Torchwood: Captain Jack Harkness

(Originally written 7/9/13, modified 18/11/13)

It might be because I kept Facebook on during the run of this episode, but I’m not quite sure what to think of it. It was a great moment when the other Jack introduced himself – I wish I could remember my surprise the first time I saw it! But something which surprised me this time was Jack’s announcement that he went to war as a boy. I'd like to hear some more on that.

 Murray Melvin gave a very eccentric performance as Bilis Manger. He seems to be like Suzie when it comes to planning ahead – make anonymous tips about the building in the hope that the Torchwood team will investigate, trap some of them in the past, let the others find parts of the equation and the Rift machine (which looks like the TARDIS's central column!) but only some, so they’ll open the Rift but it’ll have consequences... Unfortunately, I couldn't quite believe Owen's decision-making process when he was searching for Bilis' clues. “Oo, there’s a tablecloth there – I bet there’s something underneath it! Oo, there are lots of clocks with different times in here – I bet there’s something in the grandfather one!”

I did quite enjoy the Owen/Ianto interaction, since I don’t think there’s been a lot of it. Owen’s so reckless, and Ianto’s so cautious. It’d be nice to know what Jack thought of the end result though – who was in the right? In true Torchwood fashion, no one was told off. One thing that particularly struck me was the fact that I’d misheard the "part-time shag" line the first time I heard it, as I thought that’s what Ianto was – whereas the line says he’s that “in your sad, wet dreams”. This changes things a bit – I’d thought Owen was effectively calling Ianto Jack’s bitch, but the actual line implies that he just wishes he was Jack’s bitch. So where does this leave their relationship? Have they been shagging since Suzie, or was that a one-off? Do we actually see their relationship proper commence from Series 2?

(As for the Jack/Jack relationship, I didn’t quite buy it but it was saved by the beautiful music when they were dancing together.)

Just a quick word on Tosh – it was good to see some more of her, and to see how she coped out of her time. But I’m going to bring up a continuity point here – when Jack apologises for dragging her “into this”, she says, “It was my choice”. I assume she means joining Torchwood in the first place, and from Fragments we know that she really didn’t have much of a choice. I've already mentioned how that story doesn't really align with how we view Owen, but I guess I'll have more to say on that when I come to it.

Torchwood: Combat

(Originally written 2/9/13, modified 11/11/13)

I’ve only seen this episode once before, and I recalled a lot more fighting than what I saw here. There was a lot more mystery and build-up than what I expected, all boiling down to about ten seconds of Owen in the cage. And then in a scene which I’d completely forgotten, he returns to the Hub and he’s apparently King of the Weevils? What? I thought this only happened in Series Two after he died! Or did that enhance his newfound Weevil powers or something? And since when are Weevils telepathic? Does that happen only to drive the plot of this episode?

I found that despite this episode focusing on Owen, the rest of the team all get a good amount of screentime, especially Tosh and Ianto. My only problem with this is that Ianto definitely seems a lot closer to Jack now (from the way he follows him around obediently), yet we’ve seen no development on this front since the Stopwatch Scene, so there’s no real reason for it.

As for Gwen, I was told by friends to look out for the famous "pizza scene", where after retconning Rhys she come to the Hub with pizza, only to find no one else there and she breaks down crying. It was definitely a good scene - I could very much believe her crying (as opposed to, say, Ianto’s in Cyberwoman) and it was a funny little moment when she tried to report to Jack but realised her headset wasn’t on. I can’t really praise her acting in the retcon scene though because Gwen’s actions just make me too angry. Forgiveness doesn’t work if the person doesn’t remember doing it (and retcon never works that fast, by the way). And earlier, I couldn’t quite believe her being so down about breaking the news about Dan Hodges to his family because she’s meant to be the one who actually thinks about that sort of stuff – she only just went through the whole process with Eugene! Unless she’s sick of it now?

There were other bits that seemed a bit off to me. A couple of Owen’s lines were pretty painfully clichéd – in the bar at the beginning he says “The bigger the crowd, the more alone I feel”, and when told to go undercover he admits “I could do with being someone else right now”. Jack’s lines had some problems too, but they were down to poor delivery by John Barrowman. And when Owen was telling Jack in the hospital that he didn’t want to be saved, it could have been a prime opportunity to mention how Jack let John die last week but Owen has more to live for. But there was nothing.

To end on a completely inappropriate note, Dan Hodges' ringtone was the Crazy Frog. That has not dated well.

Torchwood: Out of Time

(Originally writtten 26/8/13, modified 7/11/13)

This episode is all at once heart-breaking, hilarious and horrifying.

Heart-breaking

From the moment we see these three displaced travellers, standing with their suitcases and separated forever from what and who they know, I felt sorry for them. Within five minutes I was close to crying, helped along by the soft, subtle music. When it got to the Alzheimer’s scene, I was absolutely bawling. 

And while John’s suicide didn’t overly affect me, I loved how they paralleled his displacement with Jack’s. Even though this episode isn’t about Jack, all it takes is a few conversations with John for the non-Whovians to know a little more about him, and even for the Whovians to realise how he must feel. After watching him in that car next to the dying John, I couldn’t help but wonder how many times Jack had considered – or wished he could carry out – such an act himself.

Hilarious

After the first few minutes, the mood is lightened by a trip to the supermarket. I like how this immediately gives our trio a sense of hope and wonder, with even John happy to see so much food available after rationing – though I did find it slightly unfortunate that the person most excited to go shopping was teenage-girl Emma.

Speaking of Emma, Gwen’s sex talk with her was a surprisingly clever and funny way to highlight her recent antics, as she is the least appropriate person ever to explain sexual etiquette. As for Emma seeing Rhys naked, it’s a funny moment but doesn’t really make sense – it looks like Gwen was home throughout the whole night, so why didn’t she tell Rhys about Emma before the morning? So they could have that joke, that’s why. 

There were also a couple of Owen moments which I found (unintentionally) hilarious. When he gave Diane her red dress, it was all a bit, “You look so sexy, Lisa!” And when Diane ran out on him, I was glad he was getting his comeuppance for all the other times he’s no doubt treated women like shit. Speaking of Owen...

Horrifying

I had to shield my eyes when Owen and Diane were having sex. Then shield my ears when he talked about “What your face looks like when you cum”. Please, stop talking about cum, Owen. It kinda baffles me that John Barrowman is meant to be the sexy star of this show, yet we have to wait until Miracle Day for Jack sex scenes.

Anyway... so why wasn’t Owen a douche this episode? He pretty much does not make a single sexist remark – Diane doesn’t have to do anything to break through his supposedly harsh exterior. And then he acts like he’s never been in love before and it doesn’t fit with Series 2's Fragments (even though it’s not explicitly stated that he’s never felt love, it’s implied). Then Diane asks Owen if he has a girlfriend because he owns beauty products, which I've been told is a gag about consumer culture but completely misses the fact that Owen already has a lover in Gwen. What a missed opportunity.

Finally, it’s a shame that Tosh and Ianto were sidelined so much this episode. I get that there were three travellers, and three members of Torchwood to match them with, but the others needed some more acknowledgement – Ianto wasn’t even around to introduce himself when they first reach the base. Oh well – it was a very good episode nonetheless. 

Torchwood: Random Shoes

(Originally written 24/8/13)

In following the life and death of nice guy Eugene Jones, we have a rather nice episode – certainly with a lighter take on death than last week’s. But I feel that in order to accommodate this niceness, a few changes must be made to what we already know about the members of Torchwood. We know Owen is a douche, but he’s also shagging Gwen, and given that she almost died last week you’d think that he’d be looking out for her a bit more. Instead, he’s making fun of her for caring so much (more on that later) and asking that she do his job for him (i.e. the autopsy). It’s pretty obvious that their affair was retconned so there could be room for Eugene to be Gwen’s love interest for this episode, which brings its own problems. 

Since we’re already retconning the lover, let’s go ahead and retcon the boyfriend as well, shall we? Eugene spends the majority of this episode following Gwen around yet he never seems to follow her home to Rhys, who apparently has no qualms with Gwen going off to stay in a hotel by herself for the weekend (does special ops take business trips?). Here Eugene declares his love for her, which is kinda uncomfortable given that he’s only ever had one-sided conversations with her. I did wonder if perhaps the reason Gwen can sense him is not because she’s Super Special, but because Eugene is projecting onto her or something because of his feelings for her. But why does he have such feelings in the first place? Because Gwen is Super Special, surely. Eugh, you just can’t get around it.

As for the rest of the plot, I kind of felt the same way as I did in Countrycide, where I couldn’t get into the mystery (in this case, of the bidder and why Eugene died), because I knew it already (although I’d forgotten that the eye made Eugene a ghost, which I thought was pretty cool). There is one mystery which I’m still yet to solve, and have wondered since I first saw the episode: why the hell were Torchwood called in to what looked like (and indeed was) an ordinary hit and run?? Surely they weren’t keeping an eye on Eugene because they knew he knew about them?

My favourite thing about the episode would be the direction. I like the feel of being inside Eugene’s imagination, with the whizzing through space and the eye spinning like a planet – though I did think the Starman track briefly drew even more parallels between Eugene and Love and Monsters' Elton. I definitely care about Eugene as a character, which is more than I can say for Elton. I would have liked him even more if he hadn’t fallen for Gwen.