Primeval Series 2 Episode 7

The team find themselves in a dire situation in the last episode of Primeval – they are right in the middle of a bunker full to the brim with pre-historic creatures! Things don’t improve later, as Leek goes increasingly insane and Helen becomes even more nastier!

After Leek lets a ‘giant scorpion’ lose on a beach, he contacts Lester and taunts him, saying that he has more creatures, stationed at more locations and will release them if he doesn’t call off the search for Cutter and his team. Lester immediately brings in the sacked Stephen, who heads down to the beach to deal with it.

Meanwhile Cutter is filled in on the ‘plan’, as Leek tells him he wants to control the world by using the anomalies to change things and use the creatures to kill anyone he dislikes. He shows the professor how he controls the animals – with a computer chip stored in their brain area. Helen, just apparently, wants to continue her research into the anomalies, but does she really?

Things then kick off, as Leek sets a sabre-tooth tiger loose and Cutter destroys Leek’s computer, meaning that Connor’s virus (which he planted in episode 6) had rendered the computer from ever working again. All the cages are opened and things get messy! And as Leek is eaten by the ‘Future Predators’ the team escape or so they think. In desperation, Helen calls Stephen and he comes to the rescue. But as the door to the creatures can only be locked from the inside, it is Stephen who scarifies himself and saves everyone. Cutter is obviously gutted, as Helen makes good her escape.

It’s all very tense and the acting just about keeps it together, Karl Theobald who plays Leek is just superb and really steals the show. It was also sad to see the demise of Stephen, as he was made out to be the ‘bad guy’ of the team, when we knew he wasn’t! And Caroline got her comeuppance when Connor told her where to go! Methinks a Connor-Abby relationship is on the cards!

Plenty of action and as the plot really thickens, there are still questions to be answered. What has really happened to Claudia Brown? What exactly is Helen up to? Judging by the end, which took place at Stephen’s grave, with Helen whispering ‘things can change’, there is indeed plenty more to come. The same can be said for the return of ‘The Cleaner’ and his many ‘clones’, who accompanied Helen to Stephen’s grave!

9/10

Here’s looking forward to the 10-part series 3 in early 2009!

Torchwood Series 2 Episode 13 - Exit Wounds

It was a decent enough ending to the series but, as always, it didn’t stop me having a few gripes with the story! This final episode sees the long-awaited introduction of Jack brother, Gray.

It seems however that Gray hasn’t forgiven his brother for losing his grip, during the flashbacks in ‘Adam’. In these, Jack and Gray’s home world was under attack from an ‘unknown alien race’ and as they where running away, Jack lost Gray’s grip and apparently, Gray spent most of his life imprisoned. Now, Gray has set a number of ‘traps’ around Cardiff to keep the team busy, whilst Captain John lures Jack back to the hub, where he and Gray take him prisoner. And speaking of even more prisoners, we learn that it is John, not Gray who is forced to work with the other.

Jack wakes up to find himself in Cardiff – in the year AD 27. Gray buries him as a ‘foundation stone’ and claims that Jack’s immortally is a ‘curse’ and that Jack will spend ‘every death thinking about what he has done’.

John suddenly has a change of heart, when he returns to the present and once he is free, he works with the Torchwood team, in order to bring down Gray’s reign of terror. Jack meanwhile is dug up by the Torchwood team of 1900 and asks them to freeze him because there are two of him, shagging around, in that time period.

Back to the future where Gray sets up a nuclear reactor to blow up and as Tosh tries to stop him – he shoots her. When Owen gets to the plant, he learns that he can stop the meltdown but at his own risk. Tosh, despite bleeding to death, helps him from the hub and after a tearful goodbye, they both die. The reactor room blows up with Owen inside it and Tosh dies in the arms of Jack, who has returned from the freezer. It’s a beautiful scene that would have had some fans crying.

Jack has one last showdown with Gray and as Gray refuses to forgive his brother, Jack drugs him and freezes him.

It’s a breathtaking episode that does have its questionable points. Tosh’s appearance in ‘Aliens of London’ was briefly explained, very poorly though. I also didn't understand Gray's motive, it seemed a little bit childish to me. If someone had made me lose my brother's grip and imprisoned me, I would want revenge on the ones who had chased me, not my brother. I thought that was the main reason that let the episode down.

8/10

Well it's goodbye Owen and Tosh, there is also no more Torchwood until 2009. Let’s hope the mini series, ‘Children of Earth’ will be the start of a new and improved era for Torchwood.

Torchwood Series 2 Episode 12 - Fragments

Well that was an episode worth watching! After weeks of writing critical reviews, I can finally praise the efforts of Torchwood.

The story sees the team (minus Gwen, who is being lazy and is in bed, still stuck to Rhys) being led into a building, which blows up and they get trapped under the rubble. We then get to see ‘flashbacks’ of how each of them joined Torchwood.

With Jack trying to position himself near ‘The Rift’, in order to meet The Doctor again, he gets stuck in the Victorian era and is reluctantly recruited by two very foxy ladies, who work for ‘Torchwood’. They notice his immortality and his constant mumblings of ‘The Doctor’ and task him with finding him. Jack initially refuses, as Torchwood are after The Doctor but after a chance meeting with the fortune teller, known as the ‘scary little girl’ (from ‘Dead Man Walking’), he is told that he will meet The Doctor in 100 years. Jack goes back to Torchwood and reluctantly takes the job. Let the shagging begin! Things take a wrong turn for Jack however, when in 1999 a member of his team goes bananas and shoots all the team and himself dead, in the belief that the 21st Century will be ‘the end of everything’. So Jack must now recruit a new team….

Tosh is next and after she is blackmailed into getting some plans for a sonic device, she is nicked by UNIT and placed into somewhere that all prisons should be like. Jack comes to the rescue by employing her on the basis of her ‘quick learner’ ability and the fact she can delete all cookies from a computer!

Ianto’s story is crap. After the events of the Doctor Who episode ‘Doomsday’, he is out of work and heads to Cardiff and stalks Jack until he gives him a job. But it’s Owen’s story that is truly great and heartbreaking at the same time. He is engaged to Katie, who is believed to be suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. Owen pleads with his hospital colleagues to scan her brain, again and they find what seems to be a tumour. It isn’t – it’s an alien parasite that kills her and all the surgeons in the operating theatre. And as Jack gets involved, Owen tries but fails to get any information out of him and Jack covers it all up. Until Katie’s funeral that is, when Jack tells all and offers Owen a job. It’s brilliantly acted and gives us some insight into why Owen’s charter is such a ‘bastard’!

Meanwhile Gwen and Rhys arrive at the building and free the team. But someone is waiting for them, it’s a Captain John hologram and it seems he’s got Jack’s brother Gray. John threatens to ‘tear Jack’s world apart’. Should be fun next week, eh?

An excellent episode, let down only by Ianto’s story. Beautifully acted, written and we even got to some girl-on-girl, which evens up for all the Jack/Ianto ‘moments’!

9/10

Next Time: Lots of things get blown up – Jack’s jealous!

Torchwood Series 2 Episode 11 - Adrift

When I didn’t think it could get any worse, Torchwood proves me wrong yet again! After a cameo by ‘Papa Lazarou’ last week, this week we have ‘Sloth’ from The Goonies!

I suppose ‘Adrift’ is supposed to tug on your heartstrings – it tug my patience! So when a young lad, Jonah, disappears as a result of ‘rift activity’. Seven months later, he is back but he’s has severely aged, his looks have gone the way of John Merrick and he is locked in a ‘hospital’ ran by some strange nurses and Jack is reluctant to tell Gwen about it.

In fact plenty of people have gone the same way and everyone but Gwen seems to know. As an ex-police officer – she has to investigate. Enter the excellent Tom Price as ‘PC Andy’, a character that should be in Torchwood a lot more!

So with Gwen doing the woman’s thing, setting up support groups for parents who have had children go missing, Jack is burrowing himself into Ianto. Ruth Jones guest stars as Jonah’s mum and her performance is, at times, a bit OTT. Stick to comedy, love!

The plot is so ridiculous, I can’t be arsed going into it. Needless to say a possible reference to The Doctor is made, as Jonah was rescued from a ‘burning planet and taken into a rescue craft’. The rest is about how Mum wants to keep Sloth but he’s a bit ‘round the twist’ so he has to stay in the hospital. Marvellous eh?

2/10

Next Week: We are coming to the end, so will the last two episodes be the saving grace of the series? I hope so but the way things have been going - I very much doubt it!

Torchwood Series 2 Episode 10 - From Out Of The Rain

You know what? I’m getting sick of writing negative reviews for Torchwood. My range of insults need a rest sometime but they are unlikely to if they keep producing stories like ‘From Out Of The Rain’.

It’s a bit of ‘Last Action Hero’ and ‘The League of Gentlemen’ but set in Wales – and you thought Royston Vasey was weird! On paper, it’s a great idea but sadly it doesn’t come off.

They try to do ‘Gothic Horror’ but it comes out all American-ized and dull - much like Buffy. Next we’ll be having singing vampires, with rubbish southern accents, who fall in love with school girls! Torchwood doesn’t need to rip off other shows it should attempt to forge its own style. This series as been almost a ‘who’s of who’ of programmes that have been ripped off, or ‘influenced by’ as the writers put it!

After some old film cans are found at a cinema, the characters, namely a ‘ghostmaker’ and his assistant come to life and ‘half-kill’ people by taking their ‘breath’. Of course when the ghostmaker, or 'Papa Lazarou' as I call him, tries to take Owen’s breath - he can’t. Yet Owen still goes around talking - I’m not going to let this go you know!

Of course Jack was involved with this Circus, somewhere down the line as ‘The Man Who Couldn’t Die. I’m sure one viewing of this episode would kill him off once and for all! The episode threatens to go into an ‘older kiddies’ type of mystery and the resolution of the plot is straight out of ‘Goosebumps’!

It’s camp, over the top and a huge let down. Thankfully it’s nearly the end of the series!

3/10

Next Week: More ‘fun’ as Gwen finds herself playing ‘Strip Twister’ with the pizza boy from the first episode of series 1. Spotty freak!

Bernice Summerfield 9.2 - The Adolescence Of Time

After a long delay in post-production from Big Finish, we finally get the chance to listen to ‘The Adolescence of Time’.

It’s a story with a twist as Benny hardly features so her son Peter takes the starring role. Thomas Grant is great as the young Kiloran but it was perhaps too early for him to have a solo role. Going back to the ‘End of the World’ where Jason Kane had a solo story, we were used to his character as he had been a regular seen the first series. This worked well and that is one of my favourite Benny audios, in fact that series as a whole, worked really well. In this story, I just felt we didn’t really have much to ‘hang on to’ in respect of Peter.

There are some nice touches though and everything seems neat and tidy. Peter finds a time ring and is transported to a world where prehistoric animals still roam and someone wants to capture Peter for ‘The Worm’ but he’s far too busy trying to rescue colonies of Pterodactylsl-type creatures, which are based on standalone rocks – in the sky! It’s a stunning thought and I thought Lisa Bowerman’s direction worked well.

I did feel however that the story lacked the ‘feel’ we’ve become used to with Benny audios. Whilst this new music, production and everything else is good it’s something which is far withdrawn from early Benny audios, which really got me hooked on the sexy-27th Century archaeologist! It’s perhaps something we’ll have to get used to, as this era of Benny audios continues and Peter’s character continues to develop.

2.5/5

Next Time: Benny is back on Earth – in Victorian times – in 'The Adventure of the Diogenes Damsel'

Torchwood Series 2 Episode 9 - Something Borrowed

So Rhys will finally make a (dis) honest woman out of Gwen but will she ever get to the church? After a typically boozy night out in Cardiff, she wakes up in the morning and finds herself pregnant - eight months pregnant! Don’t worry though, she can explain it – it ‘came’ from an alien bite! Hmmm better tell people its Rhys’s, instead!

As they try to hide it (!) she insists she wants to go through with the wedding and we get to meet one of Rhys's mates – a bloke called ‘Banana Boat’. This weird bloke is soon put in his place by Tosh, so the story isn’t affected by smatterings of ‘brainless ponce’, throughout!

We learn that a shape-shifting alien, a Nostrovite, is after the ‘baby’ inside Gwen. I think this is possibly one of the best ideas, for a monster, that Torchwood has come up with. Simply because you don’t know who the alien is and it could change at any minute! Simple but that’s Torchwood!

The episode is more of a comic one and I think it benefits from that. Torchwood has been grim and sad – like Eastenders, so it’s nice to see them have some fun! We even get to meet the parents of Gwen and Rhys! Owen takes a backseat this week but whips out an improved version of his ‘invention’, the ‘singularity scalpel’, seen in ‘Reset’ but it’s Rhys who saves the day and everything, typically, turns out fine. There’s even time for one more laugh, as Jack retcon's all the wedding guests!

Credit to Kai Owen (Rhys) who was finally given a bigger role than being ‘the typical man’, his performance in this episode and ‘Meat’ have certainly shown that there is a point to his character!

8/10

Next Week: The circus comes to town! I wonder if Jack and Ianto will ride the haunted-alien-monster infected-Welsh, Love Boat?