Torchwood: Everything Changes

(Originally written 22/7/13)

You can’t talk about early Torchwood without describing it as “camp”, but there’s not much of an indication of that in this first episode. The silliest scenes are unintentionally so – Tosh using alien technology to digitise a book (they have Kindles for that now), and Gwen watching a pizza delivery, then thinking, “Hmm, I wonder if Torchwood orders pizza?” Surely that could have been done better – maybe it could have been triggered in conversation by Rhys at some point? And the scene apparently intended to be funniest is the date-rape. That’s not a good thing. 

 

Jack is much more serious than in DW, with only a little bit of flirting. His first lines are weird, standing out in the rain talking about oestrogen and the water cycle and that he “loves this planet”. It sets him up as much more alien than he actually is, and I don’t recall if he acts like this again. Mysterious and aloof, sure, but this line in particular is more Doctor than Jack.

(Also on Jack, there’s a nice subtle hint that the only Captain Jack Harkness on record disappeared during the Blitz. Of course we all assume that this was our Jack, but only later do we realise the Jack who disappeared isn’t the Jack who signed up in the first place...)

I’ve always found Miracle Day’s Esther to be similar to Gwen, and that is especially apparent in this episode. Like Gwen, Esther was investigating Torchwood, was told about it by Jack, got retconned, and later had her memory triggered. I also find both characters very annoying, but I’m not annoyed by Gwen yet, so we’ll see how long that takes. Given that she ruins everything next episode, probably not very long.

I did wonder what the hell Gwen was thinking about joining up though. She’s only just witnessed Suzie pouring her heart out about how the job has consumed her, turned her into a murderer and she could never do another job afterwards, before promptly committing suicide. How did that make Gwen decide she wants to be a part of this, without even wondering if something like that will happen to her? 

In summary: a fairly standard episode which sets things up quite well, but doesn’t clearly indicate the tone of the series. I don’t know if it would entice a non-Whovian back for the second episode, because that’s not who I am.