Big Finish have brought the entire original Torchwood team back together and hopefully it'll be set during the half decent second series rather than the mostly rubbish first or be better than both as is customary with audio Torchwood:
“It’s been ten years since there's been an adventure featuring Jack, Gwen, Ianto, Tosh and Owen,” says writer Guy Adams, “and coming up with something big enough – and complex enough – to need them was great fun. After all, taking down an entire religion isn’t easy. But if anyone can do it…” [Big Finish]
Showing posts with label Torchwood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Torchwood. Show all posts
WHO 50: 2006:
Everything Changes.
TV It’s 3:45 in the afternoon on October 18th 2006 and I’m clock watching.
I need to be in Manchester, by 6:15 and I can't be late.
I'm in Liverpool.
Work, which isn't exactly in the centre of town, ends and I dash out onto the road and start walking.
A taxi comes.
And we get stuck in traffic on Renshaw Street.
I'm clock watching.
A train is leaving in five minutes.
Get to Lime Street Station and make the rookie mistake of paying for my taxi with a ten pound note.
Wait seemingly ages for driver to find change.
Dash across the concourse.
The train is still there.
Reach the ticket booth.
Order the ticket.
The card machine splutters through the pin acceptance.
Get ticket.
Run through ticket checkers, just as the conductor blows his whistle.
I roar, out loud, for the first time in my life.
Stroll back onto the concourse.
New plan, new train, in five minutes.
Buy pasta meal deal to tide me over.
Dash through and get on train.
Driver tells me it'll be at Manchester Oxford Road for 5:33.
Plenty of time to dash across town.
Eat dinner as we pass through Warrington Central.
Then at 5:26 the train stalls.
We sit in the carriage, all glancing at each other.
A girl reading a book smiles at me.
Then she smiles at everyone else and I realise I'm not being singled out.
5:30.
The driver announces that a train in front of us has broken down and he's waiting for instructions for them to push it into the station.
Collective groan.
5:45.
I'm getting worried.
5:47.
Train moves again.
5:54.
Stop.
5:55.
Start.
5:59.
In the station.
Run across the bridge between platforms, dash out of the station and the free bus I was expecting that would have taken me to the station near the cinema is missing.
Or not there.
Dash out onto Oxford Road, and jump into a taxi, amid the rain.
Give my destination, and I'm travelling again.
Stuck in traffic.
I'm watch watching.
It's 6:10.
I'm there.
The Filmworks.
It starts at 6:15.
I dash through the foyer and stop someone to ask them where I need to go.
He tells me.
I dash up the escalator, through three floors.
Notice someone else going in the same direction to the same place.
After some tooing and frowing with security ('Half of the names aren't on my list and I'm just a temp', she says) I dash through into the place where I'm doing the thing.
I sit at the front.
I'm inevitable chatting with the person sitting next to me.
I'm about to describe how I got here, because I can't believe what I went through to get here, and I ask them how they got here, expecting a bus, perhaps some walking.
'Coventry', they say simply.
Always remember that someone else has probably had a greater trial in life than you.
Lights down. Audience hush.
Then Everything Changes.
Not that I was ready for it.
Dillon Casey on Torchwood's Miracle Day.
TV Dillon Casey played Brad, Captain Jack's one night stand, in Dead of Night, episode three of Miracle Day:
"When Dillon Casey landed his first role in the BBC science fiction series Torchwood, he had no idea what he was getting into. Mostly because he hadn’t read the script.The rest of the interview is here.
“They kept asking me if I would be OK being intimate with another guy,” said Casey.
That other guy turned out to be star John Barrowman.
But Casey knew what he had to do.
“I had to out-gay John Barrowman,” Casey said of his gay co-star, whose Torchwood character is bisexual. “I was biting his earlobes. . . . I went for it.”
Chris Chibnall on Torchwood's Miracle Day.
TV Chris Chibnall has an interview for Starburst during which he's remarkably self aware about Torchwood's numerous problems, and it's entirely possible to infer from what he's saying that it's coincidental that Children of Earth was its finest hour because he had nothing to do with it. He has this to say on the subject of Miracle Day:
After the five episodes of proper drama that was Children of Earth, Miracle Day, thanks to, if you listen to the dvd commentaries, innumerable production problems and a loss of nerve, returned to many of the same problems as the first series, with incoherent characterisation, weird plotting and not enough exposition. It's true that Miracle Day felt more like Torchwood once it was back in Wales. But putting Torchwood in California wasn't the problem. Making Torchwood badly was the problem.
[Incidentally, that link via The Mary Sue, where the comments are a pretty good indication as to why Davies advised Chibnall never to read the internet. Which is good advise. Except that when working in a vacuum, it's also impossible to know how your work is being received. If the reaction is overwhelmingly negative, which it pretty much was after the very first episode, you're unlikely to know if you're on the right track. The trick is not to actively do exactly what the audience is suggesting.]
"I did a bit of very early storylining with Russell on Miracle Day, right at the start, before they pitched it to Fox, before they pitched it to Starz. I think somewhere along the way it sort of lost a little bit of its Torchwood-ness. Whether you like or dislike Torchwood, it has an essence – of madness and cheekiness and sexiness, and fun and darkness, those sort of polar facets of what it’s about, of putting those things together – and somehow it lost a bit of that somewhere in the process. when we were first talking about it, it was something a bit bolder, a bit cheekier. it may just come back to the fact that one of the great essences of Torchwood was taking those American tropes and doing them in Wales. And in a way, that’s what made Torchwood so brilliantly odd. Once you put it in California, it becomes more like other shows."The main problem with Torchwood, throughout, was its wilful ignorance of the nuts and bolts of producing a coherent piece of entertainment television. Chibnall says the brief was to "go and do something that isn’t like anything else" which is fine and they certainly did, but at the same time, as I noted in this analysis written during the first series, it has at least to be coherently structured and watchable in the traditional sense, all of which Torchwood largely failed at, unless you're being deliberately obtuse and avant-guard, which it wasn't.
After the five episodes of proper drama that was Children of Earth, Miracle Day, thanks to, if you listen to the dvd commentaries, innumerable production problems and a loss of nerve, returned to many of the same problems as the first series, with incoherent characterisation, weird plotting and not enough exposition. It's true that Miracle Day felt more like Torchwood once it was back in Wales. But putting Torchwood in California wasn't the problem. Making Torchwood badly was the problem.
[Incidentally, that link via The Mary Sue, where the comments are a pretty good indication as to why Davies advised Chibnall never to read the internet. Which is good advise. Except that when working in a vacuum, it's also impossible to know how your work is being received. If the reaction is overwhelmingly negative, which it pretty much was after the very first episode, you're unlikely to know if you're on the right track. The trick is not to actively do exactly what the audience is suggesting.]
Mark Morris’s Mr Invincible
In other words, Morris’s vision for new Torchwood, is essentially old Torchwood with less bodies on the ground and somehow like old Torchwood, Mr Invincible rubbed me up the wrong way. Partly it’s the rather obvious double meaning in the title – there are two invincible men walking around South Wales, but also the over-familiarity of the material, Morris even referencing the Roman Centurion from Season One’s End of Days. Not his fault but AudioGo’s Who range has featured plenty of time anomaly related stories now and for its certainly breeding some contempt, especially when the material isn’t quite up to scratch.
Sadly for Morris, AudioGo have also recently investigated the superhero genre, and better in the Starfall episode of Paul Magrs’s Starfall and I’m not convinced the more adult approach required by Torchwood really benefits it. Morris attempts to make Chapman a more normal bloke; he’s not especially noble, he’s generally doing it for the publicity (cf, Spiderman early in his origin story) but that also makes him difficult to like. Certainly Morris seems to enjoy writing the Cardiff residents Chapman encounters more, and the highlights of the audio, as is so often the case with Torchwood, is in “seeing” how they interact with the fantasy elements.
But I suppose the biggest disappointment is in the characterisation. Jack rarely sounds like Jack and that’s not helped by the fact that Jack does rarely sound like Jack because Tom Price has refused to even attempt a Barrowman impression, reading the whole thing in his own accent making the Captain sound more like Philip Madoc in A Mind To Kill than the Glaswegian-American figure that should stand out against the Welsh audio landscape. As with Morris’s Darkstar Academy in which coincidentally Alexander Armstrong backed out on attempting Karen Gillan, it means we rarely get a fix on the character that’s supposed to be a protagonist.
Which is a disappointing end to what’s been an otherwise entertaining block of adventures which at their best have been as good as the Radio 4 series and even better than the television original with remarkable images in all and suggestions for what the future format of the series will look like, a return to a spooky-doo of the week seeming the most obvious. But what of the future? With the tv show unlikely to return soon, will BBC Books and AudioGo continue to bang out new content to fill the void or is Mr Invincible the final word on this corner of the franchise? It’d be fairly typical if it was.
Torchwood: Mr Invincible by Mark Morris is out now from AudioGo. Review copy supplied.
Joseph Lidster’s Red Skies
As with the writers of the previous plays, Lidster almost seems to be positing a possible future for the television version of the series, this time an adult version of Doctor Who that finds its influence not with the UNIT years but the more usual time travel and discovery format. Certainly it’s structured like a typical Who story, with the Captain pitching up in town, finding a local bar and after being arrested becoming mixed up in some business that may involve overthrowing a government.
But through a massive coincidence, Jack discovers that like US viewers, the inhabitants of this remote, unapproachable ball of rock worship Torchwood. But this Torchwood isn’t just a sci-fi action adventure tv series of inconsistent quality, but their god. Not only that, criticising Torchwood isn’t just banned, it’s blasphemy, punishment nastily meted out by some unseen force in the form of spontaneous combustion. It’s a good job that can’t happen in the real world or I’d be barbecued for some of my Miracle Day reviews.
As with Who's The Face of Evil, it’s this mystery of the familiar in an unfamiliar setting which powers the next hour’s worth of narrative though as Jack befriends some local law enforcement and helps him through some emotional problems while laying some of his own personal demons to rest, it’s also akin to the Immortal Sins episode of Miracle Day, Jack enjoying the company of this companion almost as though he’s well aware he’s working through one of his Time Lord friend’s missed adventures.
Having been on the writing team for the television series (A Day in the Death) and the radio episodes (LHC spectacular Lost Souls) he’s well versed in Torchwood lore which means that when Red Skies heads into some Fragments-style continuity building, none of it feels tacked on and all in-keeping and in-character and even burrows into some unexpected areas, reminding us that despite its relatively slender overall screen time, plenty's happened in this corner of the Whoniverse.
Another accomplishment is Lidster’s characterisation of the Captain himself, striking a balance between the angstier version who chisel-jaws his way around Torchwood and the flirty Jack Rabbit of Doctor Who, even turning the difference into a story point. This Jack is genuinely funny and we can always imagine John Barrowman’s reading of these words, a slight twinkle in his eye, us wondering just how far he and the character are going to push things, the scamp.
Even if we can’t have Barrowman, wild card reading choice John Telfer is a worthy replacement. Best known for playing cool vicar Alan Franks on The Archers, Telfer has no personal previous Who experience but you’d not know it from his uncanny impression of Jack and intelligent measuring of the correct tone for this material. His chameleonic delivery oscillates between pacy prose reading and committed characterisation, especially of the Soviet accented local cop.
Red Skies is another little triumph from what’s turned into a seminal group of stories, right up there with the best of the Radio 4 Afternoon Plays and certainly preferable to some corners of the television series itself. As with a lot of Who, much of the entertainment is in journey, but even the reveal delivers, a logical if chilling revelation. But along the way we’re reminded of Torchwood at its best, and it’s clear that should it continue on screen, a return to single stories would be the best choice.
Torchwood: Red Skies by Joseph Lidster is published by AudioGo and due to be available from the 3rd May 2012. Review copy supplied.
David Llewellyn’s Fallout
David Llewellyn’s Fallout, the second in this special series of post Miracle Day audio adventures, seeks to redress the balance by putting Andy front and centre in an epic battle to save planet Earth from an evil alien focused on releasing a virus that will eradicate humanity from the face of the planet, while avoiding being shot by a secret agent working for Torchwood's Russian equivalent, The Committee for Extraterrestrial Research or KVI (previously of Llewellyn's novel Trace Memory). Yes, indeed, only on Torchwood.
And very amusing it is too. Llwellyn’s trick is to allow the story unfold like the kind of police procedural clogging up the schedules of ITV3, with a botched eBay sale resulting in a murder to which Andy and a colleague are called, the weirdness intruding slowly as the McGuffin, an alien egg not unlike the Skishtari spawn from Paul Magrs’s Serpent Crest series becomes target, and as with the previous audio, Army of One, we’re discovering the implications of the defunct institute's past decisions.
As the cover suggests, in a sweet scene Andy does tap Gwen for help, but with her stuck in the US, it’s his Welsh grit all of the way and Llewellyn really goes to town in giving him car chases, hand to hand combat and bit of potential romance with Yasmin within who’s deceased grandfather’s shed the egg sat for years. Everything’s kept in subtext, for once in Torchwood there’s no hanky-panky, but Andy’s clearly pleased to be the alpha male for once without Jack or even Rhys to stealing his thunder.
All of which is read with aplomb by Andy himself, Tom Price nipping in and out of Welsh accents, the Sgt emerging fully formed and just as loveable as on-screen, especially when piercing authority. We’re also treated to this Tom's Russian accent for obvious reasons, but it’s the voice he uses for the alien which demonstrates the actor’s flexibility, sounding unnervingly like Michael Maloney at his creepiest.
Torchwood: Fallout by David Llewellyn is out now from AudioGo. Review copy supplied.
Torchwood's Army of One
Meanwhile, a serial killer's on the streets, and although the victims are all in roughly the same condition, “dried-up, dessicated husks” as the box synopsis repulsively has it, they’re different ages and genders, blurring the MO. The chief headscrather assigned to the case, Lucas Avery, the kind of special agent who wanders around US prime time shows with an acronym in the title, decides Gwen and Rhys will be just the people to deal with this particular spooky-doo and before long it’s business as usual with the added pressure that the former has encountered this particular accident of the Whoniverse before, back in Cardiff.
In Edginton’s story, not much happens, but busily, packing plenty into its entertaining seventy-odd minutes. The resident alien, while a not entirely innovative creation, somewhat like the monsters from Day One or Angel’s Lonely Hearts without the psycho-sexual angle, has been forced into their position as a result of Miracle Day as we finally discover how the usual denizens crawling about this version of our planet were effected by that man-made event, bringing to mind too the current comic post-magic Buffyverse. There's an excellent line about how human's are willing to accept everyone not dying but not creates from another world.
There’s also an absurdist vein running through the story with what could have been relatively bland locations and plot-twists rendered with a style not unlike Stephen Poliakoff, in which reality is viewed through synecdoche shaped lenses. Edginton also like the drop the listener in the middle of a scene, providing initially a poetic turn of phrase which runs counter to many of these AudioGo readings which can border on the prosaic, noting the older age group these must be designed for. It goes without saying that like it's parent series, this not suitable for younger listeners. Some of the descriptions of deaths are just creepy.
The writer's clearly comfortable with these characters (having previous written for the comic strip embedded in the official magazine), especially Rhys who’s truer to loveable form here than the psychopathic nitwit he was reduced to in the latter stages of Miracle Day. Eve Myles would also relish the material Gwen’s given as she’s once again allowed to be kick-ass and still a parent, her boggle-eyed fear intact (even if some listeners might have issues with how certain dominant ideologies are also protected). Special Agent Avery is a bit bland, but that seems to be a feature rather than a bug, Edginton pushing the cultural contrast as high as it will go.
All of which is helped immeasurably by Kai Owen’s reading especially in the scenes between Gwen and Rhys were he ably voices their stoccato niggling and flirting. Now and then he-becomes-very-pronounced-in-his-performance but usually it’s because the information he’s annunciating will be of vital import later. Once again the clash between Welsh brashness and Washington efficiency is prominent and he very much enjoys those scenes when Rhys gets one over on the Americans, who once again greet him with a mix of curiosity and superiority.
Overall, what Army of One demonstrates, just as the Radio 4 plays have, is that Children of Earth accepted, Torchwood's still works best in a thingy of the week format, a kind of adult version of The Sarah Jane Adventures or The X-Files in the Whoniverse, local law enforcement authorities calling in these experts whenever something weird wanders into their jurisdiction. Whereas I spent most of Miracle Day laughing at the show, I spent much of Army of One laughing with the characters again and I can't wait to hear the rest of this series. That's quite an achievement.
Torchwood: Army of One by Ian Edginton is published by AudioGo and is out now. Review copy supplied.
The Opinion Engine 2.0:
14/31:
Torchwood's Web of Lies.
TV Revisiting Torchwood’s Miracle Day, this summer’s great televisual disappointment in any form is rather like picking at a scab, but for completion sake I did buy a copy of the blu-ray if only to see if the commentaries would offer any indications as to what went wrong. Recorded during post-production for the last episode by Russell T Davies and Julie Gardener it is possible to hear some weary exhaustion and with all of the criticism and qualifications of their own work, we can now take the view that they had a massive loss of confidence when faced with working in a new idiom and followed too many dodgy notes from Starz as to how to make the programme. Meanwhile, it sounds as though the BBC just left them to get on with it.
Amongst the other extras are a deleted scene which allows us to watch Alexa Havens park a car outside an airport over and over and over again (and for no good reason it turns out) and this “motion comic” Web of Lies originally released on iTunes in ten weekly chunks during the original broadcast. Already finding the forty-five minutes or so of the main series quite enough to slog through per week I decided to leave my enjoyment of this as late as possible and so here we are at the closing of the year. I could of course have waited until next year’s Doctor Who drought but decided that the last thing I wanted was for Torchwood’s Miracle Day to spread across any more of my calendar, especially since it looks like it’s never coming back anyway.
In the event, Web of Lies is about as I expected with just a few surprises. Split between two time frames, it sees Holly, a surprisingly connected young woman, investigating the shooting of her brother during Miracle Day and in parallel, a flashback sequence set during Torchwood’s first season in which Gwen travels the world searching for a kidnapped Jack, the two stories ultimately segwaying in a way that Immortal Sins failed to. At half an hour it doesn’t outstay its welcome and Jane Espenson’s script flows pretty well so long as you keep in mind that the reason everyone keeps repeating themselves every three minutes is because we’re skipping the week in between, and narrative leaps are because the interactive elements are missing.
The pre-release/publication/download excitement was because of the appearance of Eliza Dushku as the lead though there’s two obvious disappointments. As well as the aforementioned isolation from actual Torchwood, thereby nullifying hope of a kind of faux-Faith/Jack stand-off, Holly isn’t drawn to look like her either, the artist clearly a fan of Maggie Hopey from Love and Rockets (see above). Of course, in animation such things aren’t to be expected, but since the rest of the cast includes Jesse Eisenberg and Daniel Craig (at least in terms of drawing inspiration), it’s a shame the artist didn’t decide to give Eliza her tru calling (sorry). Perhaps she was cast after the design work was done.
There’s no Web of Lies Confidential so we don’t really know what the production process was like, but it’s fair to say not all of the animation works and in this case the “motion comic” label is designed to set the viewer up for something fairly rudimentary. It’s at about the level of the Shada remake with some moving parts, so although the rendering of the Cardiff characters is perfectly fine, the multiple facial expressions of Eve Myles captured, especially the one in which her eyeballs seem to envelop half of her face, their heads often wobble back and forth in a very curious manner like office toys. The two or three frame style of walking will be familiar to fans of 8-bit computer games.
But like Shada and dozens of missing episode recons, it’s the performances and writing which generally carry things. Eve and Jack are at about the tone of Torchwood’s radio series and there’s a strange nostalgia to hearing them refer to absent friends even if the actuality of that old series, as we’ve noted in recent weeks, left a bit to be desired (a bit?). Dushku is a bit hesitant at first but soon the Faith/Tru/Echo paradigm kicks in and almost makes up for the lack of proper Torchwood action for her. The story resolution even seems to make sense of a section of the main series, although arguably it should have been up to the main series to do that. Presumably they decided it was already overburdened with stuff.
the man who could have been Will with Grace
With Review 2011, The Opinion Engine 2.0, beginning here tomorrow -- and ideas are still welcome because if you don't ask it, I can't write it -- here is the last of the Torchwood review reruns for now.
TV The BBC in its infinite wisdom decided to show the final two episodes of Torchwood's Season One back to back which did neither of them any favours. They are somewhat linked together, but the upturn in quality of the first just made the second look all the poorer. As you can see the need for two reviews in one meant I went to town offering a coffee fuelled rant which resulted in one of the more entertaining comments sections at Behind The Sofa as the blog's other contributors finally went to war with the trolls with me stuck in the middle wondering what I'd said.
If you're waiting for the BBC Two repeat don't read this review. I wouldn't want to spoil it for you because it's a treat really. Everyone on Outpost Gallifrey is giving it five stars. Now for the rest of us ...
What - the fuck - was that?
It's perhaps fitting that the final episode of Torchwood, after what has, at best, been a variable season should be utter bollocks. But when the announcer beforehand suggested that there may be strong language, I really hadn't expected it to be from my own lips as I resorted to a mixture of swearing at the sheer awfulness masquerading as quality drama and laughing so hard I nearly pissed myself. After blast of comedy that was The Runaway Bride, the intricate beauty of radio Who yesterday and the joy of The Sarah Jane Adventures earlier, I might have known Torchwood would ruin this Whovian marathon like a pissed streaker knocking over Paula Radcliffe just inches away from the finishing line and a world record.
But actually, no, I should really save my enmity for the End of Days until I've dealt with Captain Jack Harkness, the first episode tonight, not the man. Because, and I'm sure this'll be a total surprise considering the opening paragraph to this review. I really quite liked it. And not just because Ianto finally got around to shooting Owen. In keeping with most of the season, of course some elements were entirely derivative, this time of anything from Back To The Future to the underrated Frequency, with a character lost in the past leaving clues to some future friend to help them escape and the well worn conceit of not being able to tell someone about their fateful future.
Where it really scored was as a character piece which developed some of the mystery of Captain Jack which has been brewing since the first series of Doctor Who. For the first time in ages he seemed to be somewhat close to his old self, compassionate without being deadly really wanting, with a Sam Beckett Quantum Leap vibe to give the man whose identity he would 'borrow' the best final night he could, and with, for once, lots of romance. Well alright it was a bit of a coincidence that he should meet his name sake in Cardiff on that night of all nights, but sometimes this kind of serendipity can work well in drama and it did here. The sudden reappearance of what looked like the basement from New Earth jarred, but the recreation of the rest of the period setting was lovely and the introduction of wartime animosity towards Tosh was surprisingly realistic.
Pleasingly, however, the contemporary scenes ran in parallel and the whole benefited from having a definable goal to work towards, the find of the equation, the opening of the rift. Considering that this was a Doctor Who spin-off tackling time travel at least it was doing something else with it, really showing the consequences of potentially being lost in time. Pity Owen though, that, even when he's doing something for best of intentions he still came across as a twat and when the bullet pierced his shoulder it really was a shame that it wasn't his head (for reasons that'll become clear below). I genuinely thought they were going to kill him off, so the only real disappointment of the episode was that he lived to snarl another day. My only real question is -- what was the missing dongle from the Rift Machine doing in a grandfather clock in some random dance hall?
Barrowman probably gave his best performance of the season and he was aided by a feisty turn from Naoko Mori revealing once more what a wasted opportunity the persistent focus on Gwen all season has been. It's just a shame that the apparent loyalty between whatever his name is and Tosh wasn't carried over to the next episode - but this is the upbeat part of review so I'm really not going there yet. Matt Rippey as the real Jack was excellent too, very touching as a man divided and for once a guest cast member who worked within the ensemble rather than overshadowing them (which is actually a good thing). Murray Melvin as the time hopping Bilis, who I'm sure will eventually be revealed to be Gary from Goodnight Sweetheart at pension age, was particularly creepy in his scenes and if I'd had a week between episodes I really think I would have been looking forward to seeing what they did with him. Thank god for that.
It's a pity then that it was all for naught as, after a quick flash of the logo, the series once again plunged headlong into a vat of manure. The trailer for End of Days was quite promising with all the visitations from the past and Sarah Hughes in The Observer built my hopes up further by suggesting that 'this excellent finale shows' that the programme 'has potential'. Sarah, given that you also say that the scripts needed tightening up how can you justify this episodic mess as being 'excellent'. Were we watching the same programme?
Y'know the one were they didn't seem to have a clue how to finish the season so decided to pull a hitherto unheralded fifty-foot demon out of the ground and have it stomp all over Cardiff, which looked half amazing but made NO FUCKING SENSE WHATSOEVER? At least when Buffy revealed the First Evil it ran with it for a whole season and didn't just trot it out in the closing twenty minutes. We've seen surprise aliens before, but this appeared without any logical foreshadowing.
It's a shame because the episode began quite well with the cameo from Carrie Gracie from News 24 and the indications of all the timeslips across the world (the sudden appearance of The Beatles on the roof of Abby Road studio is a good thing). This created the potential for an epic battle with time, a season long story of attempting to send everyone back where it came from Invasion of the Dinosaurs style. But then Torchwood, the series and the organization, did what it always does, sits around in the hub having an argument and then interacted with the big epic happening by meeting a Roman Centurion in a police cell and a couple of extras in a hospital. Not even the sudden appearance of PC Andy, the man who is a regular in the good version of the series in my head, with his lovely acting could save the tedium. While the idea was probably to make the big, small, how boring is that?
The episode was, well episodic, so once all the stuff that was happening across the globe had been established and they'd made the ooh two visits to see what was happening in Cardiff (hardly the montage sequence in Ghostbusters is it? And we know they've seen Ghostbusters) everything finally came home to roost after yet another argument in the hub and Owen finally being kicked out (well until he sneaked back in later). This was spoilt by taking about half an hour as Owen knocked on for no readily apparent reason about retcon again. Get out of there. No one cares and this has zero to do with what is to come. This was another example of Torchwood dropping in useless exposition that would not be paid off later when it should have been consolidating the overall story of the coming apocalypse.
Meanwhile, the sudden appearance of Lisa to Ianto in the trailer was revealed to be - nothing more than a vision cooked up Buffy First Evil style by whatever lies beneath to try and get them to open the rift. Again. And for the lucky people who might have skipped every other episode there was the usual nano-flashback to explain who she is, although I wonder how many people would actually recognize her without the metal bondage gear and high heals. Same thing happened for Owen and although it was, nice, seeing these old faces again I don't think their presence was really explained or how whatever it was had read their mind.
The not unexpected visit to the caretaker's shop was marred by being apparently minutes after Owen had been kicked out of the hub and a repeat of the characterization incongruity that occurred in Countrycide after Owen and tried to dry hump Gwen up against a tree. After telling Jack what to go do with himself after kicking out her fuckbuddy, who let's be clear on this, has potentially brought about the end of the world, Gwen's in the shop cracking jokes again and joshing with whatever his real name is. What is it with this characterization? Shouldn't she still be a little bit pissed off?
As usual, there was no urgency to the scene and at no point have we being reminded of the stakes. Bilis is back, still creepy, still possibly a really interesting character. Is he a timelord? Probably not, but his sudden CGless disappearance into time was fairly interesting even if the scene lacked momentum. It's at this point then that the episode went totally off the rails as though all sense had left the writing and directing process and the story was being put together by a group of chimps playing a Torchwood Roleplaying Game.
Well alright I can see now what they were doing. Bilis gives Gwen vision of the future and the death of Reece. Gwen takes Reece to Torchwood. Bilis breaks into Torchwood and kills Reece. Cue tragic music and much emoting from poor Eve Myles, who was acting her heart out for nothing. Inevitably, this being Torchwood I assumed that they really had killed her boyfriend, it being entirely likely that he'd been pottering about in seven odd episodes, shouting now and then, so I was pretty incensed. That fact that now I'm only realising that he was murdered by Bilis to turn Gwen to the point of wanting to open the rift either means I'm very slow or it simply wasn't made very clear in the episode. Probably the former.
You see you really have to wonder what goes on in the tone meetings when Owen just wonders back into the hub, the gang standing over the corpse of Reece and Tosh grins like she's just won the lottery, whilst and let's make this again quite clear, the world is ending and it's his fault. At least this led into the best part of the episode when John Doe launched into a list of everything the team has done wrong all series and pays off everything I've been saying. It wasn't quite the meta-joke I was expecting but at least it showed that he was aware of the mistakes the other characters had made, bravely underlining the fact that this is the series that has no likeable characters whatsoever. It's a misfortune then that, well alright let's call him Jack for now, received the gun shot to the head as this bunch of jerks showed the loyalty we've loved to see from them all these episodes.
Now I have to admit to the next section of the episode being something of a blur. I remember cheering when the hub was blown up Liberator style, seeing them run for their lives, suddenly deciding that Jack is still their leader when they need him, dragging his body outside. And Bilis talking in tongues and bringing out the re-rendering of the beast from The Satan Pit, something else buried in the Earth that is being unearthed this festive season. He was the Son of the Beast apparently. Of all the mother series monsters to make an appearance I hadn't expected that.
Disappointingly no attempt was made to suggest that all of the characters wierd behaviour in the previous twelve episodes was a result of his influence, just this one, and after that I was laughing at it too much to remember much else apart from seeing John Barrowman, so great on Loose Women and Never Mind The Buzzcocks, the man who could have been Will with Grace, having to sit in some gravel being oppressed by a giant shadow. Is Jack dead? Is this going to be the cliffhanger?
Err no. Two reasons. Firstly we know Jack's back in Doctor Who Season Three in, Utopia, an episode written by Steven Moffat*. Secondly, because there are ten minutes of the episode remaining. Of Gwen sitting around at his bedside waiting for him to rejuvenate. You mean there wasn't another ten minutes of cool time tripping goodness at the opening of the story because of this? This scene might have worked if we still thought about any of these characters sympathetically but, and this is the reason I've been so detailed in my description of their actions, they've been so random in their behviour for the whole episode, let alone series that we just don't care.
I spent half of it wondering how killing the beast meant that time became a do-over, fixing the hib and everything else. It was like watching the final episode of that season of Dallas in which Pam woke up and Bobby stepped out of the shower, the bomb explosion in an office that took out both JR and Sue Ellen simply part of a wacky dream reseting everything that had gone before much like the re imagining of the timeline that went on here s0 that everybody lives. The other half was taken up with a wait for the inevitable, a final blast of lethargy in a series that has been filled with it. Seeing Jack stand and forgive his teammates was nice, but you just know that they're not going to be any different next series ...
Then in the final moments, Jack's whisked away by the sound of the Tardis. It says a lot that this sound can still be quite stirring and that you can imagine that the Doctor and Martha are already on board, enjoying their adventures. Perhaps we'll eventually find out why they decided to select that moment to pick up Jack and not when Cardiff was being menaced by a giant beastie and the Earth was being destroyed by giant cracks in time. Perhaps there will be an episode of that series that will explain all of the plotholes in this episode but I doubt it. But it says a lot about Torchwood that it didn't end with its own internal cliffhanger and one that will instead be explained in a mother series entirely. If only I'd watched the film End of Days. At least that has the unlikely sight of Miriam Margolese in a fist fight with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I appreciate this has all been very harsh and sarcastic and fueled by too much caffeine and I'll probably regret some of it in the morning, particularly the bit about the chimps but Torchwood has largely been a massive disappointment and it simply makes no sense to me that the same production team behind Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures can turn out something this crude and apparently be very pleased with it. As this review/rant has demonstrated I have a tendency to over analyze everything which could be why I tend to focus on narrative flaws at the expense of what is often quite fluid direction, remarkable lighting design, editing and music. If anything Captain Jack Harkness pointed to there still being potential in the series, but End of Days was no way to do anything. And I do wish I could be one of the people on Outpost Gallifrey giving it five stars, but I'm not, I'm the grinch and that's that. Perhaps on the level of a television comic book it works. I just expect a bit more from something calling itself adult drama.
I'm going to bed.
PS * Yes indeed. Thank the internet for that particular false rumour.
effectively they're all going Suzie
TV The opening paragraph isn't a joke. I really did post this Torchwood review on the night before Christmas 2006, the festive season which contained not just three or four episodes of the adult spin-off, but also The Runaway Bride and the first hour of The Sarah Jane Adventures and lots of hours writing from me. In comparison to the upcoming desert, we were blessed, especially since, thanks to Noel Clarke's abilities as a screenwriter (and whoever else inevitably worked on the script, Russell or Chibs), Combat wasn't half bad. Don't expect this kind of service in the upcoming festive season. I will post a review of The Lion, The Witch and The Tardis or whatever it's called, just don't look for it on the 25th of December.
It's Christmas Eve, so let me keep this brief, and please understand that this isn't the spirit of the season talking, and really I can't believe I'm typing this .... but ... tonight's episode of Torchwood was quite good. From a perfectly written teaser that was both exciting in terms of setting up the mystery of the main story and important in reintroducing the issues related to Gwen neglecting her responsibilities at home to a perfectly paced script and story which gave everyone something to do and paid off well in its finale, this was the Torchwood I'd been expecting after the stonking first couple of episodes and somewhat suggests that this is a series that is only as good as its writers. Take a bow, Mr. Noel Clarke.
As usual, the concept was not exactly original but unlike usual the interpretation worked exceedingly well. For once, there was a real sense of an investigation in which the characters really looked under the belly of this fictional version of Cardiff to see the awfulness that is probably lurking there even if the truth was obvious to anyone paying attention to the brutality and whose read the Christmas Radio Times.
By holding off the secrets of the Weevil Club to the end, the audience was left in the state of imagining the worst which meant the reveal was bound to be disappointing, which in a sense it should have been -- more Robot Wars that Fight Club. In fact, most of the brutality in the episode on screen was committed my the testosterone filled men rather than the aliens, but unlike Countrycide, by placing both races in the same frame, the viewer was given a dreadful point of comparison.
It's very odd to be watching an episode of a series that for weeks you've had nothing good to say about and actually be enjoying yourself. Even the lurches between tragedy and humour seemed to work - for example the discovery of the body in the warehouse and the sudden deployment of the Crazy Frog ring tone which Jack actually had to explain wasn't his.
There was real sense to of an ongoing cross series story arc, something which has been missing for some weeks. Suddenly a thread can be seen through the whole series begun in the first episode with all the tech borrowing in which the job is having a corrupting influence on the main characters, slowly eating away at their souls - effectively they're all going Suzie. From Jack once again allowing a human to die through to Gwen employing the retcon on Rees it is almost as though each will have to reach the tipping point that both Ianto and Tosh have passed through before returning.
How refreshing to see an A-plot and B-plot running in parallel. Gwen's behaviour consciously recalled the opening episode, with her appearance in the hub with pizza and the aforementioned retcon of her boyfriend. It seems absolutely right that her attempt should fail, and the fact that he fell asleep so quickly demonstrates how strong her will was in those early days and how the job and chipped some of that away.
Even Owen's character began to look coherent, either through a natural viciousness or Weevil infection he's a very bad man and he knows it but he doesn't want to do anything about it. I might even watch last week's episode to see if what we were actually watching was temporary taming of a beast. Either this was all some grand plan, or one of Noel's tasks was to rationalise some of the wayward behaviour seen previously. When he chooses to actually enter the cage with the Weevil, although you're repulsed, it seems in keeping with previous behaviour. Suddenly lines like -- 'I was getting bored of your fuck-tricks anyway' look like characterization choices rather than simply poor writing.
Most of the performances were top notch, although guest Alex Hassell, even though he was supposed to be playing an asshole, hardly gave the subtlest of performances - though no doubt intentional he was a bit too Guy Ritchie mockney gangsta and it seemed to enhance Burn Gorman's various ticks when they shared scenes. But you had to be impressed by that ending when Gorman managed to contort his face to look exactly like a Weevil without any apparent prosthetics. I've seen gurning championships were he'd win first prize.
Unlike last week, I sat in silence for most of the episode my only murmur being 'Hold on - is it me or is this actually quite good. That can't be right..' to no one in particular. It's even put me in a positive mood for the season finale which looks excellent even though it does employ time travel which seems a bit redundant given the mother series. With the introduction of the other Captain Jack Harkness, it's only potential crime would be to ruin The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances by implying that Jack gained his current identity through nefarious means.
PS, On reflection, I'm not so sure about 'I was getting bored of your fuck-tricks anyway'
Owen's constant references to semen and sex faces
TV "the face she makes when she cums" What was it with Owen's constant references to semen and sex faces? The following is about 10% Out of Time review , 90% explosive self-awareness.. I realise from the off that I'm probably blowing some of its narrative deficiencies out of all proportion, not least the three plots ending simultaneously, but can't help myself. I needn't have worried. This still wasn't great television. It made Spooks: Code 9 look like a stone cold classic.
It's always very helpful when sitting down review something when one of the characters within has actually explained what's wrong with the episode. There was Jack, sitting in the hub, looking up at Tosh and actually saying (I'm paraphrasing) "These are just three people who are lost who can't go home. We don't have an enemy to fight this time." As he sat there, it finally felt as though the story had ground to a halt. I looked up at the clock and noticed that there was another twenty-minutes to go and wondered what the hell they'd be filling those twenty minutes of screen-time with.
Thing is, I was strangely upbeat going into this episode. I told everyone here I was looking forward to it and a particularly good episode of The West Wing tonight ('Hi, Senator. Why don't you take your legislative agenda and shove it up your ass. ' 'She's a fine looking woman.' etc) put me in a good mood. The episode began rather well with the lovely landing of the plane and the appearance of the three strangers in time and the explanations and then ... Asda? Immediately it began to become apparent that episode would once again be demonstrating the legion of issues the series has had so far. Having selected to retread one of the old, old sci-fi standard, off the shelf, plot-lines, they decided to trot through all of the expected scenes without putting a new spin on any of them whatsoever. Oh for goodness sake.
I should temper this a little bit by saying that even that opening scene in the supermarket was as funny as these things usually are with the accepted standards of our time being put under the microscope of another -- the children's tv presenter on the lad mag, 'smoking kills' and the price of eggs (or in this case junk food). Such scenes were splattered throughout the episode as Emma misunderstood the advances of the man in the club and John had to deal with the pipe smoking ban in the pub. The problem is that after a while they become repetitious and perhaps more damagingly for Doctor Who fans not anything that doesn't happen whenever the Doctor's companion appears in another time -- that misunderstanding of new rituals for comic effect.
Throughout I wondered if there would be a twist, such as that they're all aliens or they somehow planned the time slip or that there would be a way home or that they weren't time travellers at all just faking it for some nefarious gain. Perhaps the twist was that there was no twist in which case -- wah! I'm sorry but narratively chaining each of them to the one regular character who was most likely to empathise with them and their plight in the hope of illuminating a regular just isn't enough. It's all very well presenting what appears to be a grand romance about loss and sacrifice but you still need proper jeopardy, something to fight for.
I can absolutely see that this is supposed to be the episode about character building -- Gwen talked once again about having two lives and is seen to question her relationship to Owen; Owen on the other hand didn't seem to think anything about their relationship as he realised he actually had the capacity to fall in luurv; and Jack continued to come to terms with the fact that he too is a man out of time, as we gained some confirmation that he might have dropped through the rift and that he is indeed born in the future. The problem is, because of what I'm going to continue to describe as the random characterisation of the series, none of this seemed like a progression -- just an emotion of the week which could change next time. I can't simply start liking a character such as Owen when he's been so negatively written in the past, especially when he seems to have a silly walk - the whole wide shoulder thing is becoming increasingly old.
As with so many of these episodes, there was a tension too between the really great performances and the embarrassing dialogue. Example: No Angels' Louise Delamere sparkles away throughout the episode proving once again that she's one of the nation's hidden treasures and (I can't believe I'm typing this) actually some of the scenes with Burn Gorman had a light romantic touch. Except they're in the middle of one of the endless bed scenes, just as we're actually beginning to fall for the two of them, he gives a speech talking about how he's obsessed with her clothes, her look, what she's thinking about and oh yes, the face she makes when she cums, which strands the scene as you're simply not able to listen to anything else as you try to deal with the implications of that. It might sound real, and I'm sure it's perfectly good pillow talk in some homes, but it kills the mood of the scene stone dead. Was there any need for it?
The inability to close out an episode satisfactorily continues. In a bizarre coincidence, all three of the time travellers (whose connection at no point had been explained) decided to make big life (or death) decision at roughly the same time. It was almost as though they could tell that the episode was coming to a close. Although all television dramas with multiple plot-lines suffer from this issue (see nearly every episode of Boston Legal) here it jarred because with perhaps the exception of Emma none of them seemed to have a reason to make the decision right there and then. Diane didn't fly off because she'd heard about the death of John for example which would have made sense. And speaking of John what are we to make of Jack's decision to let him kill himself and actually sit in the car and watch? I can't decide if I really hate Jack now. And what are his colleagues going to make of the decision? Watching the series you'd never know (although reading the website you might). I guarantee it won't be mentioned next week.
I wonder if I've entirely lost perspective and I'm just off looking for flaws and unable to enjoy the show for what it's purporting to be. Whenever I write these reviews I'm always analysing the storytelling, how it fits within the overall structure of the series, the disappointments. Perhaps when I rewatch this I will be able to pay closer attention to the incidental pleasures -- the reappearance of Rees, Owen's charm (for once), the great performances. But I can't sit here and lie and say that I enjoyed these fifty minutes when I spent most of them literally groaning and shouting at the screen like a madman or a football fan watching their team go down five-nil in the FA Cup.
I just keep hearing that opening introduction:
"Torchwood. Outside the government, beyond the police. Tracking down alien life on earth and arming the human race against the future. The 21st century is when everything changes... and you've gotta be ready."
And wondering when we're actually going to get to see that series. That series sounds great.
PS, Television still hasn't decided what to do with Louise Delamere. She'd be perfect for Wonder Woman but no one has noticed.
Really must I?
TV Back to incoherent ranting for Torchwood's Random Shoes. During the oft referred to rewatch, perhaps because I was a little bit older and not approaching each episode with anything like the same level of anticipation I managed to enjoy this on its own terms and even be touched by it, even during the still too long funeral scene. For the third week running the supporting actor is the main point of interest, Paul Chequer living up to his name and banking a rather wonderful turn even if he's slipstreaming Marc Warren like he's chasing the ghost car during a time trial mode on Ridge Racer.
"Life's full of disappointments…" Yes, yes it is. Every Sunday at 10pm on BBC Three (or as it appeared tonight briefly Children's BBC). Really must I? Can't I just say 'What Sean said' and move on? This isn't going to be half as entertaining or perceptive. I've just spent the past week writing this critique for my own blog for various reasons describing the main thing wrong with Torchwood and here's an episode that generally ignores my criticisms and creates a whole bunch of others. I could hate it just on that basis, but that wouldn't be fair so it looks like I'll have to make up a special list for this one. It's eleven o'clock at night, I should be thinking about going to bed or running another episode of Spaced which I'm watching once again. Have you seen the end of the paintball episode lately? It's like a forward homage to the Doctor Who episode Fear Her with 'There's a storm coming' and a crane shot and everything. Or are they both Terminator references?
I mean what the hell was that? Do the production team not think that we're not sitting at home thinking - 'Hold on - this is a bit like Love & Monsters…' or 'Is he a ghost? Out of phase with the rest of reality? A non-corporeal clone? What?' or 'Is she in wrap or idle whilst she talking to Gwen - isn't she thinking about her weekly stats - what kind of a call centre is this?' or 'Jesus Christ that's a horrific music cue… what a winy voice … is this supposed to be a joke' or 'That's the original A For Andromeda. Don't pan away, I'm watching that!' or 'Will that man please stop singing? This funeral scene has gone on long enough … what it's still going? How many bloody verses are there in 'Danny Boy' and apart from anything else what the hell is he doing singing it in Wales?' or the many thousands of other niggles that flopped through my brain as I tried desperately and should have been engaging with the story.
Eugene seemed a nice enough bloke, but his plight wasn't enough of a mystery to stretch out over twenty-five minutes let alone double that time. The episode seemed to be copying the structure of Citizen Kane which followed the steps from childhood forward to death in order to reveal a mystery -- it's about how a man lived being revealed in flashbacks and whatnot. Here it felt like the montage sequence from The Ghost Machine slowed down across a a whole episode but instead of the main character discovering information such as Eugene's early childhood it was shown to the audience first. Which meant that when it was revealed to Gwen later it lacked dramatic impact.
It just seems very wrong to me that on such a regular basis, that the so-called regular characters are given so little to do. Ianto's back to saying basically nothing and Tosh is simply asking questions. They're supposed to be main characters and yet they're being sidelined - it's Classic Star Trek all over again. The trouble with this episode was that it wasn't Gwen's story it was Eugene's with the maths 'genius' using her to discover what happened because he pushed her forward - too often she would walk into a scene and sat listening as characters described another bit of the plot. This wasn't really detecting because she wasn't allowed to put the clues together herself -- Eugene was motivating her, revealing his memories, the final moments being his success. Eve Myles was sidelined in her own show.
There wasn't anything actually wrong with the story, but surely it's the kind of thing you trot out in season three when you've established all the characters and you want either give them a week off or you're double banking and have some fun with them. Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Lower Decks is a prime example, as junior officers became the focus and we got to see the regulars from their perspective. Here, Eugene basically followed Gwen around because he lurrrved her and didn't really regard any of the others. During The Hub visit, he seemed more interested in The Doctor's hand (we get the joke already) than anyone else in the hub which seemed a waste.
Eugene was also a bit talky though, given to half quoting everything from Douglas Adams through to Ferris Bueller's Day Off via Monty Python's Galaxy Song, all very poetic, probably thematic, but slowed what little drama there was even more. Unlike Love & Monsters, however, it never felt like the ramblings of a half normal person, seeming more like it had been brought in because the story was being adapted from a novel and the screenwriter was too afraid not include the author's winning material. I'd also argue that the fact that Eugene was both describing events in both the past and present tense confused the point of view still further.
Paul Chequer is a talented actor and even though the character felt like a rehash of his character in As If, even with the Hitler quiff, he still managed to be sympathetic and appealing despite that wordiness. Once again, Eve Myles somehow managed to make Gwen seem like a normal, appealing figure even if her job on this occasion was to largely sit there and listen. The performances across board in this episode were good if not excellent amongst the guest cast although this has always been a problem with the series - the regulars are just less vivid and unloved in the face of the populace of South Wales.
The special effects too were very nice all of the wizzing around the solar system and galaxy, presumably representing Eugene's imagination, giving the episode a scale others have lacked. It was just a shame that they couldn't stretch to more than one moment in which he actually put his hand through someone. He was still walking around at normal speed with doors, such as the ones in the hub, waiting for him to walk through. This quirk could have been worked into the episode - perhaps providing Gwen with proof of her feeling that someone was about but instead it looked like an inconsistency waiting for a nitpicker like me to point it out.
Other oddities -- have Gwen and Owen split up is that what all the arguing is supposed to imply? Why just imply it, why not just say it? And why the hell after all the lovely scenes earlier in the series haven't we seen a proper break-up scene for Gwen and her boyfriend? The show seems determined to reduce every character to a plot point or cypher. Are they allergic to giving the characters convincing private lives? Most of the problems with this episode could have been solved with a reduction of the influence of Eugene's character and the introduction of a B-plot about Jack or Tosh or even Ianto.
Marks were gained for the use of 'Starman' instead of 'Life on Mars', but what the hell was that thing during the autopsy sequence in The Hub? (and as a side note if they had cut him open wouldn't they have found the eye?) Well I know what it is thanks to Outpost Gallifrey - 'Hope There's Someone' by Antony and The Johnsons and in a different context I might have liked it, but here it just ruined the mood and was completely out of context. Love & Monsters had a coherent musical structure but this was just a mish-mash.
But taking the episode as it stands though, it simply wasn't as touching as it should have been even with all of that music layered in, for the reasons already listed and that bloody funeral scene at the end. You really have to have worked hard in the body of a drama to earn something like that and they didn't and as that poor actor graveled his way through even more of Danny Boy I was screaming at the screen for him to stop when I know I should be crying and didn't matter how much sob music was layered in afterwards, they'd lost me again.
Next week: It's more Star Trek plots as TNG's The Neutral Zone and Voyager's The 37ers are given a run around. Once again, we're left wondering what the premise of this show is actually meant to be.
PS, Proto-Skins, As, If still hasn't had a dvd release thanks to the relaxed attitude to musical licensing on first broadcast. Luckily, this YouTube user has uploaded the entire thing.
some glimmer of hope
TV Oh the gushing praise! Oh the brevity of the paragraphs. They Keep Killing Suzie isn't actually this good but when this was first posted I was clearly desperate for some glimmer of hope in this cold corner of the Whoniverse. As with last week, the episode wouldn't be as enjoyable without Indira Varma, who on reflection was essentially doing charity work in a series which should have declared a state of emergency weeks before.
Who wrote They Keep Killing Suzie? Speculation suggests that this is the episode that Russell T Davies mentioned rewriting from top to bottom in a recent issue of Doctor Who Magazine and it certainly shared many of the same qualities as the opening episode -- excellent dialogue, pacing, characterisation and the sense of Torchwood as a team rather than a bunch of individuals thrown together.
If it wasn't for that bloody awful music cue at the end this might have been only the third episode which didn't make me wince at the thought of having to come on here and write about it. But here I am writing floridly for the first time in weeks. And having also seen the disappointingly disappointing Pan's Labyrinth tonight. Perhaps I'm just in denial about everything.
It was fairly inevitable that Suzie would be resurrected after the closing scene of Everything Changes and against all the odds they didn't waste the opportunity. Although the rejuvenation glove is the kind of magical device familiar to anyone whose played role playing games, its execution, sapping the life force from Gwen was excellent, especially the 'You're being shot in the head ... slowly ...' moment.
Indira Varma is the missing link of the entire series and her performance was by turns gruesome, sympathetic but importantly weirdly convincing. As she sat in the car almost channelling Eve Myles speech patterns I genuinely wondered if they were going to drop in a real surprise and let Gwen die, Suzie carrying on with some of her personality.
Seeing Torchwood from the outside once again proved to be a highlight, with the brilliant Yasmin Bannerman's comic timing seeming to coax from John Barrowman the sense of fun that's been lacking in previous episodes. In other series she would be a recurring character, like Kate Lockley in the first few seasons of Angel, helping Torchwood but not getting too close.
The one genuine laugh I think I've had in weeks occurred (and I want this marking on the calendar) when her entire office were huddled around the speaker phone to hear that Torchwood were locked in their base. Frankly like large sections of this episode, these scenes looked like they'd drop in from the alternate reality where Torchwood is the best thing on television.
Of course, not everything worked. The chat surrounding what to call the glove and knife was a bit blank and not a patch on the similar scene in the film Tremors (Graboids?). Once again there was a sitcom like attachment to the Hub presumably because, having spent half of the programme budget on the set they want to get the most use from it. There was another visit to what looks like the worst night club in the world (last seen in Day One).
The cavalier attitude to continuity -- as they're speeding at night to Gwen's rescue in the Torchmobile, Owen explains she only has minutes to live only to arrive in broad daylight, or should that be the dawn of the dead? Oh and that final music queue crashing in like a someone with the Best of LeAnne Rimes cd at a student party.
There's also still that ever present lack of interest in the fate of humanity which tends to make it difficult to care about any of the main characters too much. Although calling the amnesia drug, some might say a blatant steal from Men In Black, 'Retcon' has a modicum of cool, it's generally their fault that Max is in the brain sucked condition he's in, but there were Jack and Owen treating him like an animal when he actually deserved their compassion.
But all of these seem like nitpicks in an episode that was doing everything we'd hoped Torchwood might be doing from the off -- asking the big questions about life and death within a soup of humour, cartoon fantasy with sprinkling of violence. Even Tosh was likeable and Ianto regained is original cool. Owen gained something related to character detailing when it was revealed he'd tupped Suzie before Gwen -- so that's a pattern with him is it?
We even found out what was in store for all Torchwood personnel -- you're stuck in a freezer, the rest of your life in a lock up garage -- these are the details that we should have been hearing all along instead of the insistence on focusing on plot over anything else. And the movement in the darkness? I think Jack is going to look Death in the eyesocket and offer to show him his stopwatch.
Next week: Business as usual as another ex-cast member from As, If runs through a storyline which will look strangely similar to one from Star Trek: The Next Generation (The Next Phase if anyone cares at this point -- "C'mon Data, put it together...").
PS, I'd forgotten I'd not enjoyed Pan's Labyrinth the first time around. But I saw it with a good friend and she'd not liked it either. Perhaps it rubbed off on me.
this was yet another sexual predator
TV When I originally posted this at Behind The Sofa, it was with the title "Αυτό δεν είναι μια κατάλληλη αναθεώρηση. Ακριβώς μερικά περίεργα σχόλια" or "This isn't a proper review. Just a few random comments". Which it is. The episode essentially hangs together thanks to Denby-Ashe's compelling performance which to an extent prefigures Lauren Ambrose in Torchwood's Miracle Day, devilishly sexy with piercing eyes that can melt libidos male and female from a hundred paces, but in search of a decent plot.
As the endless shots of the Cardiff ring road passed by at the climax of Greeks Bearing Gifts I decided that I couldn't possibly review the episode this week on the basis that I've probably lost my sense of objective and because I'm not sure the series is going to get any better and that frankly there's nothing more to be said other than if Toby Whitehouse, who turned out the gorgeous and gut-wrenching School Reunion for Doctor Who this year can't work his magic on Torchwood, then it's more than likely that the series cannot be saved. Plus Sean's managed to eloquently set out any or all of the criticisms I might have.
Then I picked up the Metro this morning and read the four-star verdict of their tv reviewer Keith Watson. After a plot describing preamble he says: "Much more than just a Dr Who spin-off, Torchwood works because it mixes its sci-fi with human vulnerability and a random approach to plotting that means you're never sure you they're going to bump off next." Then he suggests that Owen is obviously gay and the Jack should have copped off with him (or words to that effect).
Knowing that actually the business of reviewing television can be a fairly nebulous activity particularly in the popular press, the last thing I want to do is criticize someone getting paid for something I want to do for a living. But having watched the same programme I wouldn't class the characterization in the show as including human vulnerability - and despite Watson's inference, the interpersonal relationships on show in Dr Who were far more realistic - or at least had a logic to them and rang true.
On the basis of last night's episode, Gwen seems infested with the illogical behaviour virus that Owen's been a carrier of since the beginning of the series, not that I'm trying to imply anything. Although she's under the medic's spell (I still haven't discounted the administering of that love potion from episode one) it seems completely wrong that the moral centre she exhibited in the opening episodes would be cast aside when she watches Owen bullying Toshiko and doesn't say anything.
The main element that is sorely lacking from the series is romance - even though the real highlight of last night's episode was Daniela Denby-Ashe's rum performance as Mary, this was yet another sexual predator in a series that has already had about six of them, one of whom is a main character. How much more interesting if Tosh's romance had been something normal and above all realistic, her partner being someone whom the audience could also be in love with, so that the betrayal would have resonated more with us too.
With the teaser, the show revealed far too much information up front, making the outcome guessable, surprises non-existent. If Mary had been a bloke, she would have had a moustache to twirl - obviously evil from the moment she appeared next to Tosh at the bar and so the episode turned into a waiting game for the penny to drop. Whilst it could be argued that Tosh is obviously happy for the attention (as any of us would I suspect from someone looking like that) given who she and who she works for, and how much the job apparently means to her (as she explains in every actors nightmare - the acting pissed scene) can we really believe that she'd be so easily seduced.
Once again, it's a wonder what this lot are doing in the jobs that they have. Once again I wonder if there's going to be some reveal in a later episode that in fact these aren't meant to be the best of the best and that they've been specially selected for their unprofessionalism as a cover for an even less public, more mysterious organization, the real Torchwood, that they're the middle people between UNIT and that. Which would explain why everyone seems to know who Torchwood is even though no one seems to know what Torchwood is.
I've even got a nagging feeling that there's some giant metatextual joke going on rather like the one being played by that arts documentary series on Channel Four in the late nineties, Art is Dead, when present Muriel Gray revealed at the end of the final rather heated discussion programme that all of the artists were fake (especially the one who picked up and displayed roadkill) and that they were actually criticizing the nature of art criticism. Or even that everything is going on inside Jack's mind accounting for all the darkness and discrepancies. I doubt it is any of these things. I think it's just that it's deeply average.
I can't understand the country mile between a large proportion of the fan reaction to the series and elsewhere. I could say that some see it for what it is and everyone else is in denial, but again I don't think that's fair, although I have read some fan criticism which amounts to making excuses for something that they've obviously inherently been disappointed by. It is eerily similar however to the phenomena that Mark Lawson identifies in The Guardian -- the print media were extremely positive about Robin Hood in its opening few episodes in sharp contrast to the internet reaction.
The ratings are holding up despite the timeslots and repeat showings which means someone must be enjoying it for what it is, rather than just tuning in hoping that it'll get better and exhibit the same vim as the opening episode. But I do wonder if they did turn out a great episode I'd actually notice, or if I'd still be looking for those pesky flaws. On reflection the closing scene in which Jack consoled Tosh was very nice, Barrowman demonstrating that he's still very good at genial - and I had empathy with Sato for the first time in the episode. Perhaps I'll try to tune in next week without preconceived ideas and see were that gets me.
And try to ignore the fact that Owen is being a twat again.
PS, Despite what the linked review says, that Art is Dead series was a televisual classic and a demonstration of what the form is capable of. Imagine any channel committing themselves to that now.
Treasure Hunt, without Wincy Willis, the magenta jumpsuits or cross looking pensioners
TV Of all the actors who might have been cast as Tim Rice, the almost similarly named Tom Price wouldn't have been my first guess, but there he was in last night in BBC Four's Holy Flying Circus in a perfectly observed performance, wordlessly failing to properly referee the epic exchange between one third of the Pythons and Malcolm Muggeridge on Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. All of which was fine. But did anyone else shout "It's PC Andy!" when he first appeared on screen. Because however rubbish much of Torchwood is, Andy has been one of its best creations.
As I notice below in this old review, Andy doesn't appear in Small Worlds, but that's the least of its crimes. As you can see, after giving Cyberwoman a mixed response, this is when the wheels really came off and whatever hopes I might have had for the series were driven straight into and sunk in Cardiff Bay. As you can see, I was even concerned about what effect it might have on series three of Doctor Who but since that brought us Blink and Martha Jones amongst other things, it just probably demonstrated that Russell T Davies, as he'd admit himself later, wasn't paying enough attention to what this sister series was doing.
Another dispiriting fifty minutes in the company of Torchwood. I mean I've been largely positive about the series up until now, but this was a mess, and everything you could fear that show might descend into being. I really, really left tonight's episode afraid for the safety of Season Three of Doctor Who. They're different series, to be sure, but the same production team were happy to see tonight's drama broadcast as is despite the litany of problems. Why is it for every very cool moment, there's some bit of dialogue, or acting, or direction that makes you want to throw a pillow at the screen?
The positives first. Captain Jack's mystery is developing nicely and the revelation that he was knocking around on the planet in the very early 1900s was a nice surprise and beautifully ambiguous in relation to whether those scenes happened before or after The Doctor Dances. The flashback scene was shot well too, and it wasn't made completely clear whose side he was on in the war. My impression is that they didn't and that in fact he was romancing the old fairy woman before he went travelling in the Tardis and looked her up when he reappeared on Earth just recently. Otherwise we're in Highlander/Angel/Eighth Doctor Earth-arc territory, which wouldn't be such a bad thing as confusing -- were two of them knocking around during World War Two? The touching scenes between Jack and his old girlfriend helped to fill out this background -- he obviously loved her very much.
It was a good premise too, building upon the famous hoax pictures, fairies being some elemental shadows looking for children to join with them. In fact one of the highlights were the exposition scenes in which those photos were debunked again and the nature of the beasts was revealed even if 'evil since the dawn of time' seems a bit incongruous in a series that was supposed to be priding itself on its reliance on the gritty urban landscape and crap which haunts those street. You can see the actual pictures and the camera that took them at the National Museum for Film, Television and Photography in Bradford and the facts mentioned here were completely correct. For all of his cleverness, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was seduced by the children's story. The eventual monsters were very pretty, perfectly painterly like those fairies, almost the product of some late Victorian painted picture book.
Shame it was dogged by some extraordinarily listless storytelling and poor structuring. As with The Ghost Machine, the teaser was good and the first few scenes in which Jack looked up an old friend were sweet (although would Gwen really have been that rude in the talk about the fairies with all the eye-rolling? Surely that's more like Owen behaviour? This inconsistency of character from episode to episode is really irritating). The chase through through Cardiff Market and the flower petals were pleasingly gruesome (even if that imagery wasn't satisfactorily explained).
Beyond that once and again, we were treated to the girl being threatened, the timeless ones using the weather to defend her, Torchwood noticing the weather fluctuation and then chasing it up. It was a bit like watching an episode of Treasure Hunt, without Wincy Willis, the magenta jumpsuits or cross looking pensioners in stately homes on a coach trip.
This isn't necessarily just a problem with Mr. P J Hammond's work. All of the episodes have suffered from this repetition of action in one form or another, almost as though no one can get a grip of those extra five minutes which have been added to Doctor Who's usual running time. They've also suffered from moments of threat going on far too long, the cutting back, over and over to something which has already been established, like the kids in peril in the wind, or the spooky monsters looking at our heroes from above. This stylistic holdover from the parent series and seems out of place in the 'adult' world.
Time which could better be spent charting Jack's passage through history or providing Tosh with some character development outside of an upcoming episode that will no doubt include all of her character development or giving the characters a believable social life was instead used in the company of a vast range of characters that were no doubt supposed to be normal but were instead, well, boring. The strategy of the series is for largely than life characters to brush up against the realistic, but that's no reason for the so-called 'real people' to have nothing in the way of interesting characterisation, or anything to make you actually care if they lived or died. Compare and contrast the sinister lump of a step-father here with any of Gwen's colleagues from the first episode and there are some massive inconsistencies at play. Normal doesn't have to mean dull. Look at Spooks.
In this vein, were we supposed to care for Jasmine, the little girl? The Chosen One (and really, people, you're invoking Buffyology here?) needed to either be a sweetheart, someone the audience could really get behind, or The Omen's Damien in a dress. She was neither, and although the opening near abduction scene was winceful and said lump probably deserved to die for hitting the poor lamb, she was largely left standing around grinning as the elementals snuffed out her enemies. The resolution was troubling too -- Jack essentially advocated that offering up the odd small child for sacrifice was perfectly fair if it kept the 'aliens' at bay. Err, right. And you're expecting us to like Captain Jack after this? I mean his story doesn't really resolve itself. Perhaps if they'd spinned it into something related to him trying and failing to be The Doctor but ... oh no ... this is all we've got time for ...
On the subject of characters, a continuing annoyance is the non-reappearance of Gwen's police partner from the first episode. By making the police's participation irrelevant, they've lost one of the characters who could have been a secret weapon throughout -- he was the source of the oft quoted CSI: Kebab joke and his good humour would have provided much needed levity, particularly in a story like this. Why not make him the person who picked up the mad childcatcher at Cardiff Market? Recurring characters are a good thing.
But this was an episode filled with mini-irritations. The close-up of the name of the street in which the Chosen One lives as though this was supposed to be a big important plot point. The over reliance on that music cue which ends loudly and abruptly to signal 'ooh sinister'. The caption on the flashback even though Jack's voiceover was actually telling us the time and place. Oh and Jack holding back vital information about the enemy they were fighting to create false tension and fake climaxes when he reveals some piece of information, even though most of it was probably jibberish. UNIT syndrome strikes the van too -- they're a secret organisation (outside the government etc) so we'll have the name of it carved in the side -- did anyone else find it's sliding appearance into shot retina searingly irritating? And hey, why not the Mara? What's to say the Krotons didn't have a hand in it also?
[Well alright that reference was nice, and PJ might not have included it as a direct Doctor Who reference, but you can imagine Russell squealing with glee when he read it).
It takes me no pleasure in writing this, since obviously everyone involved had the best of intentions and it makes me look like the judges who lambasted Carol Smilie on Strictly Come Dancing on Saturday (I mean do they want Emma Bunton to win or what?). The cast were doing their best with the material and some of the direction was OK. But there are ongoing issues with the series, a kind of unsurety of tone and writing which is making it very difficult to watch, amplifying the faults rather than the successes. Fundamentally, the question must be -- was it scary? And unfortunately on this occasion, I'm sorry, no it wasn't. At least not in the way that was intended.
PS That Strictly reference dates this doesn't it? In the event Mark Ramprakash was victorious. Smilie was last seen punditing about the programme on The Alan Titchmarsh Show and advertising the Postcode Lottery.
the negative review the evil version of me is writing
TV Having not read this review of Torchwood's Cyberwoman for a few years, I'm surprised to see it isn't quite as positive as I remember. It's more of an "Torchwood is what it is" affair though you can already detect a sense of disappointment that it isn't what we all thought it was going to be. Just look at that costume. Is that what all female cyberpeople are like underneath their armour?
Now of course the episode is nothing but laughable and up there with Doctor Who's Timelash and Star Trek's Spock's Brain as one of the worst disasters of fantasy television ever, saved only by the cyberwoman vs. pterodactyl scene. One of, because Torchwood still hadn't scraped the bottom of the barrel.
What an odd series. After last week's wierdly structured and bizarrely directed episode I really feared that this was a duck, a bungle, a six hundred and fifty minute mistake being played out tortuously over thirteen weeks. But tonight's episode lived up to the promise of the opening episode, delivering enough shocks, surprises and thrills to just about scrub out the memory of last week's misstep. Still open to question however, is whether the series would be essential viewing were it not for the Doctor Who connection and the mystery of the hand applications.
Not that it began well, with what can best be described as a distracting homage to the teaser for the Firefly episode Bushwacked with all the basketball and the time rift pulling some really, really cheesy metal music from the 1980s to accompany the reveal of the cyberwoman. And that costume! On the one hand, it was obviously designed to look completely outrageous and disconcertingly sexy, but in the context of the episode it really, really jarred and must have been a real pain for actress Caroline Chikezie (late of As, If and Footballer's Wives) who should be congratulated for being able to produce a credible performance beneath the silliness.
This was the classic base-under-siege that the mother series has always done so well, although it also owed some debt to the works of John Carpenter and Ridley Scott. It still, understandably, continues to look like a much cheaper series than Doctor Who, and the re-use of the CG for the cyber-converter was a shame although the pterodactyl looked good. It's a risk to run a bottle episode this early in the run, but as I think I've said in earlier reviews this is not a show about original ideas and why should that matter if it's also entertaining? So what too if they're trotting out the usual debates about what 'tis to be human as though it hasn't already been looked at ad-nausea on Star Trek.
Hold on -- sorry, I think that sentence gatecrashed from the negative review the evil version of me is writing in the Bad Torchwood dimension. Where was I? Oh ...
The real key on this occasion was of course that as well as simply battling the alien presence to the death, Torchwood was fighting with itself and the implications of that death. This was a pleasingly streamlined story, free of the flab that's been dogging the series. Developing the narrative in near real time helped enormously, and although we're yet to see writer Chris Chibnall tackle Doctor Who, it's almost as though he'd seen what worked there and transferred it here.
Some might criticise that again we're supposed to be surprised by the manic secrecy of a character we've had little time to get to know, but the performances really went some way to filling in the blanks -- John Barrowman's disappointment clashing with David-Lloyd's desperation. Given this more dramatic material, the cast either toned down or keyed up their work accordingly and for the first time there was real chemistry and urgency. For some reason the lack of overall characterisation seemed less important and actually worked to the episode's advantage -- Ianto points out that Jack (and we) didn't know about this because no one's bothered to ask.
[Good lord, according to the wikipedia Gareth David-Lloyd is currently dating Sara Lloyd Gregory who played Carys in Day One, and he actually essayed the role of Yanto Jones in RTD's Mine All Mine.]
Will the pterodactyl fight another day? As an internal security system, a giant dinosaur is certainly novel and one of the key decisions in this series seems to be to run with the idea of incongruous juxtapositions. The show is unapologetically serving up B-movie material (and in this case with a manga tinge) within a serial format and there's really nothing wrong with that if it's done with these winning sensibilities. The problem last week was that the underlying sense of ludicrousness was taken far too seriously, whereas here the madness was instead being played straight and it worked very well. A balance too was struck between the larger than life dialogue of the opener and something far more realistic -- and the fall out from Suzie suicide finally bit as it wasn't clear if Jack really would shoot Ianto in the head (or vice versa).
What is becoming abundantly clear is that Torchwood, possibly because of the alien influence have a very different sense of morality considering that they're the good guys. In those closing moments, who did they kill? Even though Lisa had swapped her mind into the body of Annie the pizza girl, which is monstrous act, wasn't she fully human? Even though she still suggested upgrading wasn't that just psychological conditioning which could have been reversed? Didn't she, despite the new outward appearance, deserve a second chance? And how can anyone trust Ianto now -- is it wise not to kick him out of The Hub -- or is this a better the devil you know call?
[Incidentally, Annie actress Bethan Walker is on Twitter.]
Does the episode prove that Torchwood has legs after all? I'm still scratching my head. In a sense, this wasn't an episode that displayed all of the apparent promise of seeing a full blooded sci-fi story on the streets of Cardiff. How it scored instead was that despite being a direct sequel to a Doctor Who episode, it still managed to have its own tone and style and a sense of story that could and would not have worked at seven o'clock on a Saturday. Although the debate about whether that's a good thing still rages, and it's really difficult not to talk about the series without referring back to (and I'll say it again) the mother series, it's still quite exciting to see that material being produced without exceptions being made for the sake of the kids.
PS. According the IMDb, Cyberwoman is one of Bethan's only screen credits but she's recently been working at Shakespeare's Globe, which is excellent. Well done you.]
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