Torchwood Series 2
SPOILERS TOTAL. You've been warned.
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201: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang 2008 January 27
(First watched 2008-01-27) So Jack is back. Not much in the way of dates was given, but I wonder how long he was gone? I know at the end of the Master stuff they weren't exactly in time where Jack left off, but I know even before he left there was the campaign going on, so a few months probably? And everyone was surprised to see him back, but didn't he end up on TV at all with the fuss on the airship? I really can't recall.
Captain John was interesting. Basically like Jack if he were a bit crazier and without any morals. John mentions the Time Agency is done... but that's hard to imagine. I guess when it comes to an agency that would be going all about time, it's hard to think of it with a set beginning and end.
The fake diamond/bomb is a strange idea. It does seem an interesting idea to attack one's murderer from beyond the grave... but if the cause of the murder was the cover story of a fake diamond, it seems it did more harm than good.
Poor poor Rhys. Engaged to Gwen now, but every time she turns around she's sleeping with Owen or being interrupted from saying she loves Jack.
LATER: Writing this later than the above, I realize the way I describe John as Jack without morals is very similar to the way I described the Master in Doctor Who Series 3. I guess they are similar sorts, showing a twisted parallel of our leading hero.
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202: Sleeper 2008 February 2
(First watched 2008-02-02) Now THAT'S how Torchwood should be. Another episode where all the core cast had decent roles to play, and it seems like they're over the sullenness they got into last season. Nobody was crying about their lost love or infidelities or bla bla bla. Ianto especially was dropping all kinds of fun lines.
Also good in that it introduces a new continuing story thread of these sleeper agents which could be anywhere (anyone) on Earth, hard to notice, and hard (but possible) to stop. Though some of the sleepers in this episode sure did die on their own a bit soon. I know you guys were making big explosions, but you didn't have to sit right in the center of them.
I've also got to think that with the explosions and murder of officials going on in this episode, it would be pretty big news worldwide as some sort of terrorist event. Much like this and Cardiff will really start sticking out on the map.
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203: To the Last Man 2008 February 9
(First watched 2008-02-09) Again the same positives I've previously mentioned about series 2 come through, and it is a fun episode... but even as a time travel nut it seems like they've gone to the "love across time" and "two times leaking into each other" wells quite often considering this is only, what, the 16th episode?
1918 Torchwood was a pretty cool idea, though, even if we only saw them briefly.
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204: Meat 2008 February 16
(First watched 2008-02-16) Season 2's positives continue. It's cool that they finally did something with Rhys that didn't end up with his memory erased, the timeline erased, or him just left in the dark. Of course most of them wanted to erase his new memories, but for the series' and Gwen's sake I'm glad this new wrinkle exists.
Rhys being around was the big thing, so the other story was a bit simple, though decent. Massive self-healing sentient space whale is being kept hidden by some scum who keep hacking of bits of it to sell as food. No happy ending there, but you kinda wondered how the hell they were planning on moving that thing.
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205: Adam 2008 February 23
(First watched 2008-02-23) Meddling with memory is a fun premise. I've seen it in sci-fi before, but it's less beat-to-death than many other possibilities, so it's relatively fresh. A "person" who exists by forcing himself into the memories of others is neat, and it was really something how the changes modified the behaviors of the Torchwood team, particularly the role reversal of Owen and Toshiko.
The solution seemed a bit poorly thought out, though. To get rid of their memories of Adam, they took short term amnesia pills and destroyed the records of the last few days. OK, but they still realized a couple days had passed. I expect that would leave them mighty curious and wanting to find out what happened. Rhys still has the memories of something weird going on with Gwen the previous few days, so he could even give them some hints. Basically I'm saying Jack should've at least left himself a letter explaining that there's a good reason for their memory lapse, and it's best left alone.
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(First watched 2008-03-02) Martha Jones! Weird to see her around, but she fit in with the team well enough.
Owen, though! That I was not expecting. I've got no spoilery information other than a split-second of the preview for the next episode, but I can't imagine he's gone gone.
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207: Dead Man Walking 2008 March 8
(First watched 2008-03-09) Well, that's a way to mix up the cast's situation. So through the help of some kid psychic, Jack finds a nest of weevils who sleep in a church with the second Resurrection Glove, then uses it on Owen. And like Suzie... he stays on for longer than a couple minutes. In this case, it seems to be due to manipulation from Death, though. It seems Death is supposed to be that thing "waiting in the darkness", which I thought was that freakishly big thing at the end of series 1.
So Owen's transformation to Death taken care of by the team's actions... he's still dead, but around and asking to be put to use. I wonder how long he'll stay this way, as it really is a take on a character you just wouldn't get to see in most shows. As Owen said, he can no longer fart, drink, or have sex, so life will be much less interesting. As Jack pointed out, he should avoid even slight injuries because they're not going to heal on a dead man.
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208: A Day in the Death 2008 March 15
(First watched 2008-03-16) The big focus is on Owen trying to get back to his regular life, even though he's now not-living an irregular death. His foods and other health products of his house attract him by habit, for instance, so he eventually tosses it all out. He doesn't seem to have much in the way of tactile sensation anymore, so he carelessly cuts his hand with a scalpel. A wound that won't bleed, but won't heal either, and will require indefinite frequent repair on his part.
With Martha Jones still filling in the Torchwood doctor role, the team is still working on a regular mystery in the background while we focus on Owen, but of course eventually they have a need for him: to get around heat sensors on a property. And who does Owen find when he sneaks all the way in? Not someone so dangerous, but merely an old man afraid of dying who thinks Owen can't understand his fears. Wa wa waaaa.
Didn't get a good idea of what the mysterious device was, though... or why Owen was carrying it around outside of the Hub afterward, for the shell story with the woman contemplating suicide.
Aaaand Martha Jones is off.
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209: Something Borrowed 2008 March 22
(First watched 2008-03-23) Rhys is badaass; Gwen an idiot. So she wants to go through her marriage even with a weird ultra-fast alien bite pregnancy going on, sure. But she didn't consider at all the length of the deception she'd have to go about it to everyone, not only at first explaining why she was pregnant without telling anyone, but later why it would be gone without breaking their hearts. Rhys on the other hand wants her safe, and later gets thiiiis close to taking a chainsaw to an advancing monster, and even has the nerve-wracking task of using the singularity scalpel on his wife-to-be. He even gets away with punching Jack in the mouth after Jack calls the real version of Rhys's mother some foul words rather than the shapeshifter version as he'd intended.
Gwen is also icky for again getting into her feelings for Jack and nearly kissing him on her wedding day... though of course it turns out to be the shapeshifter. It seems like the reason she wanted to rush into this wedding was so she wouldn't have a chance to change her mind.
I like the name Nostrovite for the shapeshifting aliens. Sounds like a relation to Nosferatu.
I wondered what they'd do with the wedding guests seeing so much... and indeed, they retconned them all! Large scale, that one!
So... Jack was married long ago? Or maybe he just treasures a novelty photo for kicks.
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210: From Out of the Rain 2008 March 29
(First watched 2008-03-29) Probably the worst episode of the season yet. A standard monster-of-the-week episode where we don't really learn anything important about any of our continuing characters, so it could be excised without anyone being the wiser.
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(First watched 2008-04-06) An interesting idea, but a few things left me wondering. Why the surprise that the rift takes things? We know of people/things going back through it intentionally; why wouldn't it happen by chance too? That's a hell of a lot of missing people for Cardiff; yet another thing that is strange that nobody in the outside world seems to take much notice of; it's like the Bermuda Triangle of mid-size British cities. Next, why did Jack need to keep it such a secret? I know it's a bit unsavory, but that's the kind of shit these people deal with day in and day out. I know Gwen is a bit of a bleeding heart on such matters, but he wouldn't have had objections before she joined the team, and even she came around once she saw the way things turned out.
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(First watched 2008-04-13) I quite liked this episode. It felt like a clipshow of episodes from a Series 0 that doesn't exist.
Jack's was especially great; I always love seeing distant-past Torchwood, and it makes sense that he originally became involved with them due to being hunted out by them as an oddity. What was it it said, though, something like 1400 deaths ago? Has this guy been dying every other week, or is there some bizarre event that had him dying a thousand times consecutively?
In Toshiko's I noticed that it was "5 years ago" and Jack said he could clear her record after 5 years of working for him. Coincidence? Or will some episode next series deal with her now not being compelled to work there? It also made the UNIT prison seem pretty bleak. We know Tosh was a sympathetic case, but how many more are there in there that are stuck because they don't have a valuable skill that makes letting them out worthwhile?
Ianto's was pretty straightforward, but I liked how it doubled as the pre-Torchwood story for the pterodactyl. Lisa wasn't mentioned, but I suppose that's his secret main motivation from this point on until her crappy, crappy series 1 episode.
Owen in pre-jerk form, losing his fiancée to an alien intruder into her brain that everyone stops believing happened; pretty sad. I also must say that his present-day situation in the bombed-out building had me worried. I wasn't worried any of the main characters would be dying, but in his zombie form any damage done to him would be basically irreversible. Luckily he seems to have made it out pretty well.
So... Captain John is back, bringing this series back to where it started. And long-lost Gray with him, who does look a lot like his big brother... at least in not-zoomed-in blue hologram form.
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