Forgotten Lives (audio story)

It has been four years since the Miracle, and Gwen and Rhys's lives have gone back to normal, very normal. They're raising their daughter (they've got pictures they'd be only too happy to show you), they're living in a nice house, and they're almost on top of the laundry.

Captain Jack Harkness has been missing from the world and their lives for a long time. But late one night the phone rings, and they're summoned to an isolated part of North Wales. The Bryn Offa Nursing Home contains a dark secret, an alien threat, and someone who really shouldn't be there.

Gwen and Rhys are about to discover that Torchwood stays with you for the rest of your life.

Plot

Gwen receives a phone call from an elderly Welsh-speaking woman who mentions Jack. She and Rhys go to Bryn Offa Residential Home to investigate and meet Mr Griffith, an old man with an American accent who claims to be Jack, calling them by their names and mentioning the SUV.

Gary takes them inside and they convince him that Mr Griffith is a relative. Mr Griffith hot-wires Gwen and Rhys's car and manages to convince them that he is Jack, driving away with them and saying that they have to stop the Evolved's experiments. After a false start at the wrong slagheap, they find a Torchwood cache by the Wrexham bypass and get a bio-stabiliser for Jack but find that there is now someone else inside Mr Griffiths' body: Ceri, a fifteen-year-old girl. Ceri tells Gwen and Rhys that she is a beggar who found herself in the body of an old woman at Bryn Offa before becoming Mr Griffith.

The three plan for Ceri to return to Bryn Offa and, at night, let Gwen and Rhys in. However, they are caught by Gary who invites them in to talk to stop them from calling the police. Gwen draws a Mulifinian disintegrator and interrogates Gary about the drugs that they are giving the patients before Jack returns to Mr Griffith's body and tells her that Gary knows nothing. After telling Gwen about the Committee and the Evolved, the two are approached by Elunedd, who claims to be Anwen. Gwen calls her mother and asks to speak to Anwen, who is speaking fluent Welsh as Elunedd does.

Rhys is taken over by an Evolved and asks Gary to accept their "gift". Jack traps them in a force field around Bryn Offa and tells them to leave, but they give their gift to Gary, sending him away. Jack offers to join the Evolved in return for them restoring Rhys, Anwen and the minds of the others that they swapped. He tells Gwen that he will return and is teleported away.

To cover up what has happened, Gwen calls in "a few favours". She and Rhys agree that, whilst Anwen will always come first, they cannot keep her safe without restarting Torchwood. Rhys says that, the next time aliens try to invade Earth, he wants to be ready.

Cast

Worldbuilding

Rhys jokes about not getting Radio 2 in North Wales.
Rhys drove all the routes around North Wales with his uncle Mike, which he says inspired him to get into haulage. They used to drive an extra hour to get to Hot Buns in the 1980s for bacon baps and chips and curry sauce.
Gwen and Rhys have been keeping low since Miracle Day. As Rhys was too well-known in his industry, he has quit Harwood's.
Gwen says that Bryn Offa might be a cover for alien experiments or a UNIT detention centre for the "inconveniently temporally-displaced".
Jack asks about the Torchwood SUV.
Gary says that Jack has been mentioning Tosh and Ianto.
Griffith is 93 years old. He has survived five heart attacks.
Elunedd performed a piano piece at the 1936 Llanilar eisteddfod.
Dr Kelly and Matty work at Bryn Offa.
Both Gwen and Rhys have poor knowledge of the Welsh language. Rhys says that he only knows how to ask to go to the toilet.
Anwen is staying with Mary.
Anwen is now going to school.
Jack says that he needs a bio-stabiliser. Gwen used to watch Owen use one.
Torchwood has a storage facility under Wrexham bypass. It can be accessed by a biometrically-coded portal disguised as a rock shaped like a heart.
Ceri's mother told her that she was "wrong in the head".
The Mulifinian disintegrator, or Mulf-GP-6, is banned by the Shadow Proclamation throughout the universe. It looks like a pink hair dryer because pink is the traditional colour of fighting in the Mulifane System and is powered by three mini black holes.
Mr Griffith has rheumatoid arthritis.
Jack's body is stuck on Peritus IV in Omega Centauri, about twelve parsecs from the central black hole.
The Committee pushed the Three Families into causing the Miracle.
Gary did a 10K for cancer and a triathlon.
Gary says that he likes his dogs, Shane and his mother.
Jack mistakes Llangollen for Swansea.
Jack says that he has thousands of years of travelling in time.
Mr Griffith calls Gary a poof.

Notes

Textless cover art

Although the synopsis says that it has been four years since Miracle Day, Gwen and Rhys both say that it has been five. Similarly, the synopsis names the facility "Bryn Offa Care Home" whilst the sign outside says "Bryn Offa Residential Home".

Continuity

Rhys refers to the fact that he used to work for Harwood's Haulage. (TV: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Meat)
Gwen and Rhys respectively remind Jack in Griffith's body that there is no Torchwood SUV or Torchwood Hub anymore. (TV: Children of Earth: Day One)
Gwen notes that Tosh (TV: Exit Wounds) and Ianto (TV: Children of Earth: Day Four) are "no longer with us."
Rhys mentions how Gwen was a police officer. (TV: Everything Changes)
Gwen says that Torchwood still exists as secret stores, which she and Rhys have raided. (AUDIO: Army of One)
Jack has been pursuing the Committee (AUDIO: The Conspiracy) since after the Miracle in 2011. (TV: The Blood Line)
Gary mentions that Gwen's gun resembles a pink hairdryer. In 2012, Adam Mitchell thought that an alien hairdryer was a gun. (TV: Dalek)
Jack has learned that the Committee controlled the Three Families. (TV: The Gathering)
Jack became trapped in Omega Centauri after pursuing the Committee. (AUDIO: The Conspiracy)
Rhys refers to his friend Banana Boat. (TV: Everything Changes, Something Borrowed)

External links

Official Forgotten Lives page at bigfinish.com