Alex Hewitt shares his thoughts on this month’s Torchwood story from Big Finish which sees the return of Ida Scott and the Ood, originally featured in Doctor Who TV episodes The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit.

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In her TV appearance, Claire Rushbrook‘s Ida Scott makes a fleeting reference to the rocky relationship she has with her father – and in Odyssey, this relationship is explored.

Odyssey is written by Torchwood newcomer Patrick O’Connor, who has created a script that is essentially a crash-course through both Ida’s character and that of her father, Odysseus. Throughout this hour-long adventure, Ida’s personality really shines through – she’s confident but not arrogant, she listens to her gut, and she’s genuinely worried about her father’s condition. Rushbrook plays Ida beautifully, nailing all the important character beats and ensuring that Ida feels well-rounded and real.

Odysseus Scott is played by Silas Carson, who dual-roles in this story, also playing the Ood. Odysseus is chronically ill with a degenerative disease that’s beginning to lead to memory loss and aphasia, and believes that he can be cured via listening to the sound of gravity. He is incredibly rude to Ida, but Rushbrook’s interactions with Carson are pitiful as well as harsh, coating the story with a strong pathos that’s sure to evoke an emotional response in listeners. Also starring is Jay Perry as Tom, Odysseus’s assistant. Tom doesn’t get a huge amount of background or depth in this story, but Perry does a good job with the material he’s been given and ensures that Tom fits naturally into the diegesis.

O’Connor’s script is pitch-perfect when it comes to Ida’s and Odysseus’s relationship, but the plot itself is where things start to falter. Towards the end of the episode, events blur together and the story becomes a little unclear. That said, the very final moments are packed with emotion and incredibly poignant. The fact that the listener can feel so close to characters who have only spent an hour’s audio drama together is a seriously impressive feat.

Overall, Odyssey is a touching story about the relationship between a daughter and a father she’s slowly losing, and it tugs on the heartstrings in all the right places. This is a brilliant opening to Torchwood‘s ‘Ood trilogy’, and gives the remaining two instalments a lot to live up to.

Torchwood: Odyssey is available now from https://www.bigfinish.com/, where the second and third parts of the Ood trilogy – Oodunnit and Oracle – can also be pre-ordered.