Girlfriend in a Coma

Lady in Silver
Is cyber-converting me
Torchwood: Cyberwoman

I am going to start by saying that I thought Cyberwoman was the best episode of Torchwood so far and the best Cybermen story in a long while. It was tragic, gruesome, horrific, well acted, fabulously directed and was a really enjoyable 50 minutes of television.

Is it wrong that I found the Cyberwoman sexy?

I thought the opening scenes were great as it really showed the camaraderie that exists within the Torchwood team, but it also showed that Ianto is a bit removed from that team spirit, which might explain how he gets away with things later on in the episode. It also suggests that they have all been together for quite a while now. Apparently something very similar happened in an episode of Firefly (which I have never seen before but which I am reliably informed is very good). Well if you are going to nick stuff then you might as well nick stuff from something good. And you can’t say Doctor Who doesn’t to that.

Is it wrong that I found the Cyberwoman sexy? Admittedly the Cyberwoman looked more like a big breasted woman dressed in a full on fetish suit, complete with gaps to flash a little bit of flesh (and high heels), than what we know of Cybermen but I don’t have a problem with that. I found that it was a far better portrayal of the actual mechanics of Cyber conversion than Doctor Who ever did. Here we actually saw it for what it was and it isn’t pretty. Doctor Who could never do something like this simply because it would have been too much for a family audience but Torchwood can, so I say more power to it. I also want to know how in the hell she managed to run in those heels.

I await the scene where Sarah has girl-on-girl action in The Sarah Jane Adventures

I guess whether or not you think this episode was ‘adult’ or not depends on your definition of what makes a show adult. If you thought that this was puerile nonsense and the same of Day One then you would probably consider the entire slasher movie genre of horror films to be puerile, which some people do, but most people would not have a problem saying that they were for adults and not children.

As far as I am concerned Torchwood is the same thing. It is not for children and this episode is certainly not. If nothing else will give the DVD an 18 certificate then this episode certainly would in particular the scenes of the Japanese Doctor in his partially converted phase. It wouldn’t be the swearing in this case (as there wasn’t much of it and even then it was in keeping with the situation. I mean you’d tell Jack to fuck himself if he told you to kill your girlfriend, even if she had been turned into a psychotic cyborg killing machine), or the sex, but rather the blood and gore and the scene of the Cyberwoman being pecked to death by a pterodactyl. Having said that if those two episodes were like something you would see on CBBC then I await the scene where Sarah has girl-on-girl action in Sarah Jane Adventures, or shags someone in a toilet.

It did rather make me laugh when they discovered a cyber conversion unit in their basement and never knew that it was there in the first place. One could argue that for a secret organisation they have very lax security if they could allow that the happen without anyone noticing. You could also argue that if Ianto was allowed to get away with this then who really runs the show at Torchwood. It is often said that an organisation would crumble without its administrative staff and perhaps this is just symptomatic of that. Big up the support staff!

It was about time Ianto was given something to do and I thought that Gareth David Lloyd was excellent in this episode. You really felt for him and believed that he would do everything he could he to help the girl that he loved. I mean wouldn’t you? I know I would. Again another reason for the Cyberwoman looking like she did could be a reason to make you believe that Ianto thought that there was still a chance that she could be converted back. I mean if she had been turned into a full on Cybermen he might have thought better of it and it might have had the same effect if she had looked the Japanese Doctor did after his partial conversion. Now that was pretty gruesome but the very idea of Cyber conversion is pretty gruesome isn’t it. He might not have, but you know what I mean.

I know some people can’t believe that Jack let Ianto carry on with his job as though nothing had happened but the way I see it is that you really couldn’t let him go as he knows far too much about the inner workings of Torchwood to be let out into the streets. I guess that Jack could have given him one of those memory draft things he gave to Gwen in the first episode but as was proved in that episode they don’t always work and I really don’t think that Jack was going to kill him. I have also noticed that Jack hasn’t sworn once this series (well not that I have noticed anyway) whereas most of the others have at some point (actually I am not sure that Tosh has either).

Poor Tosh didn’t have a great deal to do in this episode either. She did more than she normally does I will grant you but she still doesn’t have a great deal to do. I hope that she gets her chance later on, I really do. Jack is getting more like the Ninth Doctor week by week. I wonder if that is why some people are having a problem with him as he has changed from a cocky, annoying character into a more introspective darker character whereas the Doctor has gone the other way. Just a thought. Don’t all jump on me at once!

Owen did what all single blokes would do if they had Eve Myles on top of him, and thought they were about to die horribly, and snogged her face off. Gwen didn’t seem to object either did she? Just like she didn’t seem to bother with Jack’s seeming sexual harassment (well according to OG anyway) in the last episode. She loves it. The hussy! It certainly seems like Gwen will end up getting of with Owen over the course of the series. You can just see it happening, there is definitely some sort of spark there. A shame really as I was hoping that it would be her and Tosh!

I actually liked the final scenes with the Cyberwoman-pterodactyl face off. Yes, it was farcical and a bit silly but it just worked. Only in a show like this or Doctor Who can you get away with that sort of thing and it just worked. It was really about the only thing they could do at the time anyway. They had no power and bullets weren’t going to kill her were they. I was a bit surprised with the final scenes to be honest as I expected the pizza delivery girl to have been cyber-converted but no the Cyberwoman somehow managed to transplant her brain into the skull of the pizza delivery girl. Yes that does sound far fetched doesn’t it but you do have to remember this is science fiction and it doesn’t have to make sense. It also showed how far away she had gone from being human at that point and it wouldn’t have been good if she had managed to save herself from the pterodactyl and then convert the pizza delivery girl into a Cyberwoman as well and then escaped from the hub and went around Cardiff trying to cybernise the entire population would it? That would be daft.

I really enjoyed Cyberwoman and I am really enjoying Torchwood, far more than I ever did watching series 2 of Doctor Who. I, for one, am glad they are making this show and hope that it runs and runs.

Originally posted on Nov 09, 2006

Your Ghost

Torchwood: The Ghost Machine

I have to say that I really liked The Ghost Machine. I thought it was very dark and quite spooky. There were touches of humour in this episode but the general mood of the episode was dark. There were some quite adult themes in the episode with mentions of murder and rape and suicide, and the swearing was noticeable by its absence (well I certainly didn’t notice any). I think it was more noticed in the first episode because it was the first time that there had ever been swearing in anything Doctor Who related. By this third episode I think that people have just got used to the fact that occasionally people do swear and are less bothered by it.

The main characters had all settled down by this episode and at the start of the episode it seemed that Gwen was now fully a part of the Torchwood team, and that it had been a while since Day One. Just watch her with Owen for proof that she seems more settled in her role within the team, she was sharing a joke with him and also seemed genuinely concerned after he had witnessed his flashback. Even her boyfriend now seemed resigned to the fact that she was spending less and less time at home. Another reason for assuming this is set some time after the events in Day One.

Burn Gorman as Owen was pretty good in the episode and he actually had quite an interesting part in the episode as he really took it personally after he had witnessed what would end in a rape and murder. He was less jack-the-lad and cocky in this episode and as such came across a lot better than he had in the previous two episodes (which after having read what some people were calling his character in the forums can only be a good thing).

A shame the same cannot be said for Tosh and Ianto. To Gareth David-Lloyd’s credit his role in this episode amounted to little more than serving coffee and a blink or you’ll miss it appearance at the end of the episode. The problem with Tosh’s character is that they really don’t know as yet what to do with her. She is basically the technical support and spends most of her time in front of computers and does very little else. Having said that that is her role in the outfit so she is only doing her job but I would like to see her do more. I am confident that later on in the series her character will be seen away from a computer doing something a little more exciting.

Eve Myles was great as Gwen in this episode. She is such a strong character and is getting stronger week by week. I think it helps that out of all of the main characters she is the one we can identify with and that she has a life outside and friends apart from the other regular characters. Her boyfriend serves very little purpose apart from showing the audience that Gwen is one of them and is not a character that they cannot recognise. The scenes between them just being an average couple are not at all relevant to the plot but they are nice little scenes that show us how human and how real she is. And is it me or does that gap in her teeth make her even more appealing?

Jack is getting more and more like the Doctor each week and it is know revealed that he no longer needs to sleep. Barrowman is as commanding as ever as Jack here and the scene between him and Gwen in the target range was quite amusing as the ever so macho and totally gay John Barrowman can make a woman turn to mush just by standing behind them. My girlfriend says that she knows exactly how Gwen would feel in that particular scene.

I do feel that the title The Ghost Machine is a bit of a misnomer as there weren’t any actual ghosts in it, rather they were memories of previous events amplified by the alien machinery. Memory Machine sounds like a really crap title so I can understand why they used the term ghosts instead. I did wonder why Gwen witnessed a totally different event to that of Owen and that of Bernie because after Gwen went to visit the old man who she had seen in her vision it wasn’t ever mentioned again. I guess it added some colour to the episode though.

The same can be said for Gwen’s use of the device to remember happy times with her boyfriend when she came home to an empty flat. Again it was nice little scene that really made her appreciate what she has at home and I am pretty sure that they made up that night after their little tiff earlier in the episode. They do say the making up afterwards is the best thing about having an argument.

I must admit that is was a bit of a shock to see Gareth Thomas playing a grumpy old man here, as I just didn’t think he looked that old. I saw him at a convention, oh about ten years ago now and he was looking quite old then but I wasn’t quite prepared by how old he actually does look now. It was also a surprise to hear him speak with a Welsh accent. It was the first time I had heard him speak in his native accent. Having said that I felt the same seeing Griff Rhys Jones in Mine All Mine.

I thought the story was very well written and directed (I like the urgency of the opening chase sequence through the streets of Cardiff as well as the chase scene between Owen and the hoodie wearing Bernie; there was also some nice effects during the hallucinations caused by the machine) and am really looking forward to Raynor’s two parter next year. The Ghost Machine was a nice little character piece with a twist in the ending (albeit one that could be worked out a little earlier than when it happened unlike in the opening episode.).

Next weeks episode looks really good too!

Originally posted on Oct 31, 2006

Rat Jam

Torchwood: Day One

For an episode about a sex obsessed alien I actually though that there wasn’t that much sex in the episode. Hang on, let me rephrase that. Ok, there was an awful lot of sex taking place over the course of the episode, but we only actually saw one of those acts and that was a very short (talk about a quickie!) scene near the beginning of the episode (albeit one that was repeated a few times).

There isn’t even any nudity in the episode (not even a stray nipple anywhere in sight. Not one!)

For the rest of them we only saw the aftermath with the piles of dust littering the fertility clinic and, at the most, the girl straddling the bloke she was about to shag. It was hardly hard-core porn and I have seen far worse than that broadcast at a similar time (Rome to name but one) and it isn’t even particularly sexy, unless shagging someone in a nightclub toilet can be called sexy. You even got a scene of the bouncer of the nightclub relieving himself over the CCTV footage which was more funny than anything else.

There isn’t even any nudity in the episode (not even a stray nipple anywhere in sight. Not one!), which you might have expected in an episode with a premise like this one. Well, I did anyway. If you take the Species similarities then this one was very tame indeed, even the Outer Limits episode (titled Caught In The Act and featuring Alyssa Milano) had nudity in it for Christ sakes!

I would also say that the episode is basically saying that promiscuous sex is not good for you and always leaves you left unfulfilled. You cannot say the any of the sex in this episode had a happy ending (at least not for the blokes, well not when they vanished in a puff of orgasmic energy) and even the poor girl was getting sick of it by the end.

I don’t think it was even meant to be sexy. That is what makes the episode suitable for adults, not for the sex content but for the underlying meaning behind the episode. But if you read some of the comments on some forums you would have thought the episode was full of wall to wall shagging with no plot, but this is not an episode of Footballer’s Wives.

Even the lesbian scene involving Gwen and Carys wasn’t superfluous to the plot and was in there for a reason and not just for simple titillation. If that there the case then they would have been ripping each others clothes off and the most you saw was a quick shot of Gwen’s bra clad cleavage, which is no worse than what you see on Hollyoaks most day’s. It was even explained in the dialogue with there being powerful pheromones in the air in the cell due to the presence of the alien. And, after the two blokes kissing in the last episode why should the Gay audience have all the fun!

This scene also showed Owen’s true colours with his exclamation of “Happy birthday me” at the sight of the two girls kissing and then he went and recorded it (well you would wouldn’t you?)! Even Jack and Tosh seemed quite interested in it too. I also think that Gwen had done that sort of thing before. I mean did you see the way she went to kiss Carys again even after she had turned her away. There was no way she hadn’t thought about doing that sort of thing before in my opinion. The same goes for Tosh, she seemed quite disappointed to find out that Gwen had a boyfriend in the first episode didn’t she? Or was it just me, and my filthy mind? They are both bi, mark my words, or just not bothered who they get off with.

Eve Myles shines in this episode and she is most definitely one of the best things about Torchwood, her character is most definitely the “heart” of the team, her insistence on treating Carys as a troubled girl rather than just an alien shagging machine being a perfect point. She is also very ballsy and stamps her authority on the place particularly when she had Owen by the throat up against the wall. The problem is I reckon he enjoyed it. The swine!

Perhaps when Jack finally meets up with the Doctor he is going to bitch slap his smug face with his severed hand

John Barrowman is also good as Jack and, is it me, or is he morphing into the Ninth Doctor? I always thought that Jack was more than just human after watching the last few episodes of series one and after these couple of episodes I am pretty sure that Jack isn’t human at all. Well not entirely human. Just as in How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? Barrowman snogs a girl and she swoons. How on Earth does he do it?

Naoki Mori and Gareth David Jones are both good in their (at the moment rather limited) roles of Toshiko and Ianto as neither of them really had that much to do and Owen was just Owen. He is a bit of, to quote Gwen, a cock, but he does have some funny lines and is a typical jack-the-lad of that sort of age.

Apart from Eve Myles, the girl playing Carys, also shone in this episode going from a sex hungry alien to a frightened girl in the blink of an eyelid often in the same scene. She played the part really well and is one to watch out for in the future I think.

I really do like the design of the hub. It is great and the more I see of it the more TARDISlike it seems. I also like the Silence of the Lambs style detention cells that they have there. A lot of though has been put into the design of the hub and that really shows on screen. Thumbs up to the production designers on that one for definite.

I want to know why the Doctor’s severed hand is so important to Jack. Perhaps when Jack finally meets up with the Doctor he is going to bitch slap his smug face with his severed hand. I really cannot imagine what else Jack would want to do with it.

Chris Chibnall did a great job on this script and it was peppered with some great lines such as “He came and went”; “Put your trousers on and get out! Always breaks my heart saying that”; “I wish you were dead! … Call me back”; and “Put out an APB. Girl going round town nobbing fellows to death!”. I, for one, can’t wait to see what his series three episode will be like, unlike a lot of other people who are already pencilling in their diaries to dislike the episode when it is broadcast next year.

So, I really enjoyed this episode and thought it was just as good as Everything Changes, if not better for the fact that this was able to jump straight into the story from the get go, rather than having to introduce all the characters and the premise of the show, often a problem with premiere episodes. As with the first episode it was dark, edgy and very funny. This could be one very good series if it keeps this us.

I would give this episode 8 out of 10. More of the same please.

Originally posted on Behind the Sofa Volume One on Oct 27, 2006

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

As far as opening episodes go Everything Changes is up there with the best of them. Like Rose before it, it takes an ordinary girl and places her in extraordinary situations.

In this case the ordinary girl is WPC Gwen Cooper. Gwen has a good job, her own home, a boyfriend and a life, but after seeing a corpse being bought back to life by a strange group of people headed by a guy with an American accent, nothing will ever be the same again.

I saw far more to enjoy from these opening episodes than I did in the entirety of series 2 of Doctor Who

So, begins the new adult RTD series with sci-fi trappings. This episode is very RTD, it is very British, it is dark, it is quite adult (well there is quite a bit of swearing on display but probably no more than usual for a drama series broadcast after 9pm. It certainly is no worse than any Paul Abbot series or even those interminable Hollyoaks spin offs they continue to produce), it is modern and it is funny, very funny in some cases.

I must admit I really enjoyed it and it wouldn’t be far from the truth if I said that I saw far more to enjoy from these opening episodes than I did in the entirety of series 2 of Doctor Who. Right, on that bombshell onto my review of the episode itself.

The title sequence was short and to the point wasn’t it? I found it quite refreshing that they didn’t feel the need to have a really long title sequence. I would have quite liked it Doctor Who had a title sequence like that one, after all Lost doesn’t really have much of a title sequence and neither does Spooks. Surely it gives you more time to tell the story if you don’t have a typical title sequence.

The theme music while not remarkable works well with the title sequence. I am not sure that it will be a theme that will stick in the mind but it works well here. The episode looks fantastic, the cinematography is gorgeous and it looks glossy and expensive.

There are some nice aerial shots of Cardiff on display here plus one great shot of Captain Jack looking all Angel like and brooding on top of a building while the camera swoops around him. The Angel similarities do not end there. In my opinion Torchwood is the Angel to Doctor Who’s Buffy. Angel has quite a lot of establishing shots of LA throughout the episodes and they are using the same trick here to make Cardiff look hip and trendy. I have never been to Cardiff before but I doubt they have ever made it look so inviting before.

The set for the Torchwood hub is great and is very TARDIS looking, it even has a central column! In this episode we meet all of the main players in Torchwood but only really Jack and Gwen are really afforded much in the way of character development in this episode at least and as the episode is told through the eyes of Gwen then that is only right and proper.

Eve Myles has plenty to get her teeth into (especially in the second episode!)

Eve Myles was fantastic as Gwen and really bought the character to life. Like Rose, Gwen is a fully rounded character and Eve Myles has plenty to get her teeth into (especially in the second episode!) here.

John Barrowman is great as Jack and shows us what we have been missing without him. He is slightly different in this episode, he is much darker and broody than he was before but is still as flirtatious as ever.

The other Torchwood crew members, Toshiko, Owen, Suzie and Ianto all make an appearance and even get the odd good line here there but I am sure there will be more to come from these characters.

Some stand out moments in the first episode are the bit when Gwen goes down to the hub and see’s the pterodactyl flying around the lair and all the others are like “don’t mind the pterodactyl”, like it is an annoying pet budgie and the line “who orders pizza under the name of Torchwood?” That made us just fall about laughing. Also the moment when Jack said that no equipment is allowed out of the hub without his express permission, only for the entire team to take stuff home with them. I thought Toshiko’s little gadget for scanning books was quite useful!

Gwen’s boyfriend, Rhys, was ok but, as with Mickey he is just a little bit too ordinary and boring for Gwen now, especially now she has come into contact with Jack and his team. That is very RTD and certainly reminded me of a certain character from the parent series.

Owen using that pheremone spray to pull a good looking women in a bar was quite funny (well how different is that from the Lynx ads we see nearly every day?), as it was when he used on himself again to extricate himself out of sticky situation with said woman’s boyfriend. Having said that he is an odd looking fellow, so perhaps he needs all the help he can get!

The plot twist involving Susie was a real shock, being as she has been in all the trailers and is on the Radio Times cover and is always being listed as a regular character. I certainly was expecting it at all. It is quite refreshing that they can do that, as that is not the sort of thing that would ever happen in Doctor Who, and that is pretty much from the lips of RTD himself.

So, is Jack now indestructible like Captain Scarlet? Well he can certainly survive being shot in the head at point blank range and he himself says he can’t be killed. It is certainly going to be interesting when Jack finally does meet up with the Doctor again, especially as he does seem to be a bit pissed of with him.

It was nice that they didn’t explain how Jack got back to Earth as they just would have totally alienated the general audience. You don’t really need to know yet how he got back, the fact is that he is back. Also you have to hold something back for later on don’t you?

I must admit that, apart from the swearing and the blood, this probably wasn’t any more adult than an episode of Buffy, but having said that Buffy wasn’t ever meant for a family audience in the first place, despite what BBC 2 might think. I wouldn’t let a child watch it as it is not suitable for then but I would say it is the sort of thing a 15 or 16 year old could watch perfectly comfortably. I mean I watched worse than this at that age!

There were a few Doctor Who references in this episode, which was nice for the fans in the audience, but it is good that you do not have had to have watched Doctor Who to enjoy the episode and the show certainly has an identity of its own even this early in its run. I am pretty sure it would do well enough on its own without having to resort to mentioning that it is a Who spin-off at every turn.

Perhaps it does seem a bit odd to have an adult spin-off of a programme that is aimed primarily at a younger audience, but it seems to work and I am really looking forward to the next twelve episodes. This the kind of show I have been wanting for years!

This was originally posted to Behind The Sofa Voume One on Oct 26, 2006

Coming Soon

Torchwood – Asylum – Wednesday 1st July, 2.15pm, BBC Radio 4.
Torchwood – Golden Age – Thursday 2nd July, 2.15pm, BBC Radio 4.
Torchwood – The Dead Line – Friday 3rd July, 2.15pm, BBC Radio 4.
Torchwood – Children Of Earth – Monday 6th July – Friday 10th July BBC One

Reviews will follow of all of these.

Mark of Rani

The Day of the Clown Part One

In this episode a new family, the Chandra’s, move into the Jackson’s old house across the road from Sarah Jane and it isn’t long before the daughter, Rani, befriends Luke and Clyde and ends up becoming part of the gang, and with Maria only having left not that long ago either!

In fact Maria gets a lot of mentions in this episode mostly from Luke who is so obviously in love with the girl and appeared to have been moping since the moment she left so her presence is felt throughout this episode. She certainly may have gone but she is not going to be forgotten (at least not by Luke anyway!)

Rani makes her mark on the show almost right away with her very Sarah Jane like inquisitiveness and also knack of getting herself into trouble. I was quite impressed with the direction in this episode with lots of interesting camera angles and fast editing. This episode was actually quite spooky what with the glimpses of the clown you got throughout the episode (the bit when then clown was in the mirror and handed Clyde a balloon being a noteworthy spooky moment) but clowns can be quite scary when they want to be (see The Greatest Show in the Galaxy for this).

I must admit that I was a little bit surprised when I heard that Bradley Walsh was playing the baddie in the episode (as I had only seen him in Coronation Street up to that point and wasn’t impressed by him in that) but he was actually very good in this episode almost to the point that I actually forgot that it was him playing the part.

The episodes cliff-hanger was also very good and very old style Doctor Who with the clown mannequins in the circus museum coming to life and advancing menacingly on the main characters.

The Day of the Clone Part Two

In this episode we learn more about the baddie and it turns out that surprise, surprise that he is a malevolent alien who feeds on fear (well it would have been a bit boring if he was just a mere clown wouldn’t it although all the appearing and disappearing and the bit in the mirror did make that point rather obvious and this is the Sarah Jane Adventures after all where nothing is every what it seems.) It was a nice twist that they explained that he was also the pied piper and had been on the Earth for over 700 hundred years.

 We also got a little bit of back story on Sarah Jane such as the fact that she is terrified of clowns. Now I am not sure if this fear was ever mentioned in her time in Doctor Who (which it may well of been) but that was another nice addition to the character. It is really amazing when watching this series how sketchy a character the original Sarah Jane really was considering the amount of backstory that this series has created for her.

 Rani continues to show her worth and by the end of the episode is firmly ensconced in the trio with Maria gone but not forgotten. You do have to feel for young Rani as she was always being told that she was not Maria and all she was doing was trying to make friends but I guess it was all put into perspective by the events of the few days since she moved onto Bannermen Road.

All I can say is that she better get used to it as this sort of thing is likely to happen more often than not.