Only Obeying Orders

Torchwood: To the Last Man

I can't have been the only person to feel a pang of disappointment when Gerald and Harriet were dangled tantalisingly in front of us only to be snatched away and replaced by the current mob.  Surely we could have had a whole episode of Torchwood Gold involving some serious millinery, a cameo from TS Eliot as a bank clerk who's terribly important to the plot, and Harriet having a wild fling with Vita Sackville-West during a seance in John Maynard Keynes's summer house.  I'd have watched it for one.  Possibly the only one I grant you.  I was also intrigued by what Tommy must have witnessed in his year-by-year forays into the Hub.  Many changes for the better in employment law, massive improvements in filing techniques, but a saddening increase in red tape during his last nine or ten visits perhaps.  The whole concept also opened up some wonderful opportunities for future episodes, and I will be very disappointed if we don't get an episode of Torchwood: AD 1972 with a louche Jason King-style leader who (with his glamorous assistants) tries to stop a group of space-vixens infiltrating the Workers' Revolutionary Party.  But this will all have to wait because To the Last Man was a very good episode even allowing for the sadly marginalized presence of Gerald and Harriet.

all those queasy existential questions that in an odd sort of a way seem to be emerging as the raison d'etre of the show

A lot of that came down (as ever) to tone.  Helen Raynor's script had none of the clumsy juxtaposition of heavy-handed humour with poignancy that so marred Sleeper, and in the main told a sad but simple story of two fragile people caught up in a chain of events that they had little power to alter.  Like the better episodes from the first series such as Out of Time and Captain Jack Harkness it covered themes of identity, destiny, love and all those queasy existential questions that in an odd sort of a way seem to be emerging as the raison d'etre of the show. Indeed much of the sexual content of Torchwood can be seen in this light; as more of a desperate attempt to make a connection and assert individuality in the face of death than anything else.

While Tosh and Tommy's relationship was at the centre of the story, its inevitable outcome was always under the control of external forces. When Tommy resisted making his sacrifice he rightly pointed out that he'd been pushed around all of his life and that Jack and Torchwood were no better than the Generals, and this was also demonstrated when we saw Tosh obeying her orders in exactly the same way despite knowing that it would cause Tommy's ignominious death.   And it's not just powerful organisations that control individuals, as here powerful forces such as the  "greater good" must win out because the whole world is under threat.  The individual voice is not doing awfully well in the Torchwood universe, and I suspect this is going to be increasingly significant as the season goes on.  When we hear that Harriet died at the age of 26 and Ianto woodenly intones "It's always the way" then surely the odds on a regular death before the end of the season shortened dramatically.  "Cannon fodder" is shaping up as the metaphorical equivalent of "Saxon" in this series, and it'll be interesting to see what's next after Beth's sacrifice in Sleeper, Tommy's execution and the end of Tosh's chance of happiness.

These wider concerns were touched on by some lovely details in the script.  I really liked the way that Tommy reminded Tosh of some of her plans (such as learning Spanish) because for him she'd only made the plans in the last few days.  For Tosh they were just long-forgotten ideas that had been swallowed up over the years by Torchwood, another example of her life being taken over by a greater forces.  Tommy explicitly tells her that "You talk about your life as if you've got no control over it", and by the end of the episode despite her night with him there's no real sense that she has any control over her life, or indeed that humanity is worth Tommy's sacrifice.  Thankfully, despite new touchy-feely Owen telling her she's "strong" Tosh's reaction rightly sours the usual sugary Torchwood homily.

The quality of the script is such that I couldn't believe it was written by the same woman who wrote Evolution of the Daleks. At least until some of the technobabble started.  Jack's fluent info-dump about time and screwed up balls of paper was bad enough, but the complete gobbledygook  at the end about psychic-projections into the time zone was just insulting and pointless.   If Owen had simply said (while running around) "We need another five minutes or so of action to fill time - go and get that funny chair with the headset. That might help." it would have been at least more honest.  But it's a tribute to the rest of the episode that for once this kind of sloppiness didn't bother me.  There was so much good stuff in this episode, including some excellent direction by Andy Goddard, that it would be mean-minded to condemn it on the basis of a tacked-on ending too far.

I hope this indicates worrying days ahead for the Torchwood team

To the Last Man was certainly one of the best episodes of Torchwood to date, and this was mainly because it told a straightforward story that had a great deal of thematic resonance with the series as a whole.  Long ago in the dreaded Cyberwoman Ianto called Jack "the biggest monster of them all", and there are signs here that this might finally be developed.  Jack's behaviour has been terrible of late, and after last week's 'hilarious' torture he again covered himself in glory by physically trying to drag shell-shocked Tommy to his fate before Tosh told him to sling his hook.  When you consider this behaviour alongside the dark comments about the fate of past Torchwood employees, I hope this indicates worrying days ahead for the Torchwood team, and more revelations about the organization's mysterious past. On the other hand, in two episodes' time the team could all be whooping together in a hot tub with all of this unpleasantness forgotten.  I shouldn't get my hopes up.  Forget it John, it's Torchwood.