Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

Revenge of the Nerd

Torchwood: Exit Wounds

As John pointed out in his scathing - but entirely accurate - review, Gray has got to be the worst Big Bad in the history of science fiction television. If you thought Adam in season 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was pathetic, or Jedikiah from The Tomorrow People was a bit shit, then think again. Nothing can possibly prepare you for a sulky Matt LeBlanc-alike who conspires to blow up Cardiff because he's incapable of holding onto somebody's hand. What's next? A villain who hunts down Torchwood when they park their SUV in front of his garage? In the season finale??!!!

While I'm fairly certain that the events that Gray lived through were suitably horrific (they did make him catatonic after all), his revenge was so over the top (bombs, bombs and then some more bombs) he merely comes across as a second-tier, nuttier-than-squirrel-shit, threat-of-the-week, rather than a tortured and misdirected soul that warrants our attention and/or respect. We don't even get a glimpse of the nightmare that drove him insane (this is a post-watershed show, is it not?) which wouldn't be quite so bad if the images conjured up by Gray weren't so prosaic and delivered in an unconvincing whine. But at least Lachlan Nieboer looks and sounds a bit like John Barrowman, I'll give him that. The only major difference between the two of them is that on Nieboer's CV it'll read: I'll Do Not A Thing.

Insanity is all very well but Gray's motives are both petulant and brazenly disproportionate to the original crime (which isn't even a crime). What's even worse is that the episode presents you with what appears to be the worst motive ever ("You won't spend any time with me!") only to replace it with an an even lamer one ("You didn't hold my hand!"). But the golden rule you should always adhere to when it comes to super-villains is that you either have to understand where they're coming from (The X-Men's Magneto and Scorpius from Farscape spring to mind) or they must exude some sodding charisma.

I'm sure the events were suitably horrific - they made him catatonic after all...

You just want to slap Gray. When he's saved from a pile of rotting corpses by Captain Spike, how does he repay him? He welds a fucking bomb onto his arm!  OK, he's supposed to be craaaaazy villain, but how can you possibly identify with him? Think about it: Gray must have suffered for 15 or 20 years at the most, and yet he buries his own brother alive, where he will suffer a million deaths throughout all eternity, as if that somehow makes them even. Now, I'm not Jack's biggest fan by a long chalk, but this felt a little extreme to me. God only knows what Gray would have come up with if Jack had done something really nasty to him, like shagging his mother. Maybe he'd have blown up the sun?

Perhaps Gray knew that Jack would take his punishment in his stride. How this unspeakable purgatory didn't drive Jack completely insane is difficult to fathom until you realise that he is completely insane. He just forgave his brother for hundreds of years of agony and torment! He must be mad! He doesn't even blow his brother's brains out when two of his colleagues are cruelly murdered and half of Cardiff is gutted. If an alien so much as looked at Jack a bit funny a few weeks ago he'd have happily tortured them to death on the spot. What a cop-out.

Deep breath. Calm, calm, calm.

It's not all bad news - Owen dies again. And this time it might even be for real! Not that we see his rapidly decomposing body or vivid images of his hair falling out as his shits himself to death, so anything's still possible, I suppose. At least the production team went out of their way to show us why Owen was such a heartless tosser last week. I've never seen a franchise so committed to making an audience shed a tear over a character's death: they gave us three dress rehearsals, a compelling list of reasons why we should like the guy before it's too late, and then they blend in the death of someone we really do care about just to be on the safe side. We'll be moved to tears whether we like it or not!

Owen dies again. And this time it might even be for real!

Tosh's death was as a real kick in the teeth. Anyone but her, I sobbed. OK, I admit it - I did lose it for a moment. I really liked Tosh. The fact that she didn't burden Owen with the news that she was about to drop dead herself just showed how selfless and thoroughly lovable she was. It's just a shame that she spends her final moments on earth fixing a continuity problem that's been perplexing the ming mongs ever since Aliens of London. Like that's the most important thing to address when two of your main characters are just about to croak. At least her video message from beyond the grave (Bob Monkhouse has a lot to answer for) was genuinely heartbreaking.

"I can't go on!" screams Gwen. I know how you feel, love. It's been a long, and occassionally torturous 13 weeks, and while Torchwood season 2 was a vast improvement on season 1 (hardly difficult, I know) it's still a bit of a mess. Captain Jack is more unlovable and even more invulnerable than ever before and I still can't work out if this show is supposed to be a gritty Spooks-style X-Files, a sexy Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or a magical Buffy knock-off. Sometimes it's all of these things in the very same scene. If the rumours are true and the series reboots as a Saturday teatime replacement for Doctor Who then there's every chance it might find it's own voice and identity.

Maybe 2009 is the year everything changes.

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.

Vote Result: Exit Wounds

Here are the results for the last Torchwood series two blog poll, for Exit Wounds:

• 81%: Superb - Tearjerker
• 19%: Not Good - Complete Jerk

And that's it for series two. Watch out for a summary of series two polls coming shortly.

Oh, Brother!

Torchwood: Exit Wounds

Did I miss anything? Sorry about the unscheduled absence (and with no note from my Mum either) but a combination of terminal Internet failure and the love of a good woman seemed to have put paid to my Torchwood ranting for good. But thanks to the miracle of broadband - and the fact the other half’s got PMT - I’m back for the finale. The ‘shocking’ conclusion to Series 2. Just in time for Tennant and Tate to start the fan-baiting all over again. So, was it worth the wait?

Are you f**king kidding me?

Exit Wounds is Torchwood in microcosm: fifty minutes of shouting, swearing, shagging and shitting on the very concept of ‘adult’ drama that this show was supposed to adhere to way back in the dark autumn of 2005 when its birth was first announced. It isn’t bad, just laughable. Skewed character dynamics jostle with end-of-the-world over-egged drama to produce possibly one of the worst season finales of any television show, ever. And I’m even including Metal Mickey in that one

I’m just disappointed that we were spared the sight of Burn Gorman dissolving away into the ether like some CGI infested take on a domestos ad

Are there any redeeming features? No, frankly. I’ve tried. I really have. Even Owen and Tosh’s inevitable demises leave me vaguely cold. I mean, one died of terminal lack of character development about a season back and the other’s had at least three death scenes already this year, so why should I give a flying one anyway? Besides I’m just disappointed that we were spared the sight of Burn Gorman’s improbable features dissolving away into the ether like some CGI infested take on a domestos ad.

And as for the rest, well I don’t really need to pick holes seeing as the whole thing is about as waterproof as a sea-devil’s string vest. Take the fact that Captain John (James Masters on auto-pilot, but still the best thing in this) is suddenly the good guy, despite blowing up fifteen major buildings in Cardiff and causing untold death and destruction. Oh, that’s right, Captain Jack’s evil brother had strapped a bomb to his wrist and was threatening to blow him up unless he played ball. Which of course also meant that he had to pump Jack with enough lead to have him shitting pencils for a month and torture the grinning f**wit within an inch of his (eternal) life. As character volte faces go, Captain John suddenly becoming the hero of the hour and walking away as scott free as OJ Simpson certainly takes the garibaldi.

I’d love to know how Jack passed the time while chewing on soil for two thousand years. Counting lovers, perhaps, or maybe trying to think of a worst script writer than the Chibnall Wizard

And anyway, where exactly does the drama of constantly killing an unkillable character come from? Torchwood pretty much nailed its balls to the mast way back in episode one with this one; and two series later I’m still none the wiser. I notice now they’re even skipping the resurrection bits, seeing as Jack’s post-brotherly-reunion stabbing barely gets a footnote. No surprises then that the production team have all but given up on trying to make it dramatic, leaving the only option to bury the f**ker under Cardiff for a couple of millennia until plot contrivances catch up. Though I’d love to know how Jack passed the time while chewing on soil for two thousand years. Counting lovers, perhaps, or maybe trying to think of a worst script writer than the Chibnall Wizard. Either way, the idea of Jack being under the ground since 47AD is a concept so bad that even a parodying Steven Moffat would throw it out during a first draft of The Curse of Fatal Death.

And then there’s the dialogue. To be fair, the Big Bad of this episode is so ‘bad’ that even Dennis Potter would have struggled to gain any credence with the moronic Grey as his muse. A villain so awful that he resembles a cross between a boy band member and a Joseph cast-off who’s just been evicted and has to sing for his sympathy in front of his fellow wannabes. A man with such a terminal case of chip-on-the-shoulder he makes Ian Levine look forgiving. A gimp who gives a whole new psychiatric definition to abandonment complex. And even then they give him such deathless lines as ‘hemmed in by corpses…praying to become one’ just to rub it in. There really is no hope for some people.

Rhys and PC Andy: the Cannon and Ball of the Hub’s extended family of f**k buddies

Still, at least Grey’s return gives John Barrowman an excuse for the kind of big band emoting that would put even Gwyneth Paltrow to shame. See how his jaw clenches up with the sheer bravado of it all. Witness the clenched teeth agony of finding out your own brother has murdered your friends, buried you under a second-rate capital city and can pout even more than you can and still find the love in your heart to forgive him. It’s a good job Jack has abandoned the Christ complex (whaddaya mean he hasn’t?) and takes to murdering the little f**ker given the first chance. He’s done some pretty questionable things this year, but Jack smothering Grey and sticking him in the (increasingly crowded) Torchwood freezer centre is arguably the most extreme example of tough love seen yet.

And then there were three. With Owen and Tosh finally fulfilling their oh-so-obvious roles of doomed characters, Team Torchwood appears to have a couple of vacancies for next year. My vote’s for Rhys and PC Andy to get the nod; they’re already the Cannon and Ball of the Hub’s extended family of f**k buddies, and I for one would love to see Rhys telling Jack to piss off on a weekly basis. They could even set up a bit of an eternal triangle between Rhys, Gwen and Andy - seeing as the dimwit still seems to hold some kind of torch (not to mention ‘wood’) for her - to go alongside the already smouldering Rhys, Gwen and Jack one (though my money’s on Jack f**king Rhys before Gwen, anyway). And maybe all this employee reorganisation will leave a Martha-shaped hole into the bargain. Perhaps they’ll even give her something to do this time…

I don’t think I can carry on after this’ Gwen blubs, while wondering when the next series of Belonging is going to start

But enough’s enough. Torchwood peaked far too soon this year and I for one can well wait for the 21^st Century to rear it ugly head once again. ‘I don’t think I can carry on after this’ Gwen blubs, while wondering when the next series of Belonging is going to start. And who am I to argue with such salient wisdom..?

Next Time: Back to Who and the inevitable controversy of Tate-Gate. Still, would we really have it any other way?

I dig myself into a hole while you unfold and learn to fly

Torchwood: Exit Wounds

Bastards.  Utter, utter, utter bastards.

Truth be told, I had read somewhere online about the thinning down of the cast but as with all of these rumours (spoilers as it turned out) I didn’t think they’d actually go through with it.  I thought it was of the order that Norman Lovett would be playing Davros, or hundreds of Britney Spears were going to show up in the last series of Doctor Who.  Torchwood isn’t bloody 24, I thought, it doesn’t go around killing regulars (unless it’s going to resurrect them the next week, of course).  It’s the ghost of Whedon again true, but even more shocking because it’s just not something a Who related series does often.  I’m surprised the credits didn’t roll in silence over a shot of a stethoscope and a PDA, just to underline the point.

Owen had it coming.  But not Tosh, who truth be told was always one of the few things to make the show bearable in the first series and like all the others has blossomed this time around.  Both Burn and Naoki followed usual the routine for a character’s final episode and put in their best performances of the series; Owen screaming at the irony of dying twice, having spent two episodes appreciating what he’d be missing and Tosh desperately making sure he had a tranquil death even as she bled out of her chest.  So she was covering for Owen in Aliens of London!  It’s fitting that her final moments in the on-screen Whoniverse should bracket her first, mention of the space pig included.  That final breezy video was heartbreaking and actually brought on my first tear.  Torchwood made me feel and not in a shouty, sweary way.  Huh.

It’s fitting that her final moments in the on-screen Whoniverse should bracket her first, mention of the space pig included.

This final exchange for one and a half beloved characters was so good it threatened to overshadow what had already been a pretty exciting episode.  The opening alien encounters were as fun as anything in the preceding series from the dealing with the reapers Indiana Jones-style through to the cameo from the Hoix, their name finally mentioned on-screen.  But clearly it’s a ruse to get the team (and us in position) for the demolition of Cardiff, which it has to be hoped will be rebuilt with some kind of logical street pattern.  When I visited, I spent an hour and a half in the evening looking for a Jazz Club only to discover that two streets in close proximity had the same name and I’d been looking at the wrong one.

In spite of the slightly cheesy slow-mo release of the Weevils, Ashley Way confirmed that he is Torchwood’s best director, even referencing Martha's reveal crane shot from The Sound of Drums when Jack appeared in the past.  But he made the most of the city, and it was great to finally see Cardiff Castle being Cardiff Castle after the interior was used to double for a monastery in The Sarah Jane Adventures – and we didn’t see enough of it that if the mother series should want to use it as part of a medieval setting its still there for the borrowing.

Gareth David-Lloyd seemed slightly wasted (and not in the class-A sense of the word)

I still live in hope that PC Andy’s role will be expanded should there be a third series -- the chemistry with Rees was sweet, even if I didn’t quite catch all of their dialogue over the screaming and explosions and music. Eve Myles proved herself indispensable again as Gwen, authoritative and vulnerable in the same and proving why she didn’t get the bullet.  If Gareth David-Lloyd seemed slightly wasted (and not in the class-A sense of the word), James Marsters’ work was magnanimous this time around, not consciously stealing scenes left and right.  It’s not unusual for a previously sadistic character to be given a modicum of humanity and the doors open for his return.

To ender ponderland briefly, considering some of the evil that was done here by some people, how some some people weren't held account for it?  Also,how old is Jack now anyway?  Older than the Doctor apparently which is pretty good going considering he’s had far less screen time overall.  More could have been made perhaps of the sheer horror of being in a constant state of life under six foot of dirt, but then again how exactly is one to film that?  But now we discover that there were three of ‘our’ Jacks knocking around at one point during World War Two, and that he’s apparently been frozen in that chamber for the whole of the past two series.

if there’s a Casualty 1906 knocking around, why not costumed Torchwood too? 

How’s that going to be missing from the records though?  Who knew he was there?  Don’t they ever have a body audit?  I suspect it’s like that room which seems to be in most libraries which is filled with random crap which no one wants to deal with and is left there for years.  Good to see the Andrew Davies inspired version of Torchwood again, and I’ll say it again, if there’s a Casualty 1906 knocking around, why not costumed Torchwood too?  If this and the usual question of how much the authorities know about the only the things wrong with an episode, Torchwood’s become must-see television. 

Actually about the only thing wrong with the episode was Jack's brother Gray. I was watching The Hampster Factor last night, the recommendable feature length documentary about the making of the film Twelve Monkeys which has an interesting scene in which director Terry Gilliam casts a young boy because he has amazing eyes but on set discovers that he simply can’t the performance he wants.  Luckily, his producer has brought another child actor, who isn’t quite as cherubic but is wonderful as he looks amazed around the departure lounge of an airport.  The casting of Lachlan Nieboer (whose only other works appears to be this short) in this episode was another example of that, the selecting of an actor for their looks, in this case his similarity to John Barrowman.

it needed with the best will in the world a name probably, someone from the Brit pack or that bloke from Skins. 

I’m not often one to single out actors for criticism, except for Mr Barrowman of course, who when he’s good is very, very good and when he’s bad he’s crying.  True, Grey was hardly the most shocking of villains, but Nieboer was still horrendously miscast, a Jason Priestly lookalike delivering the lines with all the venom of a mild-mustard.  This part would have been improved immeasurably by someone who could show those years of hurt and desperation; it needed, with the best will in the world a name probably, someone from the Brit pack or that bloke from Skins.  More than anything else he needed to be at least slightly menacing and imply threat in his movement.  Sadly, though I wish him well in the future, Nieboer was unmemorable here.

Thankfully, at least for me, he wasn't enough to overshadow a finale that like The Last of the Timelords it also managed to call back some of the best moments of the series and the mythology that’s been layered in.  I actually found myself cheering when Owen reminded us that he was king of the Weevils and it was great to have the Weevils actually doing something, even if the budget could only stretch to having them stand around in the streets looking ominous.  True overall it was an unusual beast, slightly diffuse if you looked too closely at it, but it still managed enjoy a proper conclusion, unfettered by the mother series.  Anyone else expect the perfect closing seconds to be spoilt by Donna Noble turning up at the Hub at the end asking Jack and co for their help?

Anyone else expect the perfect closing seconds to be spoilt by Donna Noble turning up at the Hub at the end asking Jack and co for their help?

Chris Chibnall in what might be his last script for the series gave us his very best and entirely gave us leave to forgive him for the travesty that was End of Days.  He’s buggering off to be show runner on the London remake of Law & Order, but on the strength of Exit Wounds, it's clear that instead of simply reconfiguring old scripts for our version of English in that series, he should be brave enough to write something new.  Here he remembered that the point of the best drama, is that despite the pyrotechnics, it should be about how characters deal with horror, rather than horror literally overshadowing the characters.  If Torchwood has an arc which spans the two series, it’s about Chibnall maturing as a writer.

We’re at the end, then, of what has felt like a very long series.  Despite my initial optimism and enthusiasm, it’s again been far from perfect in places, but it’s always been entertaining, and often for the right reasons.  I think I’d probably have thought this a classic series if there’d simply been less episodes, if there’d been ten instead of the usual thirteen.  With some tweaking and dialogue looping you could easily lose Dead Man Walking, From Out of the Rain and even Something Borrowed, with Gwen turning up at the hub after the honeymoon wondering what she’d missed.  Perhaps, like the fantasy single disc version The White Album, fans will be debating for years about how their perfect Torchwood Season Two would be shaped if you lost a few episodes.  Then again, perhaps not.

I think I’d probably have thought this a classic series if there’d simply been less episodes

The general problem was knowing when to stop.  Two whole episodes of Owen coming to terms with his own death were excessive, especially since he was going to be bumped off further down the line anyway.  Perhaps Martha’s appearance would have had more impact if it had been for a single episode, for Reset in which she actually had something to do; she was generally wasted in Dead Man Walking and A Day In The Death because by then she’d become part of the furniture and mostly hung around the Hub, which didn’t seem fair to Freema, having left the TARDIS, I still think prematurely.  That said, there is a proper vacancy at Torchwood Cardiff now for a doctor …

Next:  It’s back and it’s on at the wrong time…