Given its ratings success, there's every indication that Torchwood will be returning for a third season. But writer-producer Chris Chibnall's superlative "Exit Wounds" is something unexpected: a wholly complete and satisfying episode that could just as easily serve as a series finale as a bridge to the third season.
Chris Chibnall puts that old chestnut, your life flashing before your eyes just before you die, to good use in "Fragments," managing to avoid most of the clumsiness inherent in the typical origin story. It doesn't sit well that we're finally learning how Jack (John Barrowman) built his team just as it appears we're about to lose them all. "Fragments" is satisfying in that it answers many questions about our Torchwood Team, but ultimately it suffers from being nothing more than an extended setup for Chibnall's pull-out-the-stops season finale.
There are no aliens in Cardiff this week, but that shouldn't make us complacent. Series co-producer Chris Chibnall brings us back to Torchwood's bread and butter topic: the intersection of the human and the alien, and what it means to be human in the aftermath. Love and loss are common enough partners, but there's no trace of the maudlin here. The themes of hope and loss, two faces of love, are explored with heart-wrenching results.
"From Out of the Rain" was so reminiscent of Season One's "Small Worlds" that it came as no surprise that it, too, was written by Peter Hammond. Like Hammond's inaugural episode, "From Out of the Rain" is atmospheric and creepy, and reaches back into history both personal and cultural. But where "Small Worlds" grappled with a well-known archetype, here we're dealing with something almost unrecognizable: a traveling sideshow that appears out of nowhere to abduct and murder. It was OK that we never got much of an explanation about the fairy elementals, but it's frustrating here that we never learn anything about the creatures that terrorize Cardiff. Well, not quite; even worse than the lack explanation is the curious lack of menace. "Small Worlds" worked, in part, because we knew that the elementals had the power to destroy everything. Both urgency and momentum are lacking, here; without that existential threat, there's little to engage beyond nostalgia.
One of the sweetest scenes of the season-opening Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was Gwen (Eve Myles), wide-eyed, explaining to Jack (John Barrowman) that the ring she was wearing was an engagement ring. Rhys (Kai Owen) had asked, and she'd said yes, because "Nobody else will have me." Throughout the season the writing team has done a good job of referring to the wedding without making too big a deal of it, which was a very good thing. Anyone who has ever been married or planned a wedding knows how the process can take over your life; the problem is, the details you're obsessing over are deathly boring to the rest of the world. "Something Borrowed," a wedding episode, Torchwood-style, avoids both the precious and the obnoxious, with shape-shifting aliens, tons of snappy dialog, and terrific action set-pieces; in the end, love and a really, really big gun conquer all.
Nothing has really changed by the end of "A Day in the Death," but at least Owen (Burn Gorman) -- still dead -- has found a reason to hope. "A Day in the Death" is the circuitous story of Owen's journey from despair, and the two strangers he meets along the way. It all feels comfortably familiar, but the performances elevate it above cliché, most of the time.
How fondly I recall last week's "Reset," the episode which brought Dr. Martha Jones (Freema Agyema) to Cardiff and unexpectedly killed off Torchwood's resident medical officer, Owen Harper (Burn Gorman). I was worried about whether or not Owen would stay dead, and I was right to be. "Dead Man Walking" oscillates between creepy and campy, and even occasional side jaunts into seriousness can't save it.
Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) first met then-medical student Martha Jones (Freema Agyema) in Doctor Who's third season pre-finale "Utopia," when Jack clung to the exterior of the TARDIS as it raced to the end of time. Luckily, Jack was uniquely qualified to solve the technical problems that were keeping the remnants of humanity from reaching their final home, and it was Jack's wrist jump-unit that got the Doctor and his two companions away in the nick of time in "The Sound of Drums." But it was in "The Last of the Time Lords" that Martha Jones saved the world, and Jack Harkness is one of very few people alive who remembers it. It's a great pleasure, then, when Dr. Jones arrives at Torchwood, where aliens may shuffle in and out, but the monster of the week is nearly always human.
Torchwood enters Bizarro World when an alien reprograms the team's memories – and personalities – in "Adam." We're short on science fiction and long on character again this week, as is usual for writer Catherine Tregenna, but we get a big juicy chunk of Captain Jack's backstory. It's up to you whether or not it's a worthy trade. I was happy to hear Gray's story only four episodes after John Hart dropped that bombshell ("I found Gray") on Jack.
From the beginning, we all knew that former police constable Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) would someday be forced to choose between her sweetheart Rhys (Kai Owen) and her dashing Torchwood boss Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman). In Catherine Tregenna's "Meat," Gwen makes her choice.
Helen Raynor, writer of the solid first season episode Ghost Machine, teams up with Torchwood series creator Russell T. Davies to bring us another kind of ghost story in "To the Last Man." Here, we're haunted by the omnipresent shadow of war, and the vagaries that forge unwitting young men into heroes, and sometimes martyrs to the greater good.
When Torchwood's second season debut opens with a cliché-ridden car chase, you can't help but wonder if the show runners are trying too hard. Between-seasons PR promised more team spirit and more fun; what I'm hoping for is a settled sense of, and respect for, the target audience and a lot more consistency with the characterization. "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" easily transcends its ridiculous lead-off, and sets the tone for a new season of less bickering, more questions, some answers, and a good mix of otherworldly technology, aliens, sex, and action. It works.
Following the new Doctor Who's tradition of ending each season with a cataclysmic event, "End of Days" brings Torchwood's premier run to a mostly satisfying conclusion. I could fault writer Chris Chibnall for eliding far too many important details, but there's no need for such a tedious reckoning. What he has given us is an enjoyable combination of characters, alien technology, and an unknowable so far outside our understanding that we want to label it supernatural. Desperate love wreaks havoc, but simple faith can (apparently) repair all.
"Out of Time" writer Catherine Tregenna returns with the next chapter in the story of broken-hearted Owen (Burn Gorman). But "Captain Jack Harkness" is not just another story of love gone awry across a rift in time; it gives us a long-overdue glimpse into our Captain Jack's past.
The intersection of the alien and the human is front and center in "Combat," as disaffected young men seek meaning, Fight Club-style. Our Torchwood team regulars struggle to deal with the accumulated consequences of actions we've seen over the course of the season, and Owen (Burn Gorman) becomes the nexus around which everything revolves.
"Out of Time", gorgeous throughout, ostensibly tells the story of three individuals lost in time thanks to a temporal anomaly caused by the Cardiff Rift. At its heart, it continues Torchwood's nihilistic view of existence. A series that consistently argues that this present reality is all there is while simultaneously featuring a main character with a death wish suffers from both confusion and clinical depression. Ten episodes in, Torchwood still hasn't figured out what it's about, but it appears to be getting closer.
"Random Shoes" plays as if an episode of Doctor Who wandered off and got lost, only to find itself somehow on Torchwood. Part police procedural, part ghost story, this episode presents a structural, if not thematic pair to Who's late season two episode, "Love and Monsters.
"They Keep Killing Suzie" is the kind of episode that Torchwood does well: an exploration of the human character, unfolding in unexpected ways in a unique context. It could be seen as a return to form, if Torchwood had established one yet.
This week's cautionary tale falls short in spite of its interesting themes and compelling execution. The failure lies in the decision to reduce Toshiko (Naoko Mori) to a lonely, vulnerable mess, unhinging the entire process. Portraying Owen (Burn Gorman) and Gwen (Eve Myles) as idiotic horny teenagers doesn't help. Fortunately Jack (John Barrowman) remains true to his save-the-day character, while Ianto (Gareth David-Lloyd), reverting to his previous status of inscrutable cipher, evokes a three-word response: Seek professional help.
