Category: Reviews

Combat
by Noel Clarke


Jack looses weevils, Owen gets depressed

Synopsis
Owen is depressed. He’s in a deep, dark, depression. He drinks, he fights, he pisses on his friends (metaphorically.) (Come to think of it, the “metaphorically” was meant for the word “pisses” but could equally have applied to the word “friends”.)

Meanwhile, Jack has discovered that someone is “kidnapping” weevils, right out from under Torchwood’s nose.

Gwen has a fight with Rhys, then a fight with Owen, so she’s depressed, too. She tells Rhys about her affair, then gives him the amnesia drug.

Owen goes undercover and discovers a Fight Club where socially dissatisfied morons have cage-fights with weevils. Being in that right state of mind, Owen becomes one of the morons and goes into the cage with the Weevil.

He nearly gets eaten, Jack saves the Day. “Story” over.

Analysis
I had high hopes for this episode. After week-after-week of talky, only vaguely Torchwood related stories, the previews for this episode looked like this might be the turning point story where things finally begin to pick up the pace.

One could be forgiven, having seen the previews, to think that Torchwood might be coming up against some opposition, perhaps even someone who actually knows what the weevils are (as Torchwood has already admitted that they do not.)

Instead we just get a bunch of dumb wanks in a fight club.

It’s a completely senseless implementation of all the cool violence and melodrama “teased” at in the preview. Oh wait! Could this be an oh-so-subtle “message” from the writers? Violence and fighting are senseless! I have seen the light; another mind “enlightened” by television!

The story did resolve at least one point about the weevils that has been bothering me (apart from their obvious absence): Why are they wearing overalls? It would now seem that it’s just possible that weevils are “infected” people, as Owen seems to have picked up the “bug” by the end of the episode.

As predicted, Gwen is falling apart, so much so that has to spill her guts to Rhys to ask for his forgiveness. Then, of course, she has to make him forget. She doesn’t get the forgiveness she seeks and resorts to pizza. I predict she’ll be 20 stone by the end of the series.

Capt. Jack Mystery Puzzle Piece of the Week: I’ll be darned if I saw one.

Next Week Capt. Jack goes back to WWII and meets himself. Toshiko goes along, I’m sure an ethnically-Japanese woman will be popular in WWII London… or will it be Cardiff?

Technorati Tags: Blog, Review, Torchwood

Out of Time
by Catherine Tregenna


Three ordinary people from the 1950’s meet the Torchwood team.

Synopsis

A plane arrives at a landing field and the Torchwood team are waiting. Out of the plane step three people who left on their flight in 1953. They have fallen through the rift.

Each of the three “pairs up” with a member of Torchwood and begin the process of coming to grips with the new world they live in.

Emma, a young woman, is befriended by Gwen. She is the youngest and most adaptable. Apart from coming to gripes with modern sexual mores, she deals with her loss and integrates into society, but she leaves behind a legacy for Gwen: Her boyfriend Rhys has learned how easily she lies to him.

Diane, the pilot of the flight, is a no-nonsense 1950’s feminist – no stupid man is going to tell her what to do. That doesn’t stop her from doing the horizontal with Owen, who falls hopelessly in love with her. She dumps him to try flying back into the rift.

John, the eldest one, has the hardest time adapting to this new world. His wife is dead, his only son is a childless widower with dementia, living in a home, unable to recognize anyone or anything. John realizes his life came to absolutely nothing. Jack empathizes with him, and even reveals to him that he is from the future and fell through time and has lived in the past.

The circumstances find himself in; his family a dead end, a new world he doesn’t understand, scantily-clad women on magazines and not being to smoke in pubs; is too much for him and he decides to kill himself. In a touching scene, he and Jack gas themselves to death holding hands in a car. (I did warn you there were spoilers.) Of course, Jack cannot die.

In the end, we are left with three sad members of Torchwood.

Analysis

It should come as no surprise at this stage of the game that I don’t care for episodes of shows where all people do is talk. If I want to listen to talk, I’ll have a two-way conversation with a real person rather than watching TV.

Of the three stories, only John’s was particularly interesting. I think the story would have been better if only John had come through the rift and more time was spent dealing with his difficulties integrating into the modern world. His story was really about two things, the inability to integrate and the death of posterity. The inability to integrate was only given superficial treatment with the previously mentioned scantily-clad women on magazines and not being able to smoke in bars. Those were the only things that really seemed to “register” with him as to how out-of-step he was. The story of his son wasn’t particularly compelling until he actually met him and then it was a moving, almost heart-breaking moment. Even there, his son looked “too old.” He looked about 90, which would have made him 37 in 1953. A lot older than we imagine when he’s talking about his “boy.”

Emma’s story was… uninteresting and can pass without much comment. It is only notable in that it sets the stage for Gwen and Rhys’s obviously train-on-the-tracks-ahead-coming meltdown in their relationship. You can’t just sleep around with your coworkers on TV and not have repercussions. Worse, the “lie” that Gwen told Rhys was obviously only as a setup for future problems. Gwen’s lie made no sense. Rhys knows she has to keep her work secret. Gwen could have told him a simple (true) story about her being a displaced teen with no family that she came into contact with through work. That’s equally as effective as saying she’s some relative – and much less easily disproved. The beginning of the breakdown probably couldn’t come at a worse time because Owen has fallen in love for real. How will that impact his affair with Gwen? At a time when she’s likely to need Owen for more support, he may be inclined to give less.

Diane’s story could have been a lot more interesting, but the opportunity was completely squandered by emphasizing her and Owen’s relationship. Of all the three people who came through the rift, I think it is safe to argue that she was the most anachronistic in her own time.

John conformed most to the norm of his time and Emma was just an unformed kid who had not yet become the person she’d be as an adult, but Diane was the “rebel”, straining against the proprieties and conventions of her age. One could suppose that she’d have the easiest time adapting to the modern. Many of the things that she represented have come to pass and so she should welcome this world with open arms.

I think that’s a facile interpretation of what would happen to someone like that. Even when you get what you, it rarely happens the way you expect. (Was it Lathe of Heaven where the hero’s dreams can create reality and so he is manipulated into dreaming the world free of prejudice, only to awake and find that everyone was a monotonous grey?) Wouldn’t that be an even more jarring concept to deal with? John simply has to deal with a new world. Diane has the world she dreamed of and it couldn’t possibly be what she expected.

Further, Diane’s personality isn’t “the visionary” type, it’s “the rebel” type. That sort of personality won’t fit in anywhere, which may ultimately have been the motivation for her leaving, but the impression left by the story was that it was avoid being tied to Owen.

No, this thread in the episode wasn’t about Diane, it was about Owen. It was a ticked off plot point along the way towards the Gwen-Rhys-Owen (and perhaps other) personal relationship “crisis” which is bound to rear its ugly head in the last three episodes. Even considering that this was about Owen, it isn’t convincing. Love is blind, but I’m not convinced that Owen would fall for her. Were she portrayed a little more convincingly (the character, not the actress), I think she would have been just a little too “alien” for Owen to fall for her that quickly. (I’ll allow that a certain amount of “protectiveness” engendered by her plight could have impacted Owen’s radar a bit.)

That’s why this thread was unrealized potential: a potentially interesting story (perhaps as touching as John’s) was both missed and supplanted by an unconvincing story about Owen.

In the end, this episode was a miss for me.

Capt. Jack Mystery of the week: None. Unless, you were wondering if John had lived another few days, would Jack have jumped him?

Next week, in what has to be the longest TV series time ever between “Hey, these guys are our primary alien threat” and actually encountering them in a meaningful way in a story, the Gophers finally arrive… er, the weevils, or whatever the hell they call them.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Review, Torchwood

Random Shoes
by Jacquetta May

Torchwood meets Love & Monsters.

Synopsis

Eugene Jones is dead and for some unknown reason, Torchwood is investigating the scene of the accident. Meanwhile, Eugene Jones stands beside them. He is only just beginning to realize he is dead, and he cannot remember the last two weeks of his life.

Eugene had been a bit of a Torchwood groupie and so he’s thrilled when Gwen wants to investigate his death. (Despite the fact that there’s no evidence of alien involvement.) Eugene narrates his thoughts on life while he follows Gwen on her investigation.

It turns out Eugene had been in the possession of an alien artifact, and Gwen’s investigation leads her to realize that Eugene’s two friends committed eBay fraud to make him think his artifact was worth £15,005.50. Greed got the better of them when they realized someone else would pay £15,000 for it so they try to force him to hand it over. He swallows it and they chase Eugene into traffic and to his death.

Mystery solved, Eugene can now go to his grave a fully-informed corpse, but not before he temporarily physically manifests himself so that he can save Gwen’s life from a traffic accident.

Analysis

I can only assume that writer Jacquetta May was told they needed to do an episode on the cheap and then locked in a room with a videotape of Doctor Who’s Love & Monsters as an example of the official “How to cheap an episode guide”.

That said, this was vastly superior to Love & Monsters, primarily because, with a 5 person cast, they were able to draw in Gwen only (with the other cast having greatly reduced roles) and produce a story you could rightly call Torchwood.

I question the wisdom of placing two episodes about life after death back-to-back, especially when they directly contradict each other.

Eugene had swallowed the Dogon Eye just before he died, and conveniently because he couldn’t remember what happened, that’s not revealed until the very end of the episode. The notion that the Eye inside his body has caused this little stint of life-after-death isn’t well-realized and the explanation is haphazard at best.

(Why, by the way, did Toshiko’s alien artifact detection equipment not notice the Eye in Eugene’s corpse?)

In a show that can’t quite find its niche, this isn’t such an odd duck out like Love & Monsters was for Doctor Who. If you don’t look too closely, and you don’t mind a title that sounds like a joke working title that they forgot to change, it’s not a bad character piece.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Review, Torchwood

They Keep Killing Suzie
by Paul Tomalin & Daniel McCulloch

An old “friend” returns to Torchwood.

Summary
A psycho killer is on the loose and his calling card is the word “Torchwood” written in the victims’ blood.

Chemical analysis of trace evidence from the killer reveals he has previously been given Torchwood’s memory erasing drug. Worried that the drug might begin inducing psychosis on the thousands of people they have administered the drug to, they break out the gauntlet that can bring a dead person back to life for 2 minutes. Their hope is for the victim to identify the killer.

The glove works better with some people than others. The previous glove operator had been Suzie, the Torchwood member who Gwen replaced in the pilot episode. Suzie had become obsessed with the glove, perhaps even possessed by it, and had begun murdering people so that she could practice bringing them back with the glove.

Gwen attempts to use the glove and gets some limited success, and she improves with each attempt. The trail obtained from the resurrected victims leads squarely back to Suzie. They resurrect Suzie, but instead of lasting only 2 minutes, she does not return to death, but stays, rather zombie-like but fully aware.

She explains that she’d been using a guy she met at a religious group as a sounding board – someone to talk to. After she’d talk to him, each week, she’d erase his memory. They find him and lock him up in the Hub.

Meanwhile, Suzie convinces Gwen to take her to see her dying father. Gwen’s compassion gets the better of her and she takes her, against orders, out of the Hub. Just as she does, the Hub goes into complete lockdown and everyone else is trapped inside.

Owen has worked out that Suzie is sucking the life out of Gwen to bring herself permanently back to life. Before she died, Suzie prepared a contingency plan. She planted post-hypnoptic instructions into the killer’s brain which caused him to start his murder spree and attract Torchwood’s attention. She planted clues so that she would be the person they’d need to interrogate and would be forced to revive her. She also planted a suggestion in the killer’s mind that caused him to recite poetry in the Torchwood cell. The poetry activated a hidden lockdown program that locked everyone into the hub.

The Torchwood team finds an override and starts the chase.

Suzie reveals her true colors when they arrive at the hospital. First, Gwen collapses with a headache. Suzie explains that she’s slowly being “shot through the head” (Suzie shot herself in the head when she committed suicide.) and then she proceeds to murder her father.

Capt. Jack arrives just in the nick of time, shoots Suzie, has the glove destroyed and the day is saved once more.

Analysis

This was an interesting episode. In general, I enjoyed it. The characters worked well together, and, for perhaps the first time, they all participated as a team, even Ianto.

The crux of the episode was the unbelievable (and I use that word with precision) machinations that Suzie put into motion before her death in the pilot.

If you can buy the notion that she programmed someone to become a killer, setup to specifically get caught and then recite a particular poem that was programmed into the computers to initiate a complete lockdown. If you can buy the fact that Suzie made sure the clues were there so that Torchwood would be forced to resurrect her. If you can buy the fact that she would plot and waste all this effort for 2 extra minutes of life (because she obviously hadn’t figured it out how to make it last when she killed herself in the first place)… well, if I were able to buy all those things I’d have only one thing to say:

Suzie was Torchwood’s one kick-ass member and I’m surprised they can function without her.

In a way, it’s be a nice character developing situation for Gwen. Gwen should really, really feel inadequate about now. She’s not a boil on Suzie’s butt.

That’s only if I bought the premise. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stretch my disbelief that far. While I might have bought the poetry computer shutdown, the ISBN restart sequence was stupid.

While maybe I could believe that Suzie sucked the life force out of Gwen, I’m not going to buy that Gwen is slowly forming a bullet hole in her head. Either you have a hole in your brain, or you don’t. There’s no “half a hole” when it comes to a bullet in the brain.

The “payoff” for this episode is, of course, the opportunity for someone who is alive to ask someone who has been dead what it’s like. They neatly circumvented it in the pilot by making the resurrections so short and traumatic that they never go anything useful out of the victims. There’s no avoiding the questions in this episode, though.

Death is nothing, says Suzie. There is nothing more than life. Well, nothing, except something moving through the darkness.

Russell T. Davies is an atheist¹, so it’s no surprise that Torchwood universe would take the non-existence view of death. But… if there’s nothing… there’s nothing “moving through the darkness” Movement requires the passage of time, which is more than nothing.

These problems aside, the mystery (far-fetched though it was) was engaging and unravelled nicely as the story progressed.

Captain Jack mystery puzzle pieces of the week: Something in the dark is coming for Jack. Jack has a penchant for games two men play alone with a stopwatch.²

---

¹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_T_Davies – I’ll take Wikipedia’s word on this one.
²I can only assume that’s a British joke that doesn’t translate well.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Review, Torchwood

King Kong
Deluxe Extended Version

The DVD release of the ultimate version of Peter Jackson’s 2005 version King Kong

Synopsis

It’s the great depression and New York city is a place of desperate people. One of these people is Carl Denhan, nature movie producer. Denham has a plan to go to an uncharted island, but his backers have decided to pull out and close his production down. Carl takes desperate measures to escape New York and make his way to the legendary island.

His ship, The Venture is crewed by a seedy group of animal trapper/traders and onboard Carl has collected Ann Darrow, a spunky young, thoroughly modern missy and would-be actress, and Jack Driscoll, serious theatre playwright and reluctant writer of Carl’s screenplay.

They arrive at the island and are nearly destroyed by the savage ocean and the even more savage natives. They escape, but the natives capture Ann and sacrifice her to their god, Kong, a gigantic gorilla.

Denham (who is seeking spectacular footage) and Driscoll (who has fallen in love with Ann) lead a party into the island’s interior to rescue Ann.

The party are systematically wiped out by dinosaurs, lake monsters, scorpions, giant insects and Kong himself.

Ann realizes the fate of the other “sacrifices” to Kong and does her spunky young, thoroughly modern missy best to win King over, which she does through pratfalls. Kong may be king of the island, but to keep her safe, he must also fight a trio of Tyranosaurs and other nasties.

Ultimately, Driscoll alone rescues Ann and they escape to the arms of their comrades who have laid a trap for Kong.

Captured, Kong is taken back to New York and put on display. He escapes on opening night and searches for Ann, trashing the city in the process. In the end, he takes her to the top of the Empire State building where the planes kill him – or some would say that beauty kills him.

Analysis
Why remake a classic? That’s a question that has haunted filmmakers since movies began. From a studio’s perspective the answer is simple: money. For the filmmaker: Perhaps it is the opportunity to present their own image or perhaps to retell a story that was not perfectly realized before. Perhaps it is an opportunity to bring a story to a new audience that might not see it otherwise.

Why do people get so up in arms when someone attempts a new version of a classic? Is it any different than a stage production? How many different version of Macbeth have their been? Or Tom Jones? Or You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown? Do people get up in arms about that? Of course not! There is no good reason not to remake a movie if there’s a reason or an audience eager to see it.

Why remake King Kong? It is one of the defining movies of the entire industry. It is not based on a novel, therefore there is no source material to go back to an reinterpret. It was brilliantly executed and has inspired many of the movie industry greats to be what they are today – Peter Jackson included.

The logic apparently was that, being an old black and white film it is inaccessible to modern audiences (read: children and teenagers). Certainly, they would never consider re-issuing the original to theaters.

I’m not going to beat around the bush, I welcomed Peter Jackson’s attempt at remaking Kong. Clearly, he loves the original as much as I do and clearly he is the man to bring such a huge spectacle to the screen. If there was one thing I could complain about the original film, it was that there was not enough of the dinosaurs and Kong on Skull island.

In my prelude to this entry I disclosed that I did not see the theatrical release, I have only seen this, the deluxe extended DVD edition.

I’m sorry to say but this film is a major letdown and a bit of a mess.

The first problem is the story. The original Kong characters are all here, but they’ve been subtly (or not so subtly) re-worked for no good reason. A series of sub-plots have unnecessarily been added. Carl Denham’s character has been made into a seedy con man, perhaps to match actor Jack Black’s beady little eyes. (Certainly no one could imagine him as a heroic character.) Driscoll is now an artist – a famous writer of Broadway plays. Probably most changed is Ann Darrow. No longer is Ann the terrified screaming damsel-in-distress, now she’s that previously mentioned spunky young thoroughly modern missy. Her character now helps drive the film. Drive it she does, right into the ground.

Unlike Lord of the Rings, which benefits from the extra screen time, King Kong does not. The extended sea voyage is wasted celluloid. The numerous slow motion facial expression shots are pointless and annoying. This is a film that could use a good editor.

Making Ann into a more modern woman fails this story miserably. While it could be understood why she might be grateful to Kong for protecting her or even feel sorry for him when he’s going to die, her interaction with Kong in New York is just too “involved”. She stops his rampage by giving herself up to him. OK, maybe. it’s very heroic of her, but what would it actually accomplish? They go to Central Park and they go ice skating. (Seriously, was that in the theatrical version?!) They climb to the top of the Empire State building and, when Kong leaves her at a lower level, she doesn’t go inside and get away, she climbs up after him, towards the airplanes firing away. She tries to stop the planes! She might be more modern and gutsy, but she is too stupid to live.

I realize that her character was updated because, in this day and age you can’t have wilting girls who can’t stand on their own two feet and fight with the best of the men because the audiences can’t sympathize with her. Well that’s bullshit. For starters, Arnold Schwarzenegger would be crying like a little baby if a 60 foot gorilla picked him up and carried him around. Second, I hope no one in the audience could sympathize with anyone that stupid. If so, those people could also probably sympathize with the box of popcorn they picked up at the concession stand on the way in. I’m going to say, the popcorn has got more going for it in the brain department than Ann Darrow.

The second area of film that failed me, and I hate to say it, are the special effects. That’s not quite right, because they are brilliant. Particularly some of the facial shots of Kong were unbelievably good. Ignoring the face, because that’s just a human actor being computer projected onto Kong, but I mean the actual rendering of Kong himself. The hair on Kong’s head. The light glinting across that hair, lighting up some of the strand and not others in a perfectly natural way. These effects are absolutely stunning.

Then why did they fail me? They failed because of their integration with the human actors.

When Ann is first taken by Kong, he’s none too gentle with her. He’s shaking her around like he’s mixing a can of spray paint. She’s dead. Spine snapped. Story over. Yet somehow she lives.

When the rescue party encounter the Styrachosaurus, it is thrashing its horns, head and tail around like nobody’s business. Some characters are flung by the creature enormous distances, landing on rotting broken up wood and debris, but they get up, alive. Others magically seem to duck under the head and tail, or even between the legs. It’s patently unbelievable.

And it gets worse. There is an Apatasaurus stampede, in which the entire party manage to run under their trampling feet, mostly surviving and an extended sequence where giant bugs of all nasty kinds attach the crew and they valiantly hold them off for a long time, again totally unbelievably. At one point, a young boy shoots crickets off Driscoll using a tommy gun. Driscoll never gets hit.

Of course, a movie like this is supposed to suspend disbelief, but once a movie looses that suspension, it can never get it back. I could no longer suspend my disbelief after only a short time on Skull island, after that I was literally angry and annoyed at the film for trying to feed me so much bullshit.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Movies, Review

Years ago, when video tapes were first available, the movie industry was in an uproar. Not because of people taping things off the air, but because they felt if people could rent or buy movies, they wouldn’t go see them in the theatre. At that time, the movie industry had been in a slump.

To their surprise, video rentals actually reinvigorated the movie industry. People still wanted to see films on the big screen.

All these years later, I wonder now if perhaps their original dire predictions might have been correct.

I just watched King Kong. Not the unequaled classic 1933 version, but the 2005 Peter Jackson version. Actually, that’s not true either, this is the 2006 Peter Jackson super-enhanced, mega-long, “I don’t know when to stop” version.

I was never a Lord of the Rings fan. I don’t really care for that type fantasy and never read the books. Consequently, I never went to see the first movie. When it came out on DVD, a friend loaned me the ultra-extended version. What a great film! My wife and I really enjoyed it. So much so that I decided that I wanted to own them myself, and so I bought the extended version of the first film and the second, which came out about that time.

Now, here’s where my tale begins. I could have seen the third film in the theatre, but I didn’t. I could have seen the original version on DVD, but I held out. I knew that the complete version would be held back many months to bilk the DVD buying public as much as possible. But I was there the first day it was available as the extended edition.

King Kong was the same. While I was eagerly awaiting a worthy remake of one of my all-time favorite films, I knew that there would be more. Why should I waste my time on half-finished versions? I decided to wait for the extended DVD.

And that’s why I think that the movie business may be shooting themselves in the foot. They lost my theatre ticket sale and all that popcorn and Dr. Pepper. Is the day coming when people realize they’re being cheated at the initial release of a movie or DVD?

Technorati Tags: Blog, DVD, Movies, Review

Parallels => Parallels Desktop for Mac Build 3036 Beta is available for download.

It’s with great regret that I say that I have to use Windows XP for my work. There simply isn’t any Mac way to do a few of the thing necessary. To remedy that problem (so I don’t have to tote around a second laptop) I use Parallels Desktop, which I’ve reviewed previously.

Yesterday they released a new beta version of the upcoming (free upgrade) release. It’s looks pretty darned impressive. They’ve added the ability to drag and drop between OSX and Windows (both ways), which will be a real time saver for me. They’ve also implemented a new operation mode.

Previously, you could work in either windowed mode, in which your entire Windows desktop resided within an OSX window, or you could run the Windows session full screen on the Mac. I must say, seeing a full screen version of Windows running on my MacBook never fails to unnerve me. The new mode allows the Windows desktop to disappear, leaving the Windows task bar at the bottom of the screen (or where ever you keep it) and the Windows windows float and mix freely with the OSX windows.

It’s a little rough around the edges, but the promise is amazing.

I have an exact bootable duplicate of my Macbook on an external drive, so I booted to that, installed the beta over the version on the external drive and had no problems with the upgrade whatsoever. The software did show a couple video glitches which I’ve not encountered in the production version, and the mixed windows mode doesn’t cross monitors if you’ve got two hooked up.

This is a compelling piece of software for someone is stuck running some Windows programs.

Major complaint – Windows emulation only supports USB 1, so if you want to use a USB device from Windows, it’s dog slow. Luckily, drag and drop will help alleviate that problem. Parallels also does not support 3D graphics in Windows. Not a problem for me, but others might be impacted by it.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Blog, Mac, MacBook, OSX, Review, Software

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.

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