News Update

The cover of this week's DWM has been released. The main content relates to The Sarah Jane Adventures. The 'Fact of Fiction' covers the underwhelming Curse of the Black Spot. Surely a Sarah Jane Smith story would have made more sense, to give the issue more of a theme? It will be in the shops on Thursday.

One of the DWM interviewees, who worked on SJA is Phil Ford. In Radio Times, he has spoken about that other spin-off series, Torchwood. In this he states that it is highly unlikely that the series would return in the form where it left off (mainly due to the controversy surrounding John Barrowman, presumably) but he doesn't see why a prequel series couldn't be made. We know that RTD wants to create a "Universe", but whether or not this will include pre-existing spin-offs is unknown.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I was very much taken with a free e-book - Blackpool Remembered - concerning the Doctor Who Exhibition at Blackpool, which ran from 1974 - 1985. Having visited it myself between 1976 - 1978, it held a lot of nostalgia value for me. The book ran to 410 pages, and contained a lot of photographs of the exhibits, as well as a number of personal reminiscences of attendees (including a DWAS day-trip, Steve Cambden - K9 wrangler - and Edward Russell, brand manager of Doctor Who for many years). 

A follow-up e-book arrived the following year - Blackpool Revisited - which carried the story on to the later exhibitions, along with a sideways step to look at the Dapol exhibition in Wales, plus sundry other items. This ran to 639 pages.

I never visited the Longleat exhibition, which ran longer than the Blackpool one, but I will shortly be able to see images and read all about it in the third volume of this e-book series. It is due to be published on Saturday 1st April.

You can find the original Blackpool book at https://blackpoolremembered7485.wordpress.com, and from there you will see links to the other publications.

A second e-publication is due to be released on-line later this very day (27th Feb) according to its originator. This promises to be a series of e-books looking at the coverage of Doctor Who by Radio Times magazine. The website to go to is doctorwhointheradiotimes.com. 

As of the time of writing (1pm), it is still showing only a Password prompt box, but I will keep checking back. I saw some sample images on Facebook and they looked great.

UPDATE: unfortunately not available as a download, but well worth reading online. 

I was extremely disappointed that Radio Times did not produce any decent special edition for the 50th Anniversary. Hopefully they will for the 60th, as they always had a much better relationship with RTD than they did with Moffat. 

In the absence of anything official, however, it is nice to see what fans are producing - especially when they have such high production values.

Finally - I've found another nice colour picture of an original Police Box. This was in suburban London (the bus is destined for Moorgate).

Torchwood: Miracle Day

In which, one day, no-one dies. CIA agent Rex Matheson discovers this when he is involved in what should have been a fatal road traffic accident - a scaffolding pole going through his heart. When he and his colleague Esther Drummond look into this, they find the word "Torchwood" amongst the associated files. This secretive UK organisation no longer exists, however. The world's authorities are concerned about the phenomenon, as without people dying the population will exceed essential resources in a matter of months. Rex traces the whereabouts of one of the members of Torchwood - Gwen Cooper. She and Rhys live with their baby, Anwen, at a remote cottage in Wales. When Rex arrives there, Captain Jack Harkness turns up as well, as the cottage comes under attack from unknown assailants in a helicopter. Gwen shoots the aircraft down with a bazooka. Jack and Gwen are extradited to the USA by the CIA, but on the plane Jack is poisoned by one of Rex's colleagues, and he discovers that whilst everyone else can no longer die, his immortality has gone and he can be killed. Gwen saves him and the rogue CIA agent is struck by a car at the airport - but of course cannot be killed.

Once in America, Rex and Esther join forces with Jack and Gwen to investigate a global conspiracy involving an organisation known as the Three Families, who appear to be behind the phenomenon. At the time the phenomenon began, a child murderer named Oswald Danes was about to be executed by lethal injection. He becomes an unlikely media star, groomed by a PR executive named Jilly Kitzinger. She is employed through a pharmaceutical company named PhiCorp, which is run by the Three Families. Jack discovers that they have been stockpiling huge quantities of medicines in advance of the "Miracle Day", as thought they knew it was going to happen. With no-one dying, yet still falling sick, they will make a fortune. Governments across the world initiate a categorisation process, which identifies those people who are so seriously ill that they form a surplus population. An associate of Rex and the Torchwood team, Dr Juarez, discovers that camps are being set up in remote areas to incinerate the most sick. When she challenges the camp's controller, he has her locked in one of the incinerators after shooting her and she is killed. Back in Wales, Gwen's terminally ill father Geraint, who has suffered a series of heart attacks,  has to be hidden from the authorities. Her mother, Mary, is helped by Rhys and Gwen's old colleague Andy Davidson, who is now a police sergeant.

It transpires that Jack is unwittingly responsible for Miracle Day happening. In the 1920's when Jack had been in New York City he had fallen in love with a young Italian immigrant named Angelo Colesanto. During this time it was discovered by Angelo's friends and neighbours that Jack was immortal, and they stole samples of his blood. This was the origins of the Three Families. Gwen is deported back to the UK, where she endeavours to help her father. Public opinion turns against Oswald Danes and he finds himself vilified once more. He flees to Wales to find Gwen. As more CIA staff turn out to be secretly working for the Families, Jack discovers that Angelo is still alive. He dies of old age, and they discover that he had used a null field generator to allow this to happen - giving Jack and Rex a clue as to stopping the Miracle. When Geraint Cooper is taken to an incineration plant, Andy and Owen help to free him, and Gwen destroys the complex. Jack learns of a natural phenomenon known as the Blessing, which runs through the centre of the Earth from South America to the Far East. The Three Families have fed his blood into this and this has caused the Miracle, as it generates a life prolonging force-field. Destroying both ends of the Blessing simultaneously should bring the phenomenon to an end. In Shanghai, Jack allows himself to be shot - deducing that if immortal blood can sustain the Blessing, then mortal blood will cancel it out - and he is the only mortal left on Earth. This works, and Danes sacrifices himself to blow up the Families base - sealing the opening at the same time Rex seals the one in Buenos Aires. The Miracle ends, and Geraint dies. There is one last attempt by the Families to kill the Torchwood team and Esther is killed, but Rex discovers that he remains immortal like Jack, having had a transfusion of his blood...

Miracle Day is the overall title for Torchwood's fourth and, to date, final season. It was a co-production with the Starz company, after a deal with the Fox Network fell through, and each episode premiered on Starz some 5 days before the UK broadcast (though some of us managed to watch it on-line on the day). Some sex scenes were cut from the UK transmission. There were 10 episodes:

1. The New World (8th July 2011), written by Russell T Davies
2. Rendition (15th July 2011), written by Doris Egan
3. Dead of Night (22nd July 2011), written by Jane Espenson
4. Escape to L.A. (29th July 2011), written by Jim Gray and John Shiban
5. The Categories of Life (5th August 2011), written by Jane Espenson
6. The Middle Men (12th August 2011), written by John Shiban
7. Immortal Sins (19th August 2011), written by Jane Espenson
8. End of the Road (26th August 2011), written by Jane Espenson and Ryan Scott
9. The Gathering (2nd September 2011), written by John Fay
10. The Blood Line (9th September 2011), written by Russell T Davies and Jane Espenson

After leaving Doctor Who, Jane Gardner had moved to the USA to develop projects which could be co-productions between BBC America and US companies. RTD joined her, and the first project they had in mind was a continuation of Torchwood, which had last been seen in the UK as a single storyline shown over five consecutive nights as Children of Earth. This had proved extremely popular, and RTD had decided that the show would never revert back to a monster-of-the-week format, as it had been for its first two series. A US co-production would also inevitably mean a move away from the usual Welsh locations. RTD came up with the overall concept of the series, and wrote or co-wrote the opening and closing chapters, but other writers were brought on board to develop their own episodes within the overarching story. In its early stages, it had been thought that this series might act as a complete reboot for Torchwood, but RTD instead decided to build on what had already gone before.

Children of Earth had ended with Jack leaving Earth following the sacrifice of his grandson and the death of Ianto Jones, with Gwen expecting a baby with Rhys. We had last seen Jack in an alien bar, with the Doctor setting him on a date with Midshipman Frame, in The End of Time Part 2. RTD reasoned that only another global threat would bring him back to Earth, and bring Gwen out of retirement.
As well as the return of the regulars John Barrowman, Eve Myles and Kai Owen, other links to previous series included the return of Andy Davidson (Tom Price) and Gwen's parents Geraint and Mary (William Thomas and Sharon Morgan), who had first appeared in Something Borrowed in Series 2.
The three main US actors to join the cast are Mekhi Phifer, as Rex Matheson, Bill Pullman as Oswald Danes, and Alexa Havins as Esther Drummond. They feature throughout the series. Phifer had been a regular on the medical drama ER, whilst Havins had featured in the soap All My Children. Pullman's biggest role to date had been as the US President in the sci-fi blockbuster Independence Day.
Set up as another regular, but shockingly killed off at the halfway stage of the series is Arlene Tur, who plays Dr Juarez.
Two of the guest stars are well known to Star Trek fans. Playing CIA chief Shapiro is John De Lancie, best known for portraying "Q" across the franchise, and Nana Visitor (Major Kira in ST: DS9) plays Angelo Colasanto's granddaughter.
Jilly Kitzinger is played by Lauren Ambrose, well known to fans of the HBO series Six Feet Under.

Initial reaction to the series was mixed, with many fearing the "Amerification" of Torchwood - that it would lose its unique Welsh identity and look like just another generic US sci-fi drama (with a reliance on guns and car chases. The first couple of episodes helped to assuage these fears, as we were reintroduced to familiar characters and much of the first episode was set in Wales. Things went downhill rather rapidly after this, however, as the action shifted Stateside. Fans and critics were not happy that there appeared to be no alien involvement, and many complained that it had divorced itself too far from Doctor Who, in which Amy and Rory were seen to be living happily in England whilst the events of Miracle Day were supposed to be taking place. Whilst always being a separate programme, Torchwood continuity had thus far managed to remain closely connected to the parent programme. Other complaints concerned the number of supplementary characters being introduced, many of whom remained undeveloped - arriving merely to be bumped off. The motivation of the main villains remained obscure for too long, and other characters the audience found it hard to engage with. It was generally felt that the 'writers' room' style of production did not do the series any favours.
By its conclusion, many felt that Children of Earth had been much the more satisfying season, with many pointing out that it had ended with a decent conclusion where the series could have been brought to a close, but with the door open for a return later. Miracle Day, on the other hand, ended with too many threads still hanging - with Rex now immortal like Jack, and the Families still active and working on another scheme. If the plan had been for a second co-production series, this was not to be. Torchwood exists only as a Big Finish audio range these days, although Captain Jack has finally been brought back into Doctor Who with a cameo in Fugitive of the Judoon - and supposedly featuring again in Revolution of the Daleks.

Overall, a brave experiment that just didn't quite work out in the end. Miracle Day is too far removed from the previous three series - meaning that they might as well have come up with an entirely original production. If the series ever returns, hopefully it will be back to basics.
Things you might like to know:

• "Torchwood: New World" was the original overall title for the series before it became Miracle Day.
• Initially Rex was to have been played by a Caucasian actor, and Esther by a BAME one, but they decided to swap the ethnicity of the characters.
• Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones) and James Marsters (Captain John Hart) both expressed a wish to be included in this series.
• The brain parasites which had featured in Series 2's Fragments reappear in the episode set in the 1920's. These were the creatures responsible for the death of Owen Harper's wife. It is stated that they are part of the 'Trickster's Brigade' - referencing both The Sarah Jane Adventures and the Doctor Who story Turn Left. The parasite, called by Jack a Brainspawn, was to have been used to prevent the USA from remaining in World War II.
• Other continuities include the use of Retcon, and the appearance of the special contact lenses which allow messages to be sent to the wearer (first seen in Reset).
• A photograph of Jack which the CIA have is a publicity still from The Empty Child.
• A lack of continuity with Doctor Who exists with the whole notion of the Blessing running through the entire planet. We had previously seen that Torchwood had burrowed down to the centre of the planet in The Runaway Bride, and never encountered such a thing, and the Silurians have underground shelters all over the Earth,
• Jack uses Owen's name as an alias at one point, and later he uses the Doctor's usual alias of John Smith.
• The CIA code for the suppression of information about Torchwood is the '456 Regulation' - a reference to the alien species of Children of Earth.
• Gwen Cooper is said to have joined Torchwood in October 2006, which is when the first episode of Series 1 aired. However, all the first and second series stories are supposed to be set one year ahead of broadcast, thanks to the events of Aliens of London.
• Whilst masquerading as a chauffeur, Rhys takes the name Mr Sloane. This is a reference to Joe Orton's stage play Entertaining Mr Sloane, in which the title character is taken on by one of his sibling lovers as a chauffeur.
• There is a reference to something called the "Vivaldi Inheritance". This comes from RTD's 2004 series Mine All Mine, in which a man named Max Vivaldi (played by Griff Rhys-Jones) discovers that he is the rightful owner of the city of Swansea. Gareth David-Lloyd had appeared in this, as a character named Yanto Jones.
• There's a cameo from RTD as a radio announcer's voice in the penultimate episode.
• Australian fans were in for a disappointment when a caption at the end of The Blood Line announced that Jack would be back in January 2012. This turned out not to be the start of Series 5, but a reference to a themed month of Torchwood related programmes.

Torchwood: Children of Earth

In which children across the globe are momentarily paralysed - staring into the sky. They all speak in unison. Their message is revealed one word at a time - "We are coming back tomorrow". At the same time, Captain Jack Harkness is approached by Dr Rupesh Patanjali, who has seen a strange pattern of illness amongst the local South East Asian community. In London, a scientist named Dekker announces to the government that he has picked up a message from an alien race which last made contact in the 1950's. They are known only as the 456, as this was the frequency they broadcast on. A civil servant named Frobisher is ordered to eliminate everyone who was involved in the earlier incident with the aliens - and this includes Jack. Dr Patanjali is really working for a government agent named Johnson. He drugs Jack at the hospital, and Johnson has a bomb implanted in his stomach. She then kills the doctor. Jack is unaware of this until he returns to the Hub. He has his friends evacuate before the bomb goes off - completely destroying the Hub.

Gwen, Ianto and Rhys go on the run, and make for London. Johnson has Jack's remains collected up, knowing that he will regenerate. His body is encased in concrete. The team trace where he was taken and rescue him. One adult has been affected along with the children - a man named Clement McDonald, who resides in a mental hospital. Gwen goes to interview him. She learns that back in the 1950's a number of children from a care home were taken out into the countryside one night by Jack, where they were given to the 456. Clement managed to run away. Jack reveals that the aliens gave the British government the cure for a lethal flu strain, and the children were demanded in payment. It is to cover this up that the current government has employed Johnson. Frobisher is tasked with preparing an environment tank at Thames House, to accept one of the aliens. A junior civil servant named Lois Habiba is on Frobisher's team, and  she is approached by Torchwood to help them. She agrees to wear the special contact lenses which Martha Jones once wore to allow the team to spy on events inside the Pharm research centre. One of the 456 materialises inside the tank, and Frobisher goes inside to communicate with it. He discovers that the aliens have kept the original children alive so as to feed off their body chemicals. They have returned because they have become addicted to these chemicals, and now want more children - many more.

They want 10% of the world's children, otherwise they will destroy the planet. Across the globe, the children begin chanting a number equal to 10% of their country's child population. Jack and his team make their presence known to Frobisher and tell him that they will reveal what is going on to the general public if they are prevented from trying to stop the 456. Jack and Ianto go to Thames House to confront the alien. Its response is to flood the building with toxic gas. Dekker survives by donning a hazmat suit, but Ianto and everyone else is killed. The British government, led by Prime Minister Brian Green, comes under pressure from the United Nations once it is known that the UK knew about the 456 but kept it secret. Plans are made up to hand over all the children - with some in government wanting to target children from poorer areas. It will be announced that there will be a random selection for special inoculations. Frobisher is told that his daughters will be part of this selection, as it would look bad to the public if they weren't. He goes home and kills his children, before turning the gun on his wife and then himself.

When some parents refuse to hand their children over, Green calls in the military to remove them forcibly. Gwen and Rhys return to Cardiff to rescue Ianto's niece and other local children. Jack, meanwhile, works with Dekker and Johnson to find a way to defeat the 456. They realise that the frequency they use is a potential weakness. If a signal could be sent along it, it could stop the aliens. In order to do this, one child would have to act as a transmitter - and Dekker warns that this would be fatal. Jack elects to sacrifice his own grandson, Steven. The signal damages the 456 and causes them to retreat, but Steven is killed. Jack's daughter Alice refuses to have anything more to do with him. Lois has informed Frobisher's assistant Bridget Spears about the Torchwood contact lenses. She uses them to get evidence of Green planning to blame the crisis on the United States. Angered about her boss's death, she forces Green to resign otherwise she will release the evidence. Jack goes into hiding. Six months later he contacts Gwen and she and Rhys meet up with him. She is now pregnant. Jack tells them that he still cannot face up to what he has done in killing his grandson. Gwen gives him his Vortex manipulator, salvaged from the ruins of the Hub. Jack uses it to leave the Earth, unsure if he will ever return...

Children of Earth was written by Russell T Davies, John Fay and James Moran, and was first broadcast over five consecutive evenings on BBC 1 from Monday 6th July, 2009. Davies wrote the first and last sections, co-writing the middle episode with Moran. Fay covered the second and fourth installments.
The story comprises the whole of the third season of Torchwood. Each episode is subtitled as Day One, Day Two etc. Fans don't use these subtitles as the episode titles, as the series already had a story in its first season called Day One - the episode about the sex-gas alien.
The story arose from budget cuts at the BBC, when the government refused to allow a licence fee rise. Another 13 episode run was out of the question, so Davies decided to tell a single story over the shorter series length. At the time John Barrowman was angered by this reduction of episodes. The BBC had broadcast a highly successful police drama called Five Days, which covered a criminal investigation in real time over - you guessed it - five consecutive days. Davies decided to use this format. Torchwood had fared reasonably well on BBC 3 for its first series - earning it a promotion to BBC 2 for the second run. It would now feature in prime time on BBC 1, but many thought that it would not be popular due to a summer evening broadcast slot. They were to be proven wrong, as it got very good ratings and great reviews.
The most unpopular aspect of the production was the decision to kill off fan favourite Ianto Jones. The story allows some character background, as we learn about his relationship with his father and meet his sister and her family. The writers were bombarded with pleas and demands for his return, as well as a few death threats. A shrine to Ianto soon appeared on the Cardiff Bay boardwalk close to one of the Hub's secret entrances...

I used to pay my respects every time I went to Cardiff to visit the Doctor Who Experience.
The guest cast is headed by future Doctor and one-time Pompeian marble merchant Peter Capaldi, who plays Frobisher. Fans may have been expecting Emmerdale's Rik Makarem (Dr Patanjali) to have been Owen Harper's replacement on the Torchwood team, but he doesn't make it past the first episode. Someone else who looked like they were being set up for a regular role was Cush Jumbo, who played Lois Habiba.
Other guest artists include Ian Gelder as the creepy Dekker (who you expect to get bumped off but doesn't), Peter Copley who is excellent as Clement McDonald and Nicholas Farrell as dodgy PM Brian Green. Liz May Brice is Johnson (another one you expect to get their comeuppance and doesn't), whilst Bridget Spears is played by Susan Brown. Jack's daughter Alice is Lucy Cohu, and grandson Steven is Bear McCausland. In a small role as a government adviser is Nick (voice of the Daleks) Briggs. Tom Price also makes an appearance in the Cardiff set scenes, playing his regular role of PC Andy Davidson.

Two people who were supposed to have prominent roles in Children of Earth were Freema Agyeman and Noel Clarke. Their joining of the Torchwood team was set up at the end of Journey's End. Agyeman had been offered a starring role in Law & Order: UK. This was a guaranteed 13 episodes, against Torchwood's five, so she naturally went with the legal drama. Much of her role went to the new character of Lois. Martha's presence was retained as a short cameo, but this was also cut when she became totally unavailable.  Clarke was only supposed to be in the last two episodes, but he also had to pull out due to film work.
At the time, everyone pretty much believed that this was the end of Torchwood - but there would be one further series, so far at least, which again opted to tell a single story over its entire run.

Exit Wounds - Torchwood 2.13

In which Captain John Hart is back - and he has brought Jack's long lost brother Gray with him. Tosh detects numerous spikes of Rift activity around the city, so the team splits up to investigate. She and Ianto go to the central telephone exchange, and are confronted by a group of men dressed in black monk-like cowls. They shoot them dead. At the city's hospital, meanwhile, Owen encounters a savage alien creature which seems to eat anything and everything - which he identifies as a Hoix. He manages to sedate it. Gwen and Rhys go the police station where PC Andy informs them that they have come under attack by Weevils, which have killed all the senior officers. Gwen finds herself having to take charge of the situation, with Rhys being tasked with helping Andy. Jack has gone to the Hub, where he is attacked by Captain John, who shoots him dead in a hail of machine gun fire. When he comes back to life, Jack finds himself chained up and being subjected to electric shocks. John activates the Rift Manipulator, then contacts the team members and tells them to go up to the roofs of their respective buildings. He then transports Jack to the top of Cardiff Castle's tower.
They all witness a number of explosions going off all around the city, detonating at 15 key locations.

John then takes Jack back in time to the city as it was in the year 27 AD - open fields. Gray appears, but he is not John's captive. Jack tries to tell him how sorry he is for not saving him, but Gray holds his brother responsible for the years of torment he suffered. Now he is going to take his revenge. He reveals that John is enslaved to him through his vortex manipulator, which is grafted onto his arm. Jack is forced into a grave, which John must fill. John throws a pendant into the grave before he starts covering Jack with soil - telling Gray that it is simply a memento of their past relationship. Jack is doomed to an endless cycle of suffocation and resurrection. Once the grave is filled, Gray and John return to the 21st Century. The pendant is really a homing device, and in Edwardian times the Torchwood Three team of that era identify its signal and dig Jack up. He orders them to put him on ice in the morgue, to be reawakened on the day that Gray attacked the city.
As Gray unleashes hordes of Weevils on the city, Gwen manages to get to the Hub where she finds John is prepared to help her, Jack having deactivated Gray's control over him. He tells her of Jack's burial.

The Weevils prevent Tosh and Ianto getting to the nearby nuclear power station, as it is threatened with meltdown due to power failure. However, Owen can use his influence over the creatures to get there safely. When Ianto arrives at the Hub he and John are locked in a cell by Gray. Upstairs, Tosh contacts Owen and agrees to talk him through what he needs to do to restore power. Gray suddenly appears and shoots her. After taunting her, he hears a knocking sound and goes to investigate. Hiding her agony, Tosh tells a panicking Owen what he needs to do. He manages to restore the power and prevent the meltdown, but becomes trapped in the control room. Tosh informs him that it will flood with radiation which will destroy his body. As he rages against a final death, Tosh finally lets him know exactly how she feels about him. Owen is killed. Gray finds the knocking is coming from a morgue unit, and is shocked to see Jack emerge. Jack tells his brother that he forgives him, but Gray refuses to reciprocate. Jack then uses chloroform to knock him out, and releases Ianto and John. They all go up to the main area where they find the dying Tosh, who tells them of Owen's demise. They are unable to save her, and she also dies.
The next day, Gray is consigned to the morgue. Tidying away Tosh and Owen's things they activate a pre-recorded message from Tosh - one she had arranged to be triggered in the event of her death. She tells them that she hopes she did not die in vain, and that she loves Owen. Gwen is unsure if she can continue, but Jack insists that they can rebuild, but will never forget the colleagues they have just lost...

Exit Wounds was written by Chris Chibnall, and was first broadcast on 4th April, 2008. It closes the second series, and for a time was almost the last ever episode of the series as Russell T Davies intended to discontinue Torchwood. As it is, it will be the last episodic story for the series, as subsequent seasons will comprise single story arcs.
The episode sees the departure of regular characters Tosh and Owen, who are both killed off.
Davies was insistent that regular characters could never be killed on Doctor Who, as younger viewers invested so much faith in them, but the more adult format of Torchwood meant that here all bets were off.
Season 2 has had a slight story arc running through it, with Captain John appearing in the opening episode and referring to someone called Gray at the conclusion. The episode Adam then showed who this was, and what had happened to him. We also get to see a previous incarnation of Torchwood, as we had seen before in To The Last Man and in Fragments.
The main guest star is James Marsters, of Buffy and Angel fame, once again as Captain John. As the story deals very much with the fates of the regulars, the only other guest artist of substance is Lachlan Nieboer, who plays Gray. He has since appeared in the popular ITV drama Downton Abbey.
The doctor who tells Owen about the Hoix, Dr Connolly, is played by Golda Roshuevel, who had previously appeared as the same character in Dead Man Walking.

Overall, it is an excellent episode, with plenty of incident and a truly heart rending conclusion. Series 2 stands up much better than the first.
Things you might like to know:

• The Hoix had, of course, appeared once before - in the 2006 Doctor Who story Love & Monsters. It is named on screen for the first time here.
• Naoko Mori's previous appearance as Dr Sato in the Doctor Who episode Aliens of London is given an explanation here. Owen was supposed to have gone to London to investigate the "Space Pig", but he had a hangover and so Tosh took his place.
• Last time, when looking at Fragments, we were able to give an accurate count of the number of deaths Jack had experienced. Here, he is buried alive in 27 AD, and not dug up again until 1901, so the figure now is uncountable.
• Captain John dances along to the pop song I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper - claiming that it is his and Jack's song. This was released in 1978 on the back of Star Wars mania, performed by Sarah Brightman and her dance troupe Hot Gossip. It references Darth Vader, Flash Gordon and Starfleet Command and the Federation from Star Trek, as well as using musical cues from Close Encounters and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• We previously mentioned how there were two Jacks in Cardiff at the same time back in 1941 - the one who was resident there, and the one who traveled back from the 21st Century. A third might have been only a couple of hundred miles away in London, about to meet the Doctor and Rose for the first time. We now learn that there was a third in Cardiff 1941 the whole time - the one dug up in 1901 and frozen in the morgue.
• The question has to be asked - did Jack know about his future body being in the morgue at all? He has lived and worked in the Hub for over a century, and knows every inch of it. Did he never come across his body in all that time and ask how it came to be there?
• The next season will see the complete destruction of the Hub, so presumably the frozen Gray is killed in the explosion.

Fragments - Torchwood 2.12

In which the Torchwood team are called to a warehouse outside Cardiff following reports of strange activity. Gwen is not with them, having slept in. As they explore, they find the building to be deserted - and then come upon a number of compact explosive devices. They detonate, and the team find themselves buried under rubble. Each of them experiences a flashback to the day they came to join Torchwood...

For Jack, things began at the end of the 19th Century. He encountered a young girl who read Tarot Cards, and she told him that the century would change twice before he met the Doctor again. Later, he was chasing an alien Blowfish when he was stabbed with a broken bottle. Dying and then coming back to life, he was confronted by two women - Alice and Emily. They shot the Blowfish dead then captured Jack, taking him back to the Hub where they tortured him for information concerning the Doctor. When it became clear that he did not know where he was, they then offered him a job. Over the next few decades he was employed by Torchwood Three as little more than an assassin, as the organisation existed simply to neutralise alien threats - not to comprehend them or befriend the benevolent visitors. On New Year's Eve, 1999, Jack entered the Hub where he found his colleagues dead. They had been killed by his boss, Alex. He had used an alien device which allowed him to see the future, and he claimed that everything would change with the 21st Century, and Torchwood were not ready to face the approaching threats. He then killed himself after handing the organisation over to Jack. He determined that Torchwood would change for the better under his leadership.

For Tosh, things changed 5 years ago. She had been working for the Ministry of Defence and one night she stole the blueprints for a sonic manipulator device. She constructed one at her home. This was because her mother had been abducted by a terrorist group led by a woman named Milton, who were forcing her to provide them with the device. When Tosh went to hand it over and free her mother, the building was raided by UNIT soldiers. Tosh found herself incarcerated in a UNIT prison facility, with no hope of release. Jack visited her there and offered her a choice - stay forever in jail, or come work with him at Torchwood. He had been impressed by her building of the sonic device, as the blueprints had contained a flaw which she had spotted and corrected.

Ianto came to Cardiff after the Battle of Canary Wharf, as he had worked at Torchwood One. He wanted a new job and tried to get Jack to offer him one. He bribed him with coffee, and praised his dress sense, but Jack held firm - even after Ianto had helped him fend off a Weevil. When Jack went to a warehouse to capture a pterodactyl which had come through the Rift, he found Ianto there - having tracked the creature with his own rift detector. Ianto distracted it with chocolate whilst Jack caught the beast. Jack then relented and offered him a job. Ianto's persistence would later be revealed to have been because he wanted the resources to save his girlfriend Lisa, who had been partially transformed into a Cyberman.

Owen is at risk of decapitation as a sheet of glass is balanced precariously over his throat. He recalls how he was about to get married when his fiancee, Katie, began to suffer memory problems. Fearing some sort of brain tumour, he had his hospital colleague investigate. On the day of her operation Owen was waiting outside the operating theatre when he heard a commotion from within. Entering, he found the entire medical team dead, poisoned by gas emitted from a tentacled parasitical alien which had lodged itself in Katie's brain. Jack appeared and told him what the creature was, and how Katie could not be saved. Jack then knocked Owen out, and when he awoke it was to discover that Torchwood had covered up the whole incident. Some time later, Owen was visiting Katie's grave when he was approached by Jack. He returned the punch. Jack then told him that he worked for an organisation which tackled alien threats such as the one which had killed Katie. Owen could bring his medical skills to the team, and help stop the same thing happening to others.
Gwen and Rhys arrive at the warehouse and manage to free everyone. Outside, the find that the SUV has been stolen. They discover who is behind the bomb trap when Jack receives a holographic message from Captain John Hart on his Vortex Manipulator. John has someone with him - Jack's long lost brother Gray...

Fragments was written by Chris Chibnall, and was first broadcast on 21st March, 2008.
It forms the first section of the second series finale, though only the closing minutes make this explicit. As such it isn't really the first half of a two parter. What it does do is provide an origins story for most of the Torchwood team, in portmanteau fashion. We had already seen how Gwen came to join Torchwood at the start of the first season - so she isn't needed here. Eve Myles has been busy making the previous episode Adrift anyway. We knew some of Jack's backstory, as he had spoken of it to the Doctor and Martha Jones in Utopia. This episode shows the precise moment he comes into contact with Torchwood, and how they came to recruit him, and shows the kind of work he did with them. We also knew some of Ianto's story as well, as it had featured in the episode Cyberwoman. His flashback adds the origins for Myfanwy, the team's pet pterodactyl. The new stories are those for Tosh and Owen. There was some criticism from fans at the time of the way that UNIT was portrayed, being far removed from the organisation as it had existed when a certain Brigadier had been in charge. Owen's tale goes some way to explaining some of his attitudes to sexual relationships. His character seems to have changed the most due to his involvement with Torchwood, though not for the better.

There has only been a very tenuous arc running through this second season - Jack's brother Gray having been mentioned in the first episode, and the circumstances of his abduction shown in the episode Adam. The Blowfish alien is seen again from that first episode, and Captain John returns - and now he has Gray with him, seemingly his prisoner. We also see the return of the Tarot-playing girl, who seems to have lived for a very long time, but there is still no clue as to her origins.
As the episode deals very much with Jack interacting with the other regulars, there is only a small guest cast. The two Torchwood ladies, Alice and Emily, are played by Amy Manson and Heather Craney respectively. Noriko Aida returns as Tosh's mother - having previously been seen in End of Days. Alex is Julian Lewis Jones, and Katie is Andrea Lowe, whilst Milton is Clare Clifford. Jones was seen recently as the King of Atlantis in the Justice League movie. Clifford had previously played the paleontologist Professor Kyle in Earthshock.
We get the first glimpse of Lachlan Nieboer as Gray, though he and James Marsters went uncredited on this episode.

Overall, an interesting episode, comprising four short stories which range in mood from the bleakness of Tosh's to the humour of Ianto's. The conclusion nicely sets us up for the series finale, which promises the welcome return of Captain John.
Things you might like to know:

• Ianto tells Jack that he is familiar with Weevils - suggesting that they might not be confined to Cardiff and its Rift.
• Though it is never stated, the sonic modulator is clearly the MOD's attempt to replicate the Doctor's sonic screwdriver.
• This is the first time that the Doctor is mentioned by name, as it were, in the series. The version of Torchwood which employs Alice and Emily is the one envisaged by Queen Victoria in Tooth and Claw.
• In the Ianto section, Jack is heard to talk to Suzie Costello. She remains the only member of Torchwood Three who never got an origins story.
• We're told that Jack dies 1392 times between his encounter with the Blowfish in 1899 and the explosion in the warehouse.

Adrift - Torchwood 2.11

In which Gwen Cooper is approached by her old colleague, PC Andy Davidson, to help him look into the case of a missing person - a boy named Jonah Bevan. Gwen discovers that there have been many disappearances, which she suspects were due to the Space / Time Rift running through Cardiff. On checking CCTV of Jonah's last known movements, her fears are conformed as she witnesses him vanish in a flash of light. Tosh confirms that the disappearance occurred just as the Rift demonstrated a negative reaction - something the team had always put down to the equivalent of an aftershock following an earthquake. The team are used to dealing with things coming through the Rift into the city, but Gwen becomes worried about it taking people away. She approaches Jack for help in investigating further, but he seems reluctant to do so, and advises her not to waste time following this up. Andy then introduces Gwen to Jonah's mother, Nikki, who runs a support group for relatives of missing people, and she sees the scale and emotional impact of the problem.

Gwen becomes obsessed by her investigation, frustrated by Jack's insistence that she forget about it. Her work starts to put a strain on her relationship with Rhys, and things are not helped when Andy confesses that he has always been in love with her, and is jealous of her husband. This is why he did not attend her wedding. Gwen goes to the Hub late one night, and walks in on Jack and Ianto making love. Jack again refuses to help her, but Ianto gives her some GPS co-ordinates - which lead her to Flat Holm Island, which lies off Cardiff Bay. Gwen goes there and discovers a secret Torchwood installation built beneath the island. Here a number of people who have been returned from the Rift are looked after by nursing staff. All have been physically and mentally scarred by the experience. Amongst them is Jonah, though he is now some 40 years older. He was badly burned when deposited on an alien world, witnessing an entire solar system burn.

Gwen decides to take Nikki to visit her son. At first she refuses to believe that this older man is Jonah, but he tells her things only her son would know. As she is about to accept him, he emits a terrible scream, and the staff reveal that he does this for 20 hours every single day - his experiences having snapped his mind. Jack appears on the island and tells Gwen that he set up this sanctuary once he took over Torchwood Three - to care for people who wash up out of the Rift after being taken by it. His view is that the relatives are better off not knowing the truth, which is why he tried to deflect Gwen away from looking into things too deeply. Later, Nikki confirms that this is how she feels. She urges Gwen never to show anyone else the island - and tells her that she wishes she had never been shown what happened to her son. At least now she has some closure, and can pack away Jonah's things from his room, knowing he will never return home. Gwen returns to her flat and is comforted by Rhys as she tells him of her investigation.

Adrift was written by Chris Chibnall, and was first broadcast on 19th March, 2008. It is very much a Gwen-heavy storyline, with a more prominent role for Tom Price's PC Andy.
Unless you count the Rift itself, there is no villain to be defeated, or alien threat to be neutralised. It is simply the story of the human consequences of the world in which Torchwood operates.
A certain section of fandom particularly rates this episode, as it features a Jack-Ianto love scene. They've kissed before, and there has been a lot of sexual badinage between them, but here we have them caught in a shirtless embrace. You wouldn't believe the number of gifs I came across researching this piece, and the sites they led me to.
For such an intimate story, and I'm not still on about Jack and Ianto, there is a small cast, with just the two main guest artists. Playing Nikki is Ruth Jones, who came to fame through her co-writing of (with James Corden), and co-starring in, the popular BBC 3 comedy series Gavin and Stacey.
The older Jonah is played by Robert Pugh, who later featured as Tony Mack in The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood, and had a memorable role in Game of Thrones as the monstrous Craster (who coincidentally met his well-deserved fate at the hands of Burn Gorman's Night's Watch rebels). There are very few UK TV dramas which Pugh has not appeared in over recent years.

Overall, a rather disturbing story, which is quite heartbreaking to watch.
Things you might like to know:

• Flat Holm is a real island in the Bristol Channel off Cardiff Bay. In the past it was actually used as an isolation hospital - for people suffering from cholera.
• It was originally intended that Jonah's scream would be added later, with Pugh miming, but the actor wanted to give it a go himself. His scream then had some additional sound effects layered on top.
• Russell T Davies had been thinking of stopping the series after season two, but this episode convinced him that they should continue, but with more emotional storylines and family dynamics for the characters. This fed into what would become the third season - the single storyline of Children of Earth.
• This episode was triple-banked with two other stories - From Out Of The Rain and Fragments - which is why some of the regulars have so little to do.
• Last, but not least, an entirely gratuitous picture of Ianto, with his shirt open. The handsome devil...
  

From Out Of The Rain - Torchwood 2.10

In which a suburban art deco cinema is about to be reopened as a local history museum, which will screen vintage footage of Cardiff life. A young man named Jonathan is preparing the film to be shown. His parents are behind the cinema restoration project. He discovers extraneous footage on the film which he had not seen before - of a group of itinerant circus performers. Jonathan finds he cannot turn off the film projector, which repeats the shots of the performers. When he rushes off to deliver film to the cinema in time for its grand opening, two figures step out of the projection screen - the Master of Ceremonies and a young woman who performs a "living mermaid" act. Her name is Pearl, and her companion is known only as the Ghostmaker.

Gwen, Owen and Ianto attend the opening, and are surprised to see Jack on screen, performing in a similar travelling show. The promised views of Cardiff street life are replaced by the footage of the circus acts. Back at the Hub, Jack confesses that he did once take part in a travelling circus show, as "the man who could not die". He had been investigating another troupe known as the Night Travellers, who appeared as if from nowhere - "from out of the rain", and just as mysteriously vanished at the end of the evening. In their wake they would leave a number of missing persons.
The Ghostmaker and Pearl wander the streets and attack a number of people. Their victims have their life-force extracted, leaving them in a vegetative state without tears or saliva. The "souls" are deposited in a small silver flask, held by the Ghostmaker. Torchwood are called in to investigate these strange assaults. Jack makes the connection to the Night Travellers. Mention of the name prompts a nurse to tell them of the time she was looking after an old woman in a nursing home who spoke of them. They go to see her and she explains that she visited the Night Travellers' show as a child, and that night her family vanished as the troupe disappeared.. No-one has ever believed her.

The team returns to the cinema, but the Ghostmaker and Pearl have already been there - attacking Jonathan's parents. They also discover that more figures are missing from the footage - a couple of acrobatic clowns and a strong man. They have stepped out of the film, and the Ghostmaker intends that they should begin touring again as they did many years ago. Jonathan tells them of how he had seen Pearl at his flat, submerged in his bath tub.
jack realises that as the figures were kept alive in film, they could be imprisoned in the same way. He borrows an old Super 8 movie camera from Jonathan and they return to the cinema where the Night Travellers have assembled. Jack begins filming them, trapping them once again on celluloid. The Ghostmaker escapes outside and throws away the silver flask, its top open. Ianto manages to catch it, but all but one of the "souls" has been lost. Jack then opens the camera and exposes the film - destroying the Night Travellers. The soul is returned to its host -  a small boy who had been attacked with the rest of his family. Back at the Hub, Jack worries that there may be more footage of the troupe still out there.
A short time later, a father and son are exploring a car boot sale and come upon an old can of film. The man drops it and it opens, and across the city Jack hears a momentary snatch of fairground music...

From Out Of The Rain was written by P J Hammond, and was first broadcast on 12th March, 2008. Hammond had written the episode Small Worlds for the first series, which had been regarded as one of the best of that season. As we mentioned when we looked at that story, he was best remembered for his work on Sapphire & Steel, and this episode certainly has a flavour of that series. One of the best remembered stories from Sapphire & Steel had been the one where people's faces were removed from old photographs. In this story, we have characters who live on within celluloid images but are able to step out of the screen and take on corporeal form. When it comes to circuses, clowns have a reputation for seeming somewhat creepy, and indeed there are a couple of clown characters here, but Hammond chooses to focus on the MC, or Ring Master, of the troupe - the devilish Ghostmaker - and Pearl. Her act is to stay under water for long periods of time, and she demonstrates a sinister affinity with water - as see when she and the Ghostmaker make a temporary home in an abandoned lido. Their attacks are always conducted in the middle of torrential downpours, as thought hey can influence the weather.

The episode is much more of an ensemble piece this week, with no one character really getting the lion's share of the action. Jack does have some history with the Night Travellers, and it is Ianto who drags his colleagues along to the opening of the cinema, as he recalls it from his youth.
Quite who or what the Night Travellers are is never fully explained. There is no suggestion that they are alien in nature. Rather they seem to be supernatural characters, like ghosts. Why they steal souls, and what they intend doing with them, is left hanging as well.
The Ghostmaker is played to perfection by Julian Bleach, who would shortly be bringing Davros back to Doctor Who. He had created the award winning stage show Shockheaded Peter back in 1998, based on the 1845 German children's book Struwwelpeter, by Heinrich Hoffmann. It featured a host of grotesque characters - not least Bleach's ghostly top-hatted character.
Pearl is Camilla Power. She had been a regular in the drama series The Grand, some episodes of which had been written by Russell T Davies, and had then taken on a recurring role on Waterloo Road. Jonathan is played by Craig Gallivan - a series regular in Ruth Jones' Stella, though he also writes and directs.

Overall, probably the strongest story of the second series, and one of the best overall. There weren't enough stories with supernatural trappings. I would have loved to see Hammond get an invite to write a Doctor Who story.
Things you might like to know:

• Hammond is pretty much retired these days, being into his 80's. His last listed credits were a number of episodes of the popular ITV crime drama Midsomer Murders - generally ones which had some spooky influences (one story - Things That Go Bump In The Night - revolves around an apparent haunting).
• He did almost become a Doctor Who writer, back in the mid-1980's. He submitted a story called "Paradise Five", which Script Editor Eric Saward really liked - only for it to be rejected by John Nathan Turner. It was later turned into a Big Finish audio.
• Despite getting married in the previous episode, Eve Myles is still billed as Gwen Cooper in the closing credits. Later, in Miracle Day, she confirms that she retained her maiden name.
• Also in the end credits is a listing for Gerard Carey as Greg. He had appeared in Meat earlier in the season, but does not feature in the episode here - suggesting a possible deleted sequence.
• Jonathan's flat is Sarah Jane Smith's attic, redressed.

Something Borrowed - Torchwood 2.9

In which Gwen Cooper goes hunting for an alien creature through the streets of Cardiff. It is the night of her Hen Party, but she is going to be late. She corners the alien - which appears to be a human male - but his blood is black, leading her colleagues to surmise it may be a shape-shifter. Gwen is bitten on the wrist but Jack then appears and shoots the man dead. Jack recommends that she have her wound checked by Owen, but Gwen hurries off to meet her friends.
On waking up the following morning - the day of her wedding to Rhys - she discovers that she appears to be heavily pregnant...
Gwen contacts Jack and Owen, who inform her that some alien creatures reproduce by transmitting their eggs to a host for incubation. In this case she was impregnated through the bite. Jack recommends she postpone the wedding, but Gwen refuses. She will deal with the foetus after the ceremony. She notifies Rhys, and he is furious that Jack and her job have spoiled their big day. As neither of them has seen their parents for a while, they will inform them that they were planning to keep the pregnancy a surprise - though this will mean having to break the news later that their "grandchild" was lost. Jack sends Ianto off to buy a new wedding dress that will fit Gwen.

At the Hub, Owen carries out an autopsy on the dead man, and discovers that he was a Nostrovite. These savage creatures can take on the appearance of anyone they have seen. The male of this species plants an egg in a host body, and the female then births it by tearing the child from the host. She will do anything to get her child, and they realise that the mother will be hunting for Gwen. Tosh arrives at the wedding venue - a country house hotel. She meets Rhys' best man - Banana Boat. The Nostrovite mother - posing as a young woman named Carrie - kills and partially devours the DJ and captures Tosh and Banana Boat, tying them up in one of the bedrooms.
Rhys and Gwen are about to be married when Jack rushes in and stops the ceremony. He and Ianto rescue Tosh and Banana Boat. Ianto is forced to cut off the phones when a bridesmaid sees the DJ's corpse and alerts the other guests. The hunt is then on to identify the shape-shifting alien and protect Gwen.

The creature takes on the form of Jack and also of Rhys' mother Brenda. Bullets have no effect on it. Owen arrives with the laser scalpel he had previously used to destroy the Mayfly larva within Martha Jones. The Nostrovite may call off its attack if the foetus is destroyed. However, Owen had earlier broken his hand, and he no longer heals, so he tells Rhys that he will have to operate it. The alien corners Gwen and Rhys in an outbuilding, disguised as Brenda, and is about to attack when Jack appears with a powerful laser weapon. He destroys her. Rhys then uses the scalpel to remove the foetus.
The wedding then goes ahead, but Ianto has doped all the drinks with Retcon, so no-one but Gwen and Rhys will remember the events of the day. Later, back at the Hub, Jack digs out an old photograph. It is of him and his bride on their wedding day...

Something Borrowed was written by Phil Ford, and was first broadcast on 5th March, 2008. Ford had previously written two episodes for the first season of The Sarah Jane Adventures - Eye of the Gorgon and The Lost Boy - and he would be made script editor for the show's second series. Executive Producer Russell T Davies had wanted this episode to be lighter in tone, and also to have some soap opera elements as well. As Ford had written for Coronation Street, he was felt to be the right person for the commission.
Following the trio of episodes revolving around Owen's death and resurrection, it was time to have a little fun. Though it deals with a vicious monster, who tears its victims apart, there is a lot of humour to be found in this episode - from Ianto's shopping for a wedding dress (being assumed by the shop assistant to be buying it for himself), to Rhys' exasperated reactions to events, as well as those of the respective in-laws. It is a very good episode for Kai Owen.
I have previously commented on the fact that, due to changes in format towards season-long storylines, many of the mysteries set up around Jack were left hanging. We get another one here, as we see that he was once married (in the early 20th Century, judging by the costumes).

We are introduced to Gwen's parents - Geraint and Mary. Geraint is played by William Thomas, who had previously appeared twice in Doctor Who - as the assistant funeral director in Remembrance of the Daleks, and then as the hapless surveyor in the pre-credit sequence for Boom Town. He was the first actor to bridge the gap between the "classic" and "new" eras of the series. Mary is Sharon Morgan. Both will return in future seasons. Rhys' mother, Brenda, is another returnee from the classic era of Doctor Who. Nerys Hughes had previously played the scientist Todd in Kinda. Rhys' dad, Barry, is played by Robin Griffith. This is their only appearance in the series.
The Nostrovite mother - Carrie - is played by Collette Brown, whilst Best Man Banana Boat is Jonathan Lewis Owen.

Overall, fast paced and fun. Shame there weren't more episodes like this one.
Things you might like to know:

• Gwen foreshadows future events when she tells Rhys that nothing will stop them getting married - not if Weevils crawl out of the sewers (which will happen in Exit Wounds), or the sky is full of spaceships (as occurs in The Stolen Earth), though spaceships had previously appeared in the skies above the Taj Mahal, in End of Days, and Weevils had massed in the streets in Dead Man Walking.
• The Sam Raimi film The Evil Dead is referenced when Rhys picks up a chainsaw to attack the Nostrovite when it poses as his mother.
• The draft title for the story was simply "The Wedding". "Something Borrowed" comes from the old tradition of the bride wearing something borrowed, and something blue; something old, and something new for luck. This saying will be revisited by Steven Moffat for his first series finale - where the TARDIS is old, borrowed and blue.
• Gwen is seen eating a jar of pickled gherkins on the morning of her wedding - alluding to the odd food cravings some people experience during pregnancy. This was added by Eve Myles herself. The script simply had her drinking a glass of water.
• The first draft had Gwen and Rhys also being given Retcon, but this was changed to her declining the drug, to show that Gwen did not want there to be any secrets between her and her new husband.