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!