Review: Torchwood 3.5: Day Five

*slits wrists*

Torchwood - Children of Earth, Day Five
Written 15/5/13

RTD's melodrama is in full force, and in this final RTD review I aim to look at the end of Children of Earth and how this miniseries hid its faults behind a fascade of seriousness. Day Five is by far the bleakest hour in the miniseries, and pushes the series to its logical conclusions in a way which is shocking and dark in a quite non-constructive way. The aim seems to be to fuck up as much as possible about the series and then see what fits into place after the fact. Which is a great way to do things.
     As Gwen and Jack mourn Ianto, the Government prepares to put the 456's plans into place, dragging children away from primary schools. Gwen and Rhys are airlifted to Cardiff to inform Ianto's sister of what happened. When Frobisher's children are chosen for the program to make the government look like the victims, he acquires a gun and takes his family out Columbine style. Bridget Spears visits Lois Habiba and learns how to use the Torchwood contact lenses. Jack is lifted from prison by Agent Johnson, who also kidnaps Dekker, bringing them both together to work on a solution. Through some technobabble, Jack works out that he can send the wave they used to kill Clem back at them, but he needs a child to focus on if the signal is ever going to be strong enough. They use Jack's grandson Steven and save the day at the cost of his life. As the dust settles, Bridget wipes the smug smile off the Prime Minister's face as she reveals that she has recordings of everything he's said and plans to ruin his career with them.
     The expenditure of Jack's grandson was at the time shocking and painful, but despite how inhuman it may seem of me, I can see why Jack did it. He's over 2000 years old, and his daughter has been restricting access to his grandson to the extent that they hardly know each other. Is it that much of a surprise that when it comes to a utilitarian choice between a kid he hardly knows and the 10% statistic, Jack chooses the 10%? Much more shocking was the death of John Frobisher and co, with RTD's script taking a decidedly more anti-suicide turn than his Osterhagen Key rubbish in Journey's End.

     The episode had an overall sense of bleak desperation, one that seemed entirely melancholic without anything to back it up. Torchwood in the past was about dragging humanity from the inhumane, about Gwen's measures to maintain her compassion in the face of a group of people who had lost touch with the rest of the world. If you rob the show of that dynamic, if you make it as bleak as you can possibly make it, then it creates a real disconnect with the audience that I find hard to reconcile. Children of Earth had some okay moments in it, but it forgot what Torchwood was, and thus I can't like it as much as I do the first two series.

Thanks.

Review: Torchwood 3.4: Day Four

"I'll never let go!" Dude, wrong Jack

Torchwood - Children of Earth, Day Four
Written 5/5/13

Day Four is the best episode of Children of Earth, if only because, like any good Torchwood episode, it has something to say. It may not be all car-chases and explosions, but it does show our characters fighting the good fight in a way which is manipulated to feel extraordinarily triumphant until the soul-shattering conclusion. Everything dark, everything truly scary about Children of Earth is right here - a mixture of Adult Fears, tearing away at the comfortable assumptions of trust we have in our day-to-day lives and showing what monsters ordinary people can become.
     Torchwood watches as the government deliberates over how to respond to the 456's demands. Initially Frobisher is sent to offer 62 kids (0.0001% of the overall population of Britain.) As the gang reel from discovering Jack's involvement in 1965, the 456 responds, reasserting to each country that they want 10%. The Cabinet decides to honour their demands, with Ryan Yates (Dalek voice actor Nicholas Briggs) deciding that a population reduction would be good, while truly evil Denise (Deborah Findley) decided to pick off the 10% from the lowest performing schools, claiming that if you're from the lower classes then you're obviously set for the dole or the prison cells. In a combined move, Torchwood gets ready to save the day: Lois bribes the cabinet to allow Jack and Ianto onto Floor 13, while they deliberately let Johnson trace their location to win her round to the Torchwood cause with the evidence presented. Just before their triumph is complete, the 456 responds to Jack's bravado by sealing off the MI5 building and releasing a virus that kills everyone inside except Jack and a lucky Mr. Dekker. As Gwen and Jack mourn Ianto's death, they admit that they don't know what to do from hereon in.

I doubt they could have done Children of Earth in the current
climate of secret paedos everywhere.

     The cabinet scene is perhaps one of the most difficult things I've ever had to watch for this blog. I'm used to a sort of cackling evil that comes with Classic Who, the glint in the eye of Max Capricorn. This is exactly what Midnight tried and failed to be - the slow, methodical translation of human faults and fears and self-preservation into despicable, banal, calculated evil. The politicians trying to protect their families - that I understand. But as a Northerner I've been subject to enough Government scorn because of the perceptions of my class and geographical position, because of snobbery and ignorance, that seeing the logical and quite realistic ramifications of that in this scenario hit quite close to home.
    Even more gruesome, though, was the revelation of what exactly the 456 wanted with the children. We were shown that they use the kids to harvest some kind of addictive substance, and the reason why they've come back is because they're on the last kid and they're beginning to suffer some serious withdrawl. So, in other words, the 456 are selfish space junkies, scooping up your kids and sucking them dry to get high. It's certainly novel, and it carries the series into territory that most people didn't think it could. In Miracle Day we end up with Death Camps specifically for burning people alive, and I think that they couldn't have gotten away with that without this issue to basically say, "Yeah, we went there."
    Ianto's death scene is probably what most people remember from this episode, and true to form I'm an apathetic douchebag. Ianto was cool, but for me he never really shined as anything other than a walking snark dispenser, as opposed to Owen and Tosh, who both had in-depth characterisations and storylines that didn't include hiding half-Cyber-converted girlfriends in the basement. Their last stand of firing bullets at the bullet-proof glass made me giggle more than anything - Jack can survive entering the 456's chamber, so the only reason I can think of why he didn't go in and put the gun to the creature's face is for drama and silliness.

"What else are the league tables for?" indeed....

     Day Four is, in the end, a spectacular example of what I think RTD was aiming for with this series. It had the action, the well-developed characters and concepts, and it explored the darkness of the human soul in a way which prime-time British TV rarely ever does. Ianto's death was unnecessary and sensationalist, done for the sole reason of simply having a death and not as part of any noticable character beats, but it did add to a sense of hopelessness that next week's hasty resolution will suffer because of. The bell tolls, my friends.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: The last RTD-written thing I'll ever review.

Review: Torchwood 3.3: Day Three

The 456 arrive.

Torchwood - Children of Earth, Day Three
Another shortie. Written 4/5/13

It's the hour format. That's what it is, that's what's bothering me. I've spent the past couple of months watching shows with a 40-45 minute runtime almost exclusively, and Children of Earth's added 15 minutes is getting me all distressed. This third day saw the mini-series formative stages finally give way to the core dilemma, surrounding the grotesque 456 and their demand for 10% of the Children of Earth. The rather well-done personality of the 456, and the tragedies that surround it, are gonna develop som'more next week, but give it time.
     The gang relocate to an old Torchwood London hangar, going out and stealing from people in order to build up enough tech for the mandatory technobabble. Gwen tracks down Lois Habiba, and gives her the camera contact lenses from Reset so that Torchwood can see what's happening inside Thames House. Agent Johnson captures Alice and Steven, Jack's daughter and grandson, just as the children stop again and point at Thames House, where a pillar of fire accompanies the 456's teleport. The alien has Frobisher organise a meeting of diplomats, with corrupt Prime Minister John Green continuing to use Frobisher as a scapegoat. Gwen rescues Clement Macdonald from prison and takes him back. They watch the meeting, wherin the 456 demand 10% of the world's children. Jack returns to the hangar after attempting to blackmail Frobisher, and the team discovers through Clement that he gave the 456 a gift of 12 children in 1965.
     I know this was meant to be shown back-to-back over a week as a single story rather than reviewed episodically. I'm rather shooting myself in the foot on that one. I just really can't think of anything to say about Day Three. It was okay, I guess. The nice chunky ideas the Children of Earth would become known for pop up on Day Four, with Day Three seeming more focussed on how the contact lens technology gets round the barrier of having no sound functions.

The team watch the conference via Lois' contact lenses.

     Feels a little like I'm wasting your time, here. The very few of you that do read. But I can't really come up with much to say about Day Three, other than that the 456 are here now and they want yo kids. The cast and crew are doing a great job, even if on an episode-by-episode basis the pace leaves a little something to be desired. Children of Earth may not feel much like Torchwood any more, but for what it is, it's been pretty good.

Thanks.

Review: Torchwood 3.2: Day Two

Ianto, Gwen and Rhys help free Jack.

Torchwood - Children of Earth, Day Two
Bit of a shorter one this week. Written 28/4/13

Questions running through my mind... I know that Frobisher doesn't want Jack bragging about the last time the 456 were here, but why kill them? Why destroy the goddamn Hub? The one person you want to get rid of is immortal, and you know it, and the other two members are just as clueless. It's almost as if some great godly figure wanted to make the scenario more tense by setting the world against Torchwood for no decent reason. Fancy that, eh?
     The hub destroyed, Ianto and Gwen get out alive, but "The Government", which appears to include day-to-day ambulance drivers, is out to get them both for reasons unknown. Agent Johnson tries to hunt both of them down, eventually giving up and taking Jack's body in pieces. In a cell, it re-arranges itself, leading her to fill the cell with concrete. Gwen and Rhys pop down to London and, after speaking with Lois Habiba, sneak into the place. Ianto helps bust Jack out by using a forklift truck to somehow lift the concrete block out of the wall and drop it down a cliff. Just as the new crew assemble, the Government have followed some 456 instructions and created a mysterious chamber on the top floor of Whitehall.
     This was very much an episode of going through the motions, moving characters away from Cardiff and into the bland, generic wasteland that is TV London. As the show's distinctive Welsh roots wither and die away, the only really decent moments came in the form of Rhys' utter badassery, considering that he's doing a pretty decent job of the whole "secret operative" thing on his second time out. I also loved the quiet conversations between him and Gwen, especially where she tells him that she's pregnant and doesn't even have to say the words.

"Mr. Dekker, please stop hugging the chamber..."

     The second day was one of story administration, laying out the canopés for the next day's first appearance from the enigmatic 456. It had a lot of cool character moments and I was glad to see the gang working together again, but I do get this overwhelming sense of loss as we not only lose the Hub which housed the series for two years but also lose Cardiff, the city that provided a lot of the series' distinct charm.

Thanks.

Review: Torchwood 3.1: Day One

"...among those dark, Satanic mills."

Torchwood - Children of Earth, Day One
Written 26/4/13

The third series never properly materialised. Despite plans for Freema Agyemen and Noel Clarke to pop over from Doctor Who and fill out the cast, both actors had other commitments (More important than Torchwood? Bah) and the planned thirteen episodes were cut down to five. Torchwood had left Episode Avenue and gone straight to Serial Junction, with the new planned series playing out over five consecutive days in the middle of 2009's Who-less Summer.
     One morning, every child in the world stops for a solid minute. Jack and Ianto come back from attempting to stealth-recruit Dr. Rupesh Patanjali and discover the scale of the problem. In Whitehall, admin woman Lois Habiba starts her job as assistant to Bridget Spears, herself the assistant to civil servant John Frobisher. Around breaktime, all the children stop again and scream, following it with an ominous "We are coming". Frobisher is told by the techy Mr. Dekker that the 456 are coming back. Torchwood notices that the transmissions were focussed around Britain, being in English and scheduled for times when children are out in the open. Gwen meets an old man who is also being affected, who tells her that she's pregnant. Before they learn any further, Rupesh reveals his position as a spy, and Jack has a bomb placed in his chest by government agent Johnson (Liz May Brice, Bad Girls). Ianto and Gwen get out alive but the Hub is blown up and Torchwood is now on the run.
     The shift to BBC One came with a shift towards a more adult drama in terms of setting and the way that the show treated the titular organisation. Children of Earth immediately treats Torchwood like a real political entity that poses a threat in a governmental crisis rather than a merry band of outcasts hunting aliens across Cardiff. I don't really know whether I like the change or not - it's gone all explody and secret agenty. It feels a little more like Spooks now than it does the ballsy cult show it was before. I suppose I'm saying it's all gone a bit mainstream. Dear lord, didn't think I'd ever end up using that argument. But they did blow up my precious Hub, and I really can't forgive them for that.

Jack gets a serious case of indigestion.

     I appreciated the look into both Jack and Ianto's pasts - Jack's daughter Alice and his grandson Steven, Ianto's sister and her family. Jack's personal mythology is large enough and complex enough that it was often hard to get a good grasp on anyone he might call family, so I think that was well done, and Ianto's family are immediately fun due to comedienne Katy Wix in the role of his sister.
     Children of Earth certainly gets off to a strong start, with the changes both bad and good making themselves firmly known. There's enough left of the old style for it to feel fairly continuous, but it's quite clear that this is a very different beast to what we once called Torchwood. I had to really question whether I could do this week-long story in five bits, but so far it's looking pretty good.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: Day Two, naturally.

Review: Torchwood 2.13: Exit Wounds

Gray prepares to bury his brother over a petty jab spiralled
out of control.

Torchwood - Series Two, Episode Thirteen - Exit Wounds
Written 22/4/13

Watching Exit Wounds was quite a painful experience for me - not for the "omigosh this episode is so bad it's painful" kinda way but more of the "omigosh all mah feelz" kinda way. The episode represents the end of a lot of the things that I loved about the show - the death of Owen and Tosh, the final episode of a continuous 13 episode series and the final full episode to feature The Hub. While I think that the script handled a lot of this series' payoffs well, I have to wonder whether the execution of that script went as smoothly as it could have.
     The team return to the city, finding that Captain John has been causing havoc. A Hoix has appeared in a hospital, random doomsayers have appeared in an office building and there are rift spikes. As most of the team go to different locations, Jack arrives at the Hub to find John waiting, and holds him hostage as he sets off 15 explosive devices across the city. Taking him back in time via a rift spike, John explains that Jack's brother, Gray, was scarred by his experience and forced him to obey using a stitched-on explosive. Gray buries Jack in the ground in the Roman era, and then comes back, destabilising the local power plant and shooting Toshiko in the gut. Jack reawakens, having been saved and stored by Past!Torchwood, and knocks his brother out. But he's too late to save either Owen, who sacrifices himself to contain a nuclear meltdown, or Tosh, who dies in his arms.
     Gray, played by the elaborately named Lachlan Nieboer,  is a long-awaited character and the fact that he's the true villain is a decent enough twist, until the sheer extent of his supposed madness only seems to translate into a rather stilted performance. Gray is a whiny little idiot who killed my two favourite characters and I don't really think that they should have gone out in the way they did. Admittedly, I found both of their death scenes quite well done - Owen graciously accepting his slow radioactive decomposition while Tosh gracefully fell out of life before our eyes in a way which was intimate and heart-wrenching.

Four for you, Naoko Mori, for being an awesome actress
all the way to the final breaths.

     The episode's structure could have been a little more concentrated - this time last series we had a definite problem and then an even bigger one following it. This time it was more Joker-style chaos, Gray's retribution against his brother somehow including the endangerment of half a million people. The perils of the nuclear plant and Tosh's wound came up almost out of the blue, and I think that was done to make their deaths feel that much more tragic and painful. I guess it worked.
     Nowt much else to say about that, then. Exit Wounds was most certainly less gradiose than its predecessor, and instead focussed on our characters to deliver an experience which doesn't poke at our heartstrings but tears and rips at them violently like a wild animal. Owen and Tosh will be sorely missed as we leave our continuous series and, in a week's time, head on over to Children of Earth for even more pain. Fun times.

Thanks.

Review: Torchwood 2.12: Fragments

Amy Manson as one of Torchwood's many kinky bisexual
members in the Victorian Era.

Torchwood - Series Two, Episode Twelve - Fragments
Written 16/4/13

Fragments is a rather deliberately apt name for this penultimate episode of the series that follows the rather odd path of deciding to infodump us on our four non-Gwen characters. As opposed to one continuous story, the episode was seperated into four distinct flashback sequences, with a loose connector inbetween. An opportunity for fanservice of the most pure and concentrated kind, Fragments takes enough joy and intrigue in the series' own mythology to make an otherwise sedate episode worthwhile.
      Gwen oversleeps, and arrives at set co-ordinates to discover that the team have been caught up in an explosion in a set of old buildings. As each member is found, they relive how they joined Torchwood. Jack was recruited in the 1800s, working as an operative while waiting for the Doctor and eventually taking over that cell when his leader committed murder-suicide at the turn of the millenium. Tosh was hired as a way to pardon a life-sentence aquired by manufacturing alien tech for a terrorist cell who were holding her mother hostage. Ianto, fresh from the collapse of Torchwood One, begged Jack for a job and then earnt it by helping Jack catch the Pterodactyl. Owen was recruited when his fiancee was accidentally killed by an alien brain parasite. The explosions turn out to have been set by Captain John Hart, who has returned with Gray.
     I think that Torchwood is one of those shows where the backstory on its own doesn't fundamentally matter. Like Lost, you can easily watch the present story and the characters shine through on their own. Flashbacks are thus like seasonings, enhancing what's already there. Such is the task faced by anyone writing a predominantly flashback-based story in any medium, and I think that Chibnall actually pulls it off quite well.

Owen's doomed fianceé Katie.

    And that was probably because I really did enjoy seeing the characters' pasts. As a Lost fan, I'm pretty used to having an entire storyline set out in flashbacks, and the way that Chibnall handed this material was just as satisfying. I especially enjoyed Jack's segment, which filled in a few of the gaps in his own enormous personal mythology, as well as Owen's, which gave insight into how he came to be such an opportunist near the start of the series. I felt that Tosh's flashback was a little odd - UNIT don't really seem the type of organisation to hold people in gulag-style prison camps - but it had some nice character moments thrown in there to make up for it.
     This look back into Torchwood's mythology may have not meant a lot in the long run, but it was a fun hour that shone a light on most of our major characters. I'm rather sad that we're this close to the end of this run, really - I've been having a lot of fun looking back over my favourite series of the show, and it's for episodes like these that I can say that's true.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: Series Two ends with the return of John and Gray in Exit Wounds.

Review: Torchwood 2.11: Adrift

Jonah Bevan, having returned from the other side of the Rift.

Torchwood - Series Two, Episode Eleven - Adrift
Written between 13th and 14th April 2013

Chris Chibnall is quite possibly one of the most inconsistent writers that I've ever encountered. Not, of course, that this is an inherantly bad thing; while we may get abominations like Dinosaurs on a Spaceship over on the parent program, sometimes the dice fall in the right arrangement and we get a piece of television as heart-wrenchingly sad as Adrift, a Gwen-centric story that has me and the vast majority of viewers in tears by the end. And that's a good thing. Generally.
      Andy calls Gwen to tell her about a suspicious disappearance - 15-year-old Jonah Bevan has gone missing, seemingly in a flash of light, and Jack can be seen on CCTV that night. Jack skirts around the issue, leading Gwen and Tosh to launch an investigation. They find that Cardiff has a Missing Persons epidemic - and all of the disappearances match up with "negative rift spikes", showing that the Rift is taking people and scattering them through space and time. Following the trail, Gwen is led to Flatholme Island, where Jack fills her in on the fact that sometimes the people taken are brought back, but they are allways mad, aged and/or physically scarred. Undeterred, Gwen brings Jonah's mum Nikki (Ruth Jones) to see an aged Jonah. She tells Gwen to never do the same for anyone else, as seeing her son transformed in such a way has robbed her of her hope.
     The episode does what Torchwood does best - taking a supernatural phenomenon and transforming it into a more human issue. Chibnall doesn't give himself too much technobabble or mad aliens to work with, and the result is a story that is primed to blow on the tear ducts. Ruth Jones imbues Nikki Bevan with a simple normality that underscores her discoveries at the end of the episode, and the juxtaposed shots of Gwen filing away the investigation while Nikki throws away all of Jonah's old things is just god-damn heart-breaking. It was a central dilemma that had no easy answers, and that I think sums up what Torchwood should be about.

What was happening with Rhys this week?

     There was also some focus on the Gwen-Rhys relationship, but I really didn't like the way that was handled. Rhys felt a bit like an abusive husband, forbidding Gwen from talking about the problems she'd been having at work and shouting at her for even mentioning it, before eventually conceding when Gwen's just been to Heartbreak Hotel and breaks down in tears in front of a candle-lit supper. It's a characterisation that comes out of nowhere - both in the theme of the series, where Rhys ends up being pretty cool with the whole Torchwood thing and is pretty much onnipresent come Children of Earth and Miracle Day, and within the flow of the episode, where he begins in the morning saying how lucky he is to have her.
     Adrift is, if not my favourite episode of this series (which is A Day In The Death), certainly the best written. It's what Chibnall does best - human dilemmas, secrets, basic dramas that we can all relate to. I'm probably repeating myself by this point, but that's all there really is to say. Adrift managed to explore a side of Torchwood that we haven't seen before, not only evoking an emotional response but giving deveopment to Jack and Gwen in a thorough and fascinating way.

Thanks.

Review: Torchwood 2.10: From Out Of The Rain

Okay, I think you might be trying a little too hard to be creepy.

Torchwood - Series Two, Episode Ten - From Out Of The Rain
Written between 1st and 2nd April 2013

Fucking circuses, man. Clowns, harlequins, circus freaks. There is nothing funny about the Circus, and the history of freak shows and mistreatment of all sorts of peoples and animals doesn't exactly help their reputation. Only a week after the fun domestic runaround, we're given this creepy masterpiece, which manages the Moffattian feat of making you afraid of old glycerine film reels.
     Gwen, Ianto and Owen go down to the Electro, an old cinema that's been reopened for a couple of nights to show some old films. In a film that appears out of nowhere, there are images of the Circus, and Jack is a member - the man who cannot die. It turns out that the Ringmaster has escaped from the film, and is planning to use the souls of the living dead that he creates to bring others out of the film as well, to live on forever. Heading down to the Electro, Jack gets a modern film camera and films them all, exposing the film to kill them once and for all. The bottle containing the breaths of the people taken is nearly emptied, and the only person to survive is a little boy with a weird face (who'd later play Jackson Lake's son.)
     The two villains, the creepy Ghostmaker (Future Davros actor Julian Bleach) and the creepier Pearl (Camilla Power), have a wodnerful mixture of cheese and genuine disquiet, which only seems to amplify the effect. Their motivation is only to continue existing and performing, and like in a similar story from their parent show, the lengths they go to to do this are what make it work. That, and Julian Bleach's astoundingly weird voice, which is, I wager, why he was hired to be Davros in the first place.

Trailer-shot.

     The episode's atmosphere is arguably what makes it so memorable, though - not just the framing of most of the shots with a very dark emphasis in mind, but also in the haunting organ music that evokes both the vaudeville and the distinctly alien. Peter J Hammond's previous story, Small Worlds, is also heavy on this kind of atmsophere - except here it's a little more focussed.
     From Out Of The Rain is good. It maybe pushes the celluloid creatures idea a little into the realm of disbelief, but the sheer effective weirdness of the villains and the way that the episode's music and direction compliments them means that it becomes something of a petty concern. This is the sorta Torchwood story that gives little kids nightmares, and that's awesome.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: Chibnall shows that he can actually write, just not for Doctor Who. It's his best story, the haunting Adrift.

Review: Torchwood 2.9: Something Borrowed

Gwen's sudden pregnancy turns some heads.

Torchwood - Series Two, Episode Nine - Something Borrowed
Written 31/3/13

So, yeah. Those past three weeks were a bit heavy, and so this week we return to a fun Torchwood runaround that manages to fit in as many mother-in-law jokes as it does attacks by alien monsters. That consistant optimism and humour does make it rather rare for this series, but that's not something to be poo-pooed - in fact, it feels like just what we need.
      The night before her wedding, Gwen is out chasing a shape-changing alien called a Nostrovite. The alien bites her arm, and come the next morning she's full term pregnant with the alien's egg. Proceeding with the wedding regardless, Torchwood are forced to intervene when a second Nostrovite, the mother, arrives to come and rip the egg from Gwen's stomach. Despite some close shaves, Rhys is able to use the Singularity Scalpel to cure Gwen, Jack uses a big fucking gun to kill the Nostrovite and the two get married, with their families getting a huge dose of Retcon.
     The episode's biggest focus was on the love triangle between Gwen, Rhys and Jack, with Gwen and Jack's intensely passionate platonic relationship being referenced to many times. The whole Jack/Gwen ship was mainly teased at in the first season, before the writers obviously discovered the 2006 equivalent of Tumblr and began shipping them like mad. As much as I feel that rampant shipping for shipping's sake does not a captivating story make, I do like the dynamics of the triangle and I love the way that it's played.

Nostrovites and hilarious makeup.

     So yeah. Something Borrowed didn't really make much of an impact on me; it was a fairly standard runaround that felt a lot more Doctor Who than normal. That doesn't necessarily make it a bad episode, but for me at least it felt odd coming between last week's in-depth psychological analysis and next week's old fashioned creep-fest. I suppose it's good that we can have one last little island of levity before we advance onto the rest of the series, which is pretty much three and a bit episodes of depression, sadness and pain.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: A hopefully more in depth review of From Out Of The Rain

Review: Torchwood 2.8: A Day In The Death

Owen lets out his frustration at being unable to die.

Torchwood - Series Two, Episode Eight - A Day In The Death
Written 30/3/13

At some point in our lives, we all experience bouts of sadness. And some of us experience depression, whether clinical or otherwise. Whether it's grief at the loss of a loved one; guilt at one's own misdeeds; or simply a way of looking at the world that doesn't leave room for any hope - most of us know what it feels like. A Day In The Death is my favourite episode of Torchwood because it doesn't just feature some smashing character work for Owen Harper, but it provides what I feel is a comprehensive analysis of depression and provides a case for simply enjoying your life to its full potential.
     Owen meets a girl on a rooftop who is about to jump. Revealing to her his bullet wound, he goes on to explain through flashbacks what led him to that point. After the events of last week, Owen is decommissioned and put on coffee duty. He is frustrated at his lack of perception or feeling and he is bitter at the way the world is carrying on while he must stay static and unfeeling. He tries to drown himself, but he is unable to, and he tries to keep his mind off of his nature by going on a mission, bypassing heat-sensors and infiltrating the alien horde of dying billionaire Henry Parker (the late Richard Briers). The artefact he's looking for is an alien messaging device whose energies are keeping Parker alive, and upon its removal Owen is unable to give Parker the kiss of life. Owen summarises his speech to the girl on the roof by saying that despite that, there's always something worth living for - even if it is mundane.
     Owen's condition - feeling numb all over, having deep trauma on the inside despite working in normal conditions in the day to day - is a clear analogue for depression. The episode takes that up and uses the sci-fi to make it more fluid. We see Owen reject his day to day lifestyle (throwing away all of his food and drink, which he can no longer digest), become seperated from his friends and feel a mixture of complete numbness and intense outrage at the world. It's a chart of the journey into depression, as well as the slow and painful trek out of it.

Owen and Parker talk about death.

     Christine Bottomley's Maggie is perfectly balanced as the mouthy but fundamentally tragic suicidal woman, who is reeling from the aftermath of a wedding day car accident that rendered her a widow after an hour of marriage. She provided a human counterpoint; a way to work the viewer into the depressive mindset through a more identifiable tragedy. Richard Briers didn't get to do much as the dying Henry Parker, but his death and his life-long optimism about life on other worlds helped underlined the episode's messages about how your attitudes towards living your life affect your overall mood. Parker was happy because he did what he enjoyed, because he found that one spark of hope to keep him going.
     I'm probably reading too much into what is a fairly simple episode of a cult television show. But A Day In The Death is just perfectly written, and sees the end of the Martha Trilogy in a style that's instantly memorable and is, in many ways, moving. A Day In The Death may not provide a perfect metaphor for the deep psychological effects of depression, but does a damn good job of approximating it to a point where it's pretty difficult to tell the difference.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: We learn for the first time that if you live in the Who Universe and you're marrying a man named Williams, you'll never change your surname. It's Something Borrowed.

Review: Torchwood 2.7: Dead Man Walking

Death speaks through a resurrected Owen.

Torchwood - Series Two, Episode Seven - Dead Man Walking
Written between 23rd and 24th March 2013

I don't quite know how to explain to you just how awesome this week's episode is. It's not my favourite episode - that's next week, but it's for many of the same reasons. Dead Man Walking manages to both bring back Owen, but also gives us an epic villain and an equally epic climax, which ranks up there as one of my favourite television moments. Even before that, the establishment of Owen's partial death is a fascinating plotline that will continue to have interesting ramifications for the remainder of his time on the show.
     Jack halts Owen's autopsy and heads to an old church to grab the second of the two Resurrection gauntlets - last seen in Everything Changes and They Keep Killing Suzie - and then uses it to bring him back to life. For some reason, the effect is permanent - Owen, despite having no heartbeat, breath, bloodflow or unconscious reflexes, is fully alive. An energy monitor shows that something is growing and changing his body- not visibly, but Owen mentions that he can feel something approaching out of the darkness of death. That turns out to be Duroc, a being who lives beyond the veils and requires 13 victims to remain on Earth forever. Owen stops him from taking his last victim, a Leukaemia patient, by having a fist-fight and winning.
     The mythology built up around the episode is dark, foreboding and fun, and like when Doctor Who covered Satan, there's enough awesome biblical shit to make it feel worthwhile. I will say that Duroc isn't exactly scary - I would have preferred if the CGI skeleton was just hinted at rather than being obvious, as it ends up looking like a Doom villain. But the final showdown, despite how much it's cheesed up, what with the Littlest Cancer Patient and the inspiration speech to keep on fighting through the chemo, is still just completely epic on all scales. I don't really think that you can have a fist-fight with the Grim Reaper and not make it awesome, but still.

Owen catches Death's lunge. Aww, yeah!

     Of course, it would usually be a tendency of this blog to point out some of the episode's weirder breaks in logic, especially regarding Owen's ability to talk without any breath and the fact that his body doesn't seem to be rotting away even when his cells aren't getting any oxygen. But I think that, despite my track record of being incredibly anal in this department (oo er), the episode is just too good for me to start nitpicking. Dead Man Walking is a brilliant mid-season story and it's only gonna get better from here.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: My favourite episode, A Day In The Death.

Review: Torchwood 2.6: Reset

Martha joins the team as Owen practices
with the Singularity Scalpel.

Torchwood - Series Two, Episode Six - Reset
Written between 21st and 23rd March 2013

And thus begins four more weeks of Martha-based gushing here at Nostalgia Filter, as I manage to expertly line up Martha's reappearances in both Torchwood and in the main show. And although this trilogy of Torchwood stories is centred more on Owen, this first part is most definitely an attempt to put Martha's character to work in a much more gritty environment. Well, I say gritty. There are time in Reset when I feel like I've switched over to CSI Miami, where the plot is incredibly condensed exposition for a good half-hour and characters who'd usually be making jokes every five seconds are talking seriously about issues that are resolved five seconds later.
     Martha arrives on the scene on Jack's request, to help investigate a string of deaths in South Wales all related to a hypodermic syringe to the eye. The deaths are part of a conspiracy, that the team discover through a survivor is linked to a drug called Reset, which seems to remove all pathogens and mutations from the body. The distributor, the Pharm, has been killing the research students because of the unfortunate side effect of the drug - it causes alien larvae to grow inside the person, killing them. Martha elects herself to sneak into the Pharm with the brand-new (but later to be re-used in Children of Earth and Miracle Day) contact lens cameras, but she's caught by institute leader Aaron Copley (Alan Dale, or as I call him, Charles Widmore) who uses her as an advanced test subject due to her time-travel enhanced immune system. The gang rush in and shut down the facility, as well as saving Martha's life using some alien tech, but as the alien subjects are euthanised Copley arrives and kills Owen with a shot to the heart.
     The first half of the episode is very condensed, bearing much more resemblance to later series' and their affinity for spy dramas like Spooks and 24. There's a particular scene in a corridor where Gwen and Martha are talking completely seriously in almost complete exposition, and it feels completely unnatural to hear. That isn't to say that the concepts themselves are bad - the entire concept behind Reset freaked the shit out of me when I first saw it, and the line between the Pharm's unregulated scientific exploration and Jack's compassionate protectionism is nicely stroked. But it just didn't feel like Torchwood in the way that it was written.

Owen removes an adolescent Mayfly.

     I did however love the episode's relationships, all of which were written in a very captivating way. I wouldn't say that Martha fits perfectly into the team, but she does bounce off of the others with a great deal of competancy. Jack is the fun big brother, Gwen is the girly best mate, and Owen is a flirty colleague with whom she has a great deal of chemistry. Elsewhere, and for the sheer bittersweetness of it all, Owen agrees to go on a date with Tosh just before he goes off and dies. Owen and Tosh's relationship is very subtle; while he often seems ignorant to her pining (especially in the first series), there are often signs that he either reciprocates those feelings (as in Adam) or is at least is willing to try.
     Owen's death leads us into a series of episodes that both tug on the heartstrings and feature some outstanding acting, writing and direction. The first part of what may informally be called the "Martha Trilogy" did have a rampant pace and a lot of great ideas, but a lot of the time it seemed to forget that it was Torchwood and not some flashy spy drama on Sky One. Despite that, it's still fun and it's a good start to the mid-season arc.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: Gloves come in pairs. How will Owen react when he becomes a Dead Man Walking?

Review: Torchwood 2.5: Adam

Remember?

Torchwood - Series Two, Episode Five - Adam
Written 18/3/13

Ah, another adventure for the intrepid Torchwood crew. Handsome Jack, caring Gwen, sexy and confident Tosh, shy and nerdy Owen, dark and troubled Ianto and, that old favourite, Adam. And if you're thinking something's wrong with this picture, then you're cleverer than I am at writing article openers. Through what is a remarkably simple premise, the writers use this episode as a fun attempt at alternate character interpretation, as well as allowing us a pile of exposition for everyone involved - especially for Jack, helping to explain John Hart's final words to us back in the series premiere.
     Gwen returns home from a weekend in Paris with Rhys and finds a new guy, Adam (Bryan Dick, Being Human, Eric and Ernie), fully integrated into the team. A touch of the shoulder reveals that Adam can create false memories of himself, and he appears to have sculpted the crew around that. Gwen's encounter means she forgets Rhys, to his dismay. Owen and Tosh's roles have reversed, with Owen now an awkward nerd with a crush on sexy and confident Tosh, whom Adam has brainwashed into being his lover. When Ianto discovers that Adam doesn't appear in the record, he makes him think that he's a murderer. Despite Adam's mind-meddling having allowed him to remember his father and little brother Gray, he soon discovers Adam's true nature and gives the team amnesia pills in order to kill him.
     It's probably just my own double-standard, but the crush from Owen's end seems a damn sight more creepy than when it's the other way around. I loved seeing the alterations in the characters, and I think the actors relished the chance to play their characters in such differing ways. For me, it was a very clear demonstration of the sheer talent of Naoko Mori and Burn Gorman, who blend between those characterisations in a way which makes it clear that despite their personality changes, these are fundamentally the same people. I also loved the look into Jack's past, with some awesomely shot desert sets representing Jack's homeworld. Despite being a character with a long and varied history, this is the first and only time that we really get to see Jack's origins in any detail, and the desperation with which Barrowman delivers his pleas to remember his brother and father are heartbreaking. It's the kind of meaty drama that he gets a lot of in this series, and I'm glad for it because they're some of his best moments.

Adam corrupts Jack's last good memory of his father.

     The titular villain is one I find a fascinating character. Character actor Bryan Dick delivers a wonderful performance which sways between confident people person and dark, sinister monster with a desperate streak a mile long. The way he brainwashes Tosh is tantamount to sexual assault, and that's the first in a series of dark and desperate actions that make Adam's villainy some of the most personal and vicious that I've seen in Torchwood. His dickery is such that although he gives the excuse that he needs people's memories to survive, he seems to just enjoy hurting too much for that excuse to have any leverage.
     Adam is one of the series' classic episodes, showcasing the ability of the actors and writers in a way which is both entertaining and profound. For once, keeping the sci-fi to a minimum and focussing exclusively on character allowed a lot of the cast to really shine, and it was really fun to see our characters working on so many different levels. And I'm repeating myself now, so I'll finish it there. Adam is really good, and if you haven't seen it already, go watch it.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: I get yet another three weeks of gushing about Martha Jones, as well as getting to review three of the best Torchwood episodes ever made. Looking forward to it... it's Reset.

Review: Torchwood 2.4: Meat

Rhys finds out the truth.

Torchwood - Series Two, Episode Four - Meat
Written 16/3/13

I'm not quite sure where the meat of this episode lies. (My only pun, I promise.) On the one hand, we have a very well-executed main plot that sees long-suffering boyfriend-cum-fianceé Rhys Williams (Kai Owen) upped into a main(ish) character. On the other, we have a literal Space Whale Aesop whose intentions I'm not quite sure of. Something to do with vegetarianism. The problem with vegetarian messages in sci-fi is not so much the content, which I sympathise if not fully empathise with, is rather their sheer frequency.
     Rhys owns a lorry firm, and is called when one of the trucks gets involved in a road accident. He arrives at the scene to find Torchwood investigating, and is shocked to see Gwen there. The team find alien meat, and knowing the company's origin, Jack immediately suspects Rhys. The welshman acts on his suspicions and sets up a racket with the company supplying the meat. That night he and Gwen have it out, with Gwen bringing him to Torchwood to prove to him that she does in fact catch aliens. Using Rhys's racket, they go in to the warehouse and find a massive, regenerating whale. After a gunfight, Owen is forced to euthanise the whale before it grows out of control. When Jack wants Gwen to follow protocol and retcon him, she refuses and, after realising he loves her too much to fire her, he lets it slide.
     Kai Owen has played an often unappreciated role in the series, and following a homologous progression with its parent show, he's very much been the Mickey Smith. There are times in the series where he can be a bit of a prat, but after Gwen's standard transformation from audience identification figure to One Of Them, we sorta need Rhys to be the everyman. His interactions with Gwen, and the weirdly introductory episode it creates, are nice to watch in a heart-warming way, and that's purely because Owen makes Rhys feel like such a normal person.

Everyone's having a whale of a time.
(Sorry, I know I promised, but I couldn't help myself.)

     The moral message of the episode is either, "Be careful to make sure that your sources of income are legal and ethical" or "Don't kidnap an alien and use it for meat." The setup of the caring Jack who wants to save the whale whether it's sentient or not versus the evil criminals who see the whale as just "meat" and an opportunity to start a profitable business. I will admit that it's not a topic I'm overly concerned about, but regardless I felt that it wasn't either weak enough to let us ignore it or strong enough to make us thing... it sorta just hung there without anything to give it a kick up the backside.
     Despite the aimless nature of its moral message, the episode's character moments for both Gwen and Rhys pulled it into a much more interesting shape. I'm still not sure about the Space Whale, and the use of second-rate CGI doesn't exactly help, but the episode had its heart in the right place, and as a way to introduce Rhys into the world of Torchwood it was suitably low-risk. Rhys will continue to be an important character, especially in the last two series, and this was where that influence started.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: Something is wrong, and even the title sequence has been fooled... but what does it have to do with Adam?

Review: Torchwood 2.3: To The Last Man

Tosh and Tommy bridge the gap between times.

Torchwood - Series Two, Episode Three - To The Last Man
Written between 14th and 15th February

After writing the third episode of the first series about time-travel related ghosts, Helen Raynor brings us this third episode which focuses on a theme of time-travel related ghosts. I kid, I kid. To The Last Man brings a remarkable amount of depth along with that plotline, and manages to bring us a focus on Tosh that is both fun and more tragic than a box full of puppies sailing over a waterfall.
     In 1918, two Torchwood employees are told by an apparition of Tosh and a solider named Tommy Brockless that they need to take his past self and stick him in Torchwood's freezer. Fastforward to the present day, and it's Tommy's yearly wake-up, and the hospital where the apparition appeared has begun to see the appearance of ghosts from 1918. While Tommy and Toshiko go on a date, both faving feelings for the other, Jack reveals that it's time for Tommy to return to 1918 to save time, even if it means that Tosh must send him to his death.
     My favourite part of the episode was the central romance between Tosh and Tommy, which is treated in a way that only Torchwood can. She seeks solace in him because of his old-fashioned values and the fact that she doesn't have to put up a front in his presence, wheras he sees the pretty girl that wakes him up and looks after him every day. There's also some nice reinforcement of Tosh and Owen's relationship, as he seems genuinely concerned that she will get hurt when she has to send Tommy back.

Amnesiac Tommy is confuzzled.

     The episode's concept itself was very well executed, making use of time travel in a way that Torchwood doesn't often get to. Tommy's perception of the majority of the 20th Century as the space of a few months allows for some interesting perspectives, especially when he laments the beginning of the Second World War "three weeks" after the First. The way that the time-travel element is used to push tragedy into the storyline can seem a little forced in places, but the overall effect is a great one and you do feel sorry for Tommy upon his return.
     To The Last Man, despite being deriviative of Helen Raynor's last script for the show, is an excellent one-off love story for Tosh that manages to combine an awesome set of sci-fi ideas with a tragedy that has a hell of a lot of punch. It's been rather odd to see how much of this series so far has relied a hell of a lot on shipping to make certain ideas hit home, but that's probably just me reading into things. Like usual.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: We introduce Rhys to the alien world in Meat.
P.S. Be careful when image searching for "To The Last Man" with the SafeSearch off if you're of a squeamish disposition about certain acts of male intimacy...

Review: Torchwood 2.2: Sleeper

Beth (Nikki Amura-Bird) has no idea what she is...

Torchwood - Series Two, Episode Two - Sleeper
Written between 9th and 10th March 2013

How often have you heard the question, "What does it mean to be human?" It's a typical sci-fi staple, really, something that you're bound to find anywhere you look. Hell, it's so ubiquitous in fiction that we have a series that is literally about Being Human. (I'm still mourning, go away.) This week, Torchwood takes a standard murder mystery plot and gives it a shake-up with another well-acted guest star and a set of moral dilemmas about the nature of humanity enough to satisfy any English Literature student.
     The team are called to a burglary where the two burglars have been stabbed brutally despite there being no knives in the room at the time. The second burglar dies with his deathbed words speaking of being afraid of the woman in the house, Beth (Nikki Amura-Bird, before Survivors), who Jack immediately brings into the Hub. Despite having her own electromagnetic field and inpenetrable skin, Beth is adamant that she is human. A mind-probe reveals that she is the first of a set of alien sleeper agents, implanted with false memories to blend in but constantly absorbing information in preparation for invasion. Beth gains enough control over her alien tech to help Torchwood stop a small invasion attempt, but she sets up a situation that forces Torchwood to kill her, prefering that death than losing her mind to her true self.
     Beth, for what could have been an undersaturated guest character, is surprisingly well characterised. The themes surrounding her loss of identity and the threat she poses to those around her is explored without her ever becoming anything less than a convincing human being. Her "death by Torchwood" demise is also pretty deep, and manages to bring an adult side to the series that doesn't rely on its old adolescent machismo. It's hard to see what we would do in that situation, and the show does its best here to represent that in a captivating way.

Having a sword-arm all the time can't be good for balance.
Or dexterity. It's why we tend to not have sword-arms.

     This week also managed to fit in a few pieces of horror in there as well, with some of the other re-awakened agents. Two of them effectively become suicide bombers, including one who was pretending to be a young mum, while the superior agent brutally murders a man in cold blood in front of his family before attempting to use nukes the blow up the world. (Although what any alien besides the Slitheen would want with a chunk of radioactive rock is beyond me.) On their own, the alien sleepers, with their in-build forcefield (I gotta get me one of those) are a really cool idea, and one that's properly executed.
     Sleeper always gets a tad faded over in my memory of the series, and that may be because it wasn't as immediately memorable as the two stories flanking it. But as a piece of science fiction it's a fairly well-execution exploration of the "what does it mean to be human" question, with some classic horror and a few very quotable lines thrown in. Torchwood has pretty much fully thrown off all predeliction towards its prior silliness, and it's operating as a piece of sci-fi for a mature audience. And that's awesome.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: I debate (jnternally) on whether I ship Tosh/Owen or Tosh/Tommy more... it's To The Last Man.

Review: Torchwood 2.1: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

It's Thursday. Or "Torchwood Time", as I'm tempted to call it. (I probably won't, it's a bit crap.) Having moaned a lot through live reviews of Miracle Day and gone back and complained (and gushed) about the first series, I'm going to fill in the gaps on my Torchwood reviews. Not really a problem for me, though. These are the best two seasons of one of my favourite shows.

The "you, you, not you," scene is one of my favourite
Character Establishing Moments in TV.

Torchwood - Series Two, Episode One - Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
Written between 5th and 7th March 2013

January 2008. A year gap since the last series, although with a lovely series of Doctor Who (that I'm coming to the end of reviewing at the moment) plopped in the middle. To say I was hyped wasn't really the word. After having a bit of adolescent Rose-rage after Series Three, I was probably more excited about the new series of Torchwood than I was about the uncertainly of having Catherine Tate as a new companion. I wasn't disappointed; Series Two is my favourite series of the show and its premiere more than sets it off on that path.
     A month or so after Jack disappeared in End of Days (and had all the adventures with The Doctor that I'll describe in my Who reviews next week), he reappears. Despite the team's curiosity about his absence, they are distracted by the arrival of handsome Time Agent John Hart (Buffy's James Marsters). Hart is a former lover and colleague of Jack's who claims to be looking for some dangerous artifacts that have fallen through the Rift. While searching, Hart sets up traps for the team and kills Jack on the roof, but Ianto saves Gwen, Owen and Tosh in time to catch Hart in the act. When Hart's treasure turns out to be booby trapped, Owen is forced to help him to remove the bomb, which is thrown into the Rift. Hart is sent off on his merry way, but not before giving Jack a mysterious message about someone called Gray.
     The episode's plot is fairly by-the-by, but it's carried by the phenomenal performance by James Marsters, who is probably my favourite Torchwood guest star by a long shot. Captain John Hart takes all of the personality traits we love in Jack and then puts them into a villain, allowing them a lot more free reign. But it doesn't end up boiling down to the stereotypes that Jack's character can often fall into, as John is given some decent characterisation - he's not just greedy and nihilistic, but he's bitter that his lover has rejected him for what he considers a humdrum life. I love every second that he's on screen, it's amazing.

Let the shipping commence! (Or continue...)

     And, rather nicely, the characterisations get spread out a bit more this series - the effect is rather immediate. The writers seem to be shipping Jack/Gwen fulltime now, while simultaneously shipping Gwen/Rhys just to torture the fanbase. To make up for that, the relationship between Ianto and Jack, hinted at in the first series, becomes a tad more open and explicit. I liked that the series touched upon Jack's motivations for coming back to Torchwood after meeting Ten, which could have been easily ignored otherwise. It's little details like that in the episode that I do rather like.
     Torchwood's return was handled spectacularly, managing to mix in a variety of quiet character moments with a decently tense plot and guest character that lights up the screen with his every appearance. It wasn't a masterpiece of the order that later episodes in this series would produce, but it was immediately fun and managed to avoid a lot of the mistakes of the first series while still maintaining that fun promiscuous spirit that made the series enjoyable.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: Nikki-Amura Bird is a frightened alien in Sleeper.

Review: Torchwood 4.10: The Blood Line (Finale)

I do find it incredibly ironic that the last episode of this really quite dreadful series is the one I most enjoyed. And that didn't just stem from the fact that I wouldn't be tuning in to disappointment each week - The Blood Line was a marked improvement on the past few weeks and one of the first episodes of the series to actually excite me while watching it. Yeah, there's still a lot of issues to cover, but the episode itself tied up everything nicely (apart from the odd sequal hook) and actually left me positive about the show's future. Every time Miracle Day took me to the lowest low, it always picked me back up again in small ways.

     One of the episode's greatest benefits was that stuff actually happened to further the plot; a given for any other show but a pleasant surprise here. The team focussed in on the Blessing with CIA help; Gwen, Jack and a weirdly-associated Oswald visited the Shanghai opening while the CIA helped Rex and Esther in Buenos Aires. There are some quick explanations; The Blessing controls the average life expectancy of the world, and the Families have been "feeding" it to cause the miracle. After the CIA team in Buenos Aires (carrying a whole suitcase of Jack's blood) are blown up because of Families spy Charlotte Willis, she begins to trace them and thus she is forced to kill John de Lancie and crew. At either end of the Blessing, the Families spokespeople explain to the teams what's been going on.
     The Miracle was caused when they fed the Blessing Jack's blood at both end. The Blessing recognised Jack's lifespan of forever and decided to help the Human Race by copy-and-pasting the results. The Families hoped to control the world after crashing the banks, the governments and the systems standing in their way. Jack threatens to give his blood to the Blessing but the spokesperson explains that it won't work because it has to be entered on both sides; Rex then reveals that he had Esther transfuse him with Jack's blood beforehand. Despite Esther being shot and Gwen's father about to be incinerated, they both give their blood and luckily both survive the ordeal. Months afterwards, at Esther's funeral, the team kill Charlotte Lewis, but not before she inadvertantly reveals that Rex is now immortal.
     And now I'm really stumped. Because I don't know what to write. I mean, Miracle Day hasn't been easy to watch, but it's been really easy to review. There's so much to complain about, so much to moan about, so little good to praise. Now I'm faced with an episode that I actually really enjoyed, and I have to go back to square one.

  Of course, this is still Miracle Day and thus there's a lot to nit-pick. One of the most controvertial in fan circles has been the Rex + Blood = Immortality thing, especially when we know why Jack is immortal and it has nothing to do with his blood. While they're getting themselves in a tizzy, I find myself really not caring - it adds a new dynamic to things and it doesn't stand out as much as some of the series' other discreapancies. Despite how spherical or not spherical the earth may be, there cannot be a creature that runs through the centre of the Earth in an exact straight line. One of the things that I did get irritated by was the lack of explanation about the Miracle beyond its mechanisms; they were clearly going for a, "terrestial enemy" story but it doesn't make sense when it's never been seen before or since despite how important they claim it to be.
      Miracle Day ended on what by their standards could be called a high, but I'm still emotionally detatched from the characters and plot. There are murmurs that a Series Five is in the pipeline, to be released as soon as January 2012. I'm not excited about that in the slightest, because I feel that Miracle Day will leave its own legacy. A legacy comprised of terrible scriptwriting, shoddy research and pacing that snails look upon with contempt, but a legacy nonetheless. Now I say goodbye to Miracle Day, and like the creepy stranger in a back-alley I will never meet it again.

Thanks.

Review: Torchwood 4.9: The Gathering

Bloody Oswald meets bloody Torchwood.

It's become somewhat of a cliche for me to even discuss how tired I am with Torchwood's fourth series. And, while the penultimate episode in this yawningly outstretched tale attempted to give us some answers, it only threw up more questions. Where it wasn't failing to move the plot along, it was being irritating inaccurate in some of its claims or simply wasting time on events that would later be rendered pointless. As the penultimate episode of not only this series but also maybe of Torchwood itself, it still clung close to the problems endemic in this painfully long series.
     Set two months after the previous episode (thus trespassing into Moffat's territory}, things have very much changed. While Rex leads his CIA in investigating the Miracle, Gwen has smuggled Jack and Esther into the UK and is acting as a drugs-runner while protecting her dad. A government official (named Finch, funnily enough} arrives to search the house as they're looking for her father, who they claim is an unauthorised Category One. Luckily he doesn't find her father and leaves. This raises some important questions. Like, for example, why the fuck is the government looking for Category Ones? Finch later calls her father a corpse; that just makes it worse! What reason is there to hunt for corpses - Gwen's dad isn't carrying an infectious disease, he's just had a few too many heart attacks and thus from where I'm standing is doing nothing to harm society. Also, Finch is a dick. Just thought I'd mention. At least for the first time this series the main characters aren't the ones irritating me.
     Oswald Danes then appears at the house, asking for Gwen's help. For the first time he's written semi-competantly, becoming (according to the sketchy sources at TARDIS anyway,} "redeemed." He asks for Jack and Esther because he has information, and when they're brought in he reveals that he used his skills with computers to hack into Jilly's account after she left, finding something call the Bosco technique. Esther explains that it's a subtle manipulation of language to influence public opinion on a subject. Using Rex's connections in the CIA they translate one of the videos she used back into the original dialect and back again, finding that "The Blessing" is in Shanghai, at the same time finding it in Buenos Aires. Then Finch raids again and takes Gwen's Dad after making some more dickish comments. Gwen shrugs it off. Oh well.

The team do stuff. It made little sense.

     As Jilly goes through a series of elusive people on her way to see the Blessing in Shanghai, the team work out that Shanghai and Buenos Aires are antipodes of one another (they're not - really} and that the Blessing, whatever it is, runs through the whole planet. Conveniently, half of them hop onto a plane to Shanghai (four people in a fucking crate, no less} and the other half to South America.
      Now we get to The Blessing. This is the most important moment of the entire series, and despite this only appearing very recently, it's something we've been waiting for for a while. This has to be interesting, clear and interesting beyond belief. Is it? Well... I don't know how to put this. It looks like a giant asshole in the ground. Literally. Apparently it runs all the way down the planet. And do we get any explanation besides cryptic riddles? No. We get fuck all. And then Jack's blood becomes alive, and I gave up.
      Yep, that's right. After weeks and weeks of perseverance, I gave up on trying to like Torchwood. I really want to be positive about the show but this episode really felt like a spit in the face because of the gaping void in what the show could have been and what it is. This penultimate episode should have been an exciting eye opener, but instead we got more riddles and more questions that don't leave me hoping for a good resolution. Worst of all are the smug little add-ons by the writers that seem so pleased with these damaged goods. Russell T Davies voices an announcer at the beginning of the episode for no reason other than to create a, "where have I heard that voice," moment. It was pointless.
      And that, unfortunately, is how I feel about this series in general. All I can do is hope for a resolution that doesn't disappoint me as much as the rest of the series has. The Gathering, the episode that promised us so much, instead brought us the pale imitation of what could have been, the real thing seemingly dangling so close and yet so far. The inconsistencies, inaccuracies and absurdities were all still there and there was truly no reprive from this series' problems.
      Join me this time next week, as this series comes to an end. Pray that it's a good one.

What. The. Fuck. Is. That.

Thanks.

P.S. John de Lancie was very good in this. But he's really good in everything.

P.P.S. I was going to put this series under the "Bad Sci-Fi" tag that I reserve for just that, but I don't really classify it as Sci-Fi anymore. It's more political fantasy.