First of the Gang to Die

Torchwood: Dead Man Walking

So, hands up who really thought Owen was a gonner following the cataclysmic finale to Reset? I bet you feel a right lemon now.

Sure, the man is dead. He has ceased to be. He is an ex-Owen. But hey, this is science fiction and all the normal rules of life and death don’t apply, right? Yeah right, ‘cept now and again we at least expect some of the circumnavigation of these basic laws of nature to make a smidgen of sense. And there’s little in Dead Man Walking that is even on speaking terms with sense, let alone going down the local for a couple of pints and a few games of pool with it.

I was actually willing to let a lot of this slide because for the main part Dead Man Walking is a curious beast; part macabre rumination on the sudden permanence of death, part black comedy in which a walking, talking cadaver muses about the inconveniences of being deceased (the cold skin, the lack of blood flow, the need to projectile vomit several pints of beer rather than let it out the natural way). All whilst being periodically subjected to some pretty disturbing jaunts into the hall of mirrors from some mad bastard’s worst nightmares. Wherein Burn Gorman’s already pick-and-mix features are made to look even more bizarre than they already do. No small achievement this, given that not even a hint of CGI is involved.

Dead Man Walking takes homaging into the script-writing equivalent of an Olympic sport

But at about the midway stage it’s as if the Torchwood sages suddenly realise that we can’t just have a little offbeat story about life after death and the theoretical realities of coming back from the great beyond. And decide that, of course, what we really need is some Apocalyptic gubbins about Death being an incarnate force that, once thirteen disparate lives have been claimed, will suddenly hold all dominion over the whole world. I mean, it makes the leftfield appearance of Abaddon seem like a well-planned story arc by comparison.

Needless to say that after the almost hyperbolic quality of both Adam and Reset this is a soul-grindingly inevitable return to desperately contrived form for Torchwood. And once again it all comes down to a simple failure to heed the basic rule of good script-writing: keep it simple. How much of this is down to Matt Jones’ fault and how much is as a result of needing to shoe-horn in details that it seems will now inevitably build towards the season climax is unclear. But it has to be said that Jones and the boys and girls in Cardiff have been here at least once before. The Satan Pit was allegedly heavily rewritten against Jones’ behest and the amount of stuff that gets crammed unnecessarily into the admittedly thin plot here suggests that this could be a case of deja-vu. At the half-way point it looks as though Season Two’s big bad is gonna be one of the members of Team Torchwood itself, given that ambiguous climax (not to mention Owen getting all Dark Willow in the trailer to next week’s episode). And on which point, even by Torchwood standards Dead Man Walking takes homaging into the script-writing equivalent of an Olympic sport, ripping off so many Buffy and Angel episodes in the space of just fifty minutes that it would take a separate review just to cover them all.

not since Marty Hopkirk first gave art to the afterlife has so little thought been put into the actual dynamics of death

Speaking of wasted time, what a shame that Martha is suddenly the fifth wheel of the team having fitted in so well last week. All she gets to do now is spout technobabble, make half-arsed threats on behalf of UNIT and get to wear the silly old age make-up that David Tennant seemed to be turning into a cabaret act in last year’s Who. And why exactly does the Beast with Five Fingers choose Martha to suck the lifeforce out of, when if it’s unlimited energy it’s after Jack is practically giving it away? But then if it hadn’t the script writers would have had to find her something useful to do for the last twenty minutes besides auditioning for The Nichelle Nichols Story.

And don’t get my started on the ‘science’ of it all, seeing as it would have even the late Fred Freiberger coughing up a doughnut in disbelief. Okay, so Owen comes back as a result of death itself wanting to hitch a ride into the all-you-can-eat buffet that is mankind. So why following his expelling of the Grim Reaper’s rather sooty-looking essence doesn’t he just drop down dead somewhat like Marcus Scarman does after Sutekh has no further use for him in Pyramids of Mars? And if Owen has no digestive system to process food or blood flow to maintain a stiffy, how does he manage to walk (and indeed run) around like a normal living, breathing person? No doubt the ‘energy’ he is slowly dissipating come episode’s end holds some explanation, but not since Marty Hopkirk first gave art to the afterlife has so little thought been put into the actual dynamics of death. And at least he was a ghost…

Torchwood are left with a lump of flesh threatening to start the Apocalypse again

But if you thought the science was bad, check out the faux emotion of it all. Tosh gets to spill her guts about loving Owen, then it’s treated like it’s just a normal grief reaction when he comes back from the dead. And that’s not even the worst part, as Owen’s triple-hanky moment with leukaemia kid goes to prove. Hey, death’s a piece of piss when you’re already dead, boys and girls. So wipe away all those tears and try not to get too down about the fact that all your hair’s falling out, cos it could be worse. You could be dead already. Which is a bit like saying that death only matters when you’ve got nothing else to lose. Which it doesn’t. And no amount of quoting from Proust is going to convince me otherwise.

So what we’ve got here is perhaps the longest death scene in television history without any emotional payoff. And instead the rest of Torchwood are left with a lump of flesh that used to be a colleague threatening to start the Apocalypse again at any moment. Where this all goes from here is probably anyone’s guess, but I for one hope they avoid the cliché of having Owen become the enemy within that redeems himself at the last moment. At least Willow’s arc in Buffy had the addiction and grief metaphors; Owen was a bit of a wanker before he got offed so where exactly do you get any novelty out of him shooting the shit out of stuff and generally pissing off Jack and co.? I mean, we’ve already had one Buffy-aping season climax in which two characters embrace one another while the one says ‘I forgive you…’ And I for one am not sure I could take another.

Next Time: Bad to the bone, b…b…b…baaad. Owen tests the theory that tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life by going postal, getting sacked from Torchwood and… threatening Richard Briers?!?