Sargasso (audio story)

 was the twenty-eighth story in the Torchwood audio series by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Christopher Cooper and featured Kai Owen as Rhys Williams.

Publisher's summary
Torchwood vs Monsters!

The seas of planet Earth are choked by plastic. Plastic that no-one has a use for and no-one can get rid of.

Rhys Williams finds himself stranded on a container ship in a sea of debris. People on board are dying. Because, luckily, someone's found a solution to Earth's polluted waters. The Nestene Consciousness can never have too much plastic.

Plot
Rhys is taking a break from Gwen and the "Torchwood lot" so he can endure in some peace and quiet away from aliens, he takes a supply yacht to "assist in waste clean-up" when it all the stuff being cleared in the ocean is plastic, mainly plastic mannequins. One of the crewmembers are not what they seam, as they have in their cabin a familiar glowing pink sphere made of plastic, which Rhys discovers too late, for the plastic and the mannequins have come to life, attacking them from all angles. The crewmember who had the sphere also joins the mannequins as all their hands have sprung open revealing 2 tubes, shooting the crewmembers, Rhys attempted to call torchwood but they were unavailable due to Weevils attacking a village in the country, with all the crewmembers dead except for Rhys, the mannequins start moulding to start looking like all the crewmembers, including Rhys, as their plan is to get back to main land and begin taking control of the plannet. With Rhys, out of options, no weapons and no plan, he begins to lose all sense of hope.

Rhys hears this funny wheezing sound which comes from the hold, and a familiar blue box is there, with a man exiting it in full cricket gear and celery, Rhys slowly approaches him, fists at the ready, when the man turn around and scans him with a device, identifying him as a living organism, the man seamed to know all about the sphere and why its here, for he tried to stop it arriving there in the first place. They went to the cabin to get to the sphere, but the sphere was gone, and Rhys's plastic twin arrived to attack them, but the Rhys takes the mans celery and jams it into the gun arm, it blows back the Auton, and the man complains.

They found the sphere at the front of the ship in a case guarded by "2 of the crew" as they are approaching land, they come up with the plan that Rhys pretends to be his plastic counterpart in order to get close enough to the box before realising its the real version. The Man ceases the chance to push 1 of the autons off the front edge of the ship and Rhys pushes the other off while it was distracted by its fellow Auton being pushed off.

Before the Autons have time to realise the sphere is gone The Doctor rushes into the blue box, which somehow cancels out the signal to the other Autons and they collapse to the floor. Before Rhys could say thank you to the Mysterious Man, the blue box was gone.

The ship approaches land with the full torchwood team waiting for him as they were informed by government source that the supply yacht Rhys was on went missing. Rhys explains to them what happened and the description of the Man and the box which Jack replies to him as being one of the lucky ones to be saved by such a "handsome" guy, without any further explanation.

Cast

 * Rhys Williams - Kai Owen
 * Kaitlin - Sydney Feder
 * Captain Anika Banaczik - Chloe Ewart
 * Yonich - Robert Jezek
 * Sailor - Wilf Scolding
 * The Doctor - Peter Davison

Science

 * Still conditions in the ocean are called dead calm.

Technology

 * The Nestene Consciousness takes control of a plastic computer keyboard.

Businesses

 * Kaitlin's family owns Bakin Petrochemicals.

Culture

 * Rhys is listening to James Brown.
 * Rhys remembers David Attenborough talking about the North Atlantic garbage patch on television.
 * Kaitlin refers to the real possibility of "some asshole with bad hair" blowing the world to hell.
 * Rhys refers to Kaitlin as a millennial.
 * The Nestene attack with rubber ducks.

Continuity

 * Rhys says he is just a lorry driver. (TV: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang et al)
 * Rhys refers to Gwen leaving Torchwood behind, (AUDIO: Herald of the Dawn) and bringing up their daughter away from it all. (TV: The New World, AUDIO: Thoughts and Prayers)
 * When the Praxeus pathogen would later begin to seize control of Earth through its plastic waste, the Thirteenth Doctor would briefly suspect the Autons while visiting the Indian Ocean garbage patch. (TV: Praxeus)