Torchwood Season 1 Review

Torchwood Season 1

 

Torchwood Season 1

The first series of Torchwood was better than I expected, and despite a restrained Captain Jack introduced us to a team of complex people all trying to navigate a crazy world.

The Review

Here’s the scores for the stories:

Combat: 9/10

Greeks Bearing Gifts: 9/10

Captain Jack Harkness: 8.5/10

Out of Time: 8.5/10

They Keep Killing Suzie: 8.5/10

Random Shoes: 8/10

End of Days: 8/10

Ghost Machine: 8/10

Day One: 8/10

Everything Changes: 8/10

Countrycide: 7.5/10

Small Worlds: 7/10

Cyberwoman: 7/10

Torchwood begins as the show of Gwen meeting the team, and then gradually morphs into an ensemble shows with different members of the team getting focused on in different episodes. Though the spin-off is billed around Captain Jack, we don’t get nearly as much of him as some people would expect. Gwen and Owen get a ton of character development, with Gwen becoming increasingly compromised by being part of the team and Owen gradually finding his humanity. Tosh is expanded upon greatly in one episode, as well as Ianto, although his episode is much less successful. My biggest credit is that the setting of Cardiff is incredibly real, realer than basically anywhere in the present day that Doctor Who goes. With such a grounded setting, we get a glimpse of what it means to be an everyday alien hunter.

8.077/10 Eerily consistent quality

End of Days Review

End of Days

Abaddon has come

Torchwood Season 1 Episode 13

The first season of Torchwood concludes with alliances splintering on the team, and one super-sized death demon.

The Review

Gwen looks at Rhys’ dead body

In the most pivotal moment of Torchwood, the four employees of Torchwood are all united against one person: Captain Jack. Tosh has the weakest motivations for opening the rift, but they get stronger from there. Ianto sees Lisa, as she really looked before getting Cyber-converted. Owen sees Diane, asking to be bought home, and finally for Gwen Rhys is actually murdered by Bilis, the caretaker who can step across time. In the face of so much heartbreak, it turns out that the weight of the world is too much for Torchwood to bear. Maybe if Captain Jack had been more honest about himself he would have been trusted more as a leader, but even his lover Ianto really does not know much about him. Faced with four grieving employees and the world spiraling into chaos, Jack’s pleas that this is all a trap fall on deaf ears. He might have been right: but Jack needed to show more humanity to his team. Owen shoots him dead, and he eventually survives, but the team seemingly backs up Owen. How can Jack redeem himself to a team that just killed him?

Before getting killed by Abaddon, Jack could’ve said the rift opening brought him back like it did Rhys

It turns out the answer is to stop one of the craziest threats we’ve ever seen, Bilis’ master, the son of the Beast, the ridiculously tall Abaddon. Seriously, the physics of this thing’s height are ridiculous but I give the show props for trying to pull it off. To prove his worth to his team, Jack sacrifices himself to Abaddon, which ultimately overdoses on Jack’s infinite life force. It takes a week, but Rose’s curse still holds and Jack weakly comes back to life, kissing Ianto and forgiving a blubbering Owen. (I was most pleased with Owen’s arc at the end of the season, a big success for the show in my mind). With Jack, actions spoke louder than words, and Torchwood is together again. Well, not exactly as we hear the TARDIS and Jack goes to see who he’s been waiting to see for years and years: the Doctor. Overall I thought this was a successful episode in healing the bonds between the characters. Pulling Abaddon out of nowhere with ten minutes left was certainly a bold choice and it doesn’t quite land, but it is worth it for the metaphorical resonance. Hopefully next season Jack loosens up a little now that everybody trusts him for real.

Torchwood ends with the crew finally getting to learn who Jack Harkness really is.

8/10. Bilis really just gets off free, huh?

The Doctor’s hand!

 

Captain Jack Harkness Review

Captain Jack Harkness

The two Captain Jacks

Torchwood Season 1 Episode 12

We finally meet the true Captain Jack Harkness in a melancholic episode that also advances the ticking time bomb known as Owen Harper in the second of January 1st 2007’s trilogy.

The Review

The Jacks, Tosh, and the freaky immortal caretaker man Bilis

Throughout this series, we have not really had an episode that focused on our lead: Captain Jack. In this case we get two of them: our Captain Jack meets the original whose identity he took back in The Empty Child. We really do not learn much more than we already knew about Captain Jack’s history, but this reveals more about who he is. Jack feels incredibly guilty about his past as a conman, and continues to press the Captain to go and be with the woman he loves, knowing he will die tomorrow. Instead it turns out that Jack’s gaydar needs some fixing: the Captain is far more into him. It’s a touching scene as in the middle of an army farewell party, the Captain is so inspired by Jack’s words to live every night like it’s your last that he has no compunction dancing with him. Once the rift opens, Jack goes back and has to give him a big kiss. Tosh also goes with Jack to the past and has to deal with some racism, and her and Jack are actually a fun duo. Interpersonal relationships across time: something Doctor Who and Torchwood do expertly.

Ianto: Captain Jack’s right-hand man

Gwen is sidelined this episode, which is fine as she’s gotten so much character development already. Instead we get a fight that I did not expect but makes a ton of sense: Ianto vs Owen. Owen sees Tosh and Jack’s disappearance as an excuse to open up the Cardiff Rift, and doesn’t do much to disguise that he hopes Diane will come back. Ianto, as Jack’s lover, shoots Owen for it, especially after Owen says he knows all about their relationship. Owen’s desperation is very in-character, and it’s clear how much he found meaning in Diane. In a way, it shows what would happen to the real Captain Jack if he didn’t die the day after that ball in Cardiff, having to live his whole life wondering why his love has left him. The desperation is understandable: wouldn’t you want to do anything you could to be with the love of your life? Small Worlds and this episode both showed us the pain that comes with being Torchwood’s ‘Captain Jack Harkness’. Now, the mystery of Bilis hangs over us for our finale, but this episode helps us remember what makes Torchwood special.

Captain Jack Harkness shows us the real Captain Jack Harkness and makes Captain Jack wrestle with a life that is all about leaving people behind.

8.5/10. I didn’t know the Cardiff Blitz was a thing. Figures, damn Nazi.

Jack protecting Tosh was great

Combat Review

Combat

Getting in the cage

Torchwood Season 1 Episode 11

In an episode more relevant than ever, Torchwood does its best to examine male angst with an alien fight club.

The Review

Owen and Mark

I had hopes that Owen would be in a better place after meeting Diana, but all it did is made him spiral into a depression. He ends up being the perfect person to be recruited into a weevil-fight club taking place in Cardiff. Our guide to the world of the discontented, Mark, explains that young men these days have too much money but are hollow inside. Unfortunately Torchwood does not directly go into this more, but I find it fascinating because the discontented upper middle class white guy has ruled the past five years. Potentially exploring the societal reasons why guys feel like they’re out of touch and what drives male depression and suicide could’ve been pressed into deeper but the idea the episode goes with is well done. There’s no BS about the characters being upset they’re not having sex or girls don’t like them, by making this not about gender relations and just male depression. Owen has never felt like he really has a place in society, and that’s why he wanted to die. It’s a story worth doing and I’m glad it was.

Rhys doesn’t give Gwen the satisfaction

The secondary plot revolves how Gwen is getting consistently enraptured in her work and how Rhys has hit a breaking point. She finally realizes that Owen is a complete asshole and ends the affair. Jack tells her not to let her life drift, but is also the guy who took her away from her dinner with Rhys. Gwen then makes a dumber move: tells Rhys she was sleeping with Owen only after he drinks an amnesia pill because she wants to hear him say he forgives her. Rhys is naturally outraged, and passes out before saying anything else. Gwen was trying to have her cake and eat it too: have Rhys says he forgives her without Gwen ever really having to live with the consequences of her affair. There have been tons of indications about how good a person Rhys is, and Gwen has really been awful to him all season. I think Rhys maybe should have been at that fight club, trying to find meaning in a world where his girlfriend and best friend have abandoned him. A breaking point is coming: and I can’t wait.

Combat could’ve made its message more explicit, but it’s a good one. It made me feel sorry for Owen too, which is impressive

9/10. Fighting in the Age of Loneliness indeed

Owen: weevil king

 

Out of Time Review

Out of Time

54 years into the future

Torchwood Season 1 Episode 10

There are no enemies to fight on this episode of Torchwood, except maybe the existential dread of what time does for us all.

The Review

A surprisingly pretty touching romance starring Owen!

It’s been hard for me to review individual episodes of Torchwood as compared to Doctor Who where episodes can vary widely in quality, Torchwood has a  house style like most television shows. This episode is no different, three people: Diane, John, and Emma took off in 1953 and touched down in 2007. Diane is a fearless trailblazing female pilot who Owen immediately seduces because just look at her, and accidentally falls in love with. She continues to beguile his expectations by being at once an adventurer and feminist champion through and through, but expecting chivalry (Owen chides her saying she expects both equality and chivalry) and thinking that sex is something that should never be casual. As much as she loves Owen, she ends up loving the skies more, and decides to take her chances in a new time flying to parts unknown. I have given the character of Owen a lot of heat this season, but I hope he’s on the road to some form of redemption.

Emma and John (with Diane lurking)

Emma, only 18, gets saved by Gwen who has to teach her to be cautious of boys at clubs, but ultimately Gwen can’t stop her from spreading her wings and moving to London. It’s a very sweet story, but there are storm clouds as Rhys catches Gwen lying that Emma is a relative of hers (he also wakes up naked not knowing Emma is home in an uncomfortable moment). Captain Jack deals with John, who is the most out of place with the values of modern society. He visits his only surviving relative: his son, now senile in an old folks home. John decides to commit suicide, and Jack can’t talk him out of it knowing the pain of living outside of your own time. Jack tries to die too, but still wakes up from the carbon monoxide poisoning. We haven’t really seen much of the depressed side of Jack yet, and it’s touching in its own way to see his struggles. Thanks to Rose, Jack got to live, but is living forever really what he wanted? I can only hope we explore this more. Ianto and especially Tosh are practically invisible, thank goodness for the Tosh episode because sometimes the show forgets she’s there.

It’s a touching episode that sees our three main characters meet three people that tell them a lot about the world. What more can one want from tv?

8.5/10. Seriously though, Diane, damn

Owen finally finds love but loses it…he’s probably going back to casual sex land

 

Random Shoes Review

Random Shoes

Eugene and Gwen

Torchwood Season 1 Episode 9

Torchwood does Love & Monsters but does it a little bit better in a pretty out there episode.

The Review

The alien eye

RTD keeps pulling out his jar of tricks from Doctor Who‘s first two seasons and bringing them here to Torchwood. Eugene is just like Elton from Love & Monsters, a lovable loser type who has been infatuated with the main characters. He was obsessed with this alien eye he got as a kid, and tried to talk to Gwen and Torchwood about it. However, he got hit by a car and died, and is how living as an invisible ghost getting to go around watching Gwen piece together his life story. Eugene had some memory lost, and pictures of three people’s shoes on his phone. Eventually, it turns out to be his friend Gary, Gary’s dickhead friend Josh, and the waitress at the restaurant they were at right before he ran into that car. He was putting the eye on e-bay, they jacked up the bid, and there he went, into the street. Dead. Except Eugene swallowed the eye…

The titular random shoes

Eugene now gets to see his life’s denouement, and spends a lot of it fawning over Gwen. However, things change when Gwen calls his father that left him 15 or so years ago in to go to his funeral. His father is genuinely moved and sorry, and wants to connect with the remaining son that he has. Gwen is so moved she almost gets run over but BAM Eugene becomes corporeal and saves her and then zooms into the sky as a spirit. It’s, uh, a pretty wild ending to be sure, and one I didn’t see coming. I don’t know, it’s a weird but beautiful story. Instead of ELO we get a Bowie song. I think it was alright, I was interested to see the alien the eye was from though. Eugene does get a kiss with Gwen, good for him, he seemed like a nice guy. It’s kind of a weird episode for me to review, but it was straightforward (funny enough considering the weird premise), and I liked it. It’s a lot less famous than Love & Monsters, but writer Jacquetta May does it better than RTD.

Eugene is everything Elton isn’t, and his redemption with Gwen is better than his girlfriend becoming a paving slab.

8/10. There’s a stamen waiting in the sky…

Eugene wakes up

 

They Keep Killing Suzie Review

They Keep Killing Suzie

Suzie Costello won’t go down

Torchwood Season 1 Episode 8

Torchwood introduces a proper supervillain in Suzie Costello in an episode that reveals just how messed up she was.

The Review

Back on the operating table

After people are murdered with ‘Torchwood’ spelled out in blood, Gwen thinks it would be smart to use the resurrection glove from the first episode in order to check it out. Seems smart, right? Things get complicated when somehow it turns out that ex-Torchwood lieutenant gone wrong Suzie is tied up in everything. Gwen is able to use the glove when Captain Jack can’t, and somehow Suzie stays permanently alive afterwards, baffling the team. At this episode the episode was moving along swiftly, but then it gets good: really good. Suzie tells Gwen about her father, dying of cancer, and how she wants to go see him. (She also tells Gwen she and Owen had sex because of course). Gwen is a nice person, and agrees to take her. As they go, Torchwood’s base goes into lockdown: the murderer was some mentally affected man held in lockup that seemingly was overdosed on Retcon, Torchwood’s amnesia drug. The truth is worse: he’s been mentally programmed by Suzie.

Gwen is a victim this episode, and Captain Jack’s deathless secret comes close to getting revealed

Turns out Suzie is a supervillain mastermind, and it is one of the best executed twists. She kills herself when discovered, and when the murderer (Max) doesn’t see her, he’s programmed to kill. Torchwood will resurrect Suzie, she’ll lure whoever did out of the base, Max locks it down repeating some poetry, no one can catch up to her as she drains all the life force from whoever woke her up. (It would be interesting to see how Jack would respond, but he can never get the glove working). Suzie is resurrected, Torchwood is stuck, the end. Of course Ianto gets cell reception, Torchwood escapes, catches up to Suzie, and Tosh destroys the glove which ends the whole thing. It’s a surprising dark episode that is another success story for this show. It’s becoming clear that Captain Jack might have to reveal his secrets sooner than later: Suzie says something she saw whilst dead is coming for him. As well, Ianto and Jack apparently have sex because Tosh is the only Torchwood member not getting some. All told, another winner.

This show keeps up it’s steady good quality, we did get some classic Captain Jack dialogue talking about dating twin acrobats.

8.5/10. Suzie’s daring plot almost works. Bravo.

Gloves tend to come in pairs…

 

Greeks Bearing Gifts Review

Greeks Bearing Gifts

Tosh and ‘Mary’

Torchwood Season 1 Episode 7

The halfway mark of the season sees the show finally give us a Tosh episode and guess what: it’s the best one!

The Review

Ianto’s thoughts are just heartbreaking

Before this episode, Tosh was my least favorite member of the team because we knew nothing about her? Who was Tosh? She seemed capable, pretty nerdy, but it’s hard to tell for sure and they’re all nerds here. In this episode, ‘Mary’, and alien living in disguise gives her a pendant that allows her to read people’s thoughts. It turns out unsurprisingly that Tosh has felt like people never really took her seriously and didn’t appreciate her, and it turns out that she was right. Tosh isn’t perfect, she’s in love with Owen for some reason, but she is a genuinely good person. Captain Jack’s thoughts are shielded (probably time agent training), and Ianto’s thoughts are only about how much constant horrifying pain he is which is heartbreaking. Tosh also has sex with and hangs out with ‘Mary’, and she also saves a crazy guy from committing a murder-suicide with his family. Tosh thought nobody cared about her that much, and it turns out she was kind of right. What is she going to do now?

Tosh’s space alien girlfriend

Gwen seems happier than she has in a long time obviously flirting with Owen, and although Tosh exposes that they’ve had sex it’s kind of obvious to everyone. It is not a great look for either of them, but Owen at least gets a good scene as he finds out that ‘Mary’ has been ripping out people’s hearts since 1812. You think someone in Cardiff would’ve put it together? Tosh has apologize to the crew after Captain Jack kills ‘Mary’ by sending her to the center of the sun, Owen doesn’t want to hear it although Gwen is more apologetic. Tosh decides to destroy the pendant with Captain Jack watching on, and it’s clear how much she has grown as a result. She is not going to be as shy and stand up for herself more, because she still loves the team she works with. Jack reminds her that she only got a snapshot of the way the world is, and Tosh used it to do a good thing. I hope that Tosh ends up finding herself, and Gwen tells her she hopes she falls in love as it looked good on her. Yes Gwen, it did.

It’s Torchwood‘s best episode yet, as we find out that Tosh is by far the best person that works there.

9/10. I’m officially Team Tosh, where the shirts.

Captain Jack is fun as a boss, but I want to see roguish conman Jack come out soon

 

Countrycide Review

Countrycide

“Let’s go make some bad choices”

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

Captain Jack actually gets the least amount of character development this episode

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.

This gets a yikes from me

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!

Whole different level of fucked here

 

Small Worlds Review

Small Worlds

The one about fairies

Torchwood Season 1 Episode 5

Torchwood tackles fairies as we get some more clues about Captain Jack’s life. 

The Review

The fairies protect Jasmine as she smiles

I think I may have enjoyed this episode more if I was the expert on fairy lore that Captain Jack is. Apparently they are basically invincible, time-traveling, can control the weather, kill people while staying invisible. They’re native to Earth, apparently used to be humans, and all they do is select new children, chosen ones, to become fairies with them. They can look like your traditional light and happy fairies, but they’re not: actually ugly monstrous green demon creatures. Throughout the episode we see one such chosen one: Jasmine who is dour and morose around humans but is extremely happy whenever she’s with her fairy friends. The fairies kill a pedophile that tried to kidnap her, and her stepfather, who was a complete dick to her. In the end, Captain Jack has to give Jasmine over to the fairies to get them to stop, and is understandably given the cold shoulder by the entire Torchwood crew.

Jack and Estelle

Gwen is the only non-Jack member of Torchwood to get any development this episode, getting extremely scared when the fairies trash her and her boyfriend Rhys’ apartment. She also goes with Jack as he checks on Estelle, an old woman who believes she was in love with Jack’s father in the 40s. Of course, it was actually Jack himself. I suppose for Jack their relationship could’ve been pre- or post-Doctor, we’ll maybe never know for sure. It is touching to see that he still cares for and loves Estelle, and shows that Jack isn’t just a sex machine when it comes to relationships. Of course, Estelle gets killed by the fairies, and Jack is as devastated as we’ve ever seen him. This episode is fine, but didn’t quite hold together completely for me. I guess the fairies are just a bit too weird. I’ll be choking up petals soon.

Fairies! I’ll tell you what though, their laugh is pretty creepy

7/10. Big ol ‘meh’ from me on this one.

What fairies really look like