Torchwood 7.10 Among Us: Doomscroll

Antepenultimate episode.

Written by Ash Darby.

Directed by David O'Mahony.

This is Darby's final episode on The Story Continues range but I don't believe he has been in the interviews of the episodes he has written for and the subject of Darby himself has not been brought up.

In fact I only just come across speculation that Darby is a pseudonym!

The definition of doomscroll I have found is this:

"continually scroll through and read depressing or worrying content on a social media or news site, especially on a phone"

Producer James Goss gave the definition of doomscroll in his own words in the accompanying interviews.

More details of this subject matter can be read here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomscrolling

Doomscroll has an amusing description:

"Something is killing influencers and Torchwood have to save them. Mr Colchester discovers a whole new world and he doesn't like it one bit. Don't forget to like and subscribe."

As it says in the description Torchwood is on the task of saving influencers and it starts with Ng and Orr breaking into the flat of influencer Octavia* who has been livestreaming even though she has been dead for sometime.

This is because of an app known as People Fluid which has been generating AI images of dead influencers to maintain their online presence.

A shocking moment about People Fluid came when Ng and Orr talk to someone from People Fluid only for it to turn out that this person is a deepfake and he didn't even know it.

Ironic just moments before this person, not knowing that he isn't real, said that we all need to eat. Obviously he doesn't and perhaps this person not being real reflects on writer Ash Darby who as I said before is speculated to be a pseudonym.

In the midst of their tasks, Tyler becomes emotionally involved with his subject Chris which climaxed when they had dinner** together.

Tyler tells Chris to put his phone down and eat dinner but to no avail and Chris ends up dead.

The previous episode How I Conquered The World was dominated by Friend and in case listeners had forgotten about Friend whilst listening to Doomscroll she turned up briefly when Tyler and Chris were together at the near end emphasising her part in proceedings.

In spite of what it says in the description, Torchwood failed to save the influencers they tasked themselves with demonstrating how dangerous the life of an influencer is in this fascinating and of course unsettling tale of its premise.

In the midst of the seriousness of the topic at hand came an amusing moment when Mr Colchester said "Hello Angels" to Ng and Orr, a reference they weren't likely to get. The reference being from Charlie's Angels and in fact Big Finish did do the Torchwood version of Charlie's Angels with The Dollhouse which I coincidentally re-listened to sometime ago and as a consequence of The Dollhouse relisten I started to watch Charlie's Angels from the start.

Enjoyable interviews with script editor Tim Foley, producer James Goss, the main cast members and guest star Jade Matthew (Flavella) as they talked about the topic the premise of the episode was based on.

Paul Clayton (Mr Colchester) made an interesting comment how we as people put on an image when we are out in the world.

Perhaps more so, from my viewpoint, from influencers.

*Incidentally Octavia is name of a character on The 100 and coincidentally I have been rewatching that series for sometime.

Each of the first two times I listened to Doomscroll, I rewatched The 100's Octavia beforehand in the season 3 finale Perverse Instantiation – Part Two and the season 4 opener Echoes.

**The dinner included prawns and coincidentally I had prawns for dinner just before listening to Doomscroll for the first time.