TW #25 : Fragments / Exit Wounds

"Here's what's going to happen: everything you love, everything you treasure, will die. I'm gonna tear your world apart, Captain Jack Harkness, piece by piece. Starting now".

Episode 25 :            Fragments / Exit Wounds.
Companions:           Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper, and Ianto Jones.
Air Date:                 21st March to 4th April 2008.

Captain John Hart returns to have his revenge on Torchwood and takes Jack prisoner. Jack and his long lost brother Gray don't have a good reunion. Can the rest of the team trust John?

Although Fragments is a sort of flashback episode it is also technically the first of a two part climax to the second season of Torchwood and so I am including both episodes under one heading. Fragments sets up John Hart luring the team to a location with the intent on killing the Torchwood team. Instead everyone survives but we have flashbacks to how the various team members were recruited by Jack Harkness.

Jack starts off in the late 19th century being discovered by a pair of Torchwood agents who being unable to kill him instead bring him into the organisation with the intent of using his skills to hunt down aliens and other strangeness. It follows him through to new years eve 1999 (when the 8th Doctor is saving the world in San Francisco) where the Cardiff team and killed by their leader as he feels nothing can save the Earth. This one is quite interesting not so much for Jack but more for showing us that early Torchwood is quite a nasty organisation and how the character changes from when he is abandoned on the Games Station until we see him again in the 20th century.

Toshiko's flashback reveals that she is a bit of tech genius and the things she had to do before UNIT arrested her and Jack recruited her. In Exit Wounds we also get a confirmation that it was Toshiko who the 9th Doctor spoke with during the events of Aliens of London/World War Three. Ianto is shown trying to get into the group following the fall of Torchwood at Canary Wharf and helping Jack capture the pterodactyl we saw briefly in the first season. Owen loses a fiance to some brain parasite that Torchwood couldn't help with. The reaction goes a long way to see why he is the way he is. Normally this sort of episode would be quite dull for me but seeing how these characters came together is actually worth an episode devoted to it.

When we get to the finale episode we learn that John Hart is being forced to do what is doing by Jack's brother Gray who for reasons I don't fully get wants to kill his brother. Now, I can understand that being tortured and left for dead by some unspeakably evil race can drive you a bit crazy but it doesn't feel fleshed out enough in this story for why Gray has such a hatred for Jack. I'd have liked a little bit more if I am honest. Eventually Gray is stopped and captured, being placed in cryogenic storage by Jack.

It was good to see John Hart again but once more I feel that he was underused having only appeared in effectively two and a tiny bit episodes. We needed some more time with the character then but I doubt we will see him make a return either.

In Exit Wounds it would appear that John Hurt, possibly through Gray, has the means to summon and repel the Weevils making me wonder whether their presence in Cardiff is the result of Jack's brother. Again, I'd like to have seen something more made of that.

Lastly this episode sees the deaths of two regular characters: Toshiko and Owen. Toshiko is shot by Gray and Owen is incinerated by a nuclear power surge. They get some good screen time in their last moments, which certainly brought a tear or two to my eyes, where Toshiko basically admits that she was in love with Owen. It is a sad ending but done very well.

TW #24 : Adrift

"The scream lasts twenty hours every day. Before the rift returned him, Jonah had looked into the heart of a dark star. What he'd seen had driven him mad."

Episode 24 :            Adrift.
Companions:           Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper, and Ianto Jones.
Air Date:                 19th March 2008.

When a local teenager disappears, Gwen is drawn into an investigation that reveals a darker side to Torchwood. Hundreds of people have disappeared without a trace, but Jack is obstructing attempts to find them. The answer seems to lie in the Rift - literally - and as Gwen follows the trail, she makes a shocking discovery.

As the description above shows, Adrift is quite a simple story. What Gwen finds out during the course of the story, when not being given the cold shoulder by Jack, is that the Cardiff rift doesn't just deposit the strange and unusual into the streets of the city but it also snatches people away to somewhere, anywhere, in time and space. Seventeen of these people have been returned over the years but they never return intact. They come back scarred, both physically and mentally, and for their own benefit they have to be locked away in a remote location. It is the sort of story that Torchwood needed at this time. We see a lot of strange adventures in the show but we rarely see the repercussions of the Cardiff rift's existence.

Adrift is a story that gives Gwen plenty of screen time as well as PC Andy Davidson, a little used police colleague of hers. The episode revolves around her investigation. It seems that most episodes like this center on Jack or Gwen, and it would be nice to see everyone else get some more of the screen time.

The episode is more in keeping with the sort of episodes that I wish there had been more of during the early years of the show rather than the typical monster hunt episodes. As I mentioned we rarely see the consequences or after effects of the adventures we watch every week in the Whoniverse. In Doctor Who the titular character vanishes off after seeing the climax of his adventure but Torchwood is fixed to a single location and yet we never see the consequences. 

TW #23: From Out of the Rain

Christina: Your eyes are older than your face.

Jack: Is that a bad thing?

Christina: Yes. It means you don't belong. It means you're from nowhere.

Episode 23 :            From Out of the Rain.
Companions:           Jack Harkness, Qwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper, and Ianto Jones.
Air Date:                 12th March 2008.

When an old cinema re-opens, past horrors emerge to stalk the streets of Cardiff. As bodies are found with heartbeats but no breath, Torchwood must act fast. Who are the Night Travellers?  How can Torchwood catch these mysterious breath takers?

Members of an old travelling circus from the early 20th century manage to escape from an old black and white film. They then begin to harvest breath from anyone they meet and seek to free the rest of their troupe from the film. Jack reveals that he was once tasked to investigate them during the 1920's.

This is a really great horror story with just the right touch of freakishness to make it work. Old style circuses seem bizarre and surreal to me anyway. Taking characters out of that time and giving them a "something wicked this way comes" vibe in the modern world is played nicely here. It makes me wonder how this would have worked as a Doctor Who adventure.

What I also like about this story is that unlike most monsters in the Whoniverse, you get a sense of pity for the Ghostmaker and Pearl . They may be insane and twisted creatures but they aren't being evil for the sake of it. They want to survive away from the film strips and exist in the real world before everything becomes digital and they will never escape again.

Julian Bleach, who plays the lead villain - the Ghostmaker, would again appear in the Sarah Jane Adventures and would also go on to play Davros in the upcoming Doctor Who season.

From Out of the Rain is one of my favourite Torchwood episodes and I recommend this as one to watch.

TW #22: Something Borrowed

Jack: What is it with you? Ever since Owen died, all you've done is agree with him!

Ianto: I was brought up not to speak ill of the dead. Even if they do still do most of their talking for themselves.

Episode 22:      Something Borrowed.

Companions:    Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Owen Harper, Toshiko Sato, and Ianto Jones.

Air Date:          5th March 2008.

Gwen Cooper is about to get married to her fiance, Rhys. Only one problem: on her hen night she is bitten by an alien and awakes on her wedding day heavily pregnant with a alien shape-shifter's baby. The alien mother is on the loose and searching for it's offspring. The only way for the alien to get the egg is to rip open the carrier... Gwen.

Something Borrowed is a bit of a silly episode. It focuses on Gwen's wedding to Rhys and the almost carry on style hunt for the shape-shifting alien that is hunting her to rip out the alien child inside her. When the giant gun comes out any sense of realism goes right out of the window. It is a comedy of errors really and just fails abysmally. 

Other than the story the effects are just terrible as though the production budget ran out of money for decent effects. Especially Rhys' mother as an alien which just looks like a poor attempt at turning Nerys Hughes (who we saw in Snakedance) into an alien goth. The same can said of the impersonated Jack Harkness.

The only good thing going for this episode is the sense of continuity with us getting to see more of the life of the crew, in this case the wedding of Gwen and Rhys. Even the slow dance between Jack and Ianto is nice and sweet. But it isn't enough to save the episode. If the episode had meant to be played for laughs it may have worked. Very disappointing.

TW #21 : A Day in the Death

"My name is Doctor Owen Harper, and this is my life. A life that is full of action. And violence. And work and wonder. Secrets. And sex. And love. And heartbreak. Death. My death. The death I survived. The death I'm now living through. Except.... this isn't living. Every day is the same. I get up. Get ready for work. Same as everyone else. The thing is, I'm not the same. I get to work and everyone is doing the same old thing. Babbling away about aliens, weddings. I'm not real. Three days ago I died. And they think I'm fine. But they're wrong."

Episode 21 :            A Day in the Death.
Companions:           Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper, Ianto Jones, and Martha Jones.
Air Date:                 27th February 2008.

Owen Harper chats with a suicidal woman on a rooftop, reflecting on his adjustment (or lack thereof) to his new life (or lack thereof). Will a mission with Torchwood assist in his salvation or bring about the end of the world?

I thoroughly enjoy this episode of Torchwood despite having elements that say I shouldn't. Firstly, there is no threat. No villain. No apocalypse on the horizon. It is simply Owen sitting on a rooftop with a young woman who is thinking of committing suicide. He tells her what has happened to him and that he can't die, and runs her through the day he has just had. A Day in the Death is about Owen coming to terms with what he has for his humanity and realizing that sometimes the universe throws something at you that just makes you understand that there is more out there and it isn't all bug eyed monsters.

A Day in the Death is the sort of episode that shouldn't work but does really well. It is a breath of fresh air for a show that is routinely dark and gritty to show us the same wonder that we normally experience through the eyes of the Doctor. For all the negativity in the show at this time, this episode has a great upbeat ending that I didn't see coming. I give this a big thumbs up.

Unfortunately this is the last we see of Martha. After three busy days with Torchwood she is off back to UNIT. Don't worry, she'll make another appearance soon enough.

TW #20 : Dead Man Walking

"There was a light, a tiny speck of light and I was rushing towards it, like down a corridor, and it got brighter, and brighter, then suddenly there were these gates... these big,pearly gates and there was this old geezer and he said, "You've been a very naughty boy!"

Episode 20 :            Dead Man Walking.
Companions:           Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper, Ianto Jones, and Martha Jones.
Air Date:                 20th February 2008.

Owen has died. Jack decides to return him to life for a few minutes. No one could have guessed the consequences.

Owen has been shot dead. Jack decides to seek the aid of a psychic girl who guides him to the location of the second resurrection glove whilst hinting that it would be unwise (use shows us the tarot card Death). Jack has to enter an abandoned church now used by a large number of Weevils to recover it. When used on Owen it brings him back but keeps him around, a walking talking corpse. Unfortunately this has allowed the entity Death to enter the mortal world and begin a killing spree to allow it to remain.

This story is a bit of a strange departure but I kind of like it anyway. I find it odd that the entity of Death is a real thing. It doesn't quite fit the Whoniverse but at the same time it does. Death appears as a skeletal figure sheathed in a black fog and drains the life out of it's victims leaving them looking like they died of old age. It is hinted at this is the shape moving in the dark that has been mentioned before when someone has been killed and revived. Maybe it was this and not Abaddon? It also implies strongly that there is an afterlife even though throughout Doctor Who we are told (admittedly by the Doctor who may not know any different) that there is no such thing. If there is then it sheds a dark light over the whole universe when you consider how many people have died during the Doctor's adventures. And do Daleks and the like go there too?

Ultimately Death is defeated as it can't use Owen and he keeps the entity at bay until it is forced to return whence it came. But at the end Owen is still very much undead and walking around. This version of immortality is very different to Jack's. Owen doesn't degenerate but he retains any injuries now caused to him and suffers the problem of not being able to eat, drink, sleep, have sex or use the bathroom. It is more a living hell really than immortality. At this point I am beginning to reconsider the show somewhat. We are told that Torchwood is about protecting mankind and preparing them for the future when in fact, as you look back, the underlying theme of nearly everything in the show (past and future) is death. 

TW #19 : Reset

"I'd rely on Martha if the world was ending. It fact... I did."

Episode 19 :            Reset.
Companions:           Jack Harkness, Qwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper, Ianto Jones, and Martha Jones.
Air Date:                 13th February 2008.

Martha Jones arrives at Torchwood after reports of numerous deaths. A medical researcher has been injected with "Mayflies". The "Mayflies" cure all illnesses before killing the patient, and Martha has got one...

Reset is the start of a trilogy focusing on Owen Harper and the return of Martha Jones, now a UNIT doctor. This episode has Jack call Martha in to help investigate a series of bizarre murders. Ultimately the investigation leads them an unscrupulous medical research firm which is using aliens to perfect medical cures  and not caring that one or two attempts have gone awry. When Martha is captured and implanted the team have to go in and rescue her. Unfortunately Owen is shot and killed during the extraction.

This is the sort of stories that Torchwood should be doing. It fits well with the premise of the show and much better than some of the episodes, and they are plausible within the confines of the Whoniverse. Thankfully that is what Reset gives us and it makes it a great episode to watch.

It is nice to see the return of Martha Jones, tying the two shows together. We get some nice references to Doctor Who as well. Torchwood should be it's own show but one thing it has lacked has been a real sense of being part of the same universe.

The episode ends with Owne getting shot, doing perhaps the one selfless act of his (on screen) life, protecting Martha. A bit of a shock at the time as I rather like Owen and his dark persona. But this won't be the last we see of him.

Reset is the sort of episode that  we should have seen more of each season and it has been a nice breath of fresh air to see it again doing these reviews.

TW #18 : Adam

Adam: You always remember what you killed, don't you, Jack?

Episode 18 :            Adam.
Companions:           Jack Harkness, Qwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper, and Ianto Jones.
Air Date:                 13th February 2008.

An alien with the power to change memories infiltrates the team. With Captain Jack caught up in the memories of his lost family and Gwen struggling to remember Rhys, it takes Jack's love of Ianto to reveal the truth. Yet there's always a price to pay.

The premise of this story is another typical and over used science fiction trope, the addition of a new team member who everyone knows but is in reality a psychic extraterrestrial with the power to insert his existence into the memories of others. It has been done so many times before in shows like Star Trek and while Adam is no different it isn't bad either. Some care has been made to make this work. Adam is inserted into the opening credits just like the rest of the team members, giving pause to the regular viewer.

The episode itself is typical of Torchwood in that despite being an entertaining forty five minutes nothing actually happens. There is no real plot other than Jack slowly coming to notice that something is wrong and then fixing it. Fixing it in such a way that this episode only happens for us the viewer. Every member of Torchwood has it retconned at the end.

What does make the episode is Adam reviving the memories of the younger Jack losing his little brother, Gray -  whom Captain John Hart mentioned having found at the end of the first episode of this season. We learn that Jack's home isn't Earth but another colony and that they were attacked by some terrible race who may have taken his brother. Finally after all this time we are getting something on Jack's back story. Enough to pique the interest but not too much. The rest of the team get sort of personalty switched by what Adam does to them but their interactions aren't as interesting as the experiences Jack has.

The problem with Adam is that it simply feels like a filler episode with no real addition to the story other than the flashback to Jack's past. I would have just preferred something more tangible out of it.

TW #17: Meat

"Have you never seen something so mad, so extraordinary... That just for one second, you think there might be more out there?"

Episode 17:     Sleeper.
Companions:   Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper and Ianto Jones.
Air Date:         6th February 2008. 

Gwen is forced to reveal Torchwood's true nature to Rhys after he follows her to work and accidentilly uncovers the truth behind the mysterious alien meat. Is there a price to pay for Rhys, Gwen, or Torchwood?

Meat is a fairly interesting story. Again nothing original but played just right so that it works. The story follows the team as they investigate a new source of meat that is coming onto the market in Cardiff. Some strange whale-like creature has washed up through the rift and been taken by some men who are looking at making money from it. The creature regenerates any flesh taken from it and grows as a result. The meat is packaged as something like beef and sold on with no one any the wiser. When Rhys becomes involved he has to infiltrate the gang so that the Torchwood team can close the operation down for good.

At last we are getting Rhys into the story more rather than being a background character as he was throughout the first season. He really is the center to this one and it is nice so see a character who isn't one of the Torchwood team get the spot light in the show. Although I didn't remember Rhys being so up himself as much previously even when you consider that he's having to deal with Gwen having a secretive new job.

Although different in appearance and design, the poor creature reminds me of the star whale from one of the early 11th Doctor stories, The Beast Below. They reused the sound for that so is it a juvenille or similar species? Probably not but nice to think that we can link them together. Both episodes also focus on human abuse of an alien animal.

There is more sense of the surreal in this episode. I can watch Doctor Who and see strange aliens, mysterious worlds and the like, and it never or rarely causes me to ponder it. Meat is a good Torchwood story but it feels out of place when you drop something like this in although that is maybe the point of the show. Doctor Who is science fantasy while Torchwood perhaps shows us how bizarre such events might be if you see them from an everyday person's point of view.

TW #16 : To The Last Man

Jack: [draws a line on a piece of paper] Linear time. [balls the piece of paper up] Screwed up time. Imagine your life is a straight line, from birth to death. Now, try drawing that line on the paper without flattening it out.

Gwen: It's impossible.

Jack: That's why we gotta stop it.

Episode 16:     To The Last Man.
Companions:   Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper and Ianto Jones.
Air Date:         23rd January 2008. 

Once a year, for a single day, Tommy Brockless is defrosted in the Torchwood hub to make sure he's still working. He is kept alive until the day he is needed, when ghosts appear at a hospital and it is clear that the time has come.

Much like Greeks Bearing Gifts in season one, To The Last Man focuses on Toshiko above all other regular characters. She has fallen in love with Tommy Brockless, a soldier from the first world war but must deal with the fact that he must return to the past and die so that the present and the future can be saved. As a science fiction troupe it is nothing new but the episode is well written and perfectly acted out to carry the emotional resonance that it needs. The only issue with this particular story is that it doesn't explain the how and why of Tommy's initial crossing over which makes the loop a paradox. But hey, this the Whoniverse and such events seem to be common place.

The ghosts that are sighted are phantom images of the nurses and patients at the soldier's hospital in 1918 where Tommy was taken from by early Torchwood team members. There is some interaction but I really felt that the "ghostly" encounters could have carried a more frightening countenance than what they did. Although it is a love story for the most part, a hint of the horror of the Great War via the "ghosts" would have improved the story immensely much like they did in Ghost Machine.

To The Last Man is one of the more interesting episodes of this season and worth a watch.

TW #15 : Sleeper

Tosh: You said we weren't allowed to use that again.

Jack: It's just a mind probe.

Ianto: Remember what happened last time you used it?

Jack: That was different. And that species has extremely high blood pressure.

Ianto: Oh, right, their heads must explode all the time.

Episode 15:     Sleeper.
Companions:   Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper and Ianto Jones.
Air Date:         23rd January 2008. 

A burglary turns into a slaughter and Torchwood suspect alien involvement. When the investigation escalates into a city-wide assault, Jack realizes the whole world is in danger.

Sleeper is a story about alien invasion but not the sort that we normally see. In this story we have an infiltration by aliens referred to by Jack as Cell 114. They come to Earth disguised as humans but with their true identities locked away until triggered. At which point they show certain shape-shifting qualities and try to disrupt Earth's defences. The team have found one who they help retain their human identity and try to thwart the invasion.

When this story first aired I figured that the invasion by Cell 114 was going to be the overarching plot for this season. It sets itself up perfectly for that but alas no, Sleep is simply a one off episode with no connection to anything else. The events are never referred to ever again. In hindsight this does spoil the episode for me because by itself the story doesn't do anything. You can't drop something major like this down and then just walk away in my opinion.

Sleeper isn't a great episode anyway. There is nothing to drive the main characters forward either with their own stories or the show in general. Already season two shows that it isn't going to be as good as season one. We know that as the show goes along it gets weaker and weaker each season. I do wonder whether Torchwood should have been left with just the one season?

TW #14 : Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang

Jack: So, how was rehab?

John: Rehabs. Plural.

Jack: Drink, drugs, sex and ...?

John: Murder.

Jack: [laughs] You went to murder rehab?

John: I know. Ridiculous. The odd kill, who does it hurt?

Captain John Hart, an old friend of Jack's, appears through the Rift, and causes problems for the Torchwood team.

Episode 14:   Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang..
Companions: Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper and Ianto Jones.
Air Date:       16th January 2008.

Torchwood kicks off it's second season with an interesting start. The Torchwood team are visited by an old associate and lover of Jack's, a former time agent known as Captain John Hart. The new arrival is a violent amoral individual with as big a sense of overt sexuality as Jack's. After committing murder for no real reason, he lures the Torchwood team out with stories of hidden radiation bombs and then tries to bump them off without knowing that Jack cannot die. Ultimately he is found out and sent back through the Rift although he drops hints of something to Jack - "By the way, I found Gray" - before disappearing.

Captain Jack has returned from his sojourn with the Doctor and Martha, and must try to fit back in with his team who are understandably upset about being ditched. There is no indication just how long he was gone but it must have been many months or maybe up to a year but the feel of things. Without the friction of his return I don't think the season would have kicked off as well.

Captain John Hart is played by James Marsters who is more known for playing the vampire Spike in the Buffy: the Vampire Slayer show. I'm quite a fan of that particular role although I do feel Spike is channeled a bit too much in his role as John Hart. Marsters was a great choice for the role though in my opinion. I can't think of many other actors who could pull off that role quite as well.

Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang is a good start to the season but suffers from a definitive lack of plot. The episode feels more like a filler designed to set up events later in the series rather than a full season opener. It also continues the elements of silliness appearing more and more in the modern Whoniverse. For example it starts up with the Torchwood team chasing a fish-headed alien in a sports car through the streets of Cardiff, stopping briefly to let an old lady cross the road. Really? It doesn't even look very good and the scene is just silly.

TW #13 : End of Days

"And I heard but did not understand and I said, 'Master, what is the end of all things?' And he said, 'Go, Daniel, for the things are closed up and sealed until the end of time.'" Daniel 12, verse 10.

Episode 13:   End of Days.
Companions: Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper and Ianto Jones.
Air Date:       1st January 2007.

The Rift is open and beings from all the periods of time are seeping through. What exactly does Bilis Manger know and what lurks in the rift? Can Jack save the world?

Season one of Torchwood comes to a mighty climax with an excellent ending. Bilis Manger has manipulated the team and following the events of the previous episode manages to use the Cardiff rift to orchestrate the return of Abaddon, the son of the Great Beast (see The Satan Pit) who appears to have been sealed away somewhere. Freed the monster strides across Cardiff and wherever his shadow falls people die.

First off I am going to point out something that does grate on my nerves with the current Whoniverse. In recent years there have been too many major events where there is no chance for anyone (other than Donna Noble it seems) to have missed it. Classic Who never did this. Lots of little things and events that could be covered up. The 21st century may be when everything changes but personally I find it a bit much. Especially as these events rarely get mentioned again despite being huge occurrences for the world.

Despite that we have here a really good episode and some excellent closure for events that have taken place this season. Jack's immortality is revealed to the rest of the team, the team themselves seem to have a moment where their past transgressions are forgiven and you get a sense that maybe, just maybe everything will be ok now even though we know it won't be.

Using Abaddon is a nice tie in to Doctor Who and we have had such few connections really considering this is a spin off set in the same universe. I just wish he had received more and useful screen time. 

At the end of the episode we hear a familiar whirring groaning noise and Jack takes off in a rush before anyone realizes where he has gone. It ties in to the end of the next Doctor Who series but with a small and probably forgotten at the time continuity issue.

Sadly the following seasons of Torchwood never live up this first season which I think is a real shame as it had potential to be a good adult version of Doctor Who. 

TW #11 : Combat

Owen: I didn't want saving.

Jack: You want us to apologize?

Owen: For a few seconds in that cage, I felt totally at peace...And the you blunder in. Do you always know best, Jack? Is that what you believe?

Episode 11:    Combat.
Companions:   Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper and Ianto Jones.
Air Date:         24th December 2006.

Savage aliens are being kidnapped from the streets of Cardiff, and Torchwood want to know why. Owen is sent undercover to find out who's behind it and soon befriends the charismatic Mark Lynch. Beneath the veneer of city life, Owen discovers a shocking subculture: can he avoid being sucked in?

In Combat, the team investigate the kidnapping of Weevils from the steeds of Cardiff. Owen finds that there is a "fight club" of sorts where men risk their live to enter a cage with one of the savage creatures for as long as possible. It is a cliched idea that these men don't see life as worth living if there is no danger to keep them on their toes. After the loss of his love in the prior episode Owen finds himself drawn to the danger in order to feel alive.

On one hand the episode seems like a nice idea but it has been done so many times that it feels like flogging a dead horse. It also feels out of character for Owen. He is a negative individual and has serious issues but fighting Weevils seems wrong for him. Maybe it is just my perception but it means that I don't much enjoy this story. What would have made the story better is if it came with some back story for the weevils but again we are left with them as a simple plot device.

TW #10 : Out of Time

John: Good God!

Ianto: Welcome to the wonderful world of scantily-clad celebrities.

John: There are children around!

Ianto: She's a children's TV presenter.

Episode 10:    Out of Time.
Companions:  Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper and Ianto Jones.
Air Date:        17th December 2006.

When a plane from the 1950s lands in modern Cardiff, courtesy of the Rift, the passengers are reoriented by the Torchwood team, who becomes drawn closely to their lives.

Out of Time is a wonderful drama piece. You couldn't do this sort of tale in Doctor Who without adding something monstrous or science fiction to it, which would ruin it in my opinion. Torchwood handles it fantastically. The story deals with a trio who have travelled through time accidentally via air plane through the rift from the 1950's and how they adapt to living in the 21st century. For one the shock ends quickly and she makes a life for herself but things do not go well for the others.

The episode is a truly excellent piece of television before I even consider it part of the whoniverse. The episode is well written and the acting from everyone involved in spot on. The love story for Owen really adds something to his character that has been previously missing and when it doesn't turn out well for him the rest of the series takes the events of Out of Time into consideration. It isn't quietly forgotten. The reactions from the others and how times have changed for them in 60 years is wonderfully done.

Emma, the one  traveller for whom things turn out reasonably well leaves to go to London on the same day as the events of The Christmas Invasion take place. Strangely the events of that Doctor Who episode are never mentioned in Torchwood despite it being a major event.

Although there are no scary monsters or weird science fiction technobabble in this one I do feel it is one of the best Torchwood episodes we've had. If only the show had continued with this quality after the first season.

TW #9 : Random Shoes

"The speed of light is 299,792,458 metres per second. Pain travels through the body at 350 feet per second. Even a sneeze can reach a hundred miles per hour. And as for life? Well... that just bloody whizzes by."

Episode 9:     Random Shoes.
Companions: Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper and Ianto Jones.
Air Date:       10th December 2006.

A hit-and-run victim, obsessed with alien life, realises only one person can solve the mystery of his death: Gwen Cooper.

Random Shoes is the unfortunate Torchwood equivalent of Love & Monsters. It just blatantly doesn't fit in at all and has such a weak premise. The episode revolves around the "ghost" of one Eugene Jones who is killed in a car accident and now follows around Gwen while she investigates his death. It is played out as a series of flashbacks with narration from Eugene. The story barely features the rest of the Torchwood team other than Gwen. Ultimately it is revealed to be an alien artifact that Eugene swallowed that has kept his spirit around. At the end he materialises briefly to save Gwen before vanishing into the light.

Much like the previous story it hints at something beyond death which is generally against what we know from the rest of Doctor Who. While that in itself doesn't bug me so much it is just the way the whole story is handled when I am sure the writers could have found something more interesting to design an episode around. I recommend avoiding this one completely.

TW #8 : They Keep Killing Suzie

"Death by Torchwood."

Episode 8:     They Keep Killing Suzie.
Companions: Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper and Ianto Jones.
Air Date:       3rd December 2006.

Torchwood is linked to a series of brutal murders around the city. As Jack and the team investigate, it becomes clear somebody wants their attention. What is Pilgrim — and how is it connected to a figure from Torchwood's past? The resurrection days are far from over. They have no choice but to bring back Suzie.

It has taken over half the season but we finally start to get towards the main plot behind the season with this story. Events set in motion before Gwen joined the team lead to a series of savage killings all pointed at Torchwood. Eventually the team are forced to resurrect Suzie Costello but something goes wrong and she doesn't die like all the others restored by the gauntlet. She has found a way to leach the life force from Gwen so that she can't die.

They Keep Killing Suzie is a really well done dark story that fits Torchwood much better than the sexual, supposedly mature themes of the early season. This and the following episode suddenly make you realise that the whole season has used death as it's undertone and now it hits you. In contrary to what has been said before and after in the Doctor Who universe it is strongly hinted at that there is something after death though it seems to be a black nothingness. Suzie says that something is moving in the dark. Is this the villain from the end of the season? I don't think it is ever really explained.

This is a really good story and one of the better Torchwood pieces in my opinion.

TW #7 : Greeks Bearing Gifts

Tosh: "So, I'm shagging a woman and an alien."

Mary: "Which is worse?"

Tosh: "Well, I know which one my parents would say."

Episode 7:     Greeks Bearing Gifts.
Companions: Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper and Ianto Jones.
Air Date:        26th November 2006.

Tosh is given an alien pendant which lets her hear other people's thoughts. As the Torchwood team puzzle over a centuries-old skeleton, the pendant forces Tosh to question her commitment to Torchwood. Is her new-found ability a blessing or a curse?

Greeks Bearing Gifts is a story focused on Toshiko and her being seduced/tricked by an alien. The alien offers her a gift, a piece of jewelry that allows her to read thoughts. Through this Toshiko learns about Gwen and Owen's affair. The alien lover turns out to be an exiled criminal looking to use Torchwood resources to return home after two hundred years at any cost.

It is the sort of story that fits well within the confines of the Torchwood series and should have been a lot better than it is. The story uses the hint of lesbian sexual activity to try and titillate the viewer but it it is more the group's revelation that things are not going as well as they appear on the surface that makes the episode. Now that the team know how they feel towards one another the dynamic of the show changes. Unfortunately the primary story of the alien lover and it's scheme to escape the Earth lets the episode down for me.