Review by Cavan Gilbey
That title says a lot really. It hits home to that instinctual hatred we have for the work week, that knowledge that we have to wake up and head out to the office for another day of doldrum and mundanities. Even at Torchwood, Monday is a day worthy of dread. As a thematic premise for a set of stories, a series of bad days at work caused by mundane and ordinary reasons, it is a perfect set-up for this trilogy of Torchwood One tales. 
Across the set we see the dinner party from hell, the dreaded inspection from middle management, and a delivery gone awry.
It truly is never a quiet day when you work for Yvonne Hartman.
Kicking off the set is the James Goss and Joseph Lidster co-authored Dinner for Yvonne. Here Yvonne is given her hardest mission yet; wine and dine four of the most annoying socialites you could ever imagine. Better yet a deadly cloud is sweeping across the south of England, but can Yvonne defeat it before the cheeseboard is finished?
I really liked this story, probably my favourite of the Torchwood One episodes I’ve heard. The focus is more on the comedy and developing the slightly tragic life of Yvonne, but it works so well for the style of human drama this spin-off uses. There’s a growing sense throughout that Yvonne is trying to cling on to these people in a desperate attempt to keep something normal in her life, trying to avoid being consumed by her work and her life in Canary Wharf. But she can never quite do it, she can’t quite escape that life because it just follows her wherever she goes. All the while Yvonne’s friends paint a vivid image of how empty life is for those in the highest social circles, allowing for Goss’ signature satire to seep through and add that extra bit of flavour to a story which could have so easily just become a series of straw-man arguments wrapped up in a comedy dinner party.
Oberman’s performance across this one really shines as the highlight, giving her a prime opportunity to add some much needed vulnerability to the usually infallible and steely image we have of this character. That desperation to have some normalcy in her life comes through great in the performance, often to the point where you forget the absurdity of the alien incursion.
A brilliant opener which gives us the chance to explore what life outside of Torchwood is like for the fearless leader. Equal parts hilarious as it is so deeply tragic, I would say this is the set seller for me.
10/10
Next we have the Goss penned By Royal Appointment and it’s about time that Yvonne had a meeting with her new manager, the twee and bright-eyed Poppy Greenleaf. A busy day is planned to show off the strengths of Torchwood, but you average day in Canary Wharf isn’t exactly a walk in the park
This second story also features a big focus on Yvonne, but not so much in a way that disconnects it from other stories featuring the character. We get to see how Yvonne works as a leader of Torchwood and her ethics and her moral compass is laid out in front of Poppy, who is suitably disgusted by how casual she appears. My main problem with this story is that it doesn’t really give us anything new. A lot of the tone and style feels like it has been borrowed from the early main range story More Than This (by Guy Adams) while the characterisation of Yvonne is nothing we haven’t seen in stories like One Rule, New Girl or At Her Majesty’s Pleasure. Those other stories do an equally good job at showing that Yvonne will trick and manipulate those around her, that she won’t always compromise information, and that she will dispatch lives with a certain sense of apathy that shocks those she is with.
Oberman and Isabella Pappas have a great chemistry, and it is the main thing which holds an otherwise stock Torchwood One plot together. Pappas in particular is brilliant at selling the sense of being in over her head, of not knowing what to make of all this insane alien antics or of how to write it down in her report. She’s a good contrast to Yvonne, and is often guided by a slightly misplaced optimism which comes though in Pappas’ enthusiastic delivery.
Not exactly a set seller, it’s nice but you’ve heard this one before in this series.
7/10
Finally we have a Ianto and Tommy road trip adventure in Joseph Lidster’s Nerves. While on the way to delivering a highly volatile chemical weapon, Ianto and Tommy get involved in traffic accident. As the amount of civilians involved raises, as do the tempers and nerves of the Torchwood team. Can they dispose of the weapon while ensuring no civilian casualties? The civilians certainly seem to think so.
This is the simplest story of the bunch, but it uses that simplicity to great effect. There is no massive alien threat, there is no comedic bells and whistles as with the first story. There are human beings, and there is conversation. Lidster’s script is littered with great character moments, especially for Tommy and Ianto who have seldom shared a story together until now. Nerves has a lot of heart to it, and it uses this to show how Torchwood’s apathetic principles can affect its agents when faced with civilians. The addition of Pam especially really makes you think about civilian perspectives of Torchwood activities, she’s terrified and vulnerable and often left in the dark as to what is happening. But ultimately gets to play a bit of the hero, doing something that Torchwood agents can’t; act with optimism. This story also begins to pay off Ianto’s arc surrounding his dad, and while I hadn’t heard Disco when I listened to it you don’t need that context to be engaged by Lidster’s strong grasp on grief and mourning in a world which begs you to return to the rat race.
As good as the performances of Bentinck and David-Llyod are, I really think it is the performance of Lu Corfield as Pam which steals the show. Corfield feels so normal, in a way that scripts often struggle to capture. I can picture a person like Pam so vividly, it’s the type of person you meet everyday and Corfield does a great job at making the character so likeable and human.
A great emotional end to the set, full of really powerful performances from the cast a script which gets right in to the human cost of Torchwood missions.
9/10
I Hate Mondays is a really strong set from this range, sure the middle story is not as strong as the others but it still gives you a strong portrait of the world of Torchwood. These three stories do something which I always love from this range and show the potential for these emotionally driven tales with small scales and a focus on humanity and the struggles of dealing with the workplace environment.
8/10
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