Doctor Who Review – Torchwood – Series 2

The 5 members of the Torchwood team standing in a large white tunnel and wearing predominantly black outfits. Jack has a grey shirt visible through his jacket, Owen's jacket is fully open to reveal a red shirt beneath, while Toshiko is also wearing something red beneath her jacket. Ianto is standing with his arms folded, concealing what's beneath his jacket, while Gwen's top is a figure-hugging, shiny, zip-up leather-style jacket, with the zip pulled midway down.

Welcome to the second part of my review binge of Torchwood. This is the brilliant Doctor Who spin-off for adults starring the magnificent John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, the handsome, funny, courageous, flirtatious and immortal hero whose team investigate aliens and other strange phenomena that have fallen through a rift in space and time over Cardiff.

I recently reviewed Series 1, where I also discussed Torchwood’s origins and early references in Doctor Who. So now I’m moving straight onto the second series, which stepped things up a gear and gave us some excellent storylines, as they had really found their feet by this point. Plus I’ll mention the Blu-ray extras and a lot of the music as well. I hope you enjoy!

Contents

Overview

As with the first outing, Series 2 has 13 episodes, each around 45-50 minutes long. But this time, there are only 4 discs in the Blu-ray set instead of 6, with 3 episodes on each (apart from 4 on Disc 2), because there are fewer bonus features to squeeze in. All of the episodes are on BBC iPlayer as well, with audio description and subtitles (but the AD isn’t on the Blu-ray).

All of the episodes aired in a weekly slot on BBC Two as usual, and family-friendly pre-watershed edits were also shown on subsequent days. However, episodes 6-12 premiered on BBC Three a week in advance of their BBC Two broadcast (or just 2 days ahead for episode 11). Episode 13, being the finale, didn’t get that special treatment to avoid spoilers for BBC Two viewers. The dates of first broadcast in this post, therefore, relate to the very first showing on BBC Two or Three as appropriate.

Chris Chibnall – who many years later would become showrunner of Doctor Who – was again the most prolific writer alongside his general role as co-producer, with 4 episodes to his name. His contributions top and tail the series in this case, as he’s responsible for the opening episode and the final three. Catherine Tregenna then wrote 2 episodes, while the remaining 7 stories are all by different writers.

As before, Captain Jack is working with former policewoman Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles), medical professional Owen Harper (Burn Gorman), computer expert Toshiko Sato (Naoko Mori) and support officer Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd). In addition, they’re also joined by the Doctor’s companion Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) midway through the series for a few episodes, which is great.

While each episode tells a separate story, there are narrative arcs that run through the series as well, including Jack’s search for his younger brother Gray, Gwen’s marriage to Rhys (Kai Owen), and a life changing experience for Owen along with Tosh’s feelings towards him.

The series also continues to have a great soundtrack, courtesy of Murray Gold for the theme tune and Ben Foster for the incidental music, and a selection of tracks were combined with those from the first series on the Series 1 & 2 album. So I’ll be mentioning the relevant tracks as I go along here.

The Blu-ray box exterior, the discs and the main menu screen all have the same basic design as for Series 1, but with a red tint this time. So the box and the discs are red with Torchwood’s honeycomb-style logo visible in the background, while the menu shows the Torchwood logo and a camera feed of the hub all bathed in red light. The inner box has images of the team and episode descriptions.

Cover for the Blu-ray of Torchwood Series 2, with a photo of the 5 members of the team dressed in black outfits, led by Captain Jack, posing in a large white tunnel. Above them, the word Torchwood is in black letters on a red background.
The back cover of the Blu-ray set for Torchwood Series 2, with a list of all 13 episodes, including a very brief synopsis over 2 or 3 lines. Above the text is a horizontal collage of images from the series, and at the very bottom of the cover are the 5 headshots of the team members.
Blu-ray menu for Torchwood Series 2. The Torchwood logo is in large letters across the centre though partially obscured by the red light that floods the entire frame and makes it difficult to see if there's anything specific in the background. There is a camera feed in the top-right corner. The various menu options then run across the bottom of the screen in white text, with the selected option highlighted more brightly than the others, with Play, Scene Selection, Special Features, Subtitles, and High Definition Set Up Guide.
White uppercase text on a red background, in the bottom left corner of the Blu-ray menu for Torchwood Series 2, which says Torchwood classified information. Separate from the government, outside the police, beyond the United Nations. If it's alien, it's ours.
A security camera feed in the top right corner of the Blu-ray menu for Torchwood Series 2, bathed in red light, showing a view inside the hub with the Torchwood logo in large dark letters on a white tiled wall. White text at the bottom says Checking for rift activity.
A security camera feed in the top right corner of the Blu-ray menu for Torchwood Series 2, bathed in red light, showing a view inside the hub with the Doctor's severed hand in a jar, while white text at the bottom says Hub scan complete.

1. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

With Jack having dashed off to find The Doctor at the end of the last series – a story that continued in the Series 3 finale of Doctor Who where he learnt the reason for his immortality – the rest of the team have organised themselves to work without him, as they have no idea why he went or if he’s coming back. So the episode opens with an entertaining car chase, where they’re pursuing a giant blowfish, much to the confusion of a passing old lady! When they finally catch up with it, however, the alien puts them in a dangerous predicament – which is quickly settled by Jack as he returns out of nowhere. During the episode Jack is then asked where he’s been, particularly by Gwen who confronts him at one point, but he doesn’t talk about what he’s been through. He’s just glad to be back with his team again.

Anyway, after the light-hearted nature of the opening, things then turn more serious, as a mysterious yet handsome man appears out of nowhere, and pushes someone off a roof in order to get Jack’s attention when Torchwood come to investigate the murder scene. Jack then deserts his team again in order to meet him, and it turns out that they know each other.

Captain John Hart (James Marsters) is a Time Agent, just like Jack used to be, and the two of them were even romantic partners for a little while, which goes some way to explaining their unusual greeting. It looks like they’re about to punch each other at first, only to then kiss passionately, before they then have a big fight to the classic Song 2 by Blur, smashing up the bar that John had previously cleared in his dominating manner for this meeting to be private. It’s a very entertaining scene because it’s so unexpected and is very nicely choreographed, and because we learn a bit more about Jack’s past at the same time – as do the rest of Torchwood, as they turn up having looked for him, and they had never been aware of his role in the Time Agency before.

John then ropes them all in to help him look for 3 dangerous canisters that had fallen through the rift. Jack warns his colleagues not to trust John, and he’s proven right, as during their search across Cardiff John paralyses Gwen and locks her in a shipping container, shoots Owen (though not fatally), and pushes Jack off a skyscraper after he refuses to go travelling with him, leaving Jack bent double over a bench.

John then steals the keys to Torchwood and makes his way to the hub, where the team corner him – including Jack, much to John’s surprise! John then reveals that he was pulling a scam as part of his hunt for a special diamond, only to get another nasty shock when it turns out that he too has been conned, with deadly consequences, and in a final act of desperation he takes Gwen hostage, so the team have to save both of them – which they do of course. John is then sent on his way, but not before telling Jack that he’s found someone called Gray before he disappears, and we discover who that is later in the series.

So it’s a great opener to the second series, with drama and action juxtaposed nicely with good humour and banter as we’re reacquainted with the team. The episode then finishes with an extended trailer for the rest of the series before the credits roll, which further helps to whet the appetite for what’s to come.

As for the music, there are no tracks specific to this episode on the soundtrack album. But apart from the excellent Blur song mentioned above, the blowfish is playing the Prodigy Remix of Release Yo’ Delf by Method Man in the car it’s stolen, and when Captain John first enters the bar, the track Mao Tse Tung Said by Alabama 3 is playing. Neither of those are in the same league as Blur of course, and they’re not songs I have any interest in, but they work well enough in their respective scenes.

2. Sleeper

This is an interesting premise that leads to a very explosive sequence of events. The team are investigating an attempted burglary at a couple’s home, where one of the offenders has been killed and the other critically injured, while the husband has also ended up in hospital. The wife, Beth (Nikki Amuka-Bird) is therefore the most likely suspect, but she’s adamant that she didn’t do it, and doesn’t have any idea of what happened. Torchwood aren’t convinced though, and further realise something’s wrong when they try to do a blood test and the needles keep snapping. Something seems to be inside Beth, but neither she nor the team know what it is.

They eventually resort to a potentially dangerous mind probe, which causes Beth considerable distress to endure, but by digging deep enough they reveal a device previously hidden beneath the skin on her arm, which had somehow been hiding itself from all the other scans. Jack then realises that she’s from an alien race that send out sleeper agents, disguising themselves as members of their target planet in order to gather critical information over a period of time, before they’re activated to launch a full-scale invasion.

Beth is naturally shocked and distraught to learn the horrifying truth about herself, and is even shown the Weevil they have in their vaults (which has its own tune, King Of The Weevils, on the album) and Gwen forms a bond with her as she tries to support her. One of the main reasons for having Gwen on the team is that she keeps them grounded, reminding them of the human lives and feelings that are at stake, and helping them to deal with that side of things, and this is a perfect example of that. Gwen therefore keeps Beth company as the team prepare to cryogenically freeze her, because they clearly can’t let her out again, and they can’t risk her unknown controller fully activating her.

Unfortunately, she is still awoken by some kind of signal and escapes the hub. She goes to the hospital to see her husband, where a weapon in her arm emerges against her will and kills him. What’s more, a few other people around Cardiff are also revealed to be sleeper agents as they come to life (to the tune Sleepers, Awake on the soundtrack album, which is a great dramatic piece).

One man goes to a house and kills a man responsible for the council’s emergency response, while two other agents set off huge explosions, one near the hospital and one in a telecommunications building on a busy street in the city centre to cut off the phone system. The latter is a particularly impressive stunt, as not only does it take place on a busy street in the city centre, but also the woman walks into the building and the explosion immediately occurs without a camera cut. It’s only after the explosion starts that the camera angle switches. The Declassified breakdown of this scene in the extras is interesting to watch, to appreciate the planning and effort that went into it, because it’s one of their biggest ever stunts.

There’s more to come as well, as the remaining agent who hasn’t killed himself heads for a military base holding nuclear warheads. After a tense chase (with the appropriately named Chase music from the album), Jack and Gwen catch up with him and stop him, but with one final explosive device he also blows himself up – after telling Jack that other agents are already here, allowing for future possible attacks. They then take Beth back to the hub and attempt to freeze her again, having worked out how to do it properly this time. But Beth doesn’t want to live as an alien-human hybrid, and forces the team to kill her by taking Gwen hostage with her own weapon (poor Gwen, nearly being killed at the end of two episodes in a row!). It is probably for the best, but it’s still very sad for the human side of Beth, who had lived a perfectly happy life of blissful ignorance before she learned the truth about herself.

So it’s a great action-packed episode, and there are some nice moments of humour tucked in here and there as well (such as Tosh and Ianto making it clear to Owen that the phone system isn’t working). Interestingly, Nikki Amuka-Bird (who played Beth) later appeared in Doctor Who as well, as the Glass Woman in the Christmas special Twice Upon A Time from 2017. Less recognisable are William Hughes (the Graingers’ son), who was the child version of the Master in 2007’s The Sound of Drums, and stunt performer Derek Lea (the paramedic sleeper agent) appeared twice in Doctor Who’s 4th series, as a taxi driver in Partners In Crime and an ATMOS worker examined by Martha in The Sontaran Stratagem.

The episode also begins with a brief introduction, reminding people who Torchwood are with little clips from Series 1 and 2, and this repeats across all subsequent episodes, just like they did for episodes 2-13 in the first series. It’s not remotely necessary for existing fans, but I guess if people are new to the show and are diving in to a random story, it gives the briefest of explanations as to what they’re about.

3. To The Last Man

You’ve got to feel sorry for Tosh, haven’t you? She’s a beautiful, kind, clever woman, yet when she gets close to someone it ends in heartache. Last series it was Mary, who completely manipulated her, and now this series it’s a young World War I soldier who’s really sweet and kind, and they become very attracted to each other, but they have to part company in a very emotional way, because it means they can never see each other again.

The soldier in question is Tommy (Anthony Lewis), who finds himself taken by the Torchwood team from a military hospital in 1918, who have received an instruction from him in the 21st century. They cryogenically freeze him, in the knowledge that at some unknown point in the future he will have to save the world from a time shifting phenomenon. Little pockets of 1918 are appearing at the abandoned version of the hospital in the 21st century, as if the people are ghosts, and when it breaks through fully – at the time when Tommy was taken away – a chain reaction will occur around the world unless it’s stopped. Two time periods cannot exist at the same moment in the same place, so it’ll cause chaos to say the least.

Until then, Tommy has been defrosted and reawoken every year, just for a day, so they can do various tests to make sure he’s alright, and so he can have a little bit of leisure time. This is the first such occasion that Gwen has witnessed, but Tosh is all dressed up and ready for him, and after all the tests they spend some time together in Cardiff, where Tommy learns of the war in Iraq – making him question what the point of war is if such conflicts are still happening – and he also becomes attracted to Toshiko and kisses her.

Jack and Gwen, meanwhile, investigate the hospital and see several ghosts, and when workers arrive to demolish the building, their actions begin to trigger the full time shift. It means the time is approaching for Tommy to do his bit to save the world, with Tosh by his side. But not only is she having to let go of someone that she feels very close to, but she also learns from Jack that Tommy dies a few weeks after he returns to 1918, and as she doesn’t want to send him to his death it takes a lot of persuasion for her to help him. She does at least get to spend one more night with him, back at her place, where they make out properly.

And when the moment of truth arrives for Tommy, he too is angry and reluctant to do it, even though he doesn’t know of his future in 1918, because he doesn’t want to leave Tosh. And even when he does go back, he begins to revert to the shellshocked state he was in at the time, and forgets to use the rift key he was given to fix the time shift. So there’s one more emotional scene when the team use a psychic projection to enable Tosh to communicate with him, and she persuades him to do what’s right.

So it’s a moving story, with wonderful acting from Naoko Mori once again. It’s great that she gets another big episode, even if it doesn’t have a happy ending. On the soundtrack album there’s a nice piece called Toshiko and Tommy to honour the pair of them, which actually had its first outing in Tosh’s previous story with Mary, as well as a track called Ghosts, which is quite calm throughout but has a dramatic ending. Contemporary songs heard in the episode, meanwhile, include One Of These Mornings by Moby (when Owen offers Tosh a few comforting words on the pier at the end), She’s Got You High by Mumm-Ra (in the pub scene), Squares by The Beta Band and Who’s Gonna Find Me by The Coral.

4. Meat

Gwen’s boyfriend Rhys finally gets a meaty story of his own here, so to speak, and he handles it very well. The relationship between Gwen and Rhys has been under increasing strain given the secrecy she has to retain around her new job, despite the fact they’re planning to get married. And here it all comes to a head, as one of the lorries owned by Rhys’ haulage company is involved in an accident, and he witnesses Gwen with Torchwood when they arrive to investigate the lorry’s unusual cargo – large amounts of meat that aren’t from any animal on this planet.

He later calls her to come home, and of course she doesn’t tell him the truth about where she’s been, so he follows the Torchwood SUV to a big warehouse. And that in turn leads to confusion, because when Jack and Gwen spot him in the distance, they assume he’s involved, especially when he appears to be talking to a couple of men – little realising that they’re actually threatening Rhys and taking him captive, and are showing him what their gang are up to. Luckily Rhys persuades them that he wants to be a delivery driver for them, so they let him go.

Having therefore both seen each other at the warehouse, Gwen and Rhys have a blazing argument at home, where she’s forced to reveal the truth – not that he believes it until Gwen takes him into the hub and introduces him to the team. And because he’s been shown the alien in question, and has tricked the criminal gang into hiring him as a delivery driver, that gives Torchwood a bit of extra intel and a way to sneak into the warehouse – in the back of his van. Gwen is of course heavily resistant to this idea, not wanting her boyfriend to be in any danger, but she doesn’t have much choice, and Rhys is willing to do it. He also has some friendly banter with Jack when they have a chance to chat together on the way.

So ultimately they all end up in the warehouse, where the alien is a humongous whale-like beast that is still alive. And it keeps growing, despite the flesh that the criminals are slicing off it, generating an endless supply of meat that they can sell. It all ends in a big stand-off, during which Rhys is shot when he takes a bullet for Gwen. But Owen is able to keep him stable so he survives, while also performing a mercy killing on the alien, using a special mix of ingredients in a large syringe. Tosh comforts Owen after that – not just to be friendly and supportive as it wasn’t an act he wanted to carry out, but perhaps also in the hope that he’ll start to recognise how she feels about him, having already tried to get his attention earlier in the episode and indeed in the series.

Gwen is then expected to wipe Rhys’ memory of Torchwood, as has already been done to the criminals involved (and indeed also to Rhys himself in the Series 1 episode Combat). But she can’t bring herself to do it, as he proved himself to be a hero, it’s easier for her to live with him knowing the truth, and he’s excited about everything he’s seen. Jack isn’t at all pleased about that, but has to accept her decision.

So it’s great that Rhys finally gets to have an adventure with the team, as we haven’t seen a lot of him on screen until now, and Kai Owen makes his mark really well in the role. It was never going to be feasible for Gwen to keep her secret forever, and this was a very effective way for it all to come out. And as for music, this episode sees the first use of The Mission when Rhys is taking the Torchwood team to the warehouse, which is one of my favourite tracks on the soundtrack album, as well as a gentler piece called Welcome To Planet Earth.

5. Adam

Torchwood has been infiltrated by an alien in human form called Adam (Bryan Dick), who is able to implant false memories into people by touching them. For example, when Gwen arrives in the hub and fails to recognise him, he instantly ‘reminds’ her that he’s been there for 3 years and they’ve had a lot of fun together. But he also wipes her memory of Rhys, which throws her into a state of panic when she sees him back at home, and neither Rhys nor Jack understand what has caused Gwen to forget him. Thankfully her memories haven’t been deleted, and eventually Rhys is able to get through to her bit by bit, in the process of which we learn a bit about how they originally got together, which is nice. They do make a lovely couple.

Meanwhile Tosh is deeply in love with Adam, having been convinced that it’s their first anniversary together, while Owen is much less cynical and a bit more nerdy, and even confesses his love for Tosh at one point, which she gets angry about. And as for Ianto, he realises there’s no mention of Adam at all in the meticulous diary he keeps every day, and prepares to investigate further, but Adam makes him forget that by convincing Ianto that he’s an evil murderer.

Jack is a particularly tasty target for Adam though, given the extensive memories of his extra-long life. So Adam persuades him to recall the truth about his younger brother Gray, and how he lost him one day and never found him again. They’re dark and upsetting memories that Jack has buried with good reason, so he gets very emotional about them. They also give us our first ever look at the Boeshane Peninsula where he grew up, which he had mentioned at the end of the Doctor Who Series 3 finale to The Doctor and Martha (the latter of whom is about to appear in this series).

Jack soon becomes suspicious when Ianto confesses his murderous ways though, and by trawling the CCTV footage he sees how Adam has been manipulating his team. From there he’s able to imprison Adam in the vault, before explaining to the team what’s been happening and conditioning them to recall some of their real memories – which is hardest for Tosh to deal with given that she truly believes she loves him (yet another heartbreaking romance for her!). The team then take amnesia pills to forget the last 2 days, which kills Adam in the process, and gives them all a lot of confusion when they wake up (as Jack has also wiped all the CCTV and computer records to remove all trace of Adam’s existence).

So it’s an interesting and engaging story, as all the team members get to behave rather differently to normal and go on their own emotional rollercoasters, and we learn important information about Jack’s childhood. There are even a couple of shots of Adam during the intro montage about who Torchwood are, which is a nice little touch that’s unique to this episode.

It all gives food for thought, just as everyone’s thoughts were Adam’s food. After all, the idea of not being able to trust your own memories is very unsettling. And indeed, false memories are a real phenomenon that can manifest in many different ways, so while the method of delivering them here is extraterrestrial and extreme, it does have a basis in reality.

In terms of music, we hear the beautiful Gray’s Theme and Memories Of Gray for the first time, which are similar to each other as they’re based on the same motif, but they’re both on the soundtrack album. Beyond that, during the episode we also hear Christiansands by Tricky (which is also used in Season 1 of American drama 24, another of my favourite shows) and I Love You, You Big Dummy by Magazine.

6-8. Reset / Dead Man Walking / A Day In The Death

These three episodes have their own distinct stories, yet they also form a continuous narrative because of what Owen goes through, and because they feature the Doctor’s former companion Martha Jones, with Freema Agyeman‘s name even being included in the opening credits.

Martha is now a medical officer working for UNIT thanks to a reference from the Doctor, and is initially called in by Jack to help them with their investigation into a series of murders. It’s wonderful that she’s involved here, and it’s great to see her reuniting with Jack after what they experienced together in the Doctor Who Series 3 finale. She’s still her cheerful and friendly self, but also has a much more professional air now she’s more than just a companion, and holds her own as a member of the team very well, exerting her authority when necessary. So Jack has a lot of admiration and respect for her, knowing that he can’t boss her around in the same way as the others.

The first story in the trilogy is about a ‘magic bullet’ pill called Reset that rids patients of all manner of incurable diseases, from diabetes to HIV, which sounds like an absolute dream that could save millions of lives. But of course it’s too good to be true. The reason the pill reverts the body back to its ‘factory settings’, so to speak, is to ensure the conditions are suitable for its other payload – an alien parasite, which gives birth inside the person. When fully grown, the young creatures (called Mayflies) then burst out, thereby killing their host, and seek other bodies with which to further reproduce. So the Pharm, as the medical facility is known, is murdering its trial subjects and wiping their medical records to cover their tracks.

But with Torchwood on the case, the conspiracy was never going to stay secret forever, and Martha puts her life on the line by going undercover as a patient. It doesn’t end well though, when the owner of the facility, Professor Aaron Copley, figures out that she’s travelled in time and space, because of the unusual impact her travels have had on her body, and so he gives her the Reset pill as well. The Professor is played by Alan Dale, known to millions as Jim from Neighbours – which I’ve never watched, so I didn’t recognise him, but I know it was a big coup for them to get him as a guest on the show.

Naturally the Torchwood team arrive just in time, and Owen is able to save her, using an alien device he’s called a singularity scalpel that he’s never managed to get to work properly until then. But he then pays the ultimate price for his heroism as Professor Copley shoots him dead, as revenge for the facility being closed down.

Jack isn’t prepared to give up on Owen, however, and wants the team to have an opportunity to say goodbye at the very least, after all he’s done for them. So he tracks down the second resurrection glove – as Ianto had previously remarked in Series 1 that gloves come in pairs – which is being guarded in an old church by some Weevils. He then uses it to bring Owen back to life for a couple of minutes, and they all find it hard to say farewell, but particularly Tosh, who has fancied Owen for some time. In the Reset episode she had finally plucked up the courage to ask him on a date, which to her surprise he had accepted, but typical of her romantic fortunes she’s now having to say goodbye to him. So she confesses to him that she loves him before he goes.

Only thing is, he doesn’t go. Much like Suzie in the Series 1 episode They Keep Killing Suzie, he remains conscious and able to move around. However, this isn’t just a repeat of that earlier story, and episodes 7 & 8 explore in-depth the potential impact of being undead, which is quite interesting. This is different to Jack being unable to die, because he is still actually alive, whereas Owen is literally the walking dead.

For a start, he has to come to terms with the fact that his bodily functions aren’t working, even though he can move, see, hear, talk and think. So he has no pulse or breath, is unable to feel sexually aroused, he won’t age, and any injuries he gets won’t heal (so he still has the bullet hole in his chest). And he also can’t digest food and drink, which leads to a funny scene where he finds a way to make himself vomit and break wind, much to Jack’s disgust!

And as if that isn’t enough to deal with, Death is slowly manifesting itself within him, and is occasionally making itself known by making Owen think he’s in a dark void or getting him to speak in tongues. In order to stop it, the team prepare to embalm him, but the glove attacks them, in particular clinging on to Martha and ageing her significantly.

Death then indeed does break free, and seeks out terminally ill patients in a nearby hospital. It appears to be following an old legend that says Death will freely walk the Earth after 13 kills, so it’s a race against time to find a way to stop it. And of course the only person who can do so is Owen himself – which he does after giving a sweet message of encouragement to a child with leukemia. As a tearful Tosh observes helplessly with the rest of the team, his actions work, so that Death disappears and Martha returns to normal.

And yet Owen still doesn’t die. So in the final episode of the trilogy, he’s relieved of his duties while Martha conducts tests on him, until they can be sure he’s alright to continue working. So we see the impact and mental turmoil that it has on him in the third episode, knowing that he can’t do lots of things that we take for granted. He even has an argument with Tosh as a result, before unsuccessfully trying to drown himself.

It then turns out that he can be of some use to the team, when they’re looking to break into a house to investigate readings of alien energy, because he’s the only one who can get past the heat sensors given that he doesn’t give off any body warmth. He has to be careful not to get injured of course, but after carefully taking his time he meets an old, dying man called Henry Parker – played marvellously by the truly legendary Richard Briers. I love him in his leading roles in the sitcoms The Good Life and Ever Decreasing Circles, and I know he was in a Classic Era story of Doctor Who I’ve never seen called Paradise Towers, so it’s really wonderful to see him here.

Henry is convinced that the device is keeping him alive, but it isn’t really, and when he has a heart attack, Owen is unable to give him the kiss of life because of his lack of breath. Everyone apart from Henry is expecting the device to be dangerous and explosive, but it turns out to be very different, so the undead Owen continues to survive. However, the experience helps Owen to understand that he has a choice whether to go on, whereas Henry didn’t.

The events of the third episode are told by Owen to a lady called Maggie (Christine Bottomley), as she contemplates jumping off a roof given a recent tragedy of her own. So there are scenes between them interspersed throughout the story, and Owen is able to show her that things can get better. It gives the episode a very unique feel, and provides further insight into Owen’s perspective on what’s happened to him.

So by the end of the trilogy, Owen’s been on quite the journey, which has been really interesting to watch. He makes things up with Tosh, confiding in her how scared he’s feeling, while Jack is now satisfied that he can keep working for them, meaning Martha’s job is done and she makes her way back to UNIT. It was lovely to see her again, even if she didn’t have a lot to do in the third episode. It’s also impressive that they had two huge guest stars in the form of Richard Briers and Alan Dale during these stories.

Across these 3 episodes there’s plenty of music as well of course. Among the pieces on the soundtrack album, Reset is notable for bringing us the first use of The Plot, another of my favourites because I like the steady rhythm and the way it gradually builds, along with The Death Of Dr. Owen Harper, which is also used in Dead Man Walking. King Of The Weevils is used in both of those episodes too, as the Weevils continue to cower in his presence.

Dead Man Walking also introduces us to Owen’s Theme with its distinctive melody that is used in a few more episodes afterwards. The core motif from that is also used in Owen Fights Death and in one section of The Woman On The Roof. That latter track is also used in, and is most relevant to, A Day In The Death, which also features Owen’s Theme again.

As for songs, in Reset Ianto is listening to Freakin’ Out by Graham Coxon when he lets Martha into the hub for the first time, and then Feel Good Inc. by Gorillaz is used to score a fun montage of her and Owen examining the parasite together. Then in Dead Man Walking, we hear Awfully Deep by Roots Manuva when Owen wanders the streets and goes into a club, reflecting his disturbed state of mind. Finally, in A Day In The Death, the song Atlas by Battles plays when Owen is clearing out his fridge and sitting alone in his apartment. The Gorillaz track is the best and only recognisable one for me out of all those.

9. Something Borrowed

The big day has finally arrived, with Gwen about to get married to Rhys. But typically for a TV drama it doesn’t go to plan, and this being Torchwood, it’s a particularly unusual problem.

Having been bitten by a shapeshifter she was chasing the night before, Gwen wakes in the morning to find that she’s heavily pregnant, with no way of hiding it. Yet despite the pleas of Jack, Owen and Rhys for her to return to the hub to be looked after, she refuses to postpone the wedding, forcing them to agree that she’ll go back to the hub afterwards. So the team put a plan in place to monitor her, with Tosh delivering an enlarged wedding dress.

However, further investigation by Torchwood reveals that the shapeshifter they caught is from a race of carnivores, who particularly like human flesh. And after the father has deposited the eggs into a host body, the mother will come along and tear the baby out when the time is right. And the mother has infiltrated the wedding party, where she poses as various people, murders one guest and then ties up Tosh for her next meal, while she waits for the baby inside Gwen to be ready. And so Torchwood are forced to disrupt the ceremony, which results in chaos of course, with lots of chasing and action.

Ultimately it does all get sorted out, as Rhys kills the baby inside Gwen using the singularity scalpel that had been used to save Martha a few episodes ago, after being shown how to use it by Owen. They’re then able to wed properly, which is followed by a nice reception, where Gwen dances with Rhys, Owen dances with Tosh, and Jack dances with Gwen and then Ianto. Not that the other wedding guests will remember much, as Jack has made sure they’re all retconned with amnesia pills to forget the horrors they’ve seen. There’s also a nice little touch at the very end when Jack looks through some old photos and finds a picture from his own wedding.

So it’s a fun, action-packed story, with quite a bit of humour as well, and it’s great that it results in a happy ending for Gwen and Rhys. There’s some great music played at the wedding reception too, with You Do Something To Me by Paul Weller followed by Tainted Love by Soft Cell. Earlier on, there are several tracks I’m much less familiar with or interested in, such as during Gwen’s hen night at the club, where they’re playing Filthy/Gorgeous and Comfortably Numb by the Scissor Sisters, along with Hole In The Head by the Sugababes and Too Much Time On My Hands by Styx. And then in the morning, Gwen’s radio alarm plays Fire In My Heart by the Super Furry Animals. And as for the soundtrack album, the one short piece of music relating to this episode is naturally entitled Gwen & Rhys, which is nothing special but it’s nice.

10. From Out Of The Rain

This is quite a strange story, even by Torchwood’s standards, and is perhaps the weakest of the series for me. But it’s still entertaining nonetheless, and pretty creepy too.

It’s all about two circus performers who led a group called the Night Travellers way back in the past – the Ghostmaker (played by Julian Bleach, who a few months later starred as Davros in the Doctor Who Series 4 finale), and his water-loving assistant Pearl (Camilla Power), who have their own sinister piece of music on the soundtrack album. Evidence of their existence back then is on some black and white film that a young man called Jonathan (Craig Gallivan) has been preparing to show in a historic cinema to a modern audience – which also features Jack, who posed as a performer at the time to study the Night Travellers. But the Ghostmaker takes control of the film and makes it play all by itself, so that he and Pearl can step out of the old footage into the present day.

As they roam Cardiff, these entertainers are ready to take your breath away, but not by regaling you with any kind of performance. They literally steal the last gasps of air from people and store them in a silver flask, in order to imprison their own audience of ghosts, while leaving their victims severely dehydrated and barely alive. They even try to do the same to Owen at one point, so are confused to discover that he doesn’t have any breath because he’s technically dead. Torchwood are finally able to get a good understanding of how the pair are operating by talking to an old lady called Christina (Eileen Essell), who had seen them attacking her family decades ago, but by good fortune hadn’t suffered the same fate.

The Ghostmaker and Pearl then manage to find the reel of film and replay it in the cinema, using it to bring all of the other performers from their troupe into the 21st century. But Jack has figured out how to stop them – by recording them with a camera of his own, so that they once again become trapped on film, and then exposing the film to bright light so that they’re wiped out. Unfortunately they’re unable to save most of the victims as a result, as the Ghostmaker allows their breaths to escape from the flask, causing them to die. But Torchwood manage to stop one last breath from getting away, belonging to a young boy in the hospital, and there’s an uplifting ending as they return it to him, thereby saving his life. Though that’s not to say the Night Travellers are gone forever, as Jack notes with unease that there are lots of other old reels of film out there that they could be on.

So while the episode doesn’t grab or thrill me to the same degree as some others have, there are still good moments, and it is another interesting premise, with people escaping from old film so that they don’t die away and get forgotten.

11. Adrift

Gwen has a wonderful sense of compassion and humanity, and is keen to ensure that people are supported if they come to any kind of harm, which is one of the reasons she’s such an important asset to the team. But in this very emotional episode she discovers there can be limits to such well-meaning intentions, and sometimes it can be better if people don’t know certain things.

It all starts when PC Andy Davidson (Tom Price) asks Gwen to help him investigate a missing young man called Jonah (Oliver Ferriman), whose sudden disappearance seven months ago is still a complete mystery. He’s caught on CCTV walking home, but there’s a 6-second gap in which he just vanishes after a bright light appears.

It means that Gwen and Andy, who were good friends in the police force, get to hang out together for the first time in ages. He’s a nice guy, who adds a bit of humour with his remarks sometimes, so it’s good to see hm making another appearance in the series, with a bit more to do this time. As Gwen is very secretive about her new job with Torchwood, however, and doesn’t want to put Andy in any danger, there is some awkwardness between them, with Andy getting irritated by her sometimes. There’s also tension between Gwen and Rhys too, as he wants to talk about the future and having kids but she’s always distracted, especially with this mission.

But the most friction is between Gwen and Jack, as her investigations uncover a lot of missing people whose disappearances coincide with negative spikes in rift activity, suggesting that the rift isn’t just letting things fall through, but is taking people too. Yet Jack is adamant that she should drop it. She doesn’t, of course, and further digging takes her to a remote island, on which she discovers a facility housing all of the missing people. So Jack is forced to explain to her that he set up the facility to care for those who had been rescued after falling into the rift, because it changes them in ways that cannot be cured and prevents them from being reintegrated into society.

Jonah is a case in point. Although he’s only been gone 7 months in Earth time, he’s actually 40 years older (so is now played by Robert Pugh) and has become heavily deformed as a result of his experience. Despite this, Gwen is insistent that his mother Nikki – played very well throughout the episode by Ruth Jones of Gavin & Stacey fame – should see him, to know that her son is still alive.

So Gwen tells Nikki about Torchwood and brings her to the island, where she refuses to believe that the strange-looking man is Jonah at first, but he convinces her by recalling lots of memories that nobody else would know. Nikki is then keen to take him home and care for him, even if that means pretending he’s someone else to explain his condition to others, only to discover the reason that he can never leave the facility.

Unknown to both Gwen and Nikki, the visit had been timed to coincide with one of Jonah’s good phases, and despite the attempts of the staff to usher her out in time, Nikki witnesses her son going into a downturn and suddenly emitting a horrifying, howling, piercing scream. We’re told it lasts for 20 hours every day, the result of being driven mad after looking into the heart of a dark star. It’s quite a shocking moment after the emotional reunion preceding it.

Back at home, therefore, Nikki implores Gwen never to take anyone else to the facility, because it’s destroyed the feelings of hope she had and the memories of her son. Instead of recalling all the happy times they shared, she’s now left with the horrors she’s seen and heard, so was better off not knowing. All of which means Gwen is completely knocked for six by the whole experience, and is comforted by Rhys as she breaks down in tears and tells him about it. It’s a stark reminder that some situations don’t have an easy solution, and a lesson that there’s still so much she and the rest of her colleagues don’t know about Torchwood or Captain Jack.

So it’s a moving, thought-provoking story that’s told really well, with just a few little moments of amusement to stop it getting too heavy, including some of Andy’s lines along with a memorable scene where Gwen catches Jack and Ianto making out in the nude! And as ever the music fits perfectly, with 2 tracks on the soundtrack album called Flat Holm Island (the real name of the place where the facility is set) and A Boy Called Jonah. Beyond that, when Gwen and Andy are in the café on a couple of occasions, the music in the background is Serious by Richard Hawley and then Hard To Beat by Hard-Fi, while Other Side Of The World by KT Tunstall is playing when Gwen gets Rhys some breakfast.

12 & 13. Fragments / Exit Wounds

This is a really interesting pair of episodes that make up the series finale, because we learn a lot more about the different members of Torchwood, while some other characters established earlier in the series are also brought back into play.

In the first episode, Jack, Owen, Ianto and Tosh go to an abandoned warehouse to investigate alien activity, only to discover some explosives that go off, trapping them under the rubble. So as Gwen and Rhys search the building to rescue them, we see flashbacks about how each of them came to be part of Torchwood, and they all get decent stories that tie in neatly with what we already know about them.

Jack’s journey is obviously pivotal to the whole thing. He’s first seen in Victorian times, where he’s captured and interrogated by two ladies called Alice and Emily (Amy Manson and Heather Craney) about why he can’t die and the whereabouts of the Doctor. He’s then offered a role in Torchwood (where Jack Joins Torchwood on the soundtrack album naturally becomes relevant). After completing one job for them he refuses to do any more, only to learn from a young fortune-telling girl (Skye Bennett) that it will take over 100 years to find the Doctor. She’s the same girl who told him where the second resurrection glove was earlier in the series, but it’s never explained why she looks the same on both occasions two centuries apart. So Jack knows he has to work with Torchwood after all, to fill the time and earn money.

We then fast forward to the turn of the millennium (with the marvellous Captain Jack’s Theme being used again over the montage of the passage of time), where his boss Alex (Julian Lewis Jones) kills the rest of the team and then himself, believing that they’re not ready for what’s coming in the 21st century. Jack is therefore left in charge of Torchwood and has to put together his own team from scratch, as we see in the subsequent flashbacks:

  • Tosh is rescued by Jack from a UNIT facility, where she’s been imprisoned in a tiny cell for stealing official secrets from the Ministry of Defence, an act she’d been forced to carry out in order to save her mother who had been kidnapped. Jack is impressed by the way that she’d built a sonic modulator using the plans she stole, as the plans were inaccurate yet she’d corrected the errors as she went along. The track Toshiko Sato – Betrayal And Redemption on the soundtrack album, which I really like, is used in this section, the only time it’s heard in the series.
  • Owen is taken under Jack’s wing after the tragic loss of his fiancée Katie (Andrea Lowe). She appeared to have been developing the earliest onset of Alzheimer’s that doctors had ever seen, and then they found what they assumed was a brain tumour. However, it turned out to be an incubating alien life form, which killed her and the surgeons attempting to operate on her. So it explains a lot about why Owen has an angry and cynical side to him. Naturally Owen’s Theme from the album is a big part of this segment.
  • Ianto had been working as a researcher at the Torchwood institute at Canary Wharf, which was destroyed in the Series 2 finale of Doctor Who. So he tracks down Jack in Cardiff, where he helps him fight a Weevil and pesters him on multiple occasions for any kind of work. Jack stubbornly refuses, but eventually gives in after the two of them work together to capture the pterodactyl that became the hub’s pet. That’s quite a fun scene, with Jack flying around while hanging on to the bird’s legs. The two of them also find they’re very attracted to each other as well.

Back in the present day, and taking us into the final episode, Jack is told that the explosives were set by Captain John Hart (James Marsters), who we’d seen way back in episode 1. So while the others go to investigate rift activity across Cardiff, with Gwen taking charge, Jack returns to the hub to confront John, who’s playing I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper by Sarah Brightman on the sound system (one of a few little moments of humour in what is quite an intense story). John then captures Jack before setting off huge explosions across the city, crippling its infrastructure.

Jack is then taken back to 27 AD and meets his now adult brother Gray (Lachlan Nieboer), who we learnt about in the Adam episode, and therefore Gray’s Theme and Memories Of Gray from the soundtrack album are used again in this story. But far from being a happy reunion, it turns out Gray is behind the chaos in Cardiff and has forced John to do his bidding. Gray is furious about Jack abandoning him as a child – even though it was an accident and Jack has tried to find him since – because of the way he was tortured by the invaders who captured him. So he forces John to bury Jack under the ground on which Cardiff will be built, so that he’ll be choked to death by the earth again and again whenever he comes back to life.

John and Gray then return to the present day, where John is released from Gray’s control and tells a very angry Gwen the truth, not that she’s convinced to begin with. But Gray adds to the chaos by releasing Weevils into the streets, locking John, Gwen and Ianto in the cells, and shooting Tosh as she’s about to remotely help Owen stop a meltdown at the nuclear power station (as being ‘King Of The Weevils’, he was the only one who could get to that building).

However, Gray is then surprised to find Jack alive and well in the morgue. John had thrown a transmitter ring in the grave, which led to Jack being discovered by the ladies of Torchwood in the Victorian era. Given that he was already working for Torchwood back then, as established in the previous episode, he can’t meet the other version of himself. So he tells them to freeze him and set the controls to defrost him on the correct date. So that means Jack has been in the morgue for the entire 2 series of Torchwood without him or anyone else knowing. There is then an emotionally charged confrontation between Jack and Gray, at the end of which Jack chloroforms his brother and releases his colleagues from the cells, while John transmits a signal to recall the Weevils.

Tosh, meanwhile, is desperately clinging on to life and manages to regain contact with Owen. But the only way to prevent a nuclear disaster is to flood the bunker he’s in so that it’s permanently contained, and he ends up trapped inside. So there’s a heartbreaking scene between them as she talks to him during his last moments, during which they refer to the space pig she saw in Series 1 of Doctor Who and the fact that they never got to have a date together (poor Tosh never had any luck with love in the end!). Owen then dies in the bunker – properly this time – before the rest of the team find Tosh in the hub and she passes away in Jack’s arms. It’s all the more tragic knowing that if Owen and Tosh had been in the same room, they could have helped each other to survive given their skills at medical care and technology respectively. But alas, it wasn’t to be.

It’s a real shame to lose Tosh and Owen, as they’re both such great characters. And it’s very moving to watch them here, as the performances by Burn Gorman and Naoko Mori are superb. Indeed, it’s revealed in the Declassified documentary that Naoko filmed her side of the conversation with Owen in one take, after taking the time to gear herself up for it, which is impressive. Plus the music adds to the emotive impact all the more, as represented by Goodbyes and Death Of Toshiko on the album. It’s also a really bold and shocking move to kill off 2 major characters at once, after just two series, from what is already a small team. But they do get a suitably heroic ending by saving the city. And there’s a lovely coda from Tosh, as a video message is triggered when closing her account on the system, thanking Jack for everything and telling the team she loves them all, especially Owen.

So with Tosh and Owen dead, Gray frozen and placed in the morgue, and John off on his travels once again, it’s just Jack, Gwen and Ianto left in the hub. Gwen isn’t sure she can carry on, but Jack reassures her that they can by saying “the end is where we start from”, which is the name of the penultimate track on the album, taken from that final scene.

So all in all, it’s a very powerful, action-packed and moving end to the series, nicely tying together several story threads and character points that had been set up in earlier episodes, with plenty of jeopardy and a few twists. It’s everything you could want from a dramatic finale, even though it is sad to lose a couple of great characters along the way.

That wasn’t Torchwood’s final appearance that year though, as a couple of months later Jack, Ianto and Gwen teamed up with Martha Jones again, along with fellow Doctor’s companions Rose Tyler and Sarah Jane Smith, the latter’s adopted son Luke and former Prime Minister Harriet Jones, to call in the Doctor to help them defeat the Daleks in the Series 4 finale of Doctor Who. That’s a brilliantly epic story as well.

Extras

There are far fewer extras in the Series 2 Blu-ray set compared to Series 1, including a complete absence of audio commentaries, which is a pity. However, the 3 hours of bonus material we do get are still very interesting:

  • Torchwood Declassified – As with the first series, all of the discs have the relevant editions of this companion programme, which goes behind the scenes of each episode. They’re like Doctor Who Confidential, but much shorter at between 8-13 minutes each (or nearly 2½ hours in total), though they still pack a lot in.
  • The Life & Deaths Of Captain Jack – This 22-minute bonus episode of Declassified, narrated by Freema Agyeman (who plays Martha), recaps the rather complex story of Jack across Doctor Who and Torchwood to put things into context, including interviews with John Barrowman, Russell T Davies and others. If you’ve watched both of those series then there’s nothing new here and it’s not essential viewing, but it’s still a nice overview of Jack’s life so far.
  • Deleted Scenes – 17 minutes of deleted and extended footage from episodes 4, 5, 7, 8 & 11, which is particularly worth watching for the uncut 10-minute version of the scene between Owen and Henry Parker (played by Richard Briers) without music or effects, which is wonderfully acted by both of them. There’s also a nice little scene where Gwen comforts Martha when she can’t do anything to heal Owen.
  • Outtakes – 8 minutes of very amusing bloopers and general messing about on set, including John Barrowman’s phone going off with the Doctor Who theme, several clips of him and James Marsters during filming for their bar fight, a jingle for Rhys’ haulage firm, a toy dog humping John’s leg, and an impromptu rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody. They clearly had a lot of fun while making the series and it’s great to get an insight into that.

In addition, on Disc 1, there’s an interactive high definition set-up guide by Blu-ray producers 2Entertain to help you set up your TV to get the best picture and sound quality from your player. There’s a standard mode with audio narration and optional subtitles as you’re guided through several tests, and an advanced mode that lets you manually select from a range of test patterns. It’s not particularly fascinating to look at unless you’re technically minded, but it does include a nice 4-minute compilation of stock footage shot around famous sights in London as part of the colour testing.

Conclusion

And that’s the end of a solid second series, with a wide variety of stories that are all enjoyable in their own way, and great music accompanying them. All of the team members have interesting journeys of development, apart from perhaps Ianto who didn’t really get a major story to match the one he had in the previous series, but he still has a few big moments here, and plays a vital role in supporting the team, so he still has plenty to do. It’s great that Gwen’s husband Rhys is more involved as well, as he continues to be in subsequent series. But it’s very sad to have lost Tosh and Owen of course.

There are 2 more series to go, but they’re both rather different to the first couple, because they have fewer episodes and they each have a single story that takes up the whole series. In one case that works really well, and in the other not so much. So look out for my reviews of those soon! And don’t forget to check out my Youtube playlists for Series 1-2 and Series 3-4 as well, which have all sorts of bits and pieces to keep you occupied.

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Author: Glen

Love London, love a laugh, love life. Visually impaired blogger, culture vulture & accessibility advocate, with aniridia & nystagmus, posting about my experiences & adventures.

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