Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

Keep Going, Going On, Call That Going, Call That On

You are in no-man's land. Which never moves, which never changes, which never grows older, but which remains forever, icy and silent. (Pinter)

Torchwood: A Day in the Death

It's no fun being the last to review A Day in the Death.  Not only have all the main positive and negative points been covered in the other reviews, but the comment sections have suddenly ballooned and thus hoovered up all the remaining minor aspects of the episode that I otherwise might have desperately spun into a fitful 500 words.  I haven't done the long haul of a whole series on this blog before, but Torchwood is certainly taking it out of me. There are good episodes and bad episodes, but the series is so repetitious, and I get an increasing feeling that I'm watching attempts by the writers to do different versions of a couple of basic storylines.  It's no huge surprise that I'm therefore experiencing deja vu when trying to write yet another blog entry.

Ianto and Tosh in the Himalayas sheltering under a yak

Still, keep going, going on.  There were some great bits in this episode, if you ignore the problems with the basic set up.  I'm still struggling with the resurrection of Owen, and since most of Dead Man Walking  was devoted to his existential crisis it was ludicrously wasteful to do the same again here.  I can sympathise with the effort involved in filling thirteen episodes of a series with a limited format, but why resort to such obvious padding at the precise moment when you've introduced another character from the franchise?  Poor old Freema Agyeman must be feeling robbed.  You can imagine the conversation: “Freema. Great news, we want you for three episodes of Torchwood and the storyline involves a major character arc!”  She was probably still sipping on the champagne and firing off party poppers up until the moment the scripts came through the letter-box with an ominous thud.  I look forward to Series 3 when both Billie Piper and John Simm are brought in for several episodes only to discover that all but two minutes of screen time features a lengthy series of flashbacks showing Ianto and Tosh in the Himalayas sheltering under a yak.

But despite this Joe Lidster and Andy Goddard provided some great moments. The extremes of angst portrayed in Owen's apartment were particularly good, and the framing rooftop scenes worked well because of nicely judged performances by (as usual) Burn Gorman and Christine Bottomley.  Certainly the oddest scene involved the dazed Maggie staggering around on a motorway that was clearly set in a depopulated world of the future.   I can't quite work out if the deserted road was there because of necessity and the lack of budget, or if it was an artistic decision to emphasise her isolation after her husband's death.  If the latter then it didn't really work but the effect was striking enough to be forgiven.

Why didn't Torchwood try ringing Parker up and asking him about the power surges?

So top marks for the existential angst, but the Henry Parker sub-plot left me a bit bemused.  It's always nice to hear Richard Briers say “lying in my own piss” (he first used the line in The Good Life I understand), and Owen's desire to help both Parker and himself by sharing their lonely existence was genuinely touching.  But the twist with the kiss of life only served to accentuate the inconsistencies about Owen's physical state and took me away from the drama.  And maybe I missed something, but why didn't Torchwood try ringing Parker up and asking him about the power surges?  Or drop him an e-mail?  I'm sure his PA would have responded in some way, and it gives a sense of Torchwood's hair-trigger nature that their response to a alien power surge is an armed break-in rather than a courtesy call to someone who already knows that aliens exist.  But I certainly chuckled when Parker begged Owen to tell him stories about Torchwood.  Fortunately, he conked out before Owen started his re-enactment of Cyberwoman. Alas Briers/Parker was dead, and no longer living The Bad Life.

The character stalks through his own show shedding redeeming features in the same way that weathermen shed dandruff

“We all assume life is going to be shit” commented Owen.  Well actually I always assume that Torchwood is going to be shit, but occasionally get a nice surprise.  Sadly A Day in the Death was undermined by its similarities and proximity to Dead Man Walking, and despite some good writing left me unsatisfied.  Even so, I would have been much happier to be spared the latest masterclass from Captain Twat. The character stalks through his own show shedding redeeming features in the same way that weathermen shed dandruff.  In this episode he took a back seat and let Gwen organise the inexplicable raid on Parker's house, while he busied himself with the important task of humiliating and bullying a distressed colleague.  I can't help but think that John Barrowman has found it impossible to leave his Any Dream Will Do persona behind.  At one point I half-expected him to criticise Owen's diction, and demand that he sing Close Every Door again from the top.  All of this while ignoring poor old Martha. Still, it was worth it for the bizarre noise he emitted when saying goodbye – he sounded like a demented cow.  It's certainly the most entertaining thing Jack has said for two series. I do hope Harry Hill picks it out for Steve McDonald's farm.

Ever onward.   

Vote Result: A Day in the Death

Here are the results for the eighth Torchwood blog poll, for A Day in the Death:

• 72%: Superb - Still Dead and Loving It!
• 28%: Not Good - Yawn of the Dead

The ninth poll, for Something Borrowed, will be online later tonight following the broadcast of the episode.

Ever Decreasing Script Pages

Torchwood: A Day in the Death

This is without a doubt the hardest review of Torchwood that I've ever had to write. The problem stems from the fact that A Day in the Death isn't a bad episode by any stretch of the imagination, it just isn't a particularly good one, either. It just is. A bit like Owen, I suppose.

There are plenty of things to admire. Owen's growing dislocation and ennui was handled particularly well (the shot where Tosh fades into the background is one of the most powerful and visually interesting scenes in the entire series) and the black humour that permeates Joe Lidster's script was both deliciously perverse and occasionally profound. Burn Gorman gives another knock-out performance (it's the character, not the actor, that I can't get on with) and I really enjoyed how last week's trailer gave us completely the wrong impression of what this episode was really about. The non-linear structure was very effective too, and I even enjoyed some of Ianto's banter. So what went wrong?

I just found it hard to care.

Jack chooses to fire sick quips at his colleague as he lies on the ground like a drowned kitten...

Jack is a complete tosser. Again. The fact that he's been stalking poor Owen and watching his pathetic attempts at impossible suicide just make me despise him even more. If there's one person who could help Owen come to terms with his predicament, it's Jack. Instead he chooses to alienate his colleague by firing sick quips at him as he lies on the ground like a beaten and drowned kitten. He was upset and offended when the Doctor perceived him as being "wrong" in Utopia, and yet here he is doing exactly the same thing to a so-called mate. And his reason for suspending Owen from Torchwood was utterly preposterous. If he was really concerned that Owen might manifest into a conduit for a magical death-dealing monster then how come he let him stand behind Martha Jones twirling a ****ing scalpel??!! And putting him in charge of the coffee could have been a recipe for disaster as well. If Owen turned evil he could have wiped out the whole organisation with one round of cappuccinos.

Maybe Jack is just pissed off that he's not the only dead man running around Cardiff these days? Whatever the reason, it's a dynamic that needs to be addressed. Fast.

To give the programme some props, at least Owen's situation/curse isn't entirely the same as the Captain's. Whereas Jack is completely indestructible Owen is not. Poor Dr Harper is broken and hollow (subtext alert!) and if he got a bullet in the forehead he'd have to walk around in a bobble hat for the rest of eternity. I, for one, can't wait to see his fingers drop off next week; that has to make you feel sorry for him, surely? I can't really be bothered getting into the absurdities of his situation - how does he speak without breathing etc etc - as that path leads to madness, and as long as Owen ends up looking like Griffin Dunne in An American Werewolf in London then you can colour me impressed.

If Owen got a bullet in the forehead he'd have to wear a bobble hat for the rest of eternity...

The subplot involving Richard Briers was pretty neat, all things considered. The misdirection certainly surprised me: I was expecting a Bondian villain instead of an old fart stinking of piss and vinegar, but I just didn't get the fake threat at all. "It's gonna blow!" Er, it's blown. Um, nothing's happened... Or did I nod off at that point and miss something?

You might think that the title of this review is a cheap pop at Richard but it isn't; it's directed at the way Martha Jones has been handled over the last couple of weeks. After a barnstorming introduction in Reset here she just blends into the background and is given practically sod all to do. Even the coffee machine appears to be off-limits to her. Poor Freema really deserved a lot better. Martha is a great character who simply oozes potential and yet the franchise seems to be at a complete loss as to what to do with her. Maybe they could kill her off so she can enjoy her own six-part mini-arc?

I don't know. Maybe I'm being too harsh on this thoroughly competent and inoffensive slice of Torchwood. Maybe I'm so jaded these days that I just can't bring myself to cry over a dead man that I don't particularly like as he waxes lyrical about the subtle complexities of life and death with an alien lava lamp in his hand. Maybe, like Owen, I'm dead inside too.

It's a Wonderful Death

Torchwood: A Day in the Death

This really shouldn’t work. It’s shamelessly cheesy, has a B-plot so anaemic as to make the recently deceased Owen Harper look ruddy-cheeked and has the temerity to reduce Richard Briers to the status of a bed-bound comic relief clutching onto life with a novelty Auton sphere. But despite all this, somehow - and I’m still not sure how - it works. It’s beautiful and profound and possibly the only time I’m going to say these words in relation to an episode of Torchwood: it moved me. Though given the presence of yet another eulogy to the Hub’s former medical officer, I’m not sure I can take another forty-five minutes on the Owen farewell express.

A Day in the Death promises much with that intriguing teaser, but to be fair delivers little. As a meditative examination on the psychological reality of death it’s about as profound as reading someone’s shopping list out at a funeral eulogy; but as a piece of heart-warming sci-fi nonsense it pretty much hits the target dead centre. This is the episode that Dead Man Walking should have been: a black-humoured walk on the wild side without any need whatsoever to drag in the Grim Reaper just to up the ante in the apocalyptic stakes.

To paraphrase Freddie Mercury, ‘Who Wants to Die Forever?’ has become Owen’s eternal dilemma

And Burn Gorman is extraordinary. How someone captures the intense prick-ness of a date-raping, weevil-shagging arsehole of the afterlife with such gravitas is no mean feat. But the fact that you now sympathise with Owen while at the same time revelling in his resurrection-induced limbo is perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of this character’s turnaround post-season one. Arguably the most macabre aspect of Joseph Lidster’s debut script is the idea of a suicidal dead man; one for whom neither life nor death has any real sting remaining. To paraphrase Freddie Mercury, ‘Who Wants to Die Forever?’ has become Owen’s eternal dilemma. And it’s to Lidster and Gorman’s credit that come the final reel we do actually care whether Owen lives or dies in the afterlife.

But those faults oh so very nearly have you railing at the absurdity of it all. Anyone care to write the textbook of logic on Owen’s post-death state? A man incapable of breath to save a dying man, yet somehow in peak physical condition; someone who can snap fingers like Roy Batty at an all-you-can-break finger buffet, yet can still give the vampires of the Whedonverse a run for their money in the undead poster-boy stakes. But so long as you can swallow this bullshit I guess that the aesthetics far outweigh the substance.

And I suppose that’s pretty much the key success to enjoying this episode nor not. Are you willing to forget that Freema Agyeman has been wasted for a second episode running so that you can appreciate the simple beauty of Maggie Hopper’s almost farcical dilemma: grief-stricken and suicidal with only the sneery sarcasm of a self-loathing corpse to save her. Okay, so they well overdo the schmaltz on this one (in Burn Gorman’s mouth pretty much anything tastes like tarmac on the tongue anyway) but for once we’re afforded a real insight into the outside world of Team Torchwood’s emotional angsts. Where a world of tragic post-wedding car accidents leaves a lonely, broken woman with no-one to turn to other than the local undead corpse.

Anyone care to write the textbook of logic on Owen’s post-death state?

So I pretty much got my prediction completely wrong on this one. Owen doesn’t go postal post-resurrection, just a little bit cheesed off to be reduced to making coffee and watching daytime TV while his fucked-up buddies carry on fighting the good fight in the 21st Century. Oh well, it’s nice to get surprised ever now and again. And what A Day in the Death lacks in sartorial elegance, it more than makes up for in solid characterisation and a decent emotional punch. And any episode that takes cuddly, Werther’s original-era Richard Briers and has him lying in a pool of his own piss has got to be worth some brownie points in my opinion.

Next Time: Here comes the bride. Short, fat and wide. It’s Gwen and Rhys’ big day, but it seems that a rather overcooked bun in the oven is going to spoil the special day. Perhaps the District Nurse could help..?

Owen Harper's Greatest Shits

Owen's chest wound leaves
Three thousand nine hundred and
Ninety nine more holes.

Torchwood: A Day In The Death

John Lennon conceived the song A Day In The Life as the rambling, introverted monologue of a man so wrapped up in the day-to-day machinations of his own private universe, that he completely fails to pay due credence to the strange, exciting or newsworthy events in the world in front of him.

Torchwood got that point entirely right, because I saw the whole thing and didn't get it.

A Day In The Death is an awkward beast to have to review. It's not a standard Torchwood escapade by any means, so comparing it to the other episodes that way is a bit of a redundant exercise. But it's not really an episode you can adequately quantify as being 'good' or 'bad' on its own terms either. It looked nice enough (the camerawork was relatively stable this week) and there were no obvious flaws in the logic besides the manner of Owen's continued functioning (and if we start going there we'll be tied up all fucking month), but honestly, it's going to be each individual viewer that determines whether the TV-dinner messages on the meaning of life worked for them or not. And frankly, I'm not really sure how much moral nutrition was actually present. At least the bad episodes throw it straight at you as a condescending lecture. Maybe A Day In The Death was incredibly clever instead and I was just too obtuse to see it beyond the visual metaphor of Owen methodically disposing of all the perishables he no longer needed. Then I thought about it a bit more and went no, this is BBC2 on a Wednesday night straight after Masterchef. Bollocks to that.

What we got instead was essentially Random Shoes, in reverse, minus the heartwarming schadenfreude. Eugene, the inner geek within us all, was a hapless but lovable loser dragged down by the pricks around him. But dead or not, Owen has still got more professional competence in his little finger (the broken one) than I have in my whole body, and the arrogant swagger that goes with it; most of his colleagues genuinely, in a utterly futile gesture, want to help; even Ianto, once he's stopped being smug at how the tables are turned over the coffee. But after five minutes' worth of brave face, Owen does nothing to earn anyone's sympathy for damn near three quarters of an hour; he's trying to prove his worthiness to himself rather than the team, he couldn't give two shits about them except as workmates, and is ruthlessly determined to make everyone miserable for as long as possible. And Jack's not having any of it; it's not so much 'been there, done that', but 'too long, didn't read'.

Jack's not having any of Owen's self-pity; it's not so much 'been there, done that', but 'too long, didn't read'

I suppose I could make an effort to extrapolate some long-winded profundity on the human condition from all of the above and elaborate on it here. But I'm not going to. That bit in Neil's living room where Tosh is talking but the words aren't getting through to Owen's expressionless face? That was my face, that was. As he tangented into yet another meandering train of thought, there was I mulling over ways Owen could creatively obliterate himself for good while pissing off as many people as possible. Walking into a nuclear reactor going "Eldrad MUST live" is too simple. Going to a sci-fi convention and loudly referring to the creator of Star Trek as 'Gene Deadandburied' earns more points. Or attending every Babylon 5 screening at the same convention, then waving his arms about and shouting 'DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!' every time Bill Mumy appears on the screen.

Ramble, ramble, ramble...

OK look, it's like this. If A Day In The Death's point is that the key to enjoying life is in appreciating the friends you have and people you know, then it fails, because Owen was only brought back from the brink by this magic alien whistle and not by any human contact at all. Plus he's still a turd. If it's telling us to grow some balls and have some self-esteem, then it fails, because that was the note they finished on last week and it didn't take the bloody hypocrite more than two days of story time to settle into a thoroughly unlikeable blind frump. And though there are probably more unkind things to say to a genuine trauma victim on the verge of suicide, I'm buggered if I can think of one off the top of my head. If it was about embracing life and enjoying it to the full, then it fails, because Richard Briers had done all that and still ended up alone and terrified on his deathbed, his own legacy meaning absolutely diddly in the end. And if it was trying to say that there's a big wide wonderful universe out there, then it fails, because the Voyager probe was an advertisement alerting the Earth's presence to the cosmos at large, on behalf of the billions of lifeforms walking upon it. So what happens? The reply comes back, and without even bothering to find out what it is, gets stuck in the hands of one reclusive old bloke for years on end. Then Torchwood comes along, goes 'ta very much, we'll have that', and it gets locked away in their vault for ever and ever. Why are they the only ones allowed to have any fun?

And if you try to strip away any deeper meanings and just go with the idea of hope, then it still fails, because of the blunt way Owen had painted Richard Briers' own hope as the curse that was prolonging his misery and suffering, rendering in advance that big speech of his at the end a complete waste of everyone's time. It comes over more like how Maggie keeps trying to tell him all the way through; what good is a meaningless catch-all term like 'hope' anyway, if nothing concrete is there to substantiate it? And how many wibbly-wobbly alien Lite-Brites are going to fall into the average depressive's hands anyway?

The guard should have splattered his brains all over the stair carpet, that being the industry-standard method of executing a walking corpse

They don't show nearly enough George A Romero movies in Cardiff either. "I'm not giving off any body heat, and you know what that means." Yes, it means that since Owen's the dangerous intruder disobeying a direct challenge, the guard should have immediately splattered his brains all over the stair carpet, that being the industry-standard method of executing a walking corpse. The sod wouldn't be so cocksure about facing down an armed opponent then. It might not have the desired permanent effect, but it wouldn't be much fun for Owen after that and might even stop his whinging self-pity for more than five minutes.

By the way, were you aware that Dead Man Walking and A Day In The Death were the first two episodes to be script-edited by Gary Russell? Yes, it all makes perfect sense now, particularly if you've read Spiral Scratch and what he did to Mel.

Next week: Farce comedy japes aplenty as Gwen becomes the surprise contestant on Preggers Plays Pop. (God, I've waited YEARS to say that joke. Sad innit?)

Captain Jack's Abandoned Spirit Association

Torchwood:  A Day In The Death

Last week’s somewhat disappointing installment, was an episode so dramatically inept I went all emo and wrote fifteen hundred words which made me thoroughly depressed so I can’t imagine what it was like for you reading it.  I wondered if after many weeks rehabilitation, Torchwood had finally done a Renton, mainlined and disappeared into the carpet.  I really wasn’t looking forward to A Day In The Death, which hasn’t been the case since the dark days of series one.  The very title and the brief synopsis in The Guardian’s tv guide didn’t inspire too much confidence: ‘Owen searches for absolution’ which sounds for all the world like the plot of an average episode of Touched By An Angel or Highway To Heaven.

And indeed the opening of the episode didn’t help matters as a regular character who we’ve already met told us his name and gave a synopsis of the past season and a half, illustrated by montage sequence that included the dodgy moment from Everything Changes for which the jury’s still out on whether it was date rape.  It seemed as though we were going to have to endure another Love & Monsters knock off and my finger was actually hovering over the remote control, mere seconds away from Rock Rivals (am I wrong about Michelle Collins?).  I didn’t think I could endure a whole fifty minutes of Owen talking to me, especially with all of the other voices in my head.

am I wrong about Michelle Collins?

And indeed throughout death related plot holes nagged.  If Owen can’t exhale, how come we could hear him breathing and for that matter since the breath isn’t their to vibrate his vocal chords how are we able to hear him talk?  How come he could work the iPod if his body lacks the necessary oomph?  When he came out the bay, where did all the water which must have entered his lungs go?  Some unseen chunderfest?  Surely that’s going to attract attention.  These are exactly the kinds of things I usually jump upon, throw in the face of a writer to suggest that they’re really not looking at what they’re doing (although I missed the one about the neatly clothed Weevils – I’m slipping).

I would jump on them, if this wasn’t one of the most thoughtful, most intelligent, most, well, romantic pieces of writing the series has yet seen.  Joseph Lidster’s first television script was perfectly paced, poetic mediation on the meaning of life.  This was everything last week’s goofy episode could have been, capturing the philosophical mood with far more delicacy than Last Man Standing’s discussion of death, which ended up simply full of deaths.  Torchwood has experimented with these themes before (Out of Time) but by focusing on a regular character and  reducing the mission story to little more than an infiltration it was able to more clearly provide an emotional through line and actually make us care about what must be one of the series most unpopular characters.

capturing the philosophical mood with far more delicacy than Last Man Standing’s discussion of death, which ended up simply full of deaths

Flashback structures are incredibly difficult to get right, particularly if crosscutting between two time frames – there’s always the danger that the audience will become so engrossed in the flashback that the return to the present is an unnecessary wrench.  On this occasion, the ‘present’ setting gave an insight into Owen’s state of mind in his past, not simply linking exposition, a perfect example being his attitude to Tosh when she appeared at his apartment and proceeded to complain about the life he no longer led.  It also worked because as well as finding out what Owen’s state of mind was, there was the mystery of who the suicidal woman was and what led up to her wanting to end it.  I genuinely gasped when the grim fate of her husband was revealed in that beautifully shot sequence, aided by Christine Bottomley’s all to realistic performance.

Similarly, you can’t help but feel that a lesser episode, after casting Richard Briers, would have introduced Henry Parker (Sir Clive Sinclair to Henry Van Stattan’s Bill Gates presumably) far earlier than occurred here, perhaps in a false attempt to create suspense by showing us some glow from the MacGuffin.  He would have been a far more vital presence, perhaps with some nefarious plan to break into the Hub to steal some items for his collection.

Sir Clive Sinclair to Henry Van Stattan’s Bill Gates presumably 

Instead, Lidster cleverly built up the suspense instead by creating a range of obstacles which underscored the importance of whatever if was Owen was meant to be capturing and then finally revealing a decrepit old man who’s clinging onto life using a giant gleaming placebo.  In just a few lines, aided by proper actor Briers, Parker was a far more rounded character than we were used to.  I imagined he was an Indiana Jones figure in his youth with an interest in alien artefacts.  I almost wished he’d mentioned the Sontarans to tie it in to a similar speech in Eye of the Gorgon from The Sarah Jane Adventures.

But of course, the episode’s biggest achievement was in the treatment of Owen.  With the exception of the breathing malfunction this was a rational investigation into how a dead person still walking around might cope with not being able to do any of the things humans take for granted such as drinking, eating, sleeping and bleeding.  I’ve complained about Burn Gorman’s walk in the past, and he didn’t seem very comfortable during his season one focus Combat, but here I think we saw his very best work, usefully sympathetic even when delivering V from V for Vendetta-style platitudes.  The goodish doctor became quite poetic in his mortality, but much of this was to underscore the differences between himself and Jack, ‘You can’t die and I can’t live’ he says. 

usefully sympathetic even when delivering V from V for Vendetta-style platitudes

Lidster toyed with the audience, the MacGuffin’s healing power just one reset button away from bringing Owen back to the world of the living.  But again, we’re confounded since the man is staying dead, at least in the short term and how beautiful that the wobbly blob created a benign lightshow for once, instead of threatening to blow up half of Cardiff?  Whilst it’s still a shame the production team felt the need to put another essential immortal in the midst of Torchwood, at least Owen has this added level of fragility, in that any of the cuts and bruises which are all a days work at this organisation which may or may not be more or less important than UNIT.  That hand of his isn’t going to last long is it?  Now that he’s back working for Torchwood though, aren’t we at some point going to have the icky prospect of a corpse doing an autopsy on a corpse?

Three episodes in and Martha’s out and apart from the infiltration of the Pharm from a couple of weeks ago her appearance hasn’t really lived up to the hype.  Freema’s been as sparkly as ever and the actual scenes she’s been in were rather sweet, particularly in this episode, but it did seem a bit pointless bringing her back only to have her appear in episodes focusing on Owen.  Perhaps having the appearances sprinkled throughout the series would have provided more impact – as seems to be the plan in Doctor Who – rather than have her (with the exception of becoming an oldie) moping about the hub for two episodes.  Production and budgetary issues perhaps, but you can’t help but feel that she could have gone on a girly night out with Gwen and Tosh or something.  See you in a month or two, Martha.

“Thanks.”

Who said that?

Next week:  Gwen's got a bad case of the Hilarys.