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 #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 #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 #1 : Everything Changes

"There you go! I can taste it! Oestrogen. Definitely oestrogen. Take the pill, flush it away, it enters the water cycle. Feminizes the fish. Goes all the way up into the sky then falls all the way back down onto me. Contraceptives in the rain. Love this planet. Still, at least I won't get pregnant. Never doing that again."

Episode 1:     Everything Chnages.
Companions: Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper, Ianto Jones and Suzie Costello.
Air Date:       22nd October 2006.

The Torchwood Three team arrives at the scene of a brutal murder. PC Gwen Cooper's curiosity is challenged by their attitude; their approach and their technology is at odds with everything she believes in. As she investigates them, she begins to uncover a dark, mysterious and dangerous world right in the heart of Cardiff.

The Torchwood spin off series starts here. Several months on from the battle of Canary Wharf and Torchwood is now pretty much just a handful of operatives in Cardiff led by Jack Harkness. We don't know how he got back from the future but now he's in charge.

The story itself isn't actually anything specific but instead is an introduction to the Torchwood team, the Cardiff Rift and the Weevils. It has a short plot involving Suzie Costello and the murders but that won't be resolved for some time. But even so the episode is well written and the characters well described. Oddly I enjoy science fiction shows where the main characters are flawed and/or unlikeable. That pretty much covers all of them in Torchwood.

Unlike Doctor Who this show is much more adult in nature both in regards to the profanity and the sexual references. Although part of the Whoniverse which is very family friendly this format work wells as a spin off.

The episode introduces the Weevils, an aggressive almost-feral alien species that has crossed through into Cardiff via the rift. They become a regular feature of the early shows though we never learn anything about them unfortunately.

I like how this episode plays out. Utilising the Doctor Who universe to tell more grown up stories was very clever. Whatever you say about RTD's time on Doctor Who, the man can write an excellent episode.