Countrycide
Torchwood Season 1 Episode 6
In maybe one of the darkest episodes in the Doctor Who universe, we meet some terrifying all too real villains.
The Review
When people disappear across the Welsh countryside, Torchwood comes in thinking it might be aliens. It turns out to be just a family of depraved cannibals, who kill and eat humans because, as their leader says “it makes [them] happy.” I cannot think of a more evil being we have encountered than that man. The episode is pleasingly filmed on location in rural Wales, and Owen’s complete hatred of his surroundings is hilarious. However, the cannibal plot is really a vehicle for the continued character development of the team. Gwen starts it off with the extremely dumb game of asking everybody whom their last kiss was with. We get some Tosh development today with her last kiss being Christmas Eve with Owen, and apparently being an expert at getting out of cells. I thought for a minute we weren’t going to discuss Ianto and Lisa anymore, but Ianto ends the kissing conversation by saying it was Lisa and giving Captain Jack a withering stare. MY Ianto.
The engine of Torchwood continues to be Gwen, and my girl, she makes a very bad choice. First off Owen says his last kiss was the creepy one with her in Cyberwomen, then gets kind of rape-y with her out in the forest. What everybody keeps seeing in Owen I will never know, because he just a creep (even if I love Burn Gorman from his later work on Turn). Turns out Owen is a doctor as he helps Gwen after she gets a grazing shot from a panicked guy with a shotgun. With how horrifying the experience of the team nearly getting eaten is for Gwen, she feels like she can’t turn to Rhys and tell him anything…so she goes and has sex with Owen. This is just bad for Gwen, she is in a great relationship with someone who we’ve seen her caring about and Owen is the worst. Fortunately I think this won’t last long, or at least I hope it won’t. I think the time is coming for Captain Jack to drop down his guarded exterior and start to put Owen in his place. We’ll see.
It’s a fine episode, the twist that humans were behind it wasn’t too shocking though. I can’t believe how Owen is tolerated by anyone.
7.5/10. The on location filming was fun though!
Reviewing Doctor Who from Start to Finish 