Cyberwoman Review

Cyberwoman

MY EYES

Torchwood Season 1 Episode 4

One of the worst costumes in Doctor Who history spoils what is actually a pretty good premise.

The Review

Ianto really is put through the ringer

Clearly RTD and Chibnall were well aware of the short stick that Ianto has been drawing the first three episodes with us knowing almost nothing about him. The other four team members go to get drinks, but Ianto stays behind because it turns out his girlfriend was halfway into being Cyber-converted at Canary Wharf in Doomsday and he wants to cure her. The whole story is a tragedy, with Ianto desperately caring for his girlfriend Lisa but it becoming clear that Lisa just won’t be able to be saved. The ending packs a particular punch with Lisa putting her brain into a pizza delivery girl. Ianto really wants to kill Lisa then and there, but just can’t bring himself too. The other Torchwood team puts and end to the body horror, and that’s that. It has all the trappings of another good Torchwood tale, with some usual stuff like Owen getting to kiss Gwen and the team see Captain Jack survive horrific electric shocks. Good for Ianto getting screen time!

cursed_torchwood

However, we have to talk about the costume. It is terrible. You think it would be easy, put a woman into half a Cyberman suit. Instead, they went and made her sexy! It’s inexplicable. She’s got big metallic breasts, and as one shot shows us: heels. Why would a Cyberman have heels and breasts, and whatever the fuck else was going on with her costume. Instead of seeming like a dangerous threat, Lisa just seems incredible bizarre. The doctor Ianto brings in to help her gets hideously disfigured as Lisa tries to cyber-convert him. It’s just impossible to take Lisa seriously looking like a ridiculous over-sexualized thing that she is. Their initial plan to deal with her is to hurl their CGI pterodactyl at her that Torchwood has for some reason, and that’s not the best idea. Tosh also gets more to do this episode but still feels criminally undeveloped especially now that we know so much about Ianto. Hoping for a Tosh episode soon.

There is genuine emotional pathos in this episode, but it’s undermined by all the absurdity surrounding it.

7/10. Would be a lot higher without the epic costume misfire.

But seriously Ianto, why does she have Cyberheels?

 

Ghost Machine Review

Ghost Machine

Owen gets his comeuppance 

Torchwood Season 1 Episode 3

We learn a little more about Owen in an episode that packs a big emotional punch.

The Review

The final confrontation with Ed Morgan

After Owen was first shown using the alien date rape cologne, it seems fitting that he has to experience the horror of a woman being assaulted and eventually raped and murdered. The device at the heart of this episode’s origin allows the users to see ghosts of past and future: strong emotional events. Its origin is completely unknown, but it escalates when Owen sees Ed Morgan rape Lizzie Lewis in 1963. (We thankfully don’t actually see that part, just the events right before it.) Owen goes on a righteous quest for vengeance leading him to the living Ed Morgan, who has developed mental illness since the incident despite never getting tried as the whole community knew he was responsible. Gwen prevents a kid, Bernie, from dying in one possible future, but isn’t able to stop her own: Owen stands down from killing Ed in cold blood and gives his knife to Gwen, and Ed promptly falls on it. It’s a shock moment, and a good human climax to this episode.

Hard not to feel the chemistry here. Is Barrowman the most ripped any Doctor Who regular has ever been?

I think the biggest surprise for me on the show so far is the character of Gwen: she is human, extremely so. It’s RTD using the Rose playbook all over again, but there’s no reason to mess with the success there. Seeing Gwen bring empathy to the kind of crazy team of Torchwood is a delight. I’ve picked up on that John Barrowman has been kind of stilted as Captain Jack so far, Jack the leader is a lot different than Jack the roguish conman but there hasn’t really been a chance for Captain Jack to let loose yet. Pleasingly it seems that Gwen is not going to give up her relationship with her boyfriend Rhys, who seems to be a genuinely good guy. Torchwood continues to be straightforward and solid television, and I dearly hope it continues to be so. Still, Ianto barely gets any screen time, and Tosh does get screen time but feels completely irrelevant which is a shame. Also: there’s some weird Gwen and Captain Jack chemistry going on, but hey, it’s Captain Jack we’re talking about here.

Three episodes, three 8s for Torchwood. If it keeps up this quality I’ll be thrilled, but I have a bad feeling about next week.

8/10. I was genuinely shocked when Ed died though. Owen confronting him was pretty suspenseful too.

Gwen is great

 

Day One (2006) Review

Day One (2006)

When the sex gas hits

Torchwood Season 1 Episode 2

Gwen’s first day on the job at Torchwood goes a bit sideways as she commits several rookie errors fighting a sex monster.

The Review

Gwen and Carys

I was thinking about how the staff of Torchwood have to be the horniest people ever, but then maybe if they’ve all been assembled by Captain Jack it isn’t really that big of a surprise. Gwen is still nervous and uncomfortable in her new job at ‘special ops’, and already has found out more about Captain Jack than the rest of Torchwood. With Yvonne and London’s Torchwood destroyed, it seems that the Cardiff branch has almost completely autonomy right now. Out of the crew Ianto seems to be a definitive number five, not going out on missions, and Owen is clearly the sleaze ball of the group. The fact that they see Gwen making out with Carys/the sex monster and are all too distracted admiring it to realize Gwen’s life is in danger isn’t great. Owen getting tricked by Carys and forced to strip is properly humiliating for him. Tosh also needs a bit more character development.

The sex monster killing someone

I was worried about ‘sex monster’, but it is used for a semi-successful commentary on the weird place sex inhabits in modern society. There’s one scene where Carys sees all the sexual ads in downtown Cardiff, and let’s just say this commentary about how sexualized society is would maybe land better if Torchwood wasn’t comprised of a ton of people having sex. I think it might have actually been better going the other way, trying to break down the taboos of sex. Heck, Gwen even kisses Captain Jack for really no reason other than his lantern jaw line I think. It will be fun to see Gwen continue to get more confident at Torchwood, and Captain Jack is a big believer in her. The mystery still remains at just how he managed to escape from 200,000 years in the future to be lying low here in Cardiff. Overall, this is a nice episode continuing to show the original appeal of the show.

Notably, this is Chris Chibnall’s first televised piece of writing for the Doctor Who world. All things considered, a good debut.

8/10. I do think this might be the horniest show I’ve ever watched.

Owen: bad!

 

Everything Changes Review

Everything Changes

What are we, some kind of Torchwood?

Torchwood Season 1 Episode 1

The edgier counterpart to Doctor Who gets off with a pretty great Rose-esque start where Gwen Cooper joins the team.

The Review

Gwen Cooper is unapologetically Welsh and it’s excellent

Constable Gwen Cooper is the star of the show in Torchwood‘s opening episode, and has a chance run-in with them when Torchwood clears away the cops investigating a murder to test a magic glove to bring him back to life. She sees Captain Jack and hears him give his name, which piques her interest. Then she sees a weird alien creature who she thinks is a human with a prosthetic bite into someone’s neck and kill him. The search takes her to the center of Cardiff, where the show is set (and conveniently where Doctor Who is made) and she wanders into the Torchwood base. Captain Jack takes her for a drink where he slips amnesia in her drink, and sees her off. It’s not a great look, but it’s not as good as apparently Torchwood’s sleaze bag Owen Harper sneaking some alien love perfume to essentially rape people. Gwen’s intrepid though, and realizes that the murderer the police are looking for is in Torchwood itself.

Jack silently emerging from the ground without saying a word is pretty hilarious

Turns out the power of the revive glove has driven Captain Jack’s lieutenant Suzie mad, and she’s killing people with it just to test it out. She shoots Jack in the head, but he quickly revives and she commits suicide in shock. Really, the episode is a standard straightforward pilot. You’d think that former companion of the Doctor Captain Jack would do better than Torchwood Three, but it seems he’s undercover. Really, everything about this story is a straightforward tv pilot, with maybe a few too many epic establishing shots of characters standing on top of roofs from multiple angles. Out of all the Torchwood crew, Ianto is the only one apparently not stealing tech from the base, though we never see him leave it. Tosh’s stolen tech is only to read books, a far cry from what Owen was doing. There’s really not too much more to say, it’s a standard solid debut that I fear is going to get a lot worse but hey seven years after I heard about it I’m now watching it!

Torchwood! Gwen and Captain Jack: good! The rest, well, we’ll find out.

8/10. Eve Myles gets to co-star with John Barrowman, the dream.

Suzie the murderer