So this episode opens with a voice cameo by Russell T Davies, which either means that the executive producer wanted to pay some homage to his own contribution to the show, or by this point in the series they’d used up too much of the budget to hire a voice actor.
One of the consequences of last week’s ending was that this episode had to start 2 months later. This is pretty frustrating to the audience, as even though it technically works, the “X time later” technique is well known as a classic screen-writing cop out. Also the fact that Jack’s almost totally healed is kind of annoying; it’s not really any different from him being immortal if the pace of story is just gonna jump ahead, every time he’s affected by the consequences of his mortality.
I thought that perhaps Esther and Jack were trying to find Torchwood 2, as they were in Scotland and that particular facility/single member to staff was known to be located in Glasgow, but that turned out to be a bit hopeful. But on reflection, it would have been a bit late to start introducing new characters, it’s just I’d have preferred to have Torchwood return to the UK to maybe clean up some of the teasers from the old series.
So Gwen’s a terrorist again, which you’re probably expecting me not to like, but as they gave her a reason and she doesn’t haplessly destroy the evidence of the injustice she’s perceiving, I've got no problem with it. I have noticed that she does seem to become more irrational and violent, when her daughter is threatened, but I’d say that’s pretty realistic. I mean I personally think that it’d have been better to make Gwen more protective of her daughter, rather than making her actively aggressive and violent towards anyone who she perceives as a threat. At first I thought they were doing some sort of stereotype reversal and Reece was going to be the one acting more like the mother of the baby, but then Reece started acting just as aggressive and violent as Gwen. I would hate to be around when those two have a marital argument.
The UK is now a police state. This bit is done pretty well – they don’t have armed police seizing people’s children like in the last series; the writers have simply turned the UK into a police state in possibly the most realistic way. It’s been done through backdoor legislation. And if anyone thinks this isn’t realistic, observe how many people have been detained under the anti-terror laws brought in since 9/11 and the London Bombings and then compare it with the amount of those arrested and detained who were actually found to have any links to the crimes named in the Acts.
The best part of this approach is that it’s done through less subtle means than just stating that most people’s human rights have gone. For example, the category 1 investigator guy has the right break down the door of anyone he suspects is harboring a category 1 – which means he can break into anyone’s house - any given person, he can just override their right to privacy and just burst into their house and all he has to say is that he suspected that there was someone who should be dead in there. None of this is expressly stated and that’s what makes it so effective.
On that point, I’m kinda on the fence about the Category 1 searcher guy. One part of me, says that they made him too sadistic to be realistic and that anyone tasked with hunting down still living people and having them burnt alive, would only ever do so begrudgingly and that he’s only written the way he is to avoid the audience inadvertently trying to identify with him. However, another part of me says, that if a situation like the one in this series arose, who but barely disguised sadists would step to do the job of breaking down peoples’ doors and taking their husbands/fathers/wives/children away to be burnt alive?
It was good to see the whole Category 1 thing up close - up until this point we’ve been kept at arms length from the issue, only knowing that people deemed category 1 are being burnt. Actually seeing someone (in this case Gwen’s father) being taken off to be burnt, while still writhing and very much alive really puts the audience much closer to the issue.
That said, the whole writhing and groaning thing suggests he’s not Category 1 – as I understood it, Category 1 was supposed to be those with no brain activity (which is already the UK’s legal definition of death) – the only difference between reality and Torchwood in this respect is that ordinarily such a person would require a ventilator and other life support systems to keep their body alive.
It could, therefore, be argued that Gwen’s father being Category 1 may be a bit contrived and just there to keep the main cast linked to the issue - I don’t know I’m not an expert in life support and such.
On a lighter note, it turns out Charlotte’s gay - just thought I’d mention it, as I liked the way it was just thrown in there as an aside and none of the other characters questioned it. It might have been bit of social commentary on how much progress has been made, given the gay vs religion arguments of previous episodes.
It’s also quite 24-esque the way, that everyone’s feeding Charlotte information, but the audience already knows she’s a mole.
Oswald Danes has joined the Torchwood team, which is either a very controversial decision or a massive misunderstanding of diversity requirements – Now Torchwood, you’ve had an omnisexual time agent, a bisexual butler and an Asian chick - get a paedophile and you’ll be eligible for that all important tax relief.
All in all, this was a good episode; I’d have preferred to see a tad more progression and I’m not sure how much is actually gonna be explained in the finale next week – if you remember the finale of series four of Doctor Who (and if you’ve found a way to forget that, please get in contact) then you’ll know that T Davies does have a habit of just that thing happen because…and then not saying anything more. If we don't get beyond, the blessing is a big gap, I will never forgive him...
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