Month: November 2006

Greek Bearing Gifts
by Toby Whithouse

Having just obtained a personality last week, this week it’s Toshiko’s turn to screw up.

Synopsis
In 1812, a prostitute, Mary, and a Redcoat have an unexpected experience with a mysterious life form in the woods. 194 years later the “crime scene” is uncovered, along with some alien technology. Torchwood is called in. Unbeknownst to them a remarkably well preserved Mary is watching them.

Back at base, Toshiko is finding Owen and Gwen’s suddenly frisky camaraderie annoying and when it is obvious they don’t care about her work, either, she stops at the bar for a drink. Mary intercepts her there and introduced herself as one of a group of people who scavenge alien technology. She presents Toshiko with a pendant that allows her to read minds. Toshiko says she’ll have to turn this over to Torchwood, but Mary assures her that she won’t.

Returning to base, she uses the pendant to read Gwen and Owen’s minds. No only does that reveal that they are having an affair, it also further emphasizes just what they think of her. She is unable to tell them about the pendant.

Mary uses Toshiko’s vulnerability and seduces her. Her ultimate goal is to get into Torchwood and retrieve the alien artifact, which she claims is a transporter that can return her home.

Meanwhile, Owen’s research on the dead body reveals a series of crimes going back to 1812. The victims have all had their hearts ripped out.

Toshiko takes Mary into Torchwood and there’s a standoff. Mary is revealed to be an alien criminal and Jack tricks her into using her transporter device, which he has reprogrammed to take her to the heart of the sun.

Analysis
While there’s nothing particularly wrong with this story, the plot is a little shallow on the ground. It’s more about character development rather than melodrama.

The mind reading device isn’t really used to good effect except to make Toshiko more vulnerable to seduction in a science fictionish way rather than just overhearing a conversation or two by accident. It’s certainly the weakest entry in the series so far.

The most obvious feature of this story is the same-sex seduction of Toshiko. For once, finally, the use of sex in Torchwood is integrated into the plot in an effective and plausible way. The fact that it was a same-sex seduction of a character that we know to be interested in the opposite sex could have rendered this story even more striking. Unfortunately, since some of the more ham-fisted writers on the series have previously managed to get every last major character into same-sex kissing (at the least), what could have been a dramatic and thought-provoking plot device becomes another, “Oh, no not again!” moment. (Please, RTD, go back to beating us over the head with “Bad Wolf” or something.)

Since this is what the story is entirely about, it was completely undermined by what had been done before on the show.

It is revealed (if it wasn’t obvious last week) that Toshiko’s got a school girl crush on Owen. She also has an opportunity to see into Ianto’s mind, and he’s revealed to be mostly a zombie mourning the loss of his girlfriend back in Cyberwoman. Considering that Toshiko now knows about Gwen and Owen, what pain Ianto is in and the “pairing” of Toshiko and Ianto in last week’s episode, it’s not too hard to imagine that they’ll be getting closer as the series progresses. Hopefully not as early as next week – that would be really too clumsy.

Captain Jack mystery puzzle piece of the week: Jack’s mind couldn’t be read unless he wanted it to be and he could sense Toshiko trying to read it.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Review, Torchwood

Torchwood
Countrycide by Chris Chibnall

I must admit that as each episode of Torchwood opens, a sense of dread overcomes me every time I see Chris Chibnall’s name as the writer.

It’s not so much that he’s a bad writer, because he isn’t. The sense of dread comes because he is the writer who has apparently been “tasked” with forcing gratuitous sex into the program, whether it is important to the plot nor not. He is the chief hand crafting the episodes to fit what I can only call a juvenile’s idea of “adult” television. I can actually picture Beavis and Butthead at a Torchwood writer’s meeting giving advice on how to make the show adult.

Beavis: Then the scientist fondles the cyberchick’s tit.
Butthead: heh heh heh heh heh He said “tit” heh heh heh heh heh heh

And on that note, Countrycide opens…

Synopsis

Somewhere in the Welsh countryside, people are disappearing without a trace and Capt. Jack brings the Torchwood team to investigate.

They setup camp (yes, camp) in the area and rather than investigate, they play a round of who’d you snog last. Luckily for Ianto, Capt. Jack wiggles out of answering the question, but it turns out all the ladies snogged Owen last, and that doesn’t sit well with Toshi.

They’re drawn out into the woods where Owen aggressively attempts to sex up Gwen, who doesn’t resist much. Before it goes too far, they discover a badly mutilated body, which turns out to be a diversionary tactic to steal their Torchwood-mobile. The entire team follow the vehicle’s tracker signal, on foot, to a deserted inn in a tiny community.

Inside the inn, the mutilated bodies are practically falling from the cupboards. Toshi and Ianto are captured and placed in a larder of human parts. Whatever has captured them has a taste for human flesh.

Gwen is shot by a survivor who has been holding off the human eaters and Owen (a doctor, by the way) saves her life. Pumped full of pain killers and buckshot, she still manages a bit of hair caressing on Owen. Where could this be going?

One by one, the team are captured and the villains are revealed to be… wait for it… deranged country folk who just like to eat people every ten years.

Everyone is on the menu except for Jack, who bursts in with a hail of bullets and shoots everybody. The police come to haul everybody off.

Gwen is distraught that she can’t talk about this with her boyfriend, so she goes and screws Owen.

Analysis

As a horror episode, this episode generally delivers well. It’s creepy, frightening and atmospheric. It’s also a moment when you can cheer as Capt. Jack comes in, kicks butt and takes names.

On the other hand, unless this episode is meant as a prelude to a future episode, the basic premise doesn’t hold up well. So, there have been several mysterious disappearances in the area. So what? Why is this a job for Torchwood and not the police? Admittedly, the local cop is one of the cannibals, but with so many people missing, surely a team of cops would have been working on the case – perhaps even cops trained in missing person investigations.

The cannibals appeared to be none-too-bright, so why weren’t they found out already? They’re leaving bodies and witnesses lying around all over their homes, for crying out loud! For that matter, why were they not discovered 10 years ago, or 20, since this has apparently been going on for some time – “harvesting people every 10 years”, they said.

“Harvesting” is an odd word, too. Harvest implies reaping what you sow. The word was either misused, or there’s more to this story. (Yes, I’m basing my theory that this episode might be a precursor for something else on exactly one word.)

For the first time, we get to see a bit of personality for Toshi – that’s bad. Like Ianto, when he finally exhibited personality he screwed up big time. Looks like Toshi is next. Keeping characters without personality until you need them is a rather ham-fisted writing technique. In this case, Toshi’s “personality” is jealousy and a sense of not being appreciated. If that isn’t a recipe for disaster, I don’t know what is.

Meanwhile they’ve been setting up Gwen and Owen’s sexual attraction for one another, and placing Gwen in the vulnerable position of not being able to “open up” and share with her boyfriend. Fair enough, there’s no doubt that keeping secrets like that is a stress on a relationship, but… why couldn’t she talk about this case with her boyfriend? It didn’t involve aliens. Everyone on the planet seems to have heard of Torchwood. The cops came and cleaned up a whole village of cannibals – like that won’t be on the evening news? There’s nothing for her to hide. For once she actually could have thrown him a bone and talked to him about her work. Perhaps he wouldn’t like it, but after their place was ransacked last week, he should have figured out her work might be dangerous.

Capt. Jack mystery puzzle piece of the week: Once he was a torturer.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Review, Torchwood