Torchwood One review: Latter Days – Locker 15 gives us a depressing perspective on the organization

During one particularly bad day at the office, Torchwood One needs some serious help from Dave – a retired cleaner who may be the only person who knows the secret in Locker 15…

I’m just going to make this clear from the start: I really like Locker 15. Matt Fitton’s idea of exploring a team we know from another perspective might not be original. In fact, he even references the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Lower Decks directly in the interviews. But when done right, it’s an idea that’s always satisfying to explore, and it’s definitely been handled well here, in the second episode of Torchwood One: Latter Days.

The episode explores the life of Dave, someone who used to be a cleaner for Torchwood but has since retired. He’s also been having memory problems, which may or may not be due to the constant amount of retcon he’s been given over the years so that he’s never had to remember what he’s had to clean up at a top-secret organization.

He’s never been seen as one of Torchwood’s top members, or even a direct member of the organization at all. But when things go badly wrong one day, he suddenly becomes a very important person indeed…

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Dave

Dave’s a very sympathetic character that you can’t help but feel sorry for. Through old memories that he gradually rediscovers, we find out what his job was actually like. Derek Griffiths does a fantastic job playing this character, both when we get glimpses of his old life as an overlooked worker, and of his new life and how he struggles to cope with his memory loss.

Things change halfway through the episode, when we find out what the titular locker 15 actually contains. I won’t go into too much detail, but honestly, it only makes you feel even more sorry for Dave. Especially by the end of the story.

We also get a clear idea of exactly how someone like Yvonne sees the lower members of staff. She may act constantly nice, but it’s clear that she doesn’t care about them, not as people, anyway. So long as the bins are empty and they don’t remember anything they see by the end of the day, she’s happy. Which may sound terrible, but it may not be terrible as Yvonne being “kind”, as we eventually learn.

Locker 15 is another solid episode of Torchwood One. It’s great to get another perspective of the organization, and it’s also another key example of the kind of story that this series can tell that regular Torchwood can’t. Not the lightest of stories, but certainly a great one.

Both Doctor Who and Torchwood have explored different perspectives before, such as with Love & Monsters or Random Shoes. What do you think is the best example of that kind of story? Let us know in the comments below.