Torchwood: Miracle Day - The Blood Line

So, oops. In case you're wondering, I didn't actually go a month in between watching the penultimate and final episodes of Miracle Day, or even writing about it - just posting about it on this particular blog. So without further ado, I present my final Torchwood review (unless I get into the books and audios, but let's not go there for the time being.

(Originally written 30/3/14, modified 21/4/14)

So here we are. Eight months after I started my Torchwood journey, I come to the final episode of the show as a whole, the final episode of Miracle Day, and the final episode of those annoying DVD introductions. John Barrowman starts off by saying he isn’t going to spoil the episode because it’s so good, before promptly revealing that there is a death. Off to a good start.

I’ve said in the past that I used to think Miracle Day was about two episodes too long, but this time around I’ve been kept interested throughout. However, I did think the sub-plot with Gwen’s dad had overstayed its welcome by this episode. Couldn’t Gwen’s family just have a little bit of tragedy with him getting ripped away from them? But no – he survived just long enough for Rhys and Andy to come visit, before the Miracle ended and he died peacefully. At least this scene also had Andy holding the hand of the woman no one knew, which was adorable.

A more unexpected death was Esther’s, for those who hadn’t seen the episode already (although it was still a shock when she was shot out of nowhere). She definitely annoyed me less this time around, so her death was unfortunate. But what I find more unfortunate is that she didn’t have a say in it. Jack and Rex decided together that they would reverse the Miracle, knowing they’ll kill Esther. But surely Esther could have managed some last words where she gave her consent to die? At least it would have felt like she played some sort of a part in the resolution, then.

Now let’s get onto Rex, who asks early on in the episode for Gwen to act like a professional, not like Torchwood (so the show’s recognising that Torchwood are a bunch of amateurs!). Of course, the big twist this episode is that Rex has been pumped full of Jack’s blood, and that blood goes on to make him immortal. I was keeping an eye out for hints of this, and they were definitely there. Just as Jack squirms from his proximity to the Blessing, so too does Rex, who we all assume is in pain due to his wound. I also thought it was pretty obvious when both Jack and Rex collapsed after feeding the Blessing, apparently dead, but Jack did his resurrection act and Rex too recovered. But maybe I’m wrong, because it’s only after being shot by Charlotte (and coming back to life) that his old scars heal, so he can’t have been resurrected before.

Ah yes, Charlotte. She does quite a bit of sitting around doing little other than looking shifty, before first calling the Argentinean suicide bomber and later planting a bomb herself. Unfortunately, I think these were a little too close in proximity for me to think of her actions as truly cool, especially following Freakin’s bombing as well. Okay, the Families like bombs. But don’t they have any other methods?

And please, for the love of God, what is their Plan B??? Another series, with Jilly as a more obvious villain, would be amazing. I think there’s a lot more we could learn about the character – it was interesting in this episode to find that she believes the world was broken and disapproves of colonialism. Once again, she shows that she has her own set of ethics, so it would be fascinating to explore more of how she sees the world. The only problem, I suppose, is that any mystery would have to come from something other than who the villains were.

Really though, if Torchwood came back I would watch in a heartbeat. I’ve enjoyed this experiment a lot more than I thought I would, and I honestly cannot fathom why Miracle Day wasn’t received favourably. Was it like the Doctor Who TV movie all over again - failing to catch on with an American audience, while the rest of the world complains that it's too American? While I very much enjoy the TV movie, I suppose I can see how it may not be taken seriously – it’s a fun 90 minutes of television, but nothing ground-breaking. Miracle Day, however, provided an interesting concept, which it explored from various angles. It gave you ten episodes in which to get to know the characters and get invested in the plot. I understand that the Earth’s vagina thing wasn’t something which any viewer could have guessed, but I’m sure stranger things have happened.

At the end of it all, I’m just grateful for the four seasons of Torchwood we ended up with.

Torchwood: Miracle Day - The Gathering

After getting over my excitement at hearing RTD’s voice on the radio, this episode kicks off with Gwen stealing pharmaceuticals for her family and friends. It’s a great way for her to make a difference in a kickass way while she’s stuck in Wales. It also reminds me a bit of Rhiannon and Johnny taking in the kids in Children of Earth, right down to the fact that Gwen and her family are taking payment for their services.

They are then joined by Oswald Danes, who seems to be going a tad overboard with the weird voice thing. Luckily, he eventually shows us his cleverness once again, demonstrating those computer skills he previously mentioned in Escape to L.A. and how he used them to track Jilly. I definitely enjoy Oswald the most when he gives us these hints of how he lives his day to day life, showing that there’s a mind at work behind the body which has done such terrible things.

Yet Gwen is utterly convinced that Oswald is a monster. Strangely, she doesn’t compare him to the aliens she faced working in Torchwood, but to the paedophiles and murderers she met when she was with the police. I have to admit that this doesn’t quite sound like the Gwen we met in Everything Changes and afterwards, who took a long time to get used to the horrors she saw and seemed like she was quite low down in the force. So maybe this was a bit of retconning.

Oswald isn’t the only person the Coopers shouldn’t have in their house, as Gwen’s dad is still being hidden from the police. It occurred to me during the initial search that perhaps Gwen and Rhys should have made more noise, rather than potentially allowing the cop to hear Gwen’s parents breathing. Sadly though, it wouldn’t have made a difference when the cope came back the second time. And I just find it so weird that he managed to find Gwen’s dad not with a sophisticated piece of police technology, but with an app.

Back in the US, Rex is heading up a CIA investigation into the Miracle. He really gets to show off his smarts, proving that he’s not just an action man there to make quips and be heterosexual. And unlike last week, his boss is actually being cooperative, approving his actions and keeping things secret.

Our team will encounter The Blessing next episode, but Jilly got in early this time. And I have to wonder – exactly why did the Families want to take her to it? What was that meant to achieve? She’s already been working for them for two months without having seen it, and they never hide the fact that she may get the urge to commit suicide afterwards. What would they have done if they lost their prize PR person?

We’ll see how many questions get answered next time.

Torchwood: Miracle Day - End of the Road

This is the first episode of Miracle Day which I’ve found to be a little slow. It didn’t help that it pretty much retconned the kidnapping plot, revealing that the Colasanto family didn’t want to hurt anyone at all. So was it really necessary to take Gwen’s family hostage? Anyway, in this episode there was a lot of talking, and the focus did move to a few different characters, but ultimately it felt like little was accomplished.

Oswald’s been out of the frame for a while, and it seems things have been changing around him. It’s interesting to see him on the edge, driven there by the prostitute who refused to treat him like a human being. We get possible hints about his past and what may have driven him to do what he did, but as Oswald says, “Don’t presume”. Jilly finally loses her cool, but then regains it when she’s contacted by a member of the Families. Her ambition really shows in this scene, after she’s most recently just been running after Oswald.

While Angelo and Jack’s parting last episode was heartbreaking, and I believed Angelo’s willingness to reunite, I find it a little difficult to comprehend how that sweet, young, religious man would devote the rest of his life to... well, life. Didn’t he hear Jack’s speech last episode about how immortality means you can never properly settle down with those you love? Of course Angelo’s ‘immortality’ was a little different, but exactly what did he hope to gain out of it? To spend as long as possible watching Jack? That’s sweet, but also tragic and a bit unsettling that he spent most of his life watching a man he was in a relationship with for, what, a few months?

I will say that Jack’s goodbye to Angelo this episode was beautiful and it made me cry. But I wasn’t sure how to feel when Angelo started dying. Did Jack kill him by removing his respirator for those few seconds? ‘Cos it sure looked like it. And then it all turned into a bit of a comedy routine with Jack unplugging the machine because it wouldn’t shut up, and then it actually turns serious when he realises that Angelo is actually dying, but I couldn’t feel properly sad. Maybe it’s because the focus was turned to the mystery of how Angelo died, rather than remembering the person who Jack (and I) fell in love with last episode.

So Angelo is gone and the focus shifts to the CIA. I was so happy when Rex finally wore the contact lenses, and used them to expose Freakin. But then, just before Freakin suicide-bombed, he revealed that he only did it because his family had been threatened. It’s a small moment, but it provides just a little bit of insight into his character; that he’s not just an evil minion of the Families.

Speaking of families, we catch up with Esther’s sister and find out that she’s made the equivalent of a suicide pact for herself and her children. This was pretty confronting to watch, and now I think about it, I can’t remember what ends up happening to Sarah – but I do remember what happens to Esther, and I wonder how that will affect things. It is interesting that Esther described Sarah in the past as being unable to cope, yet in this episode, Esther all but cracks. As she drives away with Jack, she cries that she doesn’t know where she’s going or what she’s doing. If this was meant to convey the situation as being hopeless, it didn’t really succeed – for me, it just conveyed Esther as hopeless.

An okay episode, but one of my least favourite of the season.

Torchwood: Miracle Day - Immortal Sins

(Originally written 2/3/14)

Just a few minutes in, this episode is doing everything it can to make me ship Jack and Angelo. The strings that accompany Angelo every time he speaks are just beautiful, and perfectly match the poetic way he describes his village and his dreams. Then after sleeping with Jack, Angelo’s like a nervous schoolgirl, explaining that while he has had sex before, he’s never laid and talked afterwards. I just wanted to give him a cuddle and tell him how adorable he is.

Then he takes on the role of Jack’s “companion” when they're investigating the parasite from the Trickster’s Brigade. I appreciated Jack’s mention of the Doctor and how he used this to justify himself having a companion. But once Jack started talking about other planets and aliens and things, I thought Angelo should have been a bit more surprised, especially as a Catholic who probably thinks God created the Earth. In fact, it seemed to me there was a prime opportunity here where Jack could have compared the apparent impossibility of alien life with the impossibility of homosexual love, yet nothing was done with this.

It all ends in heartbreak when Angelo, confronted with a resurrected Jack, turns him in to the Little Italy community of Catholics, whose response when confronted with an immortal man is to continually kill him. This was so painful to watch, but at least Angelo was redeemed when he rescued Jack after it was all over (resulting in some not-so-subtle Christian imagery when he cleans Jack’s feet).

But it’s all over again when Jack decides to leave and refuses to take Angelo with him. I think Jack probably forgave him, but he’s just been very much confronted with his immortality and couldn’t put that behind him during the relationship. It doesn’t make it any less hard though – Angelo is truly sorry for the way he treated Jack and desperately wants to be with him again, so it’s hard to watch Jack turn him down.

This leads us to the present day, where Eve Myles is rivalling the boys’ acting with her own. Way back in Everything Changes, I mentioned that Gwen must be nuts to join Torchwood after seeing what happened with Suzie. In this episode, she finally acknowledges it! She says she knew Torchwood was toxic from the very first day, but she joined anyway, and she loved it, and she thought it made her special. Everything I hated about Gwen in Series 1, Gwen is finally realising. And she puts on some pretty impressive waterworks while doing so.

And Rex and Esther aren’t totally left out of this one, appearing at the last minute to save the day. I don’t think this is too much of a deus ex machine, as I’d think they were pretty useless if they DIDN’T investigate what happened to Jack and Gwen.

But really, obviously, this episode tells us a whole lot about Jack. His ignorance of Gwen’s mother’s name shows that he tries to care for other people, but can’t quite always manage it. And there was a very telling line when, after telling Angelo how he has the option to hide his sexuality, he says “I don’t care what other people know”. The hypocrisy in this statement is extraordinary – while Jack is willing to share his sex life with anyone within earshot, that’s about the only thing he will share. And sometimes, like in this episode, keeping secrets is what gets him and other people hurt.


I am pleased to announce that I have finally caught up with myself! I have seen no more episodes in my marathon past this one, so from now on, this blog will be completed in real time. I aim to make updates around once a week; hopefully I won't fall as far behind as I did the first time.

Torchwood: Miracle Day - The Middle Men

(Originally written 22/2/14)

This episode has a clear theme throughout: Say No. Gwen is disgusted with Dr Patel because she keeps working for the overflow camps despite knowing what goes on. Now Gwen obviously has a point in that blindly obeying orders is not a good thing, but I couldn’t help finding her a little harsh. I guess it’s because Dr Patel comes across as a generally nice person - she’s a doctor trying to treat her patients, and doesn’t have any say in what happens to the Categories 1s. Of course Gwen demonstrated the power of one person when she blew up the overflow camp, but we can’t all be terrorists.

 
On the other side of the Atlantic, Rex is having the same conversation with Moloney, who is in a slightly different position as he’s the director of the facility. And I am so conflicted as to how I should feel about him. Last episode I was mostly convinced that he was a total creep, but now I’m not so sure. He said he didn’t want to use the modules as ovens... but that didn’t stop him from doing so. He felt truly awful about Vera’s fate, crying as he watched Rex’s tape... but that didn’t stop him from stabbing Rex right in his chest wound. (For me, this has been the most squeamish scene of Miracle Day so far, resulting in me crying out in discomfort and looking away from the scream.) It’s impressive how they manage to show his shades of grey.

Then Esther comes to save the day, and she’s so naive, claiming Vera was on the phone as she still hadn’t figured out how dodgy the whole situation was. So typically, she becomes the damsel in distress as Moloney attacks her. Then she actually overpowers him, which I was quite impressed by! Then when she goes back to his supposedly dead body (REMEMBER THE MIRACLE, ESTHER???), she becomes a damsel again, and is only saved when Ralph comes along, because Ralph’s the only person NOT in Torchwood who’s willing to say no.

The other heroics come from Rhys and his rescuing of Gwen’s dad. When questioned about where his orders came from, he doesn’t try to make up an elaborate story. Instead, he tells a fractured version of the truth, saying he’s working for Captain Jack Harkness, who might have a thing for him, “not that there’s anything wrong with that”. Then he crashes down the gate in a big truck. He is basically Mickey.

We find out this episode that Gwen had the contact lenses on her (even though she didn’t really need them much). I still think they would have been much more useful with Rex, but that would have left two problems – Rex couldn’t have shown Moloney the footage, and there wouldn’t have been that awesome twist at the end where Gwen is informed of her family’s kidnapping. That just came out of left field, and was so well shot, seeing Gwen’s reactions in the mirror. JUST as Torchwood manages to get out of trouble, this happens. What a cliffhanger.

Torchwood: Miracle Day - The Categories of Life

(Originally written 17/2/14)

This episode alternates between fun and horrible in a way that only Torchwood can pull off.

The fun begins when Gwen arrives back in Wales (I’d forgotten that she goes back so soon!) and we get to spend some time with her family. She gets annoyed with her mother for dressing Anwen in pink, but her mum’s no pushover, having obtained a map of the overflow camp and the determination to get her husband back.

 
Jack has a little fun with Rex, telling the paramedics he’s his boyfriend, and receiving the finger in return. I still like the interplay between them, and this scene in fact goes beyond that. When Jack returns, Vera and Esther announce that they’re going off undercover too, despite his instructions, leaving him alone. The team is so close that they know how to push everyone else’s buttons.

But then everything falls apart as Vera goes on her tour of the overflow camps, led by one of the creepiest characters in the Whoniverse. Colin Moloney sports a Southern accent similar to that other creepy guy from Doctor Who: Day of the Moon, and apparently Southern values as well, surprised as he is that the female Vera could be a doctor and thinking it appropriate to flirt with her. I do have to admit that I felt the slightest bit of sympathy for him when he admitted that he was just trying to do the best he could, having been put in charge of the situation, while Vera turned hysterical. But then he seemed a little too happy about being able to get away with her murder, and he reverts to being a horrible person.

Vera’s fate is soon to be witnessed by Rex, who’s wandering around with a video camera. I couldn’t help wondering why he couldn’t wear the contact lenses (they could drop that crap about them being isomorphic for Gwen) – surely they’d be less conspicuous? Maybe it was because Rex needed to narrate what was happening. In any case, his face as he watched Vera dying was heartbreaking. She was so desperate to get out, and he so desperate to get in, and neither of them could do a thing about it. I’d forgotten that it only takes five episodes for Vera to die, given how wonderful Arlene Tur is in the role.

Of course, even if Rex had used the contacts, there wouldn’t be anyone back at base to watch, as Jack goes on a somewhat pointless mission to get Oswald to reveal Phicorp’s prior knowledge of the Miracle. The most unsettling thing about this is where Jack promises Oswald that he will help him die, because he knows that’s what he wants. Even if that’s true, it’s unlike Jack to encourage someone to die – early Jack, at least. I’m thinking Out of Time, where it took John much convincing before Jack would let him commit suicide. And while Oswald may know that he’s a monster, he doesn’t seem that bad compared to Moloney.

I end this review with a point of confusion. When Vera asks whether Torchwood are investigators, Jack replies that they’re more like freedom fighters. No... I’m pretty sure you’re investigators. You only became freedom fighters when the last thing you investigated corrupted the government into handing over the world’s children. And then you ceased to exist. And you came back when the Miracle needed investigating – you didn’t start fighting for freedom until you realised people were using the Miracle for awful reasons. So if they really wanted to keep that line in, if they wanted to draw the parallel with terrorists, they could have at least expanded it a bit.

Torchwood: Miracle Day - Escape to L.A.

(Originally written 3/2/14, modified 2/3/14)

The DVD intro for this episode talks about how there’s some classic spy stuff going on, and it’s not wrong. I couldn’t help but grin at Jack and Gwen’s ruse to obtain Nicholas Frumkin’s biometrics. I always enjoy stuff like that.

Yet this small scene gave me a look into Frumkin’s character – plus the fact that he has a wife and baby – so when he was attacked later on, I really felt for him. Indeed, this whole episode is packed with character moments. Even something as small as Gwen’s rejection of high heels shows she’s not interesting in being glamorous – just practical. Esther could learn a thing or two from her.

When Esther is alone with Rex, their contrast is just so apparent, especially after their respective family dramas. I can’t help wondering if they’re meant to be an American version of Jack and Gwen, especially since both Esther and Gwen jeopardised operations by contacting their families. I have to admit that I wondered what Esther was thinking calling child services – did she really think, with the world in a state of panic, that the authorities would be patient enough to deal with her sister?

Meanwhile, Rex’s trouble is with his dad, who no doubt has had some influence on him growing up to be such a hard man. But was his dad always hard himself, or has he just grown that way over the years? What more went on in their history? I’m intrigued.

Another notable partnership is that of Oswald and Jilly. I admired Jilly’s frankness when she admitted her dislike for Oswald due to his crimes. I personally think Jilly is not totally amoral (she knows what's right and wrong), but her morals are outweighed by her opportunistic side. She sees the chaos created by the Miracle and thrives on the PR opportunities created by it. Of course that's not a good thing, but to me it's more interesting, and more ambiguous, than a character who's just plain evil.

At the same time, Oswald was able to show his resourcefulness, attempting to track down the people behind Phicorp using the skills he learned as a criminal. And when he makes his speech to the undead, it seems he’s really picked up on Jilly’s PR tips. At that moment, I understood why the people of this world would find him inspirational.

With all the social and ethical issues this story is dealing with, it was perhaps inevitable to introduce the Tea Party and their perspective on the situation. I liked that this was brought up but perhaps would have liked to see Ellis Munroe last a bit longer, to see how she copes in this world, as opposed to only lasting one episode. I suppose since the introduction of the overflow camps will have everyone leaning to the right anyway, she wouldn’t really have much more to do.

I look forward to seeing more on the overflow camps next time. Pity about the trailer which just copied Children of Earth, though.

Torchwood: Miracle Day - Dead of Night

(Originally written 30/1/14)

Ugh, how many British-to-American translations can you fit into one episode? One scene? One line? Thankfully these got out of the way fairly quickly, leaving me to enjoy the rest.

Vera continues to be amazing in her blunt, down-to-earth attitude, especially telling off the pro-life Catholic. Maybe it’s the fact that Rex shares this no-nonsense approach which attracts her to him? Pity about him breaking into her house, though – when did he ever get her address?

This leads me to the sex scenes – both Rex/Vera and Jack/Brad. There’s something about them I really like – the up-close shots of the naked bodies seem not explicit, but simply honest. Yep, this is what sex looks like, and people are often naked when they do it. No slow mo, no lingering – just bodies. Plus, it results in the funniest line so far: when Rex, who doesn’t want Jack to have his painkillers, argues, “You weren’t impaled”, Jack quips, “You should have seen the other guy.”

But there is also a tragic side to Jack’s liaison, because it is followed by his heartbreaking call to Gwen. He needs to assure himself that they are still friends, because she’s all he has right now – Ianto is mentioned as someone they wish the Miracle could have saved, and Brad clearly means nothing to him. But as Jack whispers that they don’t need anyone else, Rhys and Anwen pop up on Gwen’s computer, and she forgets all about him. Poor Jack.

It’s a bit of a surreal moment when Jack and Oswald meet for the first time. Oswald becomes the creepiest he’s ever been, talking about the pleasure he felt from assaulting Suzie. It’s pretty confronting to get inside the mind of a paedophile. What’s even creepier is the fact that he’s not always like this – when he’s making the presentation about Phicorp, he comes across as really confident and not-rapey. And suddenly it’s not that hard to believe that he was a teacher for so many years within anyone questioning his behaviour.

We also learn a little more about Esther in this episode – in her personal life, she has an older sister, who can’t cope, who she takes care of. In her professional life, she “reads blogs”. So what is her position within the CIA, exactly? Why did she join? Did she want adventure? And most importantly, does she only wear those giant impractical heels so she’s roughly the same height as everyone else in Torchwood?

Finally, this episode introduces the Soulless, who we will (hopefully) learn a little bit more about later on. And I guess they get their masks from the same place as Spider-Man, because they don’t look like they should be able to see in them.

Torchwood: Miracle Day - Rendition

(Originally written 22/1/14)

So there’s going to be a DVD intro before every episode? Well that’s just great for my spoilerphobic dad, who's watching this season with me for the first time...

I’ve always recalled this episode as being “the one set on a plane” and “the one that could have been condensed”. But I’d forgotten how genuinely exciting some of the scenes were, and how much the characters develop. We learnt last episode that Esther was curious, but here she’s also a quick thinker, using her smarts and her charm (friendliness as opposed to sexiness) to escape the CIA. Of course this was foreshadowed earlier in the episode when she was told something like “you can’t sit back and watch” and “you have to take sides”, but this wasn’t too annoying.

Meanwhile, on the plane, Jack’s been talking about morphic fields, and I quite enjoy John Barrowman’s delivery. But now he’s been poisoned by Katya from Neighbours (named ‘Lyn’ here but that wasn’t obvious enough to me), who just happens to carry arsenic around with her for handy assassinations. She acknowledges this towards the end, but it still seemed a bit convenient for me. Never mind, because it was fun watching everyone on the plane work together to cure Jack, and more importantly work with Vera and the panel. Why is Vera so amazing, and (spoiler) why must Torchwood lose yet another potential doctor??

I admit that Rex acted like a bit of a dick at the beginning, splitting up Gwen’s family (even if his intentions were good, he didn’t need to act so callous about it). But I didn’t mind him attempting to bribe Danny the flight attendant, saying he’ll let him feel him up if he can have a vodka. Rex comes across as a very heterosexual person, but he’s willing to let that slide a bit if he can have some pain relief. However, Danny’s constant denial about being gay, and everyone else’s insistence that he is, gets pretty old. He’s a flight attendant, so he must be gay! He has a favourite tie, so he must be gay! And then he admits “it was one time!”, and seems ashamed of it. The dude didn’t need people practically bullying him into coming out.

Danes continues to be weird, interacting with people in that creepy way yet fully aware of what’s going on (e.g. how he should grab food while he can because no one will ever want to give him a job). I know from later episodes that he isn’t sorry about the murder, so I wonder how he manages to pull off the crying stunt – has he been practising? Then he meets Jilly, whose bubbliness makes her a breath of fresh air (even though we later learn her motives aren’t admirable).

I appreciated the action in this episode and look forward to seeing how all the different characters will work together. It’s getting better.

Torchwood: Miracle Day - The New World

(Originally written 15/1/14, modified 22/2/14))

It’s been 2 ½ years since I saw Miracle Day, but I thought my memory of wasn’t that bad that I’d forget Captain Jack breaking the fourth wall in the opening scene. Turns out it’s part of the DVD, with John Barrowman and RTD excitedly introducing us to the series. That was unexpected.

After such a jovial start, we’re off to watch Oswald Danes’ execution. And I can’t describe Bill Pullman’s performance as anything less than weird. I think it’s the way he doesn’t show his teeth, thus making himself look older than he actually is and removing any chance of a smile. He doesn’t quite seem like a real person yet, but we’ll see how we go.

Another new regular is Rex. I loved Rex the first time round, but I admit he comes across in his first scene as a bit of a douche. He’s talking on the phone, while driving in the rain, about how he’s so happy he got a promotion because someone else’s new wife got leukaemia. But... then he’s really determined to continue working, even getting himself to the UK despite his not-death. And then he complains about not only not-dying from being impaled but ALSO having to pay for the bridge to Wales, and I can’t help but laugh. I think he’s gonna be fun.

Talking to Rex throughout his ordeal is Esther. She’s a bit spunky and curious, although I can’t quite figure out, if she wanted info on Torchwood, why she ran away from Jack when she knew he must be involved with Torchwood? Then she just becomes something for Jack to bounce his exposition off, and gives a pretty unconvincing reaction to hearing about aliens. Yet she has some awareness of the 456? Do the people of Earth still remember that being a thing?

This leads me onto Jack himself, who apparently broke into Esther’s house and dumped her sleeping body there? He also calls himself “Owen Harper”, which I appreciate.

Now for the Williams clan, and unless something happened off-screen, Rhys seems a little too keen for Gwen to avoid Torchwood. Doesn’t he remember that feeling of wonder he had at the end of Meat? Was the experience with the 456 the last straw? Or is it because he now has a daughter? (A daughter who looks so adorable in her little earmuffs, protecting her against the sound of Mummy’s gun.) A friend of mine thinks it might be a bit of both, stating, "Firstly, a lot of children were under threat there. Secondly, Jack himself proved he was willing to kill his own grandson if needs be."

If I didn’t mention a character, it’s because they didn’t particularly interest me this episode. Let’s see if that changes over the course of the season.

Torchwood: Children of Earth - Day Five

(Originally written 5/1/14)

There are so many moments in this story which just go the extra mile to make their impact even more brutal. The death of Frobisher is the standout – I didn’t have to hear the gunshots to know what would happen, but the fact that I did makes it so much more real. And we always knew what the 456 were doing with the children would be bad, but using them to get high is the last straw. This is a fate which is completely unacceptable for the children of Earth.

Then there are the moments which have impact in hindsight. It’s tragic to watch Alice tell Johnson they need Jack, because we all know how Jack ends up solving the problem. On a lighter note, it’s cool to watch Bridget with the pollies, when Denise says she can’t imagine anyone wanting to be there, and there’s a close-up on Bridget’s face – a face which, we discover later, is recording everything through the contact lenses.

(So what exactly was Bridget’s relationship with Frobisher? I had thought she might be a former lover, especially when he kissed her on the cheek, but her talk with Lois implied that she hadn’t gotten as physically intimate as Lois apparently had. Maybe she always wanted to, or they both did? Whatever the case, it doesn’t make her any less awesome.)

But Bridget’s takedown of the PM isn’t quite as good a moment as I remembered it. Perhaps due the absence of Yates, Green is once again the most unlikeable character, in this case due to his sacrifice of Frobisher’s children. But while it’s good to see him get his comeuppance, Denise then steps in and implies that she’ll probably be taking his place as PM. This is the woman who last episode came up with the idea of how to remove the 10% – Green just went along with it. Am I supposed to feel comfortable with this woman taking over? I do find it interesting that the women in this miniseries are either fundamentally good – like Lois, like Bridget – or have shades of grey. Even Johnson is not pleased to find out what she’s been defending, and is genuinely upset when Steven is sacrificed. And while none of the men show enthusiasm for the 456’s plan, it is arguable that many of them show no emotion at all, instead focusing on how to deal with the situation.

(Though while the inoculation idea was a good cover story, it makes little sense to me why the government sent armed soldiers to collect the kids and they didn’t think this would look a bit suss. I suppose they wanted to make sure the kids didn’t resist, but the government’s plan to look like victims themselves wouldn’t really hold water after forcibly removing children from their schools and homes. Mind you, as soon as the children sent their final broadcast to kill the 456, the soldiers just stop, apparently completely aware that the enemy has been dealt with?)

Dekker is about the only one who carries on with a smile on his face, that same slimy smirk, apparently proud of himself for surviving for 456’s attack (which really shouldn’t have been possible). His most sickening moment is when he, rather than anyone else, suggests the use of Steven. Jack never wants to – it’s only when he’s pressured into it that he agrees.

So we’ve reached the end of Children of Earth, and what have we learnt? We’ve learnt that when faced with challenges, it’s important to fight for what you believe in – literally in the case of Johnny and his mates. You may have to step outside your comfort zone while doing so, like Andy (and Rhys, but especially Andy). You might not make it through to the other side, like Ianto and Frobisher. And you may find yourself doing things you never wanted to do, like Jack. But at the end of the day, forgiveness is important, because without that the world really would be ripped apart.

And Gwen taught us that working for Torchwood apparently makes the Pill ineffective, yet the employees are not warned about this.

Torchwood: Children of Earth - Day Four

(Originally written 5/1/14)

How many ethical discussions can you pack into one episode?

In 1965, we have Jack’s actions – as Clem says, “The man who sent me and my friends to die can’t die himself!” And while it was rough of the woman in 1965 to imply that Jack “doesn’t care”, I do find myself wondering what right Jack has to be leading Torchwood and saving the Earth. Do his decision-making processes tally with those of someone whose own life is at risk?

This nicely segues into the discussion of the politicians to hand over the children. At first Denise appears to be the most moral, thinking of the kids as kids – and not just her own kids, but those of her brother. She questions the right of those without kids to contribute to the decision – but then, she becomes something of an elitist, wishing to sacrifice those kids from failing schools (her comment on the school league tables seems especially harsh), because again, there’s no one from that background to stand up for them.

But what do you achieve from standing up to your enemies? In this episode, not much. Jack stands up to the 456, and he causes the deaths of Clem, Ianto and hundreds of others by doing so. There is a cruel irony here in that Ianto told Jack he should have “stood up to them” back in 1965; so it could be argued that Ianto caused his own death. And what a death! My tears flowed thick and fast for Ianto (as well as for Clem). This was especially thanks to the sadness, the desperation, I could hear in Jack’s voice.

Speaking of voices, at first I found it difficult to take the presence of Nick "Big Finish" Briggs seriously. But then suddenly his Rick Yates is being absolutely awful, showing little emotion during the discussion (which I choose to put down to callousness rather than bad acting) as he brings up the positives of the 456’s request. I said the PM was the most unlikeable character last episode, but the torch has now been passed to Yates – in fact, the PM redeems himself somewhat this episode, stressing that he is not a willing participant in events. Again, I’m choosing to see this as him having something of a heart, rather than just being a coward who’d rather not deal with it – or maybe it’s a bit of both.

Some minor technical questions for the episode: why did the 456 accept eleven of twelve children in 1965; and why do the contact lenses suddenly transmit people’s actual voices this episode? I’d also like to have a vague idea of how the 456’s technology works, but that’s not going to happen, and hey, it was cool watching it send its message through the kids, repeating the numbers before we hear the kids say the exact same thing.

Torchwood: Children of Earth - Day Three

(Originally written 3/1/14)

The 456 have arrived, and the moral dilemmas with them. This episode’s dilemma largely belongs to Lois, who struggles deeply with the idea of committing treason. This makes her a more believable character for me, not just immediately trusting the strange people who ask her to help them.

I do have two problems with Lois’ visit to Thames House though. There’s the fact that though she’s lying about Frobisher’s affair with her, Bridget confirms that he has in fact slept around. (Why must this story keep reminding me that Frobisher isn’t as good a person as I remember him to be? And why would he do such things in the first place? I can only imagine that it’s to deal with the stresses of the job.) Secondly, I don’t really see any point in Bridget (and Lois) following Frobisher at all. They don’t do anything except sit or stand there.

The Prime Minister appears to face no such dilemmas, flat out admitting to the others that he’s quite happy to sit back and let Frobisher face the 456. He is such a coward and definitely the most unlikeable character (even assassin Johnson is willing to be blunt with her victims). Meanwhile, the offscreen American president is furious that Great Britain is handling the meeting. This a pattern that tends to repeat itself in the Whoniverse.

Other bits of the episode are just fun. The thieving montage shows the team getting up to a bit of mischief, and when Alice goes all badass in order to escape from her house, she very much has echoes of her father in her.

Speaking of “fun”, I must have completely forgotten the fact that, in this episode, Gwen and Rhys admit they use the contact lenses as sex toys, and Ianto implies that he’s done the same. This just comes straight out of nowhere, especially inserted into such a dark plot, and is also in complete contradiction to Jack’s rules about not taking tech outside the Hub! Isn’t that... bad? At least if it was between Jack and Ianto, that would most likely take place in the Hub.

(Speaking of between Jack and Ianto, why did Gwen have to sit directly between them? Her and Rhys are continually cockblocking them throughout the episode. It is bloody annoying.)

Finally, the 456 are wonderfully creepy, with Simon Poland’s voice sounding very like Gabriel Woolf’s. And yet, towards the end of the episode, I couldn’t help taking them less seriously than I should have...

 

Torchwood: Children of Earth - Day Two

(Originally written 2/1/14)

The thing I really like about this episode is that every character has useful skills. Gwen fighting her way out of the van is obviously amazing, and shows just how far she’s come since her early days of being the damsel in distress every second episode. But even the supporting characters contribute in significant ways.

Rhys is a wonderfully supportive husband, offering to carry the bag to keep Gwen’s trigger-finger free, and adorably considering that he should bring a book when going into hiding. But he’s also able to take charge, using his haulage know-how to get himself and Gwen into a truck bound for London. And Rhys isn’t the only supportive husband – when Rhiannon needs to see Ianto, Johnny bands together everyone else on the estate to rock the surveillance party.

I want to see Lois as the Doctor’s companion, dammit. Like Donna, she works an office job, where she’s gained skills through gathering data and eavesdropping. She does all this with a natural yet quiet curiosity – as no one pays much attention to her, she can get away with just about anything. Wouldn’t it be amazing to watch her come out of her shell on Doctor Who, as opposed to current companions/characters who start off strong and sassy?

And then there’s Mr Dekker, whose useful skill is making me unsettled thanks to the creepy smile forever on his face. What is he so happy about???

Missing for the majority of the episode is Jack, who very slowly and gorily comes back to life with a blood-curdling scream. But why do they collect the pieces of his body in the first place? I guess I understand that they want to see if he can properly die now, but wouldn’t it have been easier to just burn the pieces or something? Burying him in concrete seems a lot of effort – and I’m pretty sure it would take at least 24 hours for that concrete to start setting, by the way. And after he was rescued from this horrific ordeal, he should have had a proper onscreen reunion with Ianto, complete with dirty cuddles and kisses. Dude’s just been blown up – he should be allowed to act a little vulnerable.

I perhaps wasn’t quite as engrossed in this episode as I have been previously, given that it mainly sets things up for the next day. Hopefully I’ll have more to say tomorrow.

Torchwood: Children of Earth - Day One

(Originally written 1/1/14, modified 9/2/14)

This episode is no less exciting now than the first time I saw it. It sets up the supporting characters nicely, blending them in with what appears to be random extras, so it’s only later that we find out their connection to events and to Torchwood. And if you know what happens already, there’s a nice (read: tragic) bit of foresight when Alice tells Jack she will never let him experiment on Steven.

Then there are some genuinely shocking moments, like when the kids start screaming, and the incredible impact of the last word of the episode: “We are coming... back.” It was enough already that they were repeating themselves, but unlike, say, a Steven Moffat cliffhanger, which would go no further than this – “Mummy?” “Hey, who turned out the lights?” “Donna Noble has left the Library...” – RTD adds one extra word which changes the meaning of the sentence completely.

And while we’re talking about the end of the episode, can I just mention how amazing Peter Capaldi was? He was already giving a wonderful performance as a quiet and reluctantly dutiful civil servant. But then he witnesses his kids speaking those words, and suddenly he’s screaming, pleading with them to stop. This pushed me over the edge and moved me to tears – and it’s only Day One! It gives me hope that perhaps he’ll be able to salvage the Moffat scripts he’ll be saddled with later this year. (BTW, I can’t help but wonder how Moffat would have handled a concept like this one. How much more emphasis would he have put on the innocence of the children? Steven might have even survived, due to being related to the immortal Jack or something.)

Despite this episode being wonderful, I do wonder what the others Defenders of the Earth were up to at the time. Jack mentions that UNIT were performing some tests, but apparently Torchwood can’t have a relationship with them without Martha being there? I also would have been interested to see what the SJA gang got up to – while they are all too old to be affected, perhaps Mr Chandra would have had to deal with some late-blooming high school kids.

Other things remain unexplained. The Torchwood van gets conveniently stolen (we never find out how), which means Ianto doesn’t need to explain to his sister why a company car for the civil service has the name of a secret organisation blazoned on it. And while Clem is brilliant, I don’t understand how, apparently through avoiding the 456, he gained a super sense of smell which is able to detect truth, enemies and pregnancy.

(Later he'll apparently detect Ianto's sexuality, which is problematic for me. Ianto tells Rhiannon in this episode that "it's not men, it's just him", suggesting the complicated nature of his sexuality. Two days later, Clem asks "Who's the queer?", and because his nose is magic, we have to accept its word. A friend of mine argued that maybe he can smell traces of partners on people's bodies, but if this were the case, he should have recognised the smell of Jack, who he only detects later as the Man who kidnapped him. But I'm getting ahead of myself...)

One thing which didn’t need explaining, for the first time, was the significance of Frobisher handing Bridget a blank page. I always guessed this was just code for “orders to kill”, but I’d clearly forgotten his conversation with the Prime Minister where he literally requests that Britain receive a “blank page”. It’s funny – Frobisher is approving assassination here, yet I’ve never thought of him as a killer (or Bridget, for that matter). RTD is so good at balancing shades of grey in this story, and I absolutely look forward to spending time with all these characters again (before crying over their deaths).

Torchwood: Exit Wounds

(Originally written 16/12/13)

This episode is intended to close off arcs which have stretched back throughout the season and, in many cases, it does. We see another side to Captain John, who gives various hints throughout the episode that he doesn’t really want to hurt anyone. We also meet Jack’s long-lost brother, who has not only managed to escape “those creatures” (they couldn’t think of a name for them?) that took him when he was a child but has also devised a plan to get revenge on Jack, yet despite all this he couldn’t find the time to change out of his rags.

Owen and Tosh get standout moments, with Owen finally coming to terms with his death and Tosh giving everything she possibly could before hers. This is the Tosh I saw in Fragments – doing incredible things under dire circumstances. Though I did wonder why they even bothered breaking her arm in Fragments when it doesn’t affect her in the slightest this episode – I think it’s just so we know why she has some industrial-strength painkillers handy and so she can tell Owen, as she’s clutching her bloody stomach, that it’s “just my arm”. I also wonder why their Torchwood staff photos look like they’ve been snapped at random.

One arc which I don’t think is sufficiently covered in Gwen/Rhys/Andy. Of course there’s an emergency on so there’s not much time to talk, but as far as we know, the last time Gwen saw Andy she was fobbing him off and telling him he couldn’t join Torchwood. Now he’s quite happy to call in her help without a word about the incident – about the only follow-up to that episode is that he insults Rhys and calls him a “lucky sod”. Then, the “amazing” Gwen, having given orders to all of Torchwood and the cops, proceeds to do absolutely nothing. I know some people are leaders, and there was some crap about Gwen needing to stay at the station, but with Cardiff in tatters (by the way, those shots of the Weevils coming out of the sewer in slow-mo were so cool), surely Gwen could have done something more to help.

Gunshot count for the season: 4. On average, that’s almost one every three episodes.

This season took me longer to get through than Series 1, so I can’t quite remember all of it. It seems that it was more consistent than the first series but less ambitious – many episodes were quite good but didn’t evoke much emotion from me (unless they involved Janto). Series 1 allowed me to feel emotions both negative and positive, especially during its surprising moments of brilliance.

One thing’s for certain: the emotions will run high during Children of Earth.

Torchwood: Fragments

(Originally written 6/12/13)

This episode has a bit of a contrived way of getting the team to the warehouse (they think they’re tracking life signs but they’re actually bombs? What sort of technology’s in that?). And now that I’ve seen Firefly’s Out of Gas, I agree that the two episodes are uncomfortably similar. But it’s all worth it to get some insights into our characters (does it count as character development if it happened in the past?).

Victorian Jack appears to be his old cheeky self, and I like to think he was deliberately written as a less world-weary version of his 100+ year old self. The lesbians were a lot more understated than I recall (probably a result of my exposure to Jenny and Vastra), though I’m not quite sure where they were going when they said “You know how we deal with threats”. Yes, you kill them. And you’ve just demonstrated that Jack can’t die. So... what are you going to do? I am also slightly disappointed that they didn’t use New Year’s Eve to make a TV Movie reference.

Unless I’m mistaken, this is the first episode since Greeks Bearing Gifts where Tosh isn’t defined by someone she’s in (or wanting to have) a relationship with (and obviously the pendant came packaged with Mary). It’s a real shame they didn’t do with her character; in fact, the supposed amateur we see in Fragments appears to show a lot more brilliance than Tosh in the present day, who pretty much just sits on computers all day doing clever things. Why couldn’t we see more of the Tosh who improvises her way through building sonic resonators? Why couldn’t we see more of her relationship with her mother? For that matter, why does Jack say she can only have limited contact with her (postcards), when Gwen got to have the whole family round (unless that was an exception for her wedding)?

It seems appropriate that I move straight from Tosh to Owen, aka the only character who is completely out of character in their backstory. And all I can think about is how these revelations affect Tosh’s crush on him. She was already employed by Torchwood when Owen arrived, presumably still grieving for his wife, so at what point did she fall in love with a(n almost) widow? How did this environment turn Owen into (effectively) a misogynist? Maybe it was Suzie’s doing – we know they were shagging, after all!

And the story that made me feel like an 18-year-old Janto shipper again? Nothing to say on the actual relationship apart from ‘awwwww!’, but just a technical question. Jack says in Everything Changes that they don’t know the real names of Weevils – they just call them that. But Ianto calls them that too, so does that mean all the branches of Torchwood call them this made-up name? Also, Jack’s Weevil scratch heals almost instantly in this fragment, but after being beaten up in Owen’s fragment he stays bruised throughout their conversation.

Season finale next week, after which point the Torchwood experiment will become a lot less fun and a lot more teary.

Torchwood: Adrift

(Originally written 28/11/13)

My opinion of this episode has always boiled down to “Too much Gwen, but it’s made up for by topless Janto.” Watching this time, however, my thoughts were very different.

For one thing, I actually enjoyed Gwen in this. Maybe it was because she was trying to recover her compassion, as opposed to having it ooze out of her with ease (finally someone acknowledges that Torchwood has changed her!). I certainly found it ironic that she’s going out of her way to help Nikki find Jonah, but is quite happy to treat Andy like shit in the process.

 Let’s talk about Andy. First of all, he seems to know a lot more about Torchwood than he did last season (to the extent that Gwen asks him to verify her story to Nikki). Is this just because of what he witnessed in End of Days? Because I can’t think of another example.

Secondly, we have the revelation that he used to have a thing for Gwen and he looks down on Rhys for his weight. Sorry, but where did this come from and why is it necessary? Is it purely because they needed to explain why Andy wasn’t at the wedding? Is it to make us feel less sorry for an otherwise-sweet character when Gwen keeps fobbing him off this episode? Is it to reinforce the idea that all men find Gwen irresistible?

The other man in Gwen’s life, Rhys, fared much better. I think the argument about having a baby is the best of the couple’s confrontations this season at least. I guess I like it because it’s not about the mystery of Gwen’s job, and there’s no added baggage with her having an affair – it’s just about how it will affect their future. It’s a bit annoying though that this is never followed up on – when Gwen gets pregnant in Children of Earth they figure that they’ll deal with it, and then Torchwood is conveniently abolished before she has the baby.

I can’t keep talking about motherhood without mentioning Ruth Jones – what a wonderful performance. I particularly liked the paralleled scenes of her getting rid of Jonah’s stuff with Gwen removing the photos – both forced to give up on what they believed in.

Of course I liked the Janto, but I also think it might have served a purpose. Jack was obviously comfortable telling Ianto about the island (since Ianto gave Gwen the GPS), so the episode needed to remind the viewer just how close Jack and Ianto are.

Meanwhile, Gwen and Tosh investigated the matter in secret, and I can’t help wondering if they had any other work they should have been doing at the time. Must have been a slow week, since Jack and Ianto had all that time for naked hide-and-seek.

Adding the lovely music and shots as Gwen approaches the island, and the fascinating idea of the rift taking people, this is surely one of Chris Chibnall’s best stories.

Torchwood: From Out of the Rain

(Originally written 18/11/13)

This is the big one – the Torchwood episode I have always considered my favourite (barring the amazing Children of Earth, obviously), and as 50 minutes of entertainment, I think it still works. The image of the Ghostmaker beckoning at the screen still freaks me out so much!

But when I try to think of the Night Travellers as anything other than one-dimensional, evil, magic villains, the story starts to fall apart. One could argue that their motivation is going to extreme lengths to get an audience for their show, but they were doing the same thing back in the old days when they had audiences.

Maybe they would have been more successful if the Ghostmaker hadn’t flat out told the young Christina what he planned to do with her last breath – that was a handy bit of exposition, wasn’t it? Ugh, and Jack’s random line in the hospital (“They came from out of the rain”), leading to the coincidental meeting with Christina, was pretty painfully contrived.

The exposition was also present in the description of the travellers – how they smelt of film, and how Pearl felt like plastic. The viewer can only take the characters’ words for it, which means we feel one step removed. I didn’t quite understand how, if the travellers have to stay close to the Electro, they plan to take over Cardiff/the world (unless I missed something here?). And when we’re told they could be trapped by coming “a film inside a film”, I can’t be the only one who was thinking “Filmception!”

These problems aren’t helped by the fact that PJ Hammond’s tropes are recognisable from Small Worlds. The story starts with a child being magicked away by our villains (though to be fair, they take all sorts). These villains are accompanied by a quite nice theme tune which gets repeated over and over again throughout the episode (though this wasn’t quite as annoying as last time). And Jack just happens to have had past dealings with them (though this time he’d only heard about them).

So that was my favourite episode. This review sounds harsh, but I honestly did enjoy watching it (one of my favourite parts being Owen getting rejected by the villain-of-the-week yet again). However, it has slipped down in my rankings. I think my top two favourite episodes now are Ghost Machine and Adam, though the former was helped by me completely forgetting its existence until this rewatch.

Torchwood: Something Borrowed

(Originally written 11/11/13, modified 19/1/14)

I am now much more aware of the Mystical Pregnancy Trope than I was when I first watched this episode, but I still think the story is quite well done and could have been a lot worse (though I did have a moment of realisation/cringing when I saw Gwen about to give birth in a stable). Gwen’s facial expressions during her initial reaction are especially wonderful in their outrageousness, and I thought Mervyn’s oral/death scene would have been a lot cruder if it was in Series 1.

Owen is quite sweet to Tosh in this episode, though we still get no indication of his former life in Fragments;  he says he doesn’t do weddings, and we’re really given no reason to doubt this. Are we really going to remember this single line three episodes later, especially after he's so easily persuaded to come by Tosh anyway? And although Tosh briefly laments her lack of a partner, she also gets some good moments as a Super Single Woman, knowing that she’s far too good for Banana Boat.

God that guy was annoying, as were Gwen’s friends. First of all, I wonder how she still has friends since she barely has time for Rhys anymore (have they not seen her a year yet they’re still taking her on her hen’s night?). Secondly, when the black one (if they had names, I didn’t hear them) started screaming at Mervyn’s dead body, I thought back to Blake’s 7, where in the two most obvious instances of women helplessly screaming, it turned out to be an act. Not so here in the 21st century.

Given how much emphasis Gwen places on her love of Rhys and her will to marry him, I found the Gwack really misplaced here. I was quite happy to believe that Gwen actually wanted to marry Rhys, but the impression I get later is that she needed to marry him, otherwise she’d always be tempted by Jack (and almost was). What’s worse is that intentionally or not, Jack tends to lead Gwen on during the episode, which is also unfair on Ianto. He jokes about Ianto being something to “do” while Gwen’s away, and then watches her after Ianto’s plucked up the courage to dance with him. It could be argued that he was just thinking about marriage in general, but the fact that it’s Gwen doesn’t help his case.

I end on a comment made by Jack at the beginning of the episode – that a Mystical Pregnancy has happened in Torchwood before. I can't help but wondering if Jack was the subject of this pregnancy, hence his line about never getting pregnant again in Everything Changes.

Torchwood: A Day in the Death

(Originally written 3/11/13)

As this episode begins, it appears we’ve finally found the secret of how to get fired from Torchwood: be the living dead. But wait, no, by episode’s end Owen’s back as Torchwood’s doctor. I can’t say I was saddened by Martha’s departure though, as Freema Agyeman’s acting style seems more at home in the kid-friendly Doctor Who. I also wish I could erase her kiss with Jack from my mind – it was just so messy, and Jack’s open eyes made it look quite uncomfortable, so why did it have to happen?

 
This episode certainly had a nice knack for showing how dull Owen’s life/death was; I particularly enjoyed the shots where he just stares into the distance, the music repeating in the background. Of course the finger-breaking scene is totally cringe-inducing, though I’m not sure I really believe in what prompted it. Tosh comes into Owen’s apartment and starts talking to him like they’re “an old married couple”, according to Maggie, but since when has Tosh ever spoken so much and in such a flippant way? Is this meant to be a hint that she was just stalling because she didn’t know what to do, or poor characterisation?

(While we’re on Tosh, this is now the second time she’s told Owen she loves him when she thinks he’s about to die. The first time she and Owen talked about it; this time there’s nothing. She’s really starting to annoy me now.)

I didn’t have much to take note of during the first half of this episode, but things started to get interesting once Owen got around to infiltrating Henry Parker’s house. His smile when he destroyed the generator was appropriately creepy, and his speech to Parker’s security guard was delivered with a confidence the Doctor would be proud of. He is very lucky that he was talking to a crap security guard though; seriously, who just stands there, lets a guy walk up to you and take your gun and knock you out?

Now Owen finally approaches Parker’s bed, and the music climaxes with Owen’s Theme (I pretty much bought the Torchwood soundtrack solely for this theme, so you can tell I’m a fan of it). To me, this really felt like the payoff of the episode. Parker was brilliantly performed by Richard Briers, but I have to admit, I wasn’t entirely sure what point it was making about death. One minute Parker’s desperately clinging to life (i.e. the Pulse), the next he’s pitying himself for lying in his own piss and being fed through a tube. Then he dies, without being able to make peace with himself. Owen later tells Maggie that she should choose life if there’s the slightest glimmer of hope, but did Parker have that hope? We’ll never know for sure.

(I’d also like to see Owen reflect on whether or not he had that hope after Diane left, particularly during his conversation with Maggie, but yet again this was not to be.)

Torchwood: Dead Man Walking

(Originally written 31/10/13, modified 15/1/14)

There's a lot that happens in this episode which goes unexplained.

To start with, Owen says he knows what the creature is (duroc/hunger), but we don’t know if it’s alien or magic or from another dimension or anything – it’s pretty much just accepted as Death incarnate (leading to this cringe-worthy line from Martha: "It must be Death... because it's stolen my life!"). Similarly, we get no background on Jack’s little psychic friend, though it might be implied that she’s the girl Faith who first brought Death to Earth 500 years beforehand (hence her powers and the reason she doesn’t age between Fragments and now).

 
And finally, the Weevils’ mystical powers come to a climax – not only can they feel each other’s pain and sensitive to disturbances in time, but they’re also apparently the guardians of Death. But wait... if they’re guarding the glove is that because they don’t want people to bring back Death? But they worship Owen because he has Death inside him... unless they’re scared of it... Ugh, I don’t know. My best theory is that it saves on making new monster costumes.

Some things just don’t make sense. Jack claims he needed the alien morgue code from Owen, but wouldn’t it be better if the guy who CANNOT DIE knew all the important things? Wasn’t it pretty much established that the thing in the darkness, coming for Jack, was Abaddon and not duroc? And why the hell was Martha performing an autopsy on Owen when literally everyone saw how he died?

Some things felt familiar. Jack’s story about knowing Proust made me chuckle about how his name-dropping is like the Doctor’s, but with more sex. This was fine, but then I felt that the glove’s attack on Martha was quite a rip-off of Rose. This didn’t really achieve anything plotwise, but was rather a very convenient way to get the team to the hospital for the final showdown. A showdown which featured a bad child actor (I couldn’t tell if his character was meant to be weak from the cancer or he just couldn’t be bothered trying), and where it was established that a little girl defeated the villain 500 years beforehand. What was everyone so worried about?

Luckily, the episode was saved by Burn Gorman’s acting. Especially in his farewell scene to Gwen, I really believed in what Owen was feeling (or not feeling). This was much more convincing than his grief for Diane in Combat. Pity they didn’t mention that episode though – the dude attempted suicide last season, and now he’s dead and you don’t want to mention it?

The most disappointing thing about the episode? The fact that it's written by Matt Jones, and I adored his Doctor Who story The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit.

Torchwood: Reset

 (Originally written 13/10/13)

This episode occupies a strange place in Series 2. Despite introducing Martha and killing Owen, there are a lot of elements which make it quite forgettable.

The editing was a bit odd, with short shots of medical images breaking up several scenes. This is quite unlike what Torchwood has done before, but it seems like something that’s been done in other shows. The presence the Gorillaz’ ‘Feel Good’ as Owen and Martha worked together seemed out of place – again, not something I’d expect. And then the “twist” ethical problem was that aliens are being held captive and exploited for the humans’ own means – so it’s basically Meat two episodes later.

I’m not sure if the characterisation of the regulars was quite up to scratch. For all of Jack’s flirting with Martha, he made a lot of references to past boyfriends (including Christopher Isherwood) and he even said of The Pharm’s security guard, “Grey is so not her colour”. Way to make him sound totally gay (though the plus side of this is that we also got Ianto’s gossip with Martha). I also thought Owen was way too nice to Tosh – especially after Adam ended with him back to bastard mode.

It was simply weird seeing Martha in Torchwood. I don’t know if she really got the technobabble, and when she exclaimed, “Oh I’m a camera!”, she seemed like she was trying and failing to be excited. I’m also wondering what the Doctor was thinking recommending her to UNIT – I know he generally enjoys working with them but he knows they are a military organisation, so why would he want one of his companions caught up in that?

 It wasn’t clear just how much The Pharm knew about Torchwood – Professor Copley noted that Jack does alien research, but how did he know this? Furthermore, when Copley’s assistant was asked by Gwen and Ianto about the Weevil, she didn’t even ask “Is that what you call it?”, despite the name having been made up by Torchwood.

 (Speaking of Copley’s assistant, I just realised that this episode does pretty poorly on the Bechdel test. The assistant was apparently called Plummer but I didn’t hear that, and when Gwen and Martha talk it’s about how neither of them has shagged Jack yet.)

My boyfriend often talks about how he finds Professor Copley to be “a plank of wood”, but I didn’t have a huge problem with this... until his final scene, where he’s ready to kill because his life’s work is destroyed, yet he conveys no emotion while doing this. Having just watch Milton Johns’ amazingly unsettling performance in The Enemy of the World, it was particularly obvious that there was potential for Copley to become an interesting villain, but Alan Dale did nothing with it.

And Owen's bullet makes three in the gunshot count of Series 2 so far. For an episode in which the characters kept going on about high security, you might have thought they'd secure themselves a bit more.

Torchwood: Adam

(Originally written 5/10/13)

WOW. That was by far the best episode in a while – definitely the best of Series 2 so far. Of course it helps that the concept of memory, and a creature that changes memories, is so fascinating – but the story wouldn’t be half as good if it weren’t for the performances.

Jack’s sadness as he remembered Gray was very moving. You could just see it slowly coming back to him, watching it affect him. And as if remembering wasn’t enough, then he had to lose his memories at the end after Adam infiltrated them. That was a real shock – just as I was starting to think that Adam was starting to regret his effect on the team, he basically holds Jack’s most precious memory hostage. That's a real villain.

Jack’s sad acting was certainly better than Ianto’s, though he at least seemed to have improved since Cyberwoman. And Evil!Ianto was amazing – the look in his eyes as he ‘confessed’ his murders made it such a tense scene. Speaking of confessions, Owen’s confession of love to Tosh was completely adorable. I know there are a couple more coming up though, so we’ll see if I get bored of their repetitious nature at any point.

I’m not sure about the treatment of Gwen this episode. When Rhys kisses her, it’s established that she still can’t quite remember him – but then it’s implied that she goes on to sleep with him anyway. And then at the end, she pretty much undoes it all by saying she loves Jack.

Apart from that though, the rediscovery scene was beautiful. It gave us a great insight into the characters’ lives in just a few lines, and it particularly felt like Jack was a true leader who cared about them. Notice how he responded to everyone – telling Owen he’ll save him, telling Tosh he knows she’s special, kissing Ianto... and telling Gwen, after she says she loves him, to just take her pill.

In an episode about changing memories, I’m bound to have a few questions. If Adam had only just decided that day to make Tosh love him, and it was only her memory he altered, why did the others think it was perfectly normal that they’d been together for a year? And why do none of the team care about Adam constantly invading their personal space?

These are only little niggles though in an otherwise brilliant episode. Yet another favourite written by a woman :)

Torchwood: Meat

(Originally written 25/9/13, modified 3/1/14)

After basically no mention of Gwen and Rhys’ issues since the end of last season, it’s good to have an episode focus on them. I enjoyed the rawness of their argument and Rhys’ anger, especially since I couldn’t really back Gwen’s side at all. Thinking about it though, I’m confused – Gwen told Rhys she was now working in special ops within the police. Those who are familiar with the name of Torchwood think it’s special ops. So why couldn’t Gwen just tell Rhys in the first place that she was working for Torchwood? He wouldn’t have been surprised when she showed up to the crash site then.

It was really great watching Rhys in unfamiliar situations, out of his depth while bluffing to the crooks and trying so hard to be tough. And he’s so happy at the end! I do wonder what happened after the credits; how he would have explained to people at work about his injury (that's Torchwood's second gunshot wound for the season), or how Gwen would have explained it to him if he’d been retconned!

So for an episode all about Gwen and Rhys’ relationship, it’s pretty annoying to have a couple of doses of Gwack (Jack pushing Gwen up against a wall and staring at her). (And when Jack told Rhys that Gwen could take care of herself, I had to laugh a bit, given her tendency to be taken hostage.) And then it was just inappropriate when Jack flat out said his encounter with Rhys was “homoerotic”, in front of everyone. People say that Torchwood’s Jack isn’t as flirtatious as the old one, but maybe that’s because he’s the boss. When he’s just a loveable sidekick he can do whatever he wants, but a boss needs to have a certain level of respect from his employees.

 Let’s turn to those employees for a moment. Owen is inexplicably nice (if ignorant of Tosh’s advances), and feels a lot of pity for the creature. As I recall, he didn’t even seem to care that much about Beth a couple of episodes ago. His relationship with Tosh also appears to have gone backwards, as back in Ghost Machine they were quite happily out a bar together.

Ianto’s stun-gunning is possibly his best non-Janto moment. That is all.

 A final question: Jack wants to send the creature back through the Rift, but it was well established last season that the team don’t know how the Rift works and objects could end up anywhere. Have they discovered more of its secrets during the break? Or was this just desperation on Jack’s part; a bluff to himself and the team that he could perhaps save the creature?

Torchwood: To The Last Man

(Originally written 22/9/13, modified 2/1/14)

In which Tosh falls in love with what appears to be a young Steve Coogan.

This episode certainly has parallels with Out of Time – what with talk of people ‘belonging’ in one time or another, and this situation sparking a few words about Jack’s time in the past (and future). It’s also quite obvious when Owen tells Tosh that he doesn’t want her to get hurt when she has to say goodbye. I did feel that a small mention of Owen's lost love Diane wouldn’t have gone astray here, as it would have been about a year since viewers saw that episode, so they might not realise why Owen’s actually acting like a decent human being for once.

The episode works fine as a love story (definitely a better love story than Tosh’s previous outing), but not so much as a horror story. Cliched scary movie noises don’t really work if they’re revealing such horrifying figures as... nurses and patients in a 1918 hospital.

There’s some nice foreshadowing about Torchwood employees dying young, setting up later episodes this season. But there was a missed foreshadowing (or backshadowing) opportunity when Tommy asks for Tosh’s confirmation that she wasn’t “conscripted” to join Torchwood, and once again she says it was her own choice. I don’t care that Fragments happened in the past – I want it acknowledged, dammit!

Speaking of people’s pasts, I thought the Jack/Ianto conversation could have been a good opportunity to mention the events of Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang; just a little reminder that there’s a mystery about Gray. But on the plus side, that conversation leads to kissing, which makes it all okay.

 I always got the impression in Series 1 that Ianto hadn’t been working at Torchwood for much longer than Gwen, yet he apparently knows about Tommy. The last time he was opened must have been not long before Gwen joined, so that means Gwen must have been made temporary leader after less than a year in the job. Once again, I think her credentials need to be called into question.

I'd also like to call into question the fact that Torchwood just happens to have technology which can send psychic projections into people’s dreams, and this is just casually mentioned towards the end of the episode - it seems pretty significant! One mention I don't mind towards the end, however, is Tommy's reference to saving the world in his pyjamas (see Doctor Who: The Christmas Invasion).