons were introduced in Galactica 1980 in the two part episode Night of the Cylons. Personally I thought it was a lazy approach as it squandered the opportunity to explore Cylon culture. What other alien members of their Empire could they use in their attempt to eradicate humanity? I was never a fan of the reboot, despite watching it, as I felt there was so much more that could be done with the story than simply Cylons versus humans.

James & Brendan Dwyer’s Cult Fiction out now!

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

“People don’t come to this city to escape reality; people come to this city because it’s funking awesome.” – Rowdy Roddy Randy

Municipal City: the only place on earth where you can be anyone. Anyone from your favourite movies, books, tv shows, comics, video games or any cult media you can imagine. This is not virtual reality.
This is real.

Tina Lockhart arrives at the City to do exactly that, and is willing to pay any price to get in, willing to take the Elixir drug she needs just to breathe the air, and willing to kill, and risk being killed, just to survive.

Municipal City: the only place on earth where you can do anything. Anything can be replicated, given the right technology, and anything can be done as long as you follow the rules of the game.

But someone isn’t playing by the rules. Someone is murdering players in the safe zones, something that should be impossible. As dangerous as this is for Tina Lockhart, things get worse as she becomes the one accused of these killings, and Tina desperately needs to find the truth in her world of cult fiction.

Get your copy today in paperback and kindle.

Forgotten Villains: Silver Bullet’s Reverend Lowe

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

“I’m too old to play Hardy Boys meet Reverend Werewolf!”

Now everyone knows how much I love the movie Silver Bullet. I have watched it too many times to count since its release in 1985 and have never ever gotten bored. Based on the Stephen King novella Cycle of the Werewolf, the movie is far superior to the actual book. Marty Coslaw and his sister Jane, discover there is a werewolf in their town of Tarker’s Mills, Maine in 1976 and their only ally is their drunken uncle Red (Gary Busey). Everything is much more focused than in the novella but it takes a certain person to make a character stand out. In the case of Silver Bullet, it is actor Everett McGill that steals this movie as one of the best characters in horror history.

Like Uncle Ted in Bad Moon, Lowe is not really the villain. He is a victim of being bitten by a werewolf and forced to turn every full moon. However in this version, Lowe is always a wolf but becomes ‘wolfier’ the closer the full moon gets. This is demonstrated when the Reverend kills Stella Randolph. Stella has been having an affair with a married man and fallen pregnant. Jane witnessed the married man denying he was the father leaving Stella facing life as a single mother. Knowing the shame that would bring upon her family, she plans to kill herself due to her sin.

Unknown to the audience Reverend Lowe has somehow found out her secret and in his muddled part human mind he is doing Stella a huge favour. The wolf part of him needs to kill but the human part reasons that he can kill two birds with one stone by killing Stella. If she commits suicide as planned, she will burn in Hell forever with her unborn child but murdered, their souls will go to heaven. As the full moon is not due for a while, the wolf part can still reason as a man would. This would come from the horse’s mouth later in the most pivotal scene in the movie. When Lowe traps Marty on a bridge and intends to make his death look like an accident. Lowe confirms his reasons for murdering Stella and the language is interesting here. Lowe says he can’t kill himself due to his religion and Stella’s death was an act of salvation and is clever enough to make Marty’s death seem like an accident. The wolf part of him has been grafted into his religious beliefs.

At the movie’s opening, railway worker Arnie Westrum is beheaded. Could it be Lowe killed him to spare him a painful death from alcoholism? Was Milt Sturmfuller killed because he was an abusive father and it was just punishment in Lowe’s head as the law would fail his daughter? While Milt and Arnie’s deaths seem like accidents, Stella’s is pure out and out murder.

Lowe is a very tortured character, much more than Lon Chaney Jnr ever was as the Wolfman. Lowe has his faith in God and, knowing what he knows, he must stand on the pulpit each Sunday and try to console the frightened citizens especially after the murder of young Brady Kincaid while flying his kite and ignoring curfew. This is an indication the wolf is becoming more prevalent as Brady is simply a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time when a werewolf is hunting. He has been ripped apart in a savagery that the Sheriff (Lost’s Terry O’Quinn) is left a quivering heap repeating the Lord’s prayer over and over and almost driving his father to the brink of insanity. In a dream sequence Lowe’s entire congregation transform into werewolves. Startled from his sleep, Lowe begs God to let it end.

Lowe knows full well he is responsible but still does his religious duty and preaches every Sunday even presiding over the funerals of his victims. You get a sense that he has accepted his life and his only way to make amends for it is carry out the Lord’s work and guide those families impacted by his actions as a wolf. When the town gets fired up over the lack of arrests and police action, they launch a vigilante hunt for the killer beast. Lowe tries desperately to stop them from going and return home instead. He knows what will happen as he will turn and with the knowledge of an entire slew of humans out in the open, it will be a bloodbath. It is but done in a comedic way that amplifies the fear. Lowe still has enough human left that he beats the bar owner to death with his own baseball bat named the Peacekeeper. He also takes it back with him and hides it in his garage so police cannot get to it. Indeed when Red convinces the Sheriff to check the Reverend out, he is beaten to death as Lowe transforms into the wolf before him crying out in agony that it isn’t his fault.

A werewolf is bad enough but one that can think and reason is worse even if it thinks it is acting in the name of God. A beautiful nuance in displaying Lowe’s slow move into full werewolf is his facial hair. At the beginning of the movie, he is clean shaven but as the movie goes on his five o’clock shadow becomes more prevalent. Needless to say Marty and Jane manage to convince Uncle Red they are right and lay a trap for the Reverend. A slave to his urges, Lowe attacks their home, smashing his way through the wall. Red is thrown across the room and it is up to Marty and Jane to fire the silver bullet that takes down Lowe once and for all. And in the tradition of Scream, the villain returns for one last scare.

Lowe is a tragic figure that is simply a slave to his dark urges and personifies that troubled soul that dwells within in every person cursed by the power of the full moon. His extra burden came from the fact that he was a man of God who could only make sense of it all by placing his faith in a higher power.

N Sherry’s Lazurus Larusso: Tender Prey out now!

Presented by Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

When mutilated bodies turn up along the bayo Lazarus Larusso and his team investigates. However, when mistrust creeps into the team does a serial killer stay free to continue his killing spree. Read and find out.

TV Magic Moments: ST:NG Yesterday’s Enterprise

By Owen Quinn; author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Yesterday’s Enterprise is a genuine classic in any genre. It sees history changed as the Enterprise C travels forward in time causing all of history to change. The Federation is fighting a losing war with the Klingons. There is no Worf, no families aboard the Enterprise and Picard and Riker are not close at all. Troi is not part of the crew but Tasha Yar returns from the dead as she was never killed by Armus in Skin of Evil.

Only Guinan knows this new timeline is wrong and the only way to restore it is to send the Enterprise C back in time and let the crew die defending a Klingon colony from a sneak Romulan attack. She faces off against Picard in a scene that is simply electric. Patrick Stewart and Whoopi Goldberg are on fire as the friends clash over sending the crew to their deaths. Never have Picard and Guinan been so angry at each other and you can feel Guinan’s desperation for her friend to believe her. The dilemma between them roars off the screen at the audience. The stakes are high. History literally depends on Picard sending an entire crew to their deaths. As we know, Tasha Yar gets the send off she needed after the lacklustre Skin of Evil when she joins the Enterprise C crew and goes back in time to die . And because of that, Picard creates a brand new foe who will come back to haunt him. Superb television.

Book Excerpt: Zombie Blues 3: Comic Book Zombie

By and copyright of Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Available on Amazon now!

Comic Book Zombie

I had a deep conversation with my best mate once about what it really meant to be an adult grown up. I was one of those people whose childhood passions and hobbies had remained a huge part of their life from toddler steps right up into manhood and continued right up to zombie life began.

There is a time to put away childish things they say but whoever wrote that was a boring old fart whose life was probably spent staring at a dirty window counting every grey relentless raindrop that ran down it.

Why do we need to label everyone? Why is my liking a certain artist or genre at a certain age in society’s eyes abnormal? Why does same eternally correct society tell us we must (must sounds more like an order rather than an option when said out loud) throw away our so called childish things?

Who says I shouldn’t go into a toy store and buy all the latest action figure releases for myself and pretend it’s for one of my non existent kids?

I always wanted to meet whoever wrote that to define for me what exactly they meant and see did they get a final number on those rain drops.

At what age is something too childish to put away? If something you cherished on a long term basis has been part of your life for years do we have to follow Andy’s example in Toy Story and give away Woody and the others just because you are going to college? Is that what we do; drop things we love when the dictates of society declare we should or when we feel pressured to because other grown ups look down on us? Do we have to shy away from the admission of our love for these things like a guilty secret because of the whispers and smirking reactions? Toys and collectibles that had been engrained into out hearts and brought us comfort and pleasure should be trashed? We loved/love them; pure and simple. If you love a person do you get rid of them because your friends or family don’t like them?

Fuck that!

Of course it’s alright to be a football fan or rock music fanatic but when people discover your passion is comic books and all the off shoot merchandise sci fi, fantasy and horror that goes with them it becomes a completely different story.

You always get two reactions; some will tell you about the comics they read as kids and wishes they had kept them as they’d be worth a fortune or some will look at you as if you’ve asked them for their first born. No, you want to say; it’s only certain key issues that are worth money and you never know until hindsight which ones they are. Peoples’ views on Star Wars merchandise are a common universally misconception. People believe you could put any Star Wars character on a toilet roll and it’d sell for a million; aw, you sad misinformed citizens. My dear dad always did say a molecule of knowledge was much more dangerous than stupidity.

When I think about it now in my new zombie carriage giving the middle finger to the so called norm really is a true indicator of how much you love something.

It’s like falling for your soul mate no matter what their faults or worse, if your family hates them. In your eyes they are the only important thing in your life. You love them implicitly without question. Such deep love and passion are ingrained into your being forever regardless of anyone else’s opinion.

I never bought any of my comics just in case they might be worth millions in forty years. I simply bought them for the same reason you go home every night to the one you love. They are part of you as surely as breathing is. Before you know your love for them confirms them as your sole focus. Just as suddenly you find your comic books have suddenly been breeding faster than mice. There’s no thought in it; it’s just instinctual. You get lost in your love of something with no thought of monetary value because you really can’t put a price on passion. That brings me back to the conversation with my buddy I mentioned at the start of my tale.

Is Torchwood’s Adrift the Perfect episode?

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors aand Zombie Blues

photo copyright BBC

If something like Torchwood can do so much good but only in the shadows then is that good ephemeral in the long run? Some secrets are best kept hidden because they will only destroy those with good hearts.

Good drama is hard to come by. The sci fi genre produces some of the greatest episodes of solid drama which is emotionally draining that stays with the viewer long afterwards. There is no happy resolution and you know there is a long road for the characters to walk to deal with what has happened to them. It is stories like this that fans rewatch time and again because they speak to something within ourselves and the human condition. In Torchwood’s Adrift, it is the phenomenon of missing people that is explored in what could be one of television’s most perfect episodes that cannot be picked apart.

In Adrift, Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) is asked by her former police colleague and best friend PC Andy Davidson (Tom Price) to look into the disappearance of a teenager Jonah Bevans. He disappeared within minutes from home while texting his mother. But as a nonchalant Gwen soon discovers the truth is far more terrifying than she thought and sometimes it’s best to keep your mouth shut. It’s also an interesting look at her character and how life as a member of Torchwood changes you in ways you don’t even realise. Gwen is initially dismissive of Andy’s plea as she puts it down to just another missing kid but she is slapped in the face by Andy when he attacks her for not caring anymore. He claims the old Gwen would have been on this in a heartbeat but since Torchwood she has lost that part of her. She no longer has compassion which impacts her relationship with husband Rhys who wants kids but she doesn’t as long as she works for Torchwood. Does life with Torchwood really mean you stop caring because the world is more than you once thought it was?

Photos copyright BBC

Andy shows Gwen the footage of Jonah’s disappearance. There is a flash of light as he vanishes and minutes later Jack Harkness shows up at the scene. To her surprise Jack denies being there at all and is told to drop the investigation into Jonah. She ignores his order and goes to meet Jonah’s mother Nikki played byGavin and Stacey star Ruth Jones. Nikki spends her days searching through crowds on videos looking for Jonah. Hope is killing her and she is desperate for an answer of some sort. The mystery is making her doubt her ability as a good mother. She sleeps in his room sometimes and even writes in his diary for when he comes back. What must life be like waiting for that ring of the door bell for that moment your loved one returns? How much disappointment can one person take before despair swamps them especially where your child is concerned? Gwen is touched by Nikki’s situation especially when he believes Jonah may have disappeared because he felt he didn’t love him enough or too much. To help cope, she has set up her on support group for other families whose loved ones are also missing.

Something in Gwen has changed and she knows it but turns to Rhys to ask him if she has changed. If he can give her some confirmation that she hasn’t then it will make her feel better about Andy’s opinion. She ropes Tosh in to help her look into Jonah and doscovers that there have been hundreds of people missing in Cardiff and that the rift itself has been taking them. But to where? The rift depositing all sorts of aliens in Cardiff is bad enough but now it takes as well is terrifying. But how come no one has noticed before?

She and Andy go to Nikki’s meeting but they are the only two there at first. In one of many powerful scenes in this episode, the hall suddenly fills with other people whose family members have disappeared. Gwen is stunned at the severity of it. The old Gwen resurfaces. If no one is here for these people then she will be.

Tosh and Gwen put together all the names and discover the number of missing literally fill a wall. She confronts the team with her evidence and is told to shut it all down and leave it. Gwen believes that they have a care of duty to help the families left behind rather than leave people in a limbo where they often blame themselves. Her argument falls on deaf ears. But this good intention is marred when she and Rhys have a huge fight over kids and her working at Torchwood. Rhys reminds her that she does what she does so people can live their lives, real lives and if she thinks that she is more important than real life then it means nothing. Torchwood is a job and she must keep her worklife away from home life. While both sides are valid Gwen knows that Rhys deserves a normal life despite Torchwood including kids. Torchwood is draining her of her morality despite the fact Jack brought her in to remind them all of what it is to be human. I bleive that it is seeing how much pain Nikki is in that is making Gwen dither over having kids. If the same happened to one of hers she would go mad. The only answer is to find out why Jack is so against her plan.

It is Yanto that supplies the key when he gives her a clue with a GPS. She must travel to Flat Holm but she betrays Andy once again by leaving him behind. This time it is to protect him from whatever is on the island. He has already expressed interest in joining Torchwood but was rebuked by Gwen. Going to the island may mean he can never go back to normality in a way saving him from the emotional turmoil she has felt from day one.

On the island she sees Jack and discovers a secret facility. Staff hired by Jack are taking care of peopel with severe issues and Gwen recognises the names as some of the missing. She finds Jonah but he is middle aged now and severely burned. When the teenager disappeared off the bridge he found himself in an alien war zone and on fire. He was rescued but ended up back in Cardiff older and disfigured.

Jack arrives and tells Gwen the truth. These people are taken and returned by the Rift completely at random. However many are not. Each person comes back unable to return to normal society. Jack set up this care unit to make them comfortable and live out their lives as best they can with secret 24 hour care. Gwen, haunted by Nikki’s words, insists on telling her which Jack strongly advises her not to do.

Ignoring his warning, Gwen takes Nikki to meet her son. At first she freaks out but Jonah tells her things only he would know. Despite his aging and scars Nikki insists she is taking her son back home with her. But Jonah’s scars go far beyond the surface. He screams solidly for 20 hours every day which they cannot control and causes severe pain to those that hear it. It is primal. He had looked into the heart of a dark star and it had driven him mad.

Jonah can never go home to his mother. To the world Jonah will forever be a statistic but privately Nikki must live the rest of her life alone knowing what really happened to her son. Nikki tells Gwen never to do this to anyone else as all her beautiful precious memories have been replaced by the screaming. Knowing Jonah is alive but so far out of reach is worse than not knowing. It was better when she didn’t know. Nikki had hope before Gwen turned up and turned it to ash with what she thought was the right thing to do. Nikki’s suffering is worse now despite Gwen’s good intentions. Sometimes it is best that the public or the individual doesn’t be told the truth no matter how much it hurts them.

It is a lesson to Gwen that life in Torchwood is filled with grey areas that will go against everything she is. Poor Nikki now is left to put Jonah’s stuff in black bags as she collapses with grief. Though if Jack had told Gwen the truth in the first place he could have spared Gwen and Nikki this agony.

The episode ends with Gwen collapsing in Rhys’ arms in tears as she tells him what has happened. If something like Torchwood can do so much good but only in the shadows then is that good ephemeral in the long run? Some secrets are best kept hidden because they will only destroy those with good hearts.

You cannot fault this episode in any way. It involves the entire cast in substantial roles. The incidental music is used in other episodes but tugs at your heart here especially Nikki’s tragic final scenes. Ruth Jones, cast against type is phenomenal as Nikki. Her journey of hope to despair makes you want to hug her but even if you could, you cannot ever tell her it will be alright. It never will be for her. She now lives in a limbo where she must outwardly appear as the mother of one of the missing but inwardly suffer her son’s fate. Like Torchwood she must live a double life; one that cracks your soul. Eve and Kai Owen smash it as the bickering Gwen and Rhys whose marriage is falling apart so quickly. Tom Price as Andy is the victim as Gwen keeps him dangling throughout the investigation but he remains her best friend. But perhaps it is better to keep him from being brought into the world of Torchwood as it will consume him too. Given what happens to Nikki, Gwen can rest easy Andy is safe from the tendrils of Torchwood. Life is not fair as we know and Gwen believes in doing the right thing. But her enthusiasm keeps her from getting all the facts first anout Joah and the others. It destrpys her good intetnions to ghe point it turns her into a villain in Nikki’s eyes when the truth is revealed to her. However, Jack once again could have told Gwen about Jonah’s affliction but he doesn’t. If he had, it would have spared both her and Nikki. Could it be to keep Gwen in line, Jack makes sure she learns a harsh lesson about how Torchwood works? She will never be as quick to tell the truth about what she sees ever again.

As they say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions which Gwen experiences first hand in Adrift. For outstanding drama and a perfect story that will break your heart, Adrift is the one for you.

Book Excerpt: Zombie Blues Don’t Call Me Andy Zombie

By and copyright of Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Cover by Conaire McMullan

Available on Amazon now!

Don’t Call Me Andy Zombie

But this isn’t a story about best friends or the very real importance of friendships as you get older. You should already know that folks, especially in this hellish world. Zombies are spreading across the surface of this planet like mould on cheese. I can only hope you guys are learning just how important friendships are now more than ever and being open to telling others that.

No, this is a story about the differences between two people. It’s about learning to really accept someone else’s differing opinion and respecting it. If it opens your eyes to a new way of thinking then that has to be healthy and make a better world for everyone.

Yeah, anyone that knows me will laugh out loud at that. As a human I took the nick when someone had a different opinion about sci fi or movie than me. I did it mostly to wind them up but part of me was feeling sorry for those who couldn’t see I was right; which was all the time of course….

At this stage of the game folks, you hopefully have learned to see us shuffling moaning zombies in a totally different night.

As I walk this shivering land seeking out scavenger humans to feed on, I relive my life in my head thinking of those happy times in work and home. Anyone with a best buddy will know you end up talking to them more than your wife at times because you go through things together totally outside the husband and wife stuff.

They’re the ones who take the hump because you didn’t tell them you were in hospital or going though something yet they do the same. You’d drop everything for them yet don’t want to bring your woes to their lives either. Your buddy is the one you talk shit with and find it the most hilarious thing on the planet. Hence the point of this story; how two laughing argumentative mates similar yet different, saw the ending of the classic movie, Toy Story 3, with completely opposite eyes.

War, most certainly had been declared Mervin!

Both of us love Star Wars, for me it kept the bullies out of my head as a kid. I escaped to the galaxy far, far away through my toys. I still remember the first time I heard of Star Wars on the news and when I bought my first two action figures, Luke Skywalker and the Death Squad Commander for the princely sum of ninety nine pence. Little did I know the path that would send me on for the rest of my life. I still had a lot of Star Wars vintage toys from growing up but when Mervin took the notion to start collecting them from scratch, it spurred me on to fill in my missing blanks. War had suddenly become the search to find our childhoods again. To be honest I never lost mine. I might have the forty something body of a stud with medallion hairy chest and come to bed eyes…fine, can’t you let a man have a little hope when his body has decided to go south? We both took the notion to fill in those missing blanks and complete our Star Wars universe action figure and vehicle collections. Those bonds for both of us had been strong all our lives but adult stuff got in the way. The many figures and ships we amassed over the years were in boxes and plastic tubs and to be fair neglected for years. Knowing they were there was enough.

But that kick-started a new buddy quest to look at what we had and finally finish it. It is a side effect of being mid forties because you have a disposable income to a degree and you want to complete things you never got round to. EBay became our second home and in one of those couldn’t be bothered days in work, our conversation turned to Toy Story 3.

Now as you know at the end of that movie Andy gives away Woody, Buzz and all the others to a little girl because he is going off to college life. He is hoping the toys will bring as much happiness to her that they did with him. Then he drives off into his new adult life. Now, the world thought this was a perfect ending and cried including my buddy.

My face fell like someone had just thrown a turd cross the room and it had landed in the luscious flowing chocolate fountain.

The ending of Toy Story 3 was a horror story. It was as shocking as Ripley falling to her death with the alien popping out of her chest. It was like Brad finding his wife’s head in the case at the climax of Seven. I didn’t cry along at all with the dewy eyed masses enraptured with Woody and the others.

Stuck in the cinema, I stared open mouthed but inwardly was screaming at the screen, ‘NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’