Watching Doctor Who

This has taken me a while to write, but at last, here is my first Torchwood review. As Torchwood is still only being shown in the UK, as far as I have been able to determine, I will make all efforts to keep spoilers behind “read more” tags. That being said, if you are interested in spoilers…read on!

Episode: Everything Changes
Rating (1 to 5): 4
Alien Tech: The Knife, The Glove, The Book translator?, Owen’s Alien pheromones
Who kissed whom? Owen kissed a woman…and her boyfriend.
Who Died? 3 murder victims, 1 porter, Suzie, and Jack…but he gets better.
Were they playing “Spitting Games” by Snow Patrol? Yes, in the bar with Owen.
Converse? Gwen is wearing red ones.
Jack on the roof? Yes. On a white building, and the Millennium Center with Gwen.
What do we learn? Torchwood 1 was destroyed (one supposes that is during “Doomsday.”) Torchwood 2 is in Glasgow. Torchwood 3 is under the Millennium Center. Torchwood 4 is missing. Jack can’t die. The rift that has been encountered on Doctor Who seems to be getting more active.
Doctor Who References: Well, Captain Jack Harkness to begin with. In this episode, they mention that the only Captain Jack Harkness they have on record was an american volunteer from RAF 133 squadron, and he disappeared 1/21/41. (He still has his wrist computer, but no sign of his sonic blaster). Also, Toshiko Sato seems to be the same person who was working on the pig alien in “Aliens of London.” Eve Myles, who plays Gwen Cooper, also played Gwyneth in “The Unquiet Dead”…could there be a connection? Only time will tell. When Gwen first enters The Hub she passes what looks like The Doctor’s severed hand from “The Christmas Invasion” in a jar. Their “Invisible Lift” & its “Perception Filter”…seem to have been caused by the events of “Boom Town.” Jack can’t die, it seems, ever since he was brought back to life in “Parting of the Ways.” In this episode, he says that he will someday ask the right kind of Doctor about why he can’t die.
Favorite bits: Jack on the roof doing his Batmanuel impression. Gwen the Pizza girl. Jack’s coat in general. Ianto’s quip about harassment.

Observations and musings:

This is Russell T. Davies’ episode introducing Gwen. It serves much the same function as “Rose” did for Doctor Who, except without the exploding building. I enjoyed this introduction to the world of Torchwood, with its nods to (okay in-jokes from) Doctor Who. It also introduced the Torchwood resident aliens (called Weevils). Gwen encounters one and initially thinks that it is a man in a mask. Even when it kills someone she’s not certain it’s real until Jack tells her the truth in the Hub. Gwen herself seems an ordinary police constable with a live-in boyfriend. Almost immediately, though, she finds herself so curious about Torchwood that she continues to investigate until she finds them. This involves lying to her fella about working late, and continuing her search for Torchwood even though she has sustained a head injury earlier in the day. Stubborn girl is our Gwen. So stubborn, it turns out, that Jack’s amnesia pill doesn’t quite do the trick. I wonder if she spent this much time awake in the middle of the night before she encountered Torchwood. She seems to spend more time staring at the bedside clock than one would expect. As was mentioned in “Torchwood Declassified” Jack seems to be testing Gwen while she is in the Hub, by seeing how she will deal with different things. I wonder if he was merely intrigued by her, or if there was meaning behind his actions. In either case, it turned out to be convenient, since she agrees to join up at the end of the episode. Here we see the first evidence of Jack’s interest in Gwen.

Captain Jack Harkness appears in this episode with a slightly different hair cut and a distinctly 1940s military air about him. He has a long military coat, like the one from “The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances” and retains his wrist computer. No sign of his sonic blaster (or a banana) at this point. Jack has gotten a bit darker of personality since we last saw him on the game station. How did he get here? We don’t know, but here he is, running Torchwood 3. For all his apparent good humor, you really get the impression that he spends a great deal of time brooding. It also appears that when Rose (as the Time Goddess) brought Jack back to life in “The Parting of the Ways”…well, she did a really thorough job of it. Now Jack can’t die. You have to wonder why he’s so certain about this. How many times has he died before now? How many ways has he tried to die? I also found it interesting that Jack drinks water at the bar with Gwen, while she is having beer. I wonder how often this happens…and why. The drinking water part, I mean. When we first encounter Jack in this episode, he is with his team arriving at a crime scene with his team. It is raining, and he complains of Estrogen in the rain. He points out that this way he won’t get pregnant…again. Is he serious, do you think?

The show itself looks promising. CSI: Cardiff in the Doctor Who universe could prove quite interesting. The theme song, as seems to be the trend these days, is only about 10 seconds long. I like it, but I could wish that it would be a bit longer. Oh well.

Image Source: http://www.time-and-space.co.uk/

Everything Changes, Torchwood