More Than This (audio story)

Mr Pugh doesn't believe the world needs Torchwood. Gwen sets out to prove him wrong. For Mr Pugh, it's a day that'll change his life. If he can survive it.

Plot

Confronted with the need to fill out various forms and a wait of more than four months, Gwen takes Roger Pugh of the Cardiff Council Planning Department with her to show him the importance of Torchwood and convince him to capitulate to the agencies supporting the reconstruction of the Hub. She slams a window down on the head of a Baratavish in heat and gets Roger to help use a temporal anchor to send a displaced horse-drawn carriage back to its own time and stop an alien spore from releasing its pheromones. Further missions involve tranquillising an alien beneath Cardiff and capturing emotional vampire goo in the form of a painting.

Gwen is about to take Roger to investigate a ghost sighting at Grangetown Library when Rhys alerts her to a hole in spacetime at the university, one of several which have been appearing despite the Rift having supposedly been closed. As Andy evacuates the building, Gwen and Roger fix the hole in one spot using technology adapted from the Hub's Rift Manipulator and are pulled towards it as they try to close it. Roger lets go because of the pain of living without his wife, but he realises that he has made a mistake and gets back to safety with Gwen's help just before the hole closes, saving the world from being destroyed by a nightmarish creature which was coming through.

Embarrassed by almost getting himself and Gwen killed, Roger recounts the day's events at his wife's grave and explains that he realised he had to live as there is nothing beyond death. Gwen joins him and takes him home, with Roger agreeing to see what he can do about the reconstruction of the Hub, and then gives Andy a call to ask him to pick up green peppers for Rhys's cooking.

Cast

Worldbuilding

Roger takes daffodils to Jessica's grave.
The graveyard is littered with cider cans.
Miller works in housing and assumes Roger will do whatever he says.
Rhys asks Gwen to get green peppers instead of red.
Gwen takes Roger to Loudoun Square.
Roger once had an argument with a man who scraped his car in a Henrik's car park.
Gwen and Roger drink cappuccinos.
Gwen and Roger eat fish and chips.
Tiger Bay was known for Shirley Bassey.

Notes

Textless cover art

This is the only story of the first series of Big Finish's Torchwood not to mention the Committee.
An unnamed "Torchwood legend" had a cameo in this story.^[1] Russell T Davies was later added the cast list on the Big Finish website.

Continuity

Gwen recalls the destruction of Torchwood Three, noting that it has been all but forgotten in Cardiff within four years. (TV: Children of Earth)
Gwen notes that the Torchwood Institute was founded by Queen Victoria in 1879. (TV: Tooth and Claw)
Gwen recalls the apparent closure of the Cardiff Space-Time Rift, which occurred in 2009. (AUDIO: The House of the Dead)
The Eleventh Doctor was shown to be able to refuel his TARDIS using the rift in 2013, evidently a result of persisting temporal disturbances. (COMIC: The Doctor and the Nurse)
Gwen refers to what passes through the rift to Cardiff as "flotsam and jetsam". (TV: Everything Changes)
Roger once had an altercation at a Henrik's car park. (TV: Rose et al.)
Roger's wife, Jessica Pugh, died ten years ago, on the night a meteorite containing an alien entity landed in Cardiff, as a result of a car driver who was distracted by the sight. Gwen notes that it was her first day on the job working for Torchwood. (TV: Day One)

External links

Official More Than This page at bigfinish.com

Footnotes

↑ Torchwood: More Than This - Coming Soon. bigfinish.com/news. Big Finish Productions (3 December 2015). Retrieved on 6 January, 2018.

[1] Torchwood: More Than This - Coming Soon. bigfinish.com/news. Big Finish Productions (3 December 2015). Retrieved on 6 January, 2018.

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