Weevil Evil Over!

Torchwood: Exit Wounds

So very tired.

I don't like to think about The Last of the Time Lords unless I absolutely have to, but I'm sure I remember Captain Jack saying that since he'd been in Cardiff (say 100 odd years) he'd started to show signs of ageing, and he not unreasonably worries what he's going to look like after, say, a couple of thousand years.   He needn't have worried!  He looks the same, only slightly dishevelled, and he seems to have suffered few psychological after-effects despite dying and reviving every ten minutes for something in the region of 1870 years.  Now I'm more than happy to agree that Jack is a dense and unreflective man, but even a man of such qualities would eventually find being repeatedly suffocated a tad wearing, and life in a coffin would be a terrible thing not least because there isn't an audience to which he can show off.  But as this is Torchwood, we see Jack emerge from purgatory as if he's just returned from getting the newspaper.  We knew he was physically invulnerable - that aspect has been sucking the drama out of the show since the start - but now it appears he is mentally invulnerable as well.  An unchanging individual who can never be placed in peril and who can put up with a "throatful of dirt" for 2000 years and still not be affected.  It was a real brainwave to base a drama series around such a character.

Once in a while drama contrives a magical alchemy when a truly terrible actor portrays an utterly shit character

Jack was only one of the problems with Exit Wounds which, as far as I'm concerned, rivalled From Out of the Rain as the worst episode of the series.  The only glimmers of light were the genuinely touching performances from Burn Gorman and Naoko Mori, and all that did was remind you that the Torchwood pool of acting talent has suddenly had a "no diving" sign slapped on it.  The final scenes of Barrowman and David-Lloyd gurning woodenly through the effects of the tearstick was a harrowing portent of things to come. Mind you, they were like Robert De Niro compared to Lachlan Nieboer. Once in a while drama contrives a magical alchemy when a truly terrible actor portrays an utterly shit character, and Nieboer's rendering of Gray was indeed one of those heady moments.  The character's entire motivation was down to revenge because someone failed to hold his hand, so heaven knows how riled he must become if he ever gets looked at in a funny way, or if someone beats him to the last sweet in the jar.  I'm not quite sure why he transported back to AD 27, unless he's got a thing about men in woad, but it was a very bad idea to give him a longish speech, or indeed give him anything to say at all.  His wooden delivery almost distracted from the banality of the dialogue: "I'd lie there, hemmed in by corpses, praying to become one" (you're taking the words right out of my mouth) "Because YOU let go, of MY hand".  I can almost hear the equivalent line from a future episode when Gray has been brought back "I'd lie there, hemmed in by corpses, praying to become one because YOU forgot, to put sugar in MY tea, and I've NEVER liked bourbons as you well KNOW I favour CUSTARD creams".  All this, and in the end he is overcome by Jack's snotty handkerchief.  Whooo!  Scary.

And on it went.  Cardiff was gently shaken by some of the least convincing explosions seen this series while a vast army of about ten weevils terrorised the local populace.  I hope the population aren't retconned because I'd like to see the inevitable headline "Weevil Evil Over!" in the South Wales Echo.  Further down the page would be "Local Series Ends Badly, see pages 2, 4-8, 10-17 and 31".  But all of this was just a transparent load of flummery designed to lead to the "shocking" demise of Owen and Tosh.  Except the previous 25 episodes had already served to undermine the usually dramatic nature of a member of the team dying.  Suzie and Owen had both died and come back, and Jack does it all of the bleeding time.  In that context, where death is very specifically "not the end" you can't then expect all of the audience to get worked up about the characters just because on this occasion you actually mean it.  Admittedly the performances were quite touching, but it still roused my partner to shout "Oh get on with it and die will you?" at the screen which demonstrates that despite the comments made on Torchwood Declassified to the contrary, the deaths did feel awfully drawn out.   

So where now for Torchwood? Despite the odd good episode and general improvement over the first series, it's still maddeningly inconsistent and horribly repetitive. If I thought there was going to be another series of thirteen episodes with few changes other than a couple of new regulars then I don't think I could stand to watch, although that might just be fatigue talking. But with Chibnall gone, and the rumours flying around that the show is destined for the peak-time family slot, it appears that we might have seen the last of "classic" Torchwood.  I'm dubious about this - sometimes it's better just to stop and hold your hands up - but it might work.  When I was watching I'd Do Anything the other day, one of the prospective Olivers stated proudly that he was "mad about Torchwood and Doctor Who".  In that order.  What a nutter.