TV Tyrant

The episode was an interesting one; rather than focusing on Torchwood itself, the main character was a fan, a hanger-on, a wannabe.

But in spite of – or perhaps due to – that, we see more of that empathy that is becoming Gwen’s hallmark. I guess someone at Torchwood has to actually give a rat’s patootie about other people. It’s nice, though, because she’s sort of making Captain Jack halfway care about people again. He’s been around the block too many times and seen too much bad stuff to even consider that people are worthy of empathy.

I suppose I’d feel the same way, too, if I’d been around as long as he has (however long that may be).

We meet Eugene Jones as he’s discovering he’s dead, laying splat by the side of the road, bleeding from the head. The only benefit, it appears, is that he’s now actually getting to ride with the Torchwood guys, because he’s a ghost and they don’t know he’s in the car with them.

They call his mom, check out pics on his phone – just … random shoes.

Then we go on something of a “This is Your Life” trip with Eugene, going back to the moment where he became obsessed with aliens, 1992 when he was in the South Wales Interschool Maths Competition; he chokes and lets everyone down – including his father. A teacher gives him a ball that fell from the sky, and it looks like an eye.

Dun dun dun … an alien eye!!!

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It was only a matter of time before the Glove of Resurrection made its way back into the Torchwood storyline, and it makes perfect sense that it was with the resurrection of Suzie.

I’m glad we got to see more of her, though, and learn more of her motivations, as curious as they still may be.

We start off with the Torchwood group arriving at a crime scene, with the lead police detective (who I really like and hope shows up in future eps) telling them they need to see this, Torchwood definitely has a connection to this crime. (Side note: When Captain Jack acts all Captain Jack to her, she comments somethingn to the effect of, “Oh god, they weren’t kidding about you.” lol!)

She tells them, as they enter the bedroom where a couple’s been killed in a grisly homicide, “Somebody wants your attention.”

Camera pans to the wall above the bed. There, in blood, a word is written, “Torchwood.”

Captain Jack: “They’ve got it.”

But here’s the rub: There’s no record of any of the victims in the Torchwood database. A quick DNA test of hairs left at the scene by the murderer, however, shows something rather troubling: He’s taken retcon, Torchwood’s powerful amnesia drug. Only Torchwood has the formula, so far as they know, so it’s one of 2,008 people they’ve given it to. And, hopefully, only one.

So what’s the best way to solve a murder, and fast? Why, bring the murder victims back to life and ask them? Of course, we must remember that didn’t work out so well last time, when Suzie has the Glove of Life and ended up killing people in order to bring them back to life. Add to the situation that the dead tend to be rather freaked out when they’re brought back to life and you don’t seem to get very far.

Also not so easy to get it together, seeing as last time ’round, Jack couldn’t make it go and Owen said it didn’t work for him last time. In fact, last time the only one who could make it work was … Suzie. So Gwen, seeing as she wasn’t part of Torchwood last time, gives it a go. Apparently, the glove needs to draw on empathy and compassion.

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I thought the most interesting aspect of this episode was that no matter how awesome I found Toshiko in “Citycide,” I found her almost unbearably annoying for most of this episode.

But I found her annoying much in the same way that Gwen and Owen did; I still liked her. Just found her to be a bit … needy.

Which was, I suppose, the point.

We start off in Cardiff in 1812, and for a few minutes, I though we were going to see some of Jack’s back story. No such luck.

A soldier goes into the woods with a prostitute and, as things are wont to do, it goes poorly, he slaps her, she runs off, he chases after to shoot her. But before he catches up with her, she’s posessed by an alien that had just been transported to Earth in shackles. (Though we don’t find that out until much later.) Read full story

This episode totally creeped me out, in the best way possible.

I love a good horror film, and Citycide had all the classic elements:

An unknown evil creature (or person). An injured hero (Gwen). Romantic tension (Owen & Gwen). An unclear method of murder.

And we had something creepy moving in the shadows. A person who appears to be a captive of the evil, but she’s really in on it. Moments of heroic escape that, in the end, are thwarted. And one helluva rescue by, of course, Captain Jack.

And no real answer as to why all the carnage takes place.

But I get ahead of myself.

After the obligatory screaming victim before the opening credits, we get the Torchwood gang in their spiffy SUV out in the country. None of them is really comfortable there, except, maybe for Captain Jack and Gwen. And they’re going to camp for the night. Tee hee.

In the woods, Owen gets all in Gwen’s face over their kiss during the Cyberwoman episode and you can see that Gwen can’t actually tell him she doesn’t feel the same.

They see something moving, they find a dead body, skinned and pretty much all the meat off it. Weevils (remember the Weevils?) don’t finish off their victims like this.

And it would be really weird if the Weevils managed to make it all the way out to the countryside like this. That would mean the rift in Cardiff was spreading, dumping aliens and general ickyness much further out than ever before.

So now something takes the Torchwood SUV (sweet ride), runs over their tent and drives away. Doesn’t go too far, though, and leads the gang to a village of sorts. It’s really just a row of a few houses and a pub. Another skinned body is inside the pub.

It’s all dark, obviously abandoned, but hasn’t been for long. It’s not all dirty and dusty. Someone’s watching from the second floor of one of the buildings, but we don’t know who or what.

I have to admit, when Owen stayed behind in the pub to examine the victims’ remains, I totally thought he was going to be captured. I mean, in a horror movie, you never go/stay anywhere alone in a creepy abandoned pub.

Of course, Captain Jack and Gwen find another dead body. She’s still dry-heaving, though. I do marvel, though, at how quickly she’s managed to become comfortable with a gun.

The next house they go into, she’s shot. A young man who may be the sole survivor in the village shot her, thinking she was one of the bad guys. Jack gets the kid to drop his gun, gets Gwen to Owen, and she’s actually happy to see him for a change, as Owen deftly observes.

Torchwood’s good for him, it turns out, because he loves being a doctor, but dealing with people? Not so much.

Meanwhile, Toshiko and Ianto went to the other row of houses, near where the signal from the Torchwood SUV was coming from, and end up being captured. They’re in some sort of underground torture-chamber-looking spot. Ianto’s totally freaked out. He’s kind of a wuss – he has more of a desk job, it seems like. And he drives.

Toshiko is totally badass, though — “I haven’t met a cell yet I couldn’t get out of.” She may have a desk job (computer whiz), but she does lots of field work, I guess.

I loved how they didn’t even show what was in the fridge when Toshiko first opens it. It’s obvious what’s in there – the stuff that’s missing from the dead bodies. It’s almost more frightening that way.

Ianto has to see what’s in there, though, and pushes past her.

The people of the village are being harvested for food.

In the pub, Captain Jack, Gwen, Owen and the young guy are surrounded. They’ve barricaded the door, but the lights are shut off. Jack shoots whatever’s trying to come in through the basement. The kid ends up being captured.

Gwen and Owen insist on going out to see if they can find him while Captain Jack tries to see how the bad guys got into the basement.

My favorite exchange of the episode is now, when Captain Jack tries to get Gwen to stay:

Jack to Gwen: “You are wounded”

Gwen to Jack: “Do you think that’s gonna stop me?”

Pause.

Jack to Gwen: “Be careful.”

For a moment, I thought the cellar of the pub might be the one that Toshiko and Ianto are imprisoned in, but not so simple.

Turns out, the torture chamber is in the Village Hall or whatever this building is that the cop tries to stop them from going to.

An older woman comes down into the basement where Toshiko and Ianto are, pointing a shotgun at them. She’s all scared, tells them that every 10 years, these creatures harvest the village; they’re forcing her to bring them.

Toshiko tries to tell her they can help, but she’s having nothing of it.

Then we find out why – she’s one of the creatures. She and her husband harvest visitors to village every 10 years. Anyone who’s passing through, not from the village.

Ianto head-butts the bad guy so Toshiko can escape, but the bad guy ends up catching up with her. Meanwhile, Ianto’s been all “tenderized.” Gwen and Owen are captured when they try to rescue Toshiko.

Ianto’s about to be killed, when, WHAMMO! Captain Jack drives into the side of the building with some weird car/tractor/truck thingy that was outside the original pub we saw. He jumps out with a shotgun, a pistol, I don’t even know all the weapons he started firing.

And he manages to kill just the bad guys, no good guys.

He’d just gone all Jack Bauer on some random guy in the basement of the pub, who I guess lived in the village, so he knew what was up? Or had he escaped?

And were these evil people human and just really, really sick, or were they some sort of aliens? Didn’t really get an answer to that when Gwen was interrogating the old man:

“Because it made me happy.” That’s what he whispers to her.

Sick, sick, sick. Though, I suppose, there are too many people for whom doing bad things is a reward unto itself.

And now, after the really horrible things she’s seen, she can only turn to Owen. She can’t share it with her boyfriend. So she’s cheating on her boyfriend with Owen. I can only think she hasn’t broken up with her boyfriend, though, because she desperately needs to have something outside of Torchwood.

It’s sweet and sad at the same time.

Owen’s apartment, by the way, is FABulous.

One question: If they had skinned Captain Jack, would he have regenerated? Gross, I know, but I’m curious how immortal he is.

I both loved and hated the conceit behind this episode of Torchwood.

What’s become typical in science fiction of late is the idea that even if we can know the future, we are almost powerless to change it.

Think Lost, with Desmond trying to save Charlie. Sure, he could prevent a specific death, but eventually, the Grim Reaper was coming for Charlie and there was nothing Des could do about it.

Think Battlestar Galactica, with its “All this has happened before and all this will happen again” mantra. The best of intentions by the Cylons from Earth – Ellen, Saul, Tyrol, Anders and Tori – failed, and they could not get to the Colonies in time to prevent war. And even after they stopped that war, they could not prevent their children, the skinjob Cylons, from rebelling and restarting the war with the humans. And even after they managed to stop all that, the Cylons still had a civil war (just like they did on Earth).

But enough about BSG and Lost. We’re here to talk about Torchwood.

We start off simply enough, with an alien device that picks up “ghosts” of the past – when someone’s holding it in a spot where very strong emotions have been looking at the past.

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