Torchwood - Lost Souls

Torchwood made its radio debut in ‘Lost Souls’, which centred itself around ‘Big Bang Day’ celebrating the launch of the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Jack, Gwen and Ianto are contacted by Martha Jones and fly out to Switzerland to investigate a number of mysterious disappearances around the CERN base, which UNIT are guarding.

John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Gareth David-Lloyd and Freema Agyeman all reprise their roles, along with guest stars Lucy Montgomery and Stephen Critchlow As a fan of BBC Radio 4 comedies, I was expecting some funny stuff from Lucy Montgomery, so I was surprised to hear her ‘playing it straight’ for once!

The audio could have easily made the transition to the television series and I think that’s my main gripe with it. I think audios should be different, the Big Finish Doctor Who plays are so far removed from the television series, which allows us more things to think about and visualise something different, which is the main appeal of audio stories. I just felt this episode tugged along like a normal Torchwood ‘filler’ episode and didn’t really achieve anything.

I also felt that the characters where introduced far too early, it was a case of, ‘let’s get the who’s who out of way quickly’. The constant referrals to the deaths of Tosh and Owen also got a little bit tedious, I think they are better dealt with in the TV version. I felt it lacked that little of bit extra substance that most audios, especially the Big Finish ones, have.

There are some good moments though. John Barrowman, in particular, is his usual cheeky self and it was nice to see Gareth David-Lloyd given a much larger role than his television incarnation. Although I still think that they’ve killed off the wrong male Torchwood member! It’s well worth a listen, just to experience Torchwood in another medium, if you’re a big fan, you’ll lap it up!

2.5/5

Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on the 10th September, ‘Lost Souls’ is available now on CD or download from BBC Audiobooks. Apart from the story, the CD also contains interviews with the cast.

http://www.bbcshop.com/Science-Fiction/Torchwood-Lost-Souls/invt/9781405689441

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!

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?

Doctor Who Series 4 Episode 13 - Journey's End

Well, what a breathless end to the series! After three quick-fire months, we’ve finally arrived at ‘Journey's End’.

On the first watch, I was quite disappointed. There were just a couple of points that I thought we could have done without, I’ll go into them later though! After a rewatch later, I felt a little better, although those nagging points still nag like a woman on ‘that time of the month’!

It is this ‘Rose and Doctor’ thing. I CAN accept the Doctor falling in love but NOT with his fellow companions. Maybe it because his fellow travellers are now ‘companions’ instead of the classic ‘assistants’, that these love stories come from. Personally I reckon the 6th Doc was giving Peri one before Revelation of the Daleks but we’ll gloss over that (for now!). But if there is any suggestion that any ‘hanky panky’ is going on in the TARDIS, it should be kept as a suggestion. Yes, The Doctor that kissed Rose was human (with his heart in the side of his chest – eh?) but it still was The Doctor. I didn’t really like the second Tennant much anyway!

Another sticking point was the whole ‘Donna is a Timelord’ plot. Even though, scarily, she suited playing a Timelady, as soon as Catherine Tate opened her mouth and copied Tennant’s traits (speaking fast etc) I knew it was bad. Take nothing away from Catherine though, she was BRILLIANT as Donna Noble. Watching her departure was almost heartbreaking. I’m sorry for ever doubting you!

Another minor gripe was the lack of interaction between Rose and Mickey, now that she’ll never see him again. But despite his amount of screen time, I thought Noel Clarke was great. Hopefully the ending will leave it open for a regular slot in Torchwood, I hope so.

I also wasn’t really keen on the resolution of the cliffhanger. I believe that it should have been dragged out a bit more. Although I understand that the episode did have time constraints (well, sort of!) I was and still, suspicious of THAT RING on Donna’s finger. Basically, I thought the hand was going to regenerate into The Master! And to be honest that would have made a great episode. Can you imagine the bit when the TARDIS appeared and instead of Doctor 10.5 we had The Master stepping out? That would have been wonderful. Maybe with the ending, we have not seen the last of Donna and THAT RING!

Again the effects in this episode where simply breathtaking but who needs effects when you’ve got Bernard Cribbins? I hope I get a chance to meet him because the man is simply fantastic. Apart from the two Doctors, I reckon he is the best piece of casting that RTD and his team have made for Doctor Who.

I hope Julian Bleach will get another chance to play Davros again. The first thing you thought of, when you saw his ranting, was ‘that is f***ing scary! And that’s the point! He was wonderful.

Over great moments were – Jackie, Captain Jack, Sarah Jane and her interaction with Davros, the German Daleks, the whole team around the TARDIS console, Gwen and Ianto being locked in the Hub, thus stopping them from spoiling the episode and who can forget - K9!

Overall, a fine end to a great series. Shame about my gripes but you don’t have to agree with me! But I hope you do agree that this Christmas episode can’t come too soon! Cyberman AND Christmas. Dervla Kirwan AND David Morrissey, Goodnight Sweetheart meets Basic Instinct in Victorian times! Shame about the camp titles that came with it but hey, you can’t have everything!

8.5/10

Remember to keep tuning into this blog for more Sc-Fi and cult television reviews as well as reviews of the Big Finish audios and more news from the world of Doctor Who. Is it Christmas yet?

Christmas 2008 Teaser

Doctor Who Series 4 Episode 12 - The Stolen Earth

Wow! Just Wow! I was not expecting that! With all the attention on the Daleks and Davros, we never expected the cliffhanger at the end. But more about that later!

From start to finish, this episode was just marvellous! We had a Who’s who of er Doctor Who! Rose, Martha, Sarah Jane, Jack, Gwen, Ianto, Luke, Francine, Mr Smith and even Harriett Jones! But it was Davros that was the main sticking point, at least during the episode.

He was done very well. Now played by Julian Bleach (the ‘Ghostmaker’ in Torchwood), Davros was terrifying as ever. The Daleks also got a chance to impress and really showed what they can do. Their last few episodes, just haven’t done them justice.

With the Earth being moved to the much-mentioned ‘Medusa Cascade’, with many other ‘stolen’ planets. The Doctor’s ‘secret army’ took up arms, pulled together by Harriett Jones (former Prime Minister). While The Doctor and Donna buggered off to the Shadow Proclamation, Bernard Cribbins, once again, stole the show! Whilst he was the most humorous of the lot, the rest of cast showed their great acting ability as well.

The Shadow Proclamation is a group of ‘outer space policeman’ with the Judoon, seemingly, being employed by them. Despite many people’s gripes, I thought it looked very good and no expense was spared.

There are decent nods to new and classic episodes. Mr Copper (from The Voyage of the Damned’) gets a mention, as does Clom and Calaufax (from ‘The Pirate Planet’). Also there are nods to other members of the Torchwood and Sarah Jane shows.

With all those ingredients, this episode could have been an absolute mess. It wasn’t, it was fantastic and easily one of the best, if not the best, episode of ‘new’ Doctor Who. The acting and the effects were just the tip of the iceberg.

When The Doctor finally gets inside the pocket universe, he gets into contact with all his friends and then Davros flickers onto the screen. We could have been in 1975, the terrifying voice and features would be giving kids nightmares for days! And that was just Ianto!

Then the ending! After landing, The Doctor sees Rose and as they run towards each other, a dalek comes around the corner and shoots The Doctor with a glancing shot. Jack appears and takes out the dalek, but it’s too late. As The Doctor is taken into the TARDIS, he regenerates – or does he? We don’t know until next week, because a rather camp TO BE COUNTIUED appeared on the screen. I’m sure many people screamed at the telly like I did!

Is he regenerating? I don’t know, I suspect not but who knows! It’s certainly going to be one long week. My head hurts now!

10/10

Next Week: Thousands of fangirls and boys shed tears as David Tennant DOES regenerate (maybe!)

'Journey's End' Trailer



The Doctor 'Regenerating'