Humans: Episode 4

"I'm an analogue man in a digital world..."

The usual excellence continues in terms of script, execution and performances, but this time the plot gathers pace. I haven't minded the slow pace of the plot so far- it's been fun exploring this fascinating world and characters- but now it's time for things to pick up pace. And that's what we get.

Our first bombshell is when Pete, our distinctly robophobic sacked detective, gets dumped, cuckolded (symbolically, at least) by a synth called Simon. But soon we turn back to our main family, as Anita seems to show affection towards Toby and Joe wrongly suspects Laura of having an affair. The point is, though, that their relationship is in such a state that he could think such a thing. Laura, meanwhile, gets ever more intrigued about Anita and her increasing signs of sentience ("Anita, do you ever get scared?" "I think everyone does").

A line gets crossed, though, when Joe activates Anita's sex drive and does the deed with her. I suppose there's a debate to be had about whether this was technically sex or masturbation, but there's no doubt that he's cheated on Laura. And it's implicit that he will eventually be found out, especially as Laura wants to take Anita for a diagnostic check and to delve into her past.

A linked ethical dilemma occurs at a party for the youngsters: Mattie behaves, quite rightly, as though having sex with an unconscious synth is rape. Because, if men behave like that to synths, even those without sentience, they will do the same to women. But, of course, the underlying thought (most blatantly shown by the case of the woman objecting to her synth being ejected from a theatrical performance on grounds of his "human" rights) is about the ethics of how we should behave to artificial intelligences. At what point does it stop being a household appliance and start being an enslaved person? The answer, I suppose, lies in the concept of the Singularity.

There's an intriguing meeting between Mattie and Leo, but it isn't long before she rather cleverly gives them the slip. Still, he and Max are clearly getting closer and closer to "Mia". Laura and Joe discover more about her at the diagnostic check, too: far from being new, she's at least fourteen years old. Still, at least Joe's infidelity remains a secret for now.

Things really hot up at the end with the respective plotlines of Leo and Niska. Firstly, Leo meets Geirge Mullican and reveals that he is Leo Elster, the apparently dead son of the mysterious David Elster, who apparently granted sentience to Mia, Max, Niska and Fred.  It seems, also, thT a mysterious program is written into all of them, with all needing to be together for the jigsaw to be complete.

Niska's storyline, though, gets disturbing. Discovering not only prejudice against synths but a secret club for humans to beat synths into a synthetic pulp, she responds by angrily beating up the humans, only to find that the synths she "rescued" are nothing but uncaring machines. Still, this means war between Niska and humanity; her storyline isn't going to end well. We end the episode with her capture by the police seemingly inevitable except that she receives an unexpected phone call. Leo drops his bombshell and, in rather thrilling scenes, she escapes. 

There's one final surprise, though; Katen has accepted Peter into her home for the time being and we're misdirected into thinking that there may be sexual tension between them until the final few seconds and the big reveal: Karen is a synth!!! This is all the more effective for the cleverness of the misdirection.

Humans, at this point, is by far the best thing that's been on telly this year. Utterly superb.

Torchwood: Exit Wounds

“I’m gonna rage my way to oblivion! Why? Give me one good bloody reason why I shouldn’t. One good reason why I shouldn’t keep screaming.”

“Because you’re breaking my heart.”

Yes, that line up there made even stony hearted old me cry. And that takes some doing, I can tell you. The deaths of Tosh and Owen are brilliantly done, brilliantly acted and a real tribute to the characters. It’s just a shame that the season finale as a whole is just so…meh. See? I’m the sort of hip young thing who says “meh” all the time, I am.

The first few minutes, with John apparently wreaking havoc, are such fun. I love “their” song. What’s happened to James Marsters’ British accent though? He seems to be struggling with the vowels here. Still, he oozes charisma and is great so it’s not a huge problem. These scenes are enormous fun.

Unfortunately, things start to go wrong once Jack gets sent back to 27AD, and that, given the generally assumed birth date of you-know-who, is a particularly groan-inducing year in which to set a load of pretentious Christ symbolism in which Jack willingly undergoes some severe physical punishment. In fact, as soon as the caption with the year on it came up I groaned. For a caption just saying what the year is to provoke that reaction is quite an achievement.

Yes, as much hinted, Gray is back. And being played very badly. I had to raise an eyebrow during the burial scene, mind: we had a British actor doing an unconvincing American accent and an American actor doing an unconvincing British accent to carry the scene between them.

Aside from the pretentious Christ symbolism and the bad acting from Lachlan Nieboer, though, things are quite good. The stakes are fairly high and everyone gets something to do, even if it is a little convenient that there should be an emergency at the police station for Gwen, one at the hospital (with a Hoix!) for Owen and one at the Server Centre for Tosh. There are some nice touches throughout all this: Gwen once again showing what a great leader she is, Rhys’ pep talk (“You’re a bloody hero, Gwen!”), the dynamic between Rhys and PC Andy, which is particularly fun to see after what we learned in Adrift.

But then the shocks start coming. Tosh is shot! Captain Jack does a Tennant and says “I forgive you”. I think this is the point where I seriously started wondering whether this episode should be in the Guinness Book of Records for the most blatant example of the viewer being bludgeoned over the head with pretentious Christian allegories known to humanity. Even Bad Lieutenant wasn’t this bad.

Still, we get some nice scenes of Torchwood 1901, including a glimpse of one of our friends from last episode. Plus, Tosh is shot. And proceeds to be a hero, calmly guiding Owen through his own brave tasks even though she’s slowly bleeding to death. And the moments after they both realise Owen is definitely going to die are… wow. All their words are so loaded with multiple meanings, especially Owen’s “I’m really sorry”. And he even tells Tosh that “We missed each other. It was my fault. I didn’t… I didn’t notice until it was too late.” In the end, he dies calmly. Tosh dies in Jack’s arms, Gwen starts to cry and so do I, dammit.

And then Jack goes and spoils it all with his “It was my penance.” Aaargh!

Very good in parts, then, especially towards the end. But the Christ stuff and a badly acted villain drag it down to a 3/5.

As for the season as a whole, it averages exactly 4/5 from me, an improvement from the first.

Torchwood: Fragments

“The 21st century, Jack. Everything’s going to change. And we’re not ready.”

It’s the penultimate episode, the calm before the storm; time to do something a bit quirky while running on the spot arc-wise. What better than a Secret Origins episode? Rather a good one, too; the framing device is a bit by-the-numbers but that’s all it needs to be, and it works.

Jack first, and at last we get to meet the Torchwood lesbians. My vague memory of the season had me believing we’d see them sooner, but better late than never. Almost as cool as seeing them, mind, is that caption: 1,392 deaths earlier. And about a century ago, very close to the turn of the century judging by the words of the tarot girl (so we do see her again!). Jack has spent the past six months or so getting drunk in dodgy bars and telling all and sundry about the Doctor. And Torchwood, just twenty years after the events of Tooth and Claw, are naturally interested.

We see his recruitment (and another blowfish, which is cool, as is the fact that it behaves just as “ours” did back at the start of the season, even “joyriding a horse and carriage”…), but at this stage he’s just a paid hireling, a long way from feeling any real sense of responsibility. Flashing forward to New Year’s Eve 1999, though, this changes. Torchwood’s leader, “Alex”, has used an alien artefact to see the future (foreshadowing Jack’s later wariness of such artefacts?). He sees that in the upcoming century his team will be forced to precede every mission with a trite little opening catchphrase. Naturally, he wishes to spare the team this terrible fate and kills them all, as you do. His last deed before offing himself is to bequeath Torchwood to Jack. How nice.

Next, it’s Tosh. Er, remember what she said back in Countrycide about never having been in a cell before? You know, that story which was written by Chris Chibnall, just like this one? Well, er, that’s not quite correct. It seems that she was in fact arrested by UNIT and imprisoned for life without trial until Jack intervened. Now, I have a big problem with this. It’s clearly supposed to be all topical and War on Terror and all that and to be asking what it thinks are thought-provoking questions on the balance between liberty and civil liberties. But no; locking people up without trial and the arbitrary waiving of habeas corpus are very bad things, full stop. There’s no moral ambiguity here; the rights and wrongs are perfectly clear. There needs to be a very good reason for any kind of step in this direction to be justified, and we’ve been given absolutely no such reason whatsoever. And as far as I’m concerned the involvement of UNIT here makes them the bad guys. Jack manages to avoid this implication, as he seems to have no control over any of this and there’s no suggestion he in any way approves, but this whole section left a bad taste in my mouth. And it didn’t tell us much that was interesting about Tosh, either.

It’s Myfanwy next, everyone’s favourite reptilian member of Torchwood- it’s all gone a bit Primeval. Well, plus a bit of Ianto. A bit brief, this, but it nicely establishes Ianto’s tenacity, and shows us a bit of retrospective sexual tension between him and Jack. Also, we learn that Ianto is able to wait outside for Jack to emerge at an undetermined time and hand him a cup of coffee which is somehow the perfect temperature. Now that’s talent.

Over to Owen, who in the present has conveniently not suffered any injuries as these won’t be able to heal. Oh, and isn’t it fortunate that the only person to have been killed in the explosion was Jack. Anyway, Owen’s story is the most affecting and the most effective, helped yet again by some outstanding acting from Burn Gorman. His situation is horrible- first seeing his young fiancée apparently succumbing to ridiculously early onset Alzheimer’s, then seeing the truth of the situation (a worm-like alien dangling out of Katie’s head), and finally thinking he’s undergoing a breakdown as it’s all covered up. This is all very good drama, although the concept of a well-adjusted Owen prior to the trauma doesn’t quite fit with our impressions of his childhood from Adam. Owen’s reaction to seeing Jack in the cemetery- repeatedly punching him- is good, as is the line about becoming a doctor because saving just one life would make his own worthwhile, only to then find himself swamped by the never-ending stream of lives demanding to be saved. Jack’s reasons for recruiting him are a bit of a stretch, but just about work.

We finish with a bit of a teaser for next week; it’s Captain John and Gray. How very exciting!

A little uneven overall, but there’s some very good stuff here, especially concerning Jack and Owen. 4/5.

Torchwood: Adrift

“Do you know what’s happened to you, Gwen? You’ve become hard.”


Back to traditional Torchwood values now; a Gwen episode, and the return of Sinister Torchwood. It feels odd after our varied diet of recent episodes, but then this is our first Chris Chibnall script for ages, which might be a factor.

We begin with a disappearance of a redshirt civilian, which symbolically happens on a bridge. This seems like the sort of thing which should really be some sort of trope, but I can’t think of any actual examples so it probably isn’t. Anyway, this leads us to the rest of the first two thirds of the episode, which plotwise consists of Gwen investigating a load of mysterious disappearances caused by the Rift alongside hints of a dirty Torchwood cover-up. There’s some nice character stuff to hang upon this, too; I like the development of Gwen and Andy here. They’re exes; that explains a lot. Also well done is the row between Gwen and Rhys (and their making up at the end- aaah!) and our first hint that a baby may eventually be on the cards.

Aside from a nicely light-hearted bit of shagging between Jack and Ianto (popular with many, I’m sure!), the regulars take a bit of a back seat to Gwen, who gets some good development in this episode. Once again we see how damn good she is as an investigator, and she’s been in Torchwood long enough for Andy’s accusations to hit home. Andy knows what he’s doing, of course; Gwen can see the truth of this and throws herself into the investigation to reconnect with her human side. Interestingly, as things turn out, this is the wrong thing to do. The conclusion, interestingly, seems to vindicate Jack’s cover-up, a nice reversal of what usually happens in such situations in TV science fiction. It’s not very X-Files at all.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of niggles with the plot; how come people taken by the Rift are eventually returned? How does that work then? And I somehow suspect that screaming for twenty hours out of every twenty-four is not a recognised psychiatric symptom. But the emotional beats feel right, and this is a nice little character piece for Gwen, and her personal supporting cast of Rhys and Andy. A decent 3/5.

Torchwood: From Out of the Rain

“Make her cry. I want to drink her tears.”

Objectively this should be a great episode; effective and fascinating concept, real atmosphere, great direction, Julian Bleach. But I find myself being, not underwhelmed, but… whelmed by it. There’s nothing wrong with this; it just feels a bit by the numbers.

Partly this is because we have a standalone monster-of-the-week story here, one which doesn’t develop any characters or plot threads at all. That makes it an oddity in this season. So too does the more or less exclusive focus on the baddies to drive the plot, rather than allow it to be partly driven by character stuff. It’s a perfectly fine piece of sci-fi drama, but this just doesn’t feel like Torchwood. In fact, not that I’ll push this too far as I’ve only seem the first one-and-a-half “assignments” of said programme, this feels a lot more like Sapphire and Steel than P.J. Hammond’s previous Small Worlds did, and with the much faster pace it feels like a rushed version- the character of Pearl, for example, was left frustratingly undefined. And perhaps there’s also a little too much of Steven Moffat in the use of recorded images as a threat, even by this point.

And I’m getting a bit tired of all these meaningless random nuggets from Jack’s past which show no sign of fitting into any larger pattern.

Still, for what it was, I liked it. I imagine the combination of Julian Bleach’s performance and the eeriness of the footage would have scared the wits out of any little ‘uns watching. I love the strangeness of it all; it was absolutely the right thing to not explain who the Night Travellers were or how they were able to do what they did. The concept of saving someone’s breath in a flask is inspired, as is the mostly downbeat ending, with the team only managing to save a single child. Which, come to think of it, is exactly what they failed to do in Hammond’s last script.

Not that I necessarily want to read too much subtext into this, but I like the idea of the travelling entertainers using film, which would eventually mean their downfall, as a means of survival. More eyebrow-raising, to someone who was watching reconstructed versions of missing Doctor Who episodes a year and a bit ago, is the implication that we should burn any old film cans we have in our attic!

So, great concept and great execution, but by this point monster-of-the-week stuff like this is no longer what this show is about. 3/5.

Torchwood: Something Borrowed

“By day you’re chasing the scum of the universe. Come midnight, you’re the wedding fairy…”

Of all the weeks to watch this one…!

It occurs to me before watching this that there’s something quite clever in making sure that the previous story features a wedding ruined by the death of the groom. Let’s face it: there are all sorts of tropes and genre conventions indicating Rhys should be dead meat. And the similarities between this series and Angel remind me that Joss Whedon would have definitely killed him off. So it’s not only nice, but a genuine twist, that it doesn’t happen.

I’ll be honest; I didn’t really get the humour in this episode. It’s not necessarily that it’s a farce; I’m not exactly the world’s biggest fan of them but I liked The Romans. Then again I don’t exactly have a wide frame of reference when it comes to farces. No, I think it’s the mother-in-law jokes (even if they’re about Nerys Hughes) and seeing this kind of humour in a modern context for which put me off for some reason. I can accept farce in The Romans; that was made in 1965 and is now archive television. It doesn’t feel very Torchwood. Still, lots of individual moments were great, and Ianto gets some nice one-liners. Plus Jack gets his fashion sense critiqued by Rhys’ mum, and Rhys says a very naughty word.

There’s some good character stuff, too; I like the moments with Gwen and Tosh, alone with the wedding dress, unable to really connect with each other, as always. And still we’re being told that Gwen and Jack have a forbidden attraction to each other; it might actually be the shape shifter, but for a moment it looks as though Gwen is actually going to kiss Jack. And, gentleman that he is, it’s clear throughout that he’s jealous of Rhys. There’s always potential for this as a possible future love triangle. After all, the scene with Rhys’ chainsaw cutting out just before Jack shoots the alien dead with a Very Big Gun might be seen to symbolise something by those with dirty minds.

There are other good moments, of course: the shop assistant’s scepticism at Ianto buying a wedding dress for a “friend”; Owen dancing with Tosh to Paul Weller (aaah!); “That’s for calling my mother an ugly thing”. The final revelation that Jack was married long ago isn’t one of them, though; random revelations from Jack’s past are a much devalued currency by now. There’s no sense of any thought-out pattern to his history.

So, an amusing bit of fluff, little more. 3/5. Oh, and is it just me but is it only weddings in pop culture where you get asked if there’s any reason why the couple shouldn’t get married? I’ve been to a fair few weddings, and this never seems to happen in real life.

Torchwood: A Day in the Death

“I am literally too cool for school.”

I’ve never come across any of Joseph Lidster’s Big Finish work so this is the first work of his I’ve encountered, and it’s a damned impressive debut. After a short and almost perfunctory introductory few seconds of “Torchwood is ready” we move straight to Owen via a monologue and montage, showcasing the excellence of both writer and director.

To briefly cover the regulars who are not Owen, this episode sees a lot of mentions of Gwen’s now very imminent wedding, while she very capably seems to assume the mantle of leadership for large chunks of the “B” plot (concerning an energy spike from an item in a collection of alien artefacts kept by eccentric millionaire Henry Parker) and, interestingly, Jack lets her. I’m not sure whether this comes across as strength or weakness. Certainly, he makes a hash of things early on while relieving Owen of duty to have medical tests and make coffee(!)- surely he could have put that a bit more diplomatically and got a slightly less negative reaction.

Tosh gets a hard time this week, with an upset Owen saying some very hurtful things to her. And by now it’s clear that she really does love him, or thinks she does at any rate. Is this going to go anywhere in the long-term? Tosh hasn’t necessarily looked weak in earlier episodes which dealt with her apparently unrequited feelings for Owen, but there now seems to be a very real risk that she may do so. That would not be good.

But of course, this is all about Owen, and the episode is more or less dedicated to an almost poetic reflection on what has happened to him and the implications of what it does to a person. Particularly horrifying is the moment, after Owen (accidentally?) cuts his hand, when Martha makes it clear that neither this nor any other injury he suffers will ever heal again. Owen is, as he says, made of glass. Ageless, sexless, unable to eat, drink, or even feel Martha’s hand, he has continued existence but is unable to truly live; what, then, is there to live for? This is our main character theme, achieved through great dialogue and great direction. The episode is full of great little visual sequences and great little monologues which are quite staggeringly effective.

The episode’s framing device is great, too. Owen is narrating this to Maggie (only named, significantly, at the end when we know she won’t jump), about to commit suicide exactly one year after her husband died in a cruelly random car accident just an hour after they were married. She and Owen are both faced with the consequences that come from life’s random cruelties, and have to decide whether life is worth living.

But there’s a deeper theme, too; that we are all mortal, and that this makes us all mortal in the end. The whole episode pretty much functions as a memento mori; there’s a series of shots of Owen’s extremely luxurious apartment making it very clear that he’s a very wealthy man, but it all means nothing now. There’s a direct parallel here with our villain (well, sort of), Henry Parker (Richard Briers, this time without a toothbrush moustache). Parker is an old man who has experienced so much of life- fighting in the war, travelling, marrying, becoming widowed- and has made himself rich from his own efforts. But he is dying; like Owen, he finds that his power, status and material possessions mean nothing to him now. He is alone, as we all are in the end, afraid of death and the strange “darkness” of the Torchwood afterlife, which both is and isn’t oblivion. This is classic memento mori stuff; every time I watch it I’m reminded of lecturers banging on about Hans Holstein’s The Ambassadors.

Importantly, the episode never allows the bleakness to be undermined by a too life-affirming message; the message seems to be that life is mostly crap, but there’s also the odd bit of hope- that’s pretty much what Owen says to Maggie, and pretty much the message that the alien McGuffin of the week is there to symbolise. It gives false hope to Parker, who dies in spite of his clinging to the belief that it is keeping him alive, but real hope to both Maggie and Owen. There’s also a lot of this, I reckon, in Owen’s fantastic speech to the security guard.

A triumph of both writing and direction, and an acting masterclass from Burn Gorman, mean this gets an easy 5/5, and it goes straight into the chart at number two.

Torchwood: Dead Man Walking

“I’ve been looking for the phrase ‘I shall walk the Earth and my hunger shall know no bounds’ but I keep getting redirected to Weight Watchers.”

The feeling of shock continues as we open with Martha is about to start performing an obituary on Owen- who was, apparently, 27 years old and “Torchwood officer 565.” But Jack dramatically intervenes before she makes the first cut. In a dramatic and eventful pre-titles sequence, Jack goes to visit a mysterious little girl, a soothsayer (to be heard from again?), and learns about the location of the second of that pair of gloves.

It’s quite an opening, and quite an episode. Yet again, Matt Jones (I had to correct that- I originally wrote it as Matt Smith!), who gave us the Devil in The Impossible Planet, presents us with a supernatural theme. And together with the opening that makes this feel very much like a later episode of Angel- always a good thing in my book.

There are obvious echoes of They Keep Killing Suzie as Owen is brought back to life- and stays alive. But then again, he isn’t; he can’t eat, drink, sleep or, er, supply blood to a certain part of his anatomy. And it seems that date between Tosh and Owen is not to be; when it looks as though Owen is only back for a couple of minutes Tosh tells him that she loves him, only for him to rather too enthusiastically help her to backtrack later. It seems their moment has forever passed.

Martha, although obviously necessary as to the plot, takes a back seat here character-wise. This is appropriate; we need to see the reactions of the whole team here, and this we do. We see Gwen holding things together most of the time but when she’s on the phone to Rhys her true feelings show- an illustration that Rhys’ initiation into the ways of Torchwood has been good both for Gwen and their relationship. Tosh, of course, hasn’t got a Rhys and behind the professionalism she’s devastated. Jack, meanwhile, is quite aware of the extent both Owen’s death and the consequences of his resurrection are his own fault, as we see in the fantastic cell scene as well as his reaction to Owen’s comments at the end of the episode.

But, of course, this is all about Owen’s situation, and some old themes arising from this: there being “nothing” after death even though this is a “nothing” that stuff can happen in; the “darkness”; and something moving in it. And it seems that this something is “Death”, although true to The Impossible Planet form the idea is never really defined in the usual terms of the show. Like Small Worlds last season, this is fantasy rather than science fiction. Still, unlike The Impossible Planet with its musings on exploration and Victorian imperialistic poetry, there’s no discernible subtext to the iconic supernatural figure here; it’s all about the characters.

We get to compare Owen’s life to his old one as he cruises the bars as he has done many times before, drinks beer as he has many times before, and pulls as he has many times before. Except that he is now unable to perform on both counts. A pity, especially regarding the beer; it looks as though it could be a pint of something decent rather than the usual bottled lager.

Owen is really rather brave and heroic here, offering to be injected with formaldehyde and, of course, saving the day at the end, in a way which cleverly makes sense of those cryptic clues of Gwen’s. And he kisses Tosh, although I’m sure he’ll later insist it meant nothing. He does that.

Good stuff. Not even some rather poor age make-up from Martha can prevent this from earning a high 5/5.

Torchwood: Reset

“What’s his… dabbling like?”

“Innovative. Bordering on the avant-garde.”

The first scene is from the point of view of a mystery person (but we know it’s Martha) entering the Torchwood hub, and we briefly get to see the newspaper clipping (New Mayor, New Cardiff”) from Boom Town on the door, a nice touch. Then we get a few minutes to catch up with our old friend. Dr. Jones has passed her exams and has been working for UNIT ever since she was approached on the recommendation of an “impeccable source”. Hmmm. No doubt we can expect the Doctor to respond to her career choice with enthusiasm when next they meet, then.

The potential for friction is not ignored- Martha is after all quite close to Jack after the Year That Never Was, and knows things about him the rest of the team don’t, a tradition al source of conflict- but her natural likeability and obvious abilities quickly bring her to be accepted by the team. It’s interesting here that UNIT and Torchwood seem to rub along well enough, in spite of the obvious scope for conflict in their respective histories. I don’t imagine the Brig who clashed with Chinn in The Claws of Axos would have particularly clicked with Yvonne Hartman, but there you go. Things change.

The actual plot for this story, by Whoniverse newcomer and TV veteran J.C. Wilsher, is as solid as they come, even giving the viewer enough clues to have a fair go at guessing what’s happening. In fact, this part of the episode is so impressive that we even get to see Martha and Owen teaming up for a quick medical montage to the sounds of Gorillaz’ Feel Good Inc. There’s no doubt about it- Torchwood gets some really rather cool bands for its soundtrack.

The premise, when revealed, is rather a good one; medical experiments to find a cure for all known aliments, with the unfortunate side-effect of infecting people with an alien parasitic insect, leading ultimately to an Alien-style demise. That’s our first major Alien homage for a while, and is a strong concept to boot. The main baddie even gets to protest that his Mengele-like experiments are worth it in order to work real medical wonders. Plus, we get a brief confrontation scene with Jack and Owen before the real stuff begins. This is great, almost like a James Bond film, and it gets even better when Martha gets to go undercover with those camera contact lenses. If that’s not a Bond gadget I don’t know what is, and Ianto makes a rather good Q.

This is an unusually action-oriented episode and has a strong focus on Martha to boot, so we don’t get as much character arc stuff here. There’s one major exception, though, as Owen easily accepts Tosh’s offer of a date. Could this mean the beginning of a long and happy relationship?

There’s another deft touch towards the end, as the script intends us to believe that the alarm is going off because of Martha when it is in fact an escaped mayfly queen which has triggered it. But Martha, alas, is captured, and infected with the parasite. Luckily, Owen manages to save her in a way which has been nicely set up throughout the episode (another sign of good scripting). But the episode ends with a shock as Owen is suddenly shot dead.

Brilliant, an extremely well written and produced piece of work, easily deserving a 5/5. This goes to show that an episode fulfilling a fairly run-of-the-mill role in the season can nevertheless manage to be superb by just doing everything really well.

Torchwood: Adam

“I’m going to marry this bloody mad woman even if it kills me!”



The opening titles start, and there’s a new character in them- yep, this is Torchwood’s version of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “Jonathan”, right down to the titles and, indeed, the title. Revealingly, it’s still Gwen who acts as the audience’s proxy and initially realises that Adam hasn’t already been there.

In fact, given the irony inherent in Gwen’s forgetting Rhys completely, given the way the last episode ended, this is the perfect placing in the season for this episode; we’re able to successfully gloss over Jack’s failure to carry out his threat as events take over. Still, the Gwen and Rhys element of this episode, where they almost fall in love over again, is fab. Eve Myles and Kai Owen are again great.

Also interesting and revealing are the changes to Tosh and Owen. Tosh is happy, confident and apparently free of her insecurities in her relationship with “Adam”, although this is at the same time pretty much literally rape. Owen, meanwhile, has become shy and nerdish, and it’s a testament to what a bloody good actor Burn Gorman is that you accept him as the same character. Fascinatingly, Owen here apparently has unrequited feelings for the unattainable Tosh, which seems to indicate he secretly likes her in reality, whatever he may say at the end of the episode. Perhaps most worryingly, both of them exhibit a disturbing fondness for horrible bottled lager.

It’s nice to slow down for a character-based episode here, and a good way of doing it, but when we turn to Jack things start getting arc-heavy. We get a flashback to the Boeshane Peninsula (so he wasn’t completely lying to the Doctor and Martha in The Sound of Drums), complete with the obligatory CGI city, where Jack’s entire family and community are under attack from an unnamed and unseen alien race which apparently howls a lot. It’s revealed that the mysterious Gray, as mentioned by “Captain John”, is Jack’s younger brother, and that Jack blamed himself for his death. Heavy stuff, and the revelation of all this also offers us our first clue into who Adam is and what he’s up to.

It is Ianto who works out, via his own diary, that Adam is a fake, and the price he pays is horrible. His sheer horror and despair at the false memories, his basically decent behaviour in insisting he must be locked up, and his later composure in front of Adam- who spitefully tells him he “could murder a cup of coffee”- says a lot about Ianto’s character. Jack, of course, knows perfectly well that Ianto is no murderer; Adam is now exposed.

The conclusion is simple but logical; everyone blots out the last 48 hours with amnesia and Adam ceases to exist. It’s rather jarring to think that Adam has only been alive for the 48 hours since the box was opened, and interesting to hear of his speaking of nonexistence as “darkness and the stench of fear”; once again in Torchwood it is implied that nonexistence is a state in which events can happen and be experienced, a very odd and singular philosophy. And Adam’s revenge, depriving Jack of his last good memory of his father, is devastating.

Very good, if again falling just short of excellence: 4/5.

Torchwood: Meat

“If we could find out how it worked, we could feed the world!”

“We could release a single…”

We start with Rhys at work; at last he gets something of a hinterland. But then he finds himself involved in goings-on of a mysterious nature, and watches as Torchwood emerge from the, er, Torchwoodmobile, including his fiancée…

Just as with Alan in the last series of SJA, Rhys had to find out the truth sooner or later and this feels about the right point for it to happen. Both Eve Myles (great lying acting!) and Kai Owen are fantastic here. And it’s nice that they get one big shouty row scene as had to happen but it doesn’t go on too long; instead of getting loads of tiresome scenes of characters refusing to believe the truth from other characters (my least favourite thing in all of drama), instead we get Rhys doing a pretty cool job investigating the threat and reacting well to his introduction to Torchwood. It has to be said, mind, that Rhys seems to be the only person in Cardiff who’s never heard of them. And Jack seems bizarrely lenient about Gwen’s blatant conflict of interest here; in any real organisation she would be stood down from the case, no question.

I also notice that both Gwen and a female workmate give him the same food because they know what he’s like on an empty stomach- Rhys may be jealous of Jack but he seems to have his own Jack equivalent. Even so, I like Rhys’ confession to Jack that “It’s a bit bigger than mine.” And his entire reaction to the hub is a joy.

As for the episode’s threat, well, as vegetarian propaganda it largely works well, not overdoing it like, say, The Two Doctors, but sadly there are a couple of moments towards the end where things get overly didactic (“It’s just meat, that’s all.”) that said, though, all this is secondary and there largely as a framework on which the characters’ relationships can play out. Rhys getting them into the warehouse, Gwen’s reaction, and Rhys getting shot, are of course the heart of the episode.

Still, other characters get stuff to do too; Owen carries on affecting not to notice that Tosh is coming on to him, and Ianto’s witticisms ascend to a higher plane.

Inevitably, Jack warns Gwen that Rhys will have to be retconned but we, the audience, just couldn’t accept that. Pushing the reset button now would be a massive cop-out; it’s just not going to happen. So Gwen threatens to resign, and Jack seems to accept her resignation, saying he’ll see her in the morning. Ooh…

It’s nice to reflect that Gwen is now going to tell an excited Rhys everything. Possibly except the sleeping with Own stuff.

Some nice character stuff here, but nothing particularly deep or funny. Plus the didacticism steps over the line at times. And it’s a pity they had to throw away the idea of a marooned space whale in the B plot; such a thing will clearly never appear in the Whoniverse again. 3/5.

Torchwood: To The Last Man

“It’s still warm, at least. Not been gone long.”

The pre-titles sequence introduces us to Tommy and sets up the time paradox forming the spine of the episode, and for the first time we’re introduced to an earlier generation of Torchwood. It’s 1918, and Gerald and Harriet are investigating “ghosts” at a hospital. Future visions of Tommy and Tosh lead them to take Tommy and cryogenically freeze him, waking him for just one day a year. Oh, and they’ve left sealed orders for a future Torchwood in the event of these events coming to pass. The Torchwood of our present are effectively playthings of their own past and future.

It’s a brilliant concept for a story from Helen Raynor, and to that we add some top-notch characterisation and a real emotional kick. This is Tosh’s episode; she clearly likes Tommy and their scenes together are sweet but… isn’t there something a bit creepy about having a boyfriend in a box to be used once a year? This isn’t a relationship, really, for her; there’s no need for commitment. For him, on the other hand, Tosh is around all the time, albeit getting a year older every day, and it’s a proper relationship, or can feel like one for a bit. This can’t last, and we know damn well that Tosh is about to be put through the emotional wringer.

There are lots of little things here which resonate; Ianto notes that Harriet died young, aged 26, the following year, “just like them all”. If I didn’t know better I’d have thought something was being foreshadowed here. And then there’s the other side of Owen we see- he’s worried about Tosh. He actually has a caring side. Blimey. He’s never been this likeable before. It’s almost as if something really bad was about to happen to him.

Inevitably, the time loop starts to work itself through. Tommy has to close the rift, effectively going over the top, and then, having saved the world, he gets shot for cowardice. Lovely chaps, those British WW1 generals.

The last few minutes are heartbreaking and gripping television, and Tosh is left devastated. Naoko Mori is excellent.

This isn’t quite enough for a 5/5; the dialogue doesn’t quite sparkle as much as I’ve recently become accustomed to. To be honest I’m having second thoughts about whether it might be worth a 5/5 after all, but I’ve already voted in the poll so 4/5 it is. Still, more Torchwood excellence.

Torchwood: Sleeper

“Let’s all have sex.”

“And I thought the end of the world couldn’t get any worse…”

The “21st century is when everything changes” spiel is back, it seems. Except that now Torchwood is ready. Ooh.

No beating about the bush; this is the best episode of Torchwood yet, basically. It’s James Moran’s first script to crop up in the Marathon and he nails it first time. It’s not just the script, though; Nikki Amuka-Bird is just amazing, and surely gives the best guest performance in Torchwood to date.

The set-up seems deceptively simple at first; a simple murder mystery with an apparent supernatural cause. But things get very tense and nuanced and well-written as soon as things turn to the interrogation of Beth. This touches all sorts of issues; civil liberties; habeas corpus; torture; the “war” on “terror”; but it all boils down to the abuse of power by unaccountable agencies. The script is admirably restrained in the presentation of these scenes, but I think it’s clear once again that Torchwood are not necessarily supposed to be the good guys, however likeable they may be as people. Even Gwen’s scruples amount to little more than self-reassurance as the boundaries of what is acceptable keep getting pushed a little more.

Still, at least they’ve managed to lighten up a bit while engaging in their morally dodgy behaviour. Jack and Ianto even manage to do a bit of flirting, and in spite of the situation Jack is far from being the misery guts of last season.

But there’s a twist; Beth is indeed an alien sleeper agent, part of a plot to take over the planet. And then there’s another; her surface personality, which is essentially her, has no idea of any of this. What are Torchwood to do with her? She’s simultaneously innocent and incredibly dangerous. Again there are parallels here on the issue of what to do with unconvicted terrorist suspects, although I’d be wary of taking that analogy as far as the story’s conclusion; a lot of these sort of topical references are more a question of tone and resonance than any kind of developed analogy, and rightly so. Possibly. I should probably have a good think about all this but I want to get a move on with my reviews. It’s good to see Torchwood doing this sort of thing, though.

The team attempt to compromise with cryogenics, a cop-out (representing control orders?), but other sleepers are awakening, in some fantastic scenes. Particularly effective is the scene of the baby in a pushchair rolling into a busy road.

Things speed up as the sleepers go into action, while an escaped Beth just wants to see her husband- and the alien inside her kills him. Amuka-Bird is again incredible here. Her eventual “suicide by cop” is shocking yet believable; as Jack says, she knew they’d have to kill her, so she made it easier.

Incredible, 5/5, the finest yet. Not only is it incredibly nuanced in its handling of its themes and character, it manages to achieve this while simultaneously maintaining the lighter side of things. Simply fantastic. The bar has been raised. And I notice for the second episode in succession all members of the team get a decent amount of screen-time, something which seemed so difficult last year. Can they keep it up?

Torchwood: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

“This is the entrance for tourists.”

“I remember the last time you said that…”

Well, serves me right, that does. There I go pretty much defending the reputation of Torchwood Series One by giving it some fairly positive write-ups, and then this episode comes along and effortlessly blows them out of this water. A Chris Chibnall script, too. On the evidence of this, he may sometimes drive people crazy but life is much more fun when he’s around.

The script sparkles and the fun pretty much never stops. Even the pre-titles sequence seems effortlessly perfect; the blowfish in a sports car high on cocaine, “Bloody Torchwood!”; the blowfish’s nicely put summary of every team member; Gwen’s newfound confidence and authority as the de facto leader of the team. And then Jack makes the perfect entrance, giving the sequence the perfect climax. Pun not intended but, hey, it fits.

There’s a bit of resentment, of course; Jack buggers off for a bit and then returns expecting to walk right back into his position. This is dealt with but, quite rightly, not taken too seriously. Already there seems to have been a quiet rethink about the team’s chemistry behind the scenes; this is a Torchwood team who actually like each other and probably won’t be shooting one another quite as often as we became accustomed to last season.

The directorial style reminds us Torchwood is back, too; all those little camera tricks and fast cuts between night-time cityscapes we all loved so much are back. This look is perfect for the introductory scenes of the fantastic James Marsters as “Captain John”; Torchwood is looking even more like Angel than usual.

Possibly the funniest scene in the history of ever is when John appears as a hologram type thingy from Jack’s wristwatch; not long after you’re thinking the words “Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re our only hope”, John only goes and says it. Genius.

The scene in the bar between Jack and John (the name is a complete mickey-take, of course), snogging and fighting, is fun too. And I love the concept of rehab for murder. We also hear, intriguingly, that the Time Agency has shut down, and there are only seven Time Agents left.

With the team’s arrival at the bar we get a bit of metatextual fun, too; I believe John’s suggestion of Excalibur is the name RTD originally had in mind for the pre-Who idea which later became Torchwood.

We get one surprising revelation (Gwen’s engaged!), and one slightly less surprising one (John’s a baddie. Who’d have thunk it?) Meanwhile two little character arcs start up again here as Tosh makes it clear (to the viewer, anyway) that she’s rather keen on Owen, while Jack, with an uncharacteristic nervousness, asks Owen out on an actual date. We also get the debut of the New, Improved, Wisecracking Ianto as he tells Jack that he’s “good on roofs”.

There are a couple of intriguing lines later on from Jack and John about “Rear of the Year, 5094” (sorry, can’t quite repress my inner continuity nerd) and on how they “should be among the stars, claiming them for our own, just like before”. Blimey. Some intriguing implications there.

The plot works its way through, and it’s a good plot, but the plot here is just a skeleton to hang the coolness from, and there’s plenty of coolness; a Torchwood which is recognisably the same people but has loosened up a lot, as it had to; John, the coolest antihero since… well, Spike from Buffy; the dialogue; lots of little revelations. Speaking of which… who’s this Gray then?

5/5. An endlessly rewatchable bundle of fun.

Torchwood: End of Days

“So, are we going to sit crying into our lattes or are we going to do something about it?”

The good news is that Gwen and Rhys seem to have patched up their relationship troubles. The bad news is that all sort of weird timey-wimey shit is happening, and it’s all Owen’s fault. Oh, and this is our first script by Chris Chibnall for a bit. Some may consider this bad news; I couldn’t possibly comment.

Said weirdness includes a Roman soldier which is giving PC Andy grief, and an outbreak of Black Death which is quickly solved by Owen with his usual charm and tact. Then everyone arrives back in the hub, and the fault lines which have been threatening in the background for a while now finally rip the team asunder.

We begin with the big clash of the alpha males between Jack and Owen, as usual with jack representing the big picture and Owen representing the more human urge to deal with the immediate problem. Jack’s right, as he always is when this argument is played out, particularly as the whole imperative to open the rift comes from Bilis and his manipulations. But in spite of this he handles the situation very badly on a human level, sacking Owen, on a whim, right in front of the rest of the team, thereby weakening their confidence and trust in him.

Owen now has less than 24 hours until he’s retconned, which will essentially take his while life from him. Naturally he deals with this by going to one of those horrible trendy bars he seems to like so much and drowning his sorrows with bottled lager or alcopops. Jack and Gwen, meanwhile, investigate Bilis, discovering that he’s a time traveller, running an antiques business on the Edward Waterfield model.

Bilis gives Gwen a premonition of Rhys dying, and shortly after this stabs Rhys to death. Eve Myles is brilliant at portraying Gwen’s grief, and this is what causes Jack’s authority to ebb away as first Gwen and then the others agree to open the rift. Even Owen suddenly appears to complete the mutiny. It all starts getting a bit nasty, and then Owen shoots Jack, which seems to be the fashionable thing to do in Torchwood these days.

We now discover that all this was a plot by Bilis to bring back his god, Abbadon. The CGI’s a bit unfortunate here, but never mind. The solution is satisfying, with Jack’s immortality ultimately saving the day. Jack’s resurrection is a bit long-winded (I’m sure nobody watching thought for a moment that he was actually dead) but the final scene is great; the hand in the jar starts bubbling, and we hear a familiar sound. It definitely came from within the hub, so the time we see the corresponding scene in Doctor Who it will definitely be set in the Hub and not outside or anything.

Another good ‘un, with some good character stuff, but not quite up there with the best. A strong 4/5.



As for the season, it averages 3.615/5, which may not be that great (if fitted in with the first 28 seasons of Doctor Who it would be a fair bit below average) but represents a creditable showing. I was far more impressed with this season than I was expecting to be, with a lot of underlying themes and character stuff which I didn’t properly register the first time round.

Torchwood: Captain Jack Harkness

“Of course. I was just discussing strategies with the Captain.”

We begin with Tosh and Jack outside a derelict building, with a poster just visible which bears the legend “Vote Saxon”. It probably doesn’t mean anything. Don’t know why I mentioned it.

Anyway, it’s another script by Catherine Tregenna again and Tosh and Jack have slipped back in time to 1941 while back in the present the pieces get moved for what it’s been fashionable to call the season finale. Thing is, though, Torchwood doesn’t really have that format (this isn’t the first episode of a two-parter), but perhaps it doesn’t need one; it has much more prominent character and plot arcs than Doctor Who, which work a hell of a lot better in hindsight than they did at the time.

A case in point is the friction between Ianto and Owen here, in which both dig up one another’s demons from the recent past. Oh, and there’s also the small detail of Ianto shooting Owen. The bigger significance of this, Owen opening the rift, is going to have big consequences, but those consequences were set in time a long time ago.

Tosh gets to be brave, resourceful and intelligent, setting up a cross-time treasure hunt and even writing with her own blood, and we get a bit of her discomfort at her wartime surroundings, being of Japanese extraction, but this is rightly not dwelt upon. There’s also the introduction of a rather cool villain, the Kenneth Williams-esque Bilis Manger. There’s some cool timey-wimey stuff too- I love the directorial trick of panning from Tosh and Jack to Gwen, 65 years later, in the same shot.

And while this episode is unusually Gwen-lite, kudos to her for knowing what all those squiggly mathematical symbols are. Because I certainly don’t.

But the episode is mainly about Jack. Both of them. And it’s going to be a bit of a pain discussing two characters with the same name. Anyway, face to face with the real Captain Jack Harkness, doomed to die the following day, our Jack (awkward, this) tells Tosh about his past as a conman, stealing the identity of the recently deceased Harkness. But it eventually becomes clear that the real Jack is in the closet (his girlfriend tells him she loves him, which is tragic for both of them), and finally gets to be himself at the end before his death tomorrow. Of course, there’s no way two men could have got away with publically kissing each other in 1941, but I think in this case it’s more than justified by poetic licence.

We also get another glimpse of Jack’s past that even we, the audience, were not aware of: he was involved in a war as a child. Interestingly, it’s the other Jack he imparts this to, and to hell with the fact it hardly fits with his cover story of being an American volunteer in the RAF.

A good episode, but somehow lacking in the specialness to put it above a 3/5.

Torchwood: Combat

“I didn’t want saving.”

The first rule is: you do not talk about Combat. The second rule is: YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT COMBAT. But nobody tells me what to do. I’m a rebel, me. I live life right out there on the edge.

This is our first and so far only script by Noel Clarke, which reminds me I must get around to watching Kidulthood sometime. It’s much better than I remembered; bloody brilliant in fact. And once again there’s a lot of story arc stuff, some of which passed me by the first time round. Not the Gwen / Rhys stuff, of course. Their relationship hits a real low here; “What’s happening to us, Gwen?” asks a despairing Rhys, just before things start to get worse. Even Jack is warning Gwen, not exactly without hypocrisy, that she should take a bit more care of her personal life, but she doesn’t get it: “Rhys will get over it. He always does.”

Things don’t get better; Gwen has to give the bad news to a bereaved wife and immediately gets snapped at by a particularly depressed and nasty Owen (of whom much later, obviously). He surpasses even his own history of nasty putdowns with “I was getting tired of your fuck-tricks anyway”. It’s clearly over between them.

And then, the climax: Gwen confesses her infidelity to Rhys. His reaction is to say “But you wouldn’t do that,” bless him. But Gwen makes her confession meaningless by revealing that she’s drugged Rhys with retcon, desperate for forgiveness. Ever since Gwen joined Torchwood it’s been changing her for the worse; this is rock bottom. And this is where she discovers Torchwood is no replacement for her life with Rhys. Symbolically, she turns up at the Hub with a pizza in a parallel scene to the one in Everything Changes. But this time the team aren’t there for her and she sits alone, crying.

Anyway, Owen. On the one hand the character is so unlikeable and shallow I have no sympathy for him, even after what’s just happened with Diane. But on the other hand I suspect I’m not expected to. And on the, er, other hand (assume a hypothetical three-armed alien creature, or something), Burn Gorman has been putting in brilliant performances right through the series and is truly outstanding here. It’s a staggering achievement to make such a git of a character so compelling. Especially as we start off with him just being a bit of a mardy git and having a bit of a foreshadow-y fight in a bar with Hot Chip’s “Over and Over” playing in the background. How very 2006.

Also very 2006, and this time not in a good way, is the Crazy Frog ringtone found on the phone of the corpse found by Tosh and Jack. I’d managed to repress my memory of that particular trauma, and now it’s all coming back. Damn you, Torchwood. Fortunately the plot is gripping enough for me to almost forgive this. And once Owen deigns to actually joining in with it by going undercover, things start getting really good.

Owen meets Mark Lynch, who seems to like him in the false belief that he’s found a fellow Nietzchean wanker to be all nihilistic and laddish with. Mark is a fascinating and well-written character, though; for someone with a basically shallow personality whose life revolves around arrogance, crap beer, fighting and cod philosophy he’s made to seem quite compelling. Oh, and we get another line about something coming, “out there, in the darkness”. Gosh, do you reckon this might be a subtle piece of foreshadowing?

Interesting to hear the speech from Mark about the world having no meaning without, among other things, “faith”. On the one hand this fits in with the pessimistic pseudo-atheism of the series, but on the other it hints at a possible religious meaning intended by the author. Either way, it’s a superficially shallow philosophy at the surface level intended by Mark but asks interesting questions about the series themes deeper down.

The stuff with the Weevils and the cage may not be particularly original (Angel did this a year previously), but it’s just a McGuffin; this is another story where theme and character are the main focus. And Owen’s apparent death wish is a very interesting development.

Another interesting point; Jack allows Janet the Weevil to run loose as bait, at the risk of killing innocent bystanders, although Tosh and Ianto both object. And Tosh later calls Jack on his treatment of the Weevil. Once again, we’re shown that Torchwood may be our protagonists but they’re certainly not heroes.

Excellent stuff, the best Torchwood yet. 5/5.

Torchwood: Out of Time

“Of course, bananas are far more interesting.”

Another new writer, then: Catherine Tregenna. A new type of story, too- ten episodes in and we’re still getting an extraordinary diversity of genres and storytelling styles, a pleasantly surprising legacy from the parent show.

For the first time, there’s no physical threat; the whole thing is entirely a character piece. It’s an extraordinary departure, but it works brilliantly. Our three refugees from 1953 are paired off with three of the regulars: Diane with Owen; Emma with Gwen; and John with Jack. All three regulars get a nice bit of development, although once again Tosh and Ianto are neglected, a problem which seems to be intensifying.

The first few minutes are filled with nicely humorous culture clash moments; the bananas line, “I made it myself,” and Diane’s confused reaction to seeing “smoking kills” written on a cigarette packet. But soon we get to see the very different reactions of our three time travellers. Emma eventually adapts, John is unable to cope, and Diane, brilliantly, is rather bored with her new surroundings and embarks on a ridiculously dangerous, thrill-seeking flight through the rift again to face the unknown.

Jack and John are a fascinating pairing, giving Jack what is probably his best bit of characterisation he’s had so far in the series. The two of them quickly bond through having fallen both through time. But John is soon showing signs of being unable to deal with his new surroundings; his tyrannising of Emma shows us that he’s likely to struggle with modern social mores, and his only connection to the life he knew is a son with dementia. Eventually he turns to suicide, as Jack discovers. But there’s a twist: Jack confesses that he is “a man, like you, out of his time, alone and scared.” It’s “bearable” because “it has to be”. As Jack sits alongside John in the car, harmlessly inhaling the fatal fumes, we’re made to suspect the only difference between the two is not that Jack doesn’t want to end it all, but that he can’t.

Emma’s arc is comparatively straightforward; she’s young, and able to adapt. Once again we see the caring side of Gwen as she takes her in, gently introduces her to the modern world (I love their little chat about sex). But this leads to an “oops” moment as Rhys discovers that Gwen’s mother does not, in fact, know anything about Emma. “What worries me is how easy it is for you to lie to me, Gwen,” says Rhys. This particular fault line can only widen as the series approaches its end.

The most interesting couple are Diane and Owen, of course. Diane does not fit either Owen’s or our stereotypes about the ‘50s, being wild and independent yet somehow seeming rather more grown-up than people today. Particularly Owen, who thinks that “We could be fuck-buddies” is a good post-coital line. We get a good conversation about “casual” sex here; Diane has a rather deeper understanding of such things than Owen. In fact, Owen’s his usual self here, by which I mean he’s a bit of an arse; his convoluted confession of love to Diane shows this perfectly. Of course, she means a lot more to him than he does to her. Diane is a free spirit, craving experience and stifled by the ease and convenience of the twenty-first century, while Owen’s a bit clingy and, well, shallow. The manner of Diane’s departure is perfect.



Very good indeed, a high 4/5.

Torchwood: Random Shoes

“Selling life and… still waiting.”

Again, we get a nicely effective pre-credits sequence with a twist; Eugene is dead, but he’s narrating. And he does so throughout the episode, assisted by loads of flashbacks. It’s a nice idea, and a rather clever plot, but in the end it doesn’t quite come off.

I don’t know who Jacquetta May is, so I’ve just googled her. Apparently she’s an actress / writer who’s also written episodes of New Tricks and Where The Heart Is. None of that tells me much, really. There are impressive things here, though; the intricacy of the plot is really quite impressive, and there are lots of nice character bits. I particularly like the enthusiastic voiceover from Eugene about the possibility of alien life as we hear his parents arguing in the background, and the idea of having our sympathetic narrator also being someone who is basically stalking Gwen in a rather creepy way. Probably the most impressive thing about the episode is the way that strong emotions are presented in an understated way and are all the more powerful for it.

All the same, though, this didn’t feel right for me. Partially it’s Eugene’s voiceover; it just doesn’t feel like something anyone would spontaneously say aloud, and feels awkwardly close to being self-consciously poetic, or rather of being “literary” prose. In fact, it’s probably just me but a lot of Eugene’s dialogue reminded me of Margaret Atwood’s prose style, which is not quite the ideal effect. This sort of thing might work on the page, but not as lines to be delivered by an actor. And then there’s the way that the overall subtext of the episode (don’t waste your life waiting for things to happen; they’re happening now so carpe diem) is constantly being alluded to in ways which are in themselves quite clever, but the message itself is too didactic to really work as a subtext, and isn’t actually all that profound anyway.

Oh, and why doesn’t Eugene have a Welsh accent? Everybody else in his family and social circle seems to have one. Also, I should probably start mentioning the actual Torchwood gang. It’s actually quite nice to have Eugene as a framing device so we can see the characters from another POV, and I don’t think the regulars suffer in terms of screen time because of Eugene. Still, the episode is far too Gwen-heavy.

Still, it’s a solid episode, with very strong plotting and characterisation in places, let down only by a sometimes clumsily handled subtext and some overly artificial-sounding dialogue. A solid 3/5.

Torchwood: They Keep Killing Suzie

“That’s all we are in the end- just a pile of boxes.”

For the first time we get some footage from a previous episode in the pre-titles bit; at last the series is starting to acquire a mythology of its own. We then move to the teaser itself and Yasmin Bannerman as Detective- surely Detective Inspector?- Swanson. It’s quite an effective teaser, with the reveal reminding me of Seven. Swanson directly blames Torchwood for the murder; it soon turns out that she’s right. This episode continues the recent run of episodes implying that our protagonists are not the good guys and do much more harm than good.

This episode is by Paul Tomalin and Daniel McCulloch. Who they? I remember at the time there was speculation that this was a pseudonym for RTD, but frankly the dialogue doesn’t feel polished enough for that. Still, it’s a good episode, with the earlier scenes quite strongly foregrounding the themes of the episode, which by now are looking to be the themes of the season. The murder victims are linked by Retcon in their bloodstream; the connection is Torchwood. This in itself implicates Torchwood in some dark stuff, but their decision to use the glove means we see them making a morally troubling decision here and now. Crucially, Gwen, the new girl and still the group’s conscience, is specifically implicated in its use.

It’s not all moral murkiness, mind. This episode sees the start of Ianto’s line in dry quips. And the Ianto / Jack thing. And the stopwatch. But from the resurrection of Suzie to her final death all this stuff is pretty much foregrounded. Interestingly, Suzie spend two years confiding in Max and then giving him a retcon pill; this is exactly the same urge to talk to someone about what happens with Torchwood that we saw with Tosh and Mary last episode- in fact it’s such a blatantly exact parallel it pretty much hits you over the head. The implication seems to be that Suzie is the end result of what the Torchwood lifestyle does to you; in the end the moral compromises have turned her into a serial killer. Come to think of it, that’s two separate serial killing sprees…

The scene shifts to a rock club, rather depressingly playing some nu-metal rubbish instead of the sort of thing they used to play in my day. Sigh. I mean, is a bit of White Zombie or Therapy? Or The Almighty really too much to ask?

Anyway, Suzie turns out to be rather clever, having planned this entire situation to happen in the event of her death, making use of Max and Emily Dickinson. Unfortunately, this means Gwen is going to die by being shot in the head. Slowly. Clever but with collateral damage; yep, that’s Torchwood all over.

I’m glad DI Swanson gets to have a good laugh at Torchwood’s expense because let’s face it; she’s the only character in this episode with a speaking part who can possibly be described as a “goodie”. Torchwood aren’t a bunch of incompetent failures who mystifyingly never seem to get fired; these “failures” come from moral failings which arise from who they’ve become by working for Torchwood. And they’re not constantly failing to save the world; they’re not trying to save the world- that’s not the point. Torchwood is a murky, unaccountable organisation with its roots in a fit of xenophobic pique which can do whatever it likes and seems to do little but satisfy its own curiosity and succumb to temptations which lead to very dark places culminating ultimately in killing sprees. Its existence is not a good thing. All its members- even Gwen, even Jack- are corrupted by belonging to it. I’m starting to suspect that the subdued version of Jack I’ve been having such trouble with is supposed to show that he realises all of this but is trapped.

Or, on the other hand, I could be barking up the wrong tree entirely with all those sweeping statements I made just then. I’ll see what I reckon at the end of the season…

Ahem. Interesting description of the afterlife from Suzie, because it seems that there is an afterlife; it may be that there’s “Nothing. Just nothing,” but it seems from the way things are phrased that Suzie was consciously experiencing that nothing. Oh, and there’s something in the darkness, it’s moving, and it’s coming for Jack. Lovely. In no way is this foreboding.

Anyway, another good ‘un but not quite up there. 4/5.