Torchwood Series 1

Torchwood

SPOILERS TOTAL. You've been warned.

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101: Everything Changes 2007 September 8

(First watched 2007-09-08)  Nice general introduction to Torchwood, but as such a piloty episode I'm left uncertain what sort of style or tone this show will be using on a weekly basis.  It could be like X-Files without everything ending as confusing as it begins, or Men in Black without aliens in music videos, or something else entirely.

Nice to see Jack again.  He seems a bit more... personable, mellow, and just plain legitimate than I remembered, and I wouldn't have expected him to enjoy getting washed up in Cardiff.  I suppose between then and now he's had time to get used to it, though, and has found a job as exciting as can be found on the planet.

So Suzie was the murderer... OK, I see her motivation.  But why did she do it with such a specialized weapon that she was working on even around her colleagues?  Was there some alien-artifact-related reason she was sharpening a fancy blade at work?  Perhaps it was an alien thing itself, but that would still leave it an incredibly stupid thing for someone in her position to use as a murder weapon.

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102: Day One 2007 September 15

(First watched 2007-09-15)  Uhhh, OK, that was something.  I guess I've heard the show described as "Doctor Who for adults", and they wanted to make that clear as quickly as possible.

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103: Ghost Machine 2007 September 22

(First watched 2007-09-25)  About time we saw something of Owen beyond the superficial, as he had to deal with the knowledge and shared emotions of a murdered woman.

Not only does Jack not die, but he doesn't sleep either?  Next they'll tell us he doesn't go to the bathroom.

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104: Cyberwoman 2007 September 29

(First watched 2007-09-29)  Not such an interesting episode, beyond making Ianto less of a mannequin.  So... he was hiding her in there for a year or so without anyone being the wiser?

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105: Small Worlds 2007 October 6

(First watched 2007-10-06)  OK, so Jack DOES sleep after all.  And though I already know it from the "later" Doctor Who episodes, this episode establishes that he's been hanging around Earth for at least the last century.

The series seems to have established a light pattern.  The even-numbered episodes are ridiculous, and not in the particularly good way.  The odd ones are a bit serious and the better for it.  Though... they also seem to end in failure of varying degrees, with somebody dead.  Though hell, not one episode has lacked in deaths, so maybe I shouldn't hold it against the odd-numbered ones.

Even before it came to death between them... boy, the Chosen One and her stepfather were real dicks to each other.

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106: Countrycide 2007 October 13

(First watched 2007-10-13)  Well, there goes the even-numbered curse.  I saw the twist coming a mile away, but it was still an effective plot device: of all the unearthly things they've run across, it's the sickness of a few humans that's the least explicable and the closest to actually harming them.

Even early on, though, it was a nice change of pace for them to be out of Cardiff.

This Gwen/Owen thing, though... that can't end well.

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107: Greeks Bearing Gifts 2007 October 20

(First watched 2007-10-20)  And finally a Tosh-heavy episode.  Though pretty middling all-around.

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108: They Keep Killing Suzie 2007 October 27

(First watched 2007-10-27)  Wow.  I'm glad we got a full-on followup to the first episode.  The Resurrection Glove/Risen Mitten is a really creepy concept.  It only brings someone back long enough to add a one-time short scary coda to one's existence.  Well, except in this case.

The real problem I have with this episode is... it turned out Suzie had a lot of it planned?  Like the guy Max being caught and locking up Torchwood, but... how and why?  Surely she wasn't planning on dying, and if she was why would she have reason to believe her eventual resurrection would last longer than a minute?

Boy, they really revealed Suzie to be nasty, didn't they?  Before, we knew she killed a few people... but in a twisted way it was for a good cause, and early in this episode it's suggested the glove might've had a corrupting influence.  However, it turns out she'd been manipulating people for years and planning a series of gruesome murders just to posthumously get her coworkers' attentions.

So now not only Gwen/Owen, but... Jack/Ianto?  What a wacky show.

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109: Random Shoes 2007 November 3

(First watched 2007-11-03)  Ahh, Torchwood-lite.  Eugene was a likable fellow, though, so it worked.  This seemed a pretty happy treatment of death, though, following Suzie's talk last week about how death was nothingness except for some unseen awful thing.

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110: Out of Time 2007 November 10

(First watched 2007-11-10)  Nice.  An episode of a completely different pace.  No threat but getting attached to three people out of their times.

But damn, the writers must not be able to figure out how to use Toshiko, she's easily behind Jack, Gwen, and Owen in attention.  Hell, maybe even Ianto.

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111: Combat 2007 November 17

(First watched 2007-11-17)  Weevil Fight Club?  Oookay.

Gwen admitting her infidelity to Rhys in hopes of forgiveness while simultaneously giving him an amnesia pill?  He was right to call her a selfish bitch.

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112: Captain Jack Harkness 2007 November 24

(First watched 2008-01-13)  Though this episode predates it, the time travel aspects of this episode remind me a bit of a dialed-down Blink.

So I was surprised to see that the episode wasn't named after Torchwood's Captain Jack, but the Captain Jack he ripped the name off of.  Considering his omnisexuality, though, it seemed surprising that Torchwood-Jack seemed blind to how gay Original-Jack was for him.

So what was this Bilis up to?  He quite clearly knew about them and was playing them, so I'm going to guess the repercussions of messing with that Rift Machine will be in the next episode.

I noticed some "Vote Saxon" papers on a wall, as well as some Bad Wolf graffiti.

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113: End of Days 2007 December 1

(First watch4ed 2008-01-20)  What a dense episode, and I mean that in the good way.  Enough shittons going on that it felt like a two-parter condensed into one.  People popping up from all of time, Bilis being some crazy time-traveling Abadon worshiper, Rhys getting a hell of a short end of the stick, bubonic plague!  It just seemed a bit much that in the middle of this shitstorm they had to stop and have breaks to snipe at each other.

The solution was also a bit convenient.  Opening the rift seemed to undo all the "little" things in exchange for releasing bigass Abadon, who was then... gotten rid of by sucking too much life out of Jack?  So not much in the way of long-term consequences.

The very end with the hand was nice as well, though of course I already know what that was leading to.

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Torchwood Series 2