Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

Suicide is Painless

I'm torn when it comes to this episode. In fact, if this review was an episode of Torchwood then Natalie Imbruglia would currently be yelling her head off. Real subtle, like.

I received a flurry of text messages from a couple of Torchwood skeptics a few seconds after Out of Time aired, all of them proclaiming that it was a damn fine episode. Superb, even. Unfortunately, I was watching the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica at the time, which - just for a change - managed to redefine just how good science fiction really can be. However, as I poured myself my obligatory Bomb Saph I had a really good feeling about Torchwood for the first time in a very long time...

It begins in spectacularly unoriginal fashion. Fish-out-of-water time travelers getting used to the complexities of modern day living just made me think about Forever Young (and let's face it, that's never a good thing) although the decision to serve up this particular cliche in a Christmas-themed ASDA was strangely compelling - mainly because I'd been stuck in one only two hours previously. But what this episode does really well is subvert expectations. For example, Owen takes Diane out to fly a Cesna but he's so unbelievably crap they are fully booked-up for Christmas, John's visit to his senile son could so easily have turned to treacle but doesn't, and just when you think the episode will revolve around Torchwood trying to find a way back for the misplaced visitors, they turn into social workers instead.

And then Jack commits euthanasia. Now this really disturbed me. Just like he did in Small Worlds, Jack defies heroic expectations and he let's a guest protagonist cop it far too easily for comfort. Gritty? Maybe. Uncompromising? Certainly. Distressing? Shit, yeah.

Part of me applauds the fact that the show didn't take the easy way out - and it's certainly a stunning use of Jack's special "power" - but another part of me now despises Jack for allowing this to happen. I'll say it again, Jack's ability to die over and over again is making him less and less human. I just hope this is actually going somewhere and he's turning into some kind of anti-Doctor (can you imagine the Doc sanctioning that action?). What next? Owen comes into work feeling a little bit low after his f-buddy f's off and Jack throws him his service revolver so he can put himself out of his misery. Actually, that's not such a bad idea...

Ah yes, we're supposed to feel sorry for Owen this week, aren't we?  I'm not saying that you can't make complete and utter bastards likable over time (see GBH for a textbook example on how to achieve this) but the so-called pathos revolves around the fact that he gets used by a woman. Oh, how my heart bleeds! I also can't shake this horrible feeling that this season's story-arc is all about how engorged Owen's penis is at any given moment.

Still, it's a nice twist that Diane's departure isn't brought on by the reappearance of the rift or some other sci-fi anomaly - she's just bored stupid with the whole affair. And who can blame her? This is pretty much how I felt as the end credits rolled.

Next week: Weevils wobble but they don't fall down...

Bach To The Future

Torchwood: Out Of Time

Spaz. The final pig's ear. This is the voyeur jizz of the Chocolate Starship Torchwood. Its mission for as long as we can stand it: to explore strange new Wales. To seek out new life and roger the arse off it. To oldly go where a dozen Star Trek episodes have gone before...

OK, so originality was never going to be Out Of Time's strong suit, but equally that was hardly the point. It was Torchwood's second attempt at a more human story in as many weeks, but unlike the wonderful Random Shoes, this episode felt.... eh. It was alright. Horizontal hand-wobble ambivalence. Again, whether you liked it or not has little to do with any notion of 'quality', and there was certainly nothing look-at-me, in-your-face bad about it. But it just fell a bit flat with me somehow. And it took me a while to realise exactly why.

For one thing, they couldn't WAIT to get the science-fiction out of the way and onto the human drama. That had to be the shortest pre-credits teaser on record. Basic questions were left hanging that any viewer could theorise an answer to in a second, but the script didn't think were important. Such as; if the plane had been in the air for only half an hour's 'real' time, how did Torchwood know when and where to meet it, and have time to actually do so? And why did the three travellers show such surprise at basic things like a supermarket sliding door, but not at all the wonders in the Torchwood base, with sliding doors of its own?

But that's not it. That's just being anal.

There's the now-customary bout of focus-clash between this episode and every other; where what comes across as perfectly fine in an individual story wobbles alarmingly when it comes into contact with the established mythos of the rest of the show, each making the other look ridiculous through no fault of the episode's own. "There's no enemy to fight this time." Alright, so Jack is speaking figuratively, but what do you mean by 'this time'? Not counting home-grown enemies and terrestrial threats outside your regular brief, there have been three, and one of those was a brown-trouser special you ran like girls from. What did I say last time about the 'staggering conceit of world-shattering danger in the back streets of Cardiff every week'?

It's not that either though since that raises missing the point like a total dick to a veritable artform. There have been a few criticisms of the episode feeling pointless and unresolved, but it's perfectly fine to leave a mystery unsolved and hanging if you don't wrong-foot the audience into expecting a definitive answer beforehand. Small Worlds, take note.

"Thing 1 and Thing 2 - God, I'm having to look up their names to remember them now"

No, I think what ultimately distanced me from the episode - and I've already been called an arsehole for this - is that Torchwood spent the entire 50 minutes emphasizing everything that was radically different between 1953 and 2006, and virtually nothing that would have been comfortably familiar and safe, merely evolved a bit - which, if they'd been doing their jobs properly, Jack and crew should have done in order to help the three lost souls settle in. I mean, what were they thinking by having Ianto guide them round the supermarket; the one character utterly incapable of sharing in the girls' sense of wonder at all the modern marvels on display? Tosh should have had that job; they criminally went and sidelined her yet again. These three poor sods might as well have dropped from the moon; beyond the obvious plea for sympathy, they took away any real hook upon which to hang my identification with them, which by the end only John particularly warranted anyway; Thing 1 and Thing 2 - God, I'm having to look up their names to remember them now - having made themselves ready in their own way to move on with Gwen and Owen selfishly, annoyingly, trying to hold them back.

Jack came off best again this week, as indeed he regularly does when he's granted any particular story focus. Again, it was up to him to convey to us exactly what the episode was really about; learning to let go, that kindred spirits or not, others have to be free to make their own decisions, rightly or wrongly. At least Jack tried to bond with his lost charge with a degree of undomineering honestly; to hell with morals, sitting in the car and keeping John company as he killed himself was about the only realistic outcome there was.

Unfortunately, that was as far as the letting-go message got, neutered as it was by the selfish, hypocritical antics of Gwen and Owen, neither of whom learned ANYTHING. Does Gwen have a heart or not? It's a toss-up any given week. I may feel differently about her again once she goes through her crisis of conscience in Combat*, but at least she's capable of having one. "Fuckbuddies". Goddamit, there's no point in expecting any more character development from Owen's ugly mug when time and again he gives a big 'up yours' to the most basic common courtesies of human relationships. Not only does he not learn, he doesn't even want to - this is his character and we're royally stuck with it. Why bother giving him this much screen time at all then if he's only going to make wanker-gestures at us with it? If we were supposed to feel any kind of poignancy when Owen was given the Dear John treatment from Ace Rimmer, it failed miserably - all I was thinking was, "Good, the fucker's finally getting a taste of his own medicine." And what was that strange spastic twitching motion Owen was doing close to the end? Was that supposed to be sex? It was more like an audition for the Ministry Of Silly Humps. He's also very very BAD at giving sad puppy-dog eyes too.

"What was that strange spastic twitching motion Owen was doing close to the end? Was that supposed to be sex? It was more like an audition for the Ministry Of Silly Humps"

The soulful memory-montage at the end didn't work for me at all. It's too big a jump to accept that Owen and Gwen would have their own lives forcibly re-evaluated by left-of-field characters they've known for how long? - a week, if that? - when they demonstrated, as they have many other times, that accepting responsibilty for their own lives, much less anyone else's, is the one thing most of the Torchwood team cannot do. You had three literal strangers in desperate need of some familiarity, comfort and empathy, and they got taken in by sci-fi's equivalent of a litter of stray puppies. OF COURSE it was going to end in tears.

You know, now I think of it, the safest and (dare I say) most humane way of handling the situation would have been to apply a spot of illicit Retcon, some implanted fake 'memories' of new identities and lives, and then letting them go to get on with it. With all the fantastic alien gubbins that falls through the Rift, should that have been so hard? We get arrogantly told every week about how powerful and mysterious and answerable to no-one the organization is, and yet they can't even pull a few strings to get someone a new driver's or pilot's license. Sigh.

Next week, Noel Clarke uses the Weevils to commit the perfect murder. I'd love to see Columbo pick holes in that alibi.

The Humper Book Of Sexually Torchwooded Diseases has this to say about Out Of Time: automatic sliding doors were already in use in 1953. The first Piggly Wiggly self-service grocery stores were patented in the United States in 1917, with modern supermarkets as we know them coming in existence after the Second World War. It's therefore quite possible that Diana would have known about supermarkets and sliding doors already from cinema newsreels if she was that keen on going to the pictures. No joke this week, I just felt like being a PEDANTIC FUCK.

*Like fuck I did.

In The Mood

Torchwood: Out of Time

Another week, another great episode of Torchwood. No, scratch that, make that a fantastic episode of Torchwood.

If there is one word to describe the episode it is emotional. There may not have been a great deal happening in the episode as far as plot goes, but that really didn't matter as we got an episode packed with emotions and the nice, simple story of three people trying to find their way in what was, to them, an alien world. It has to be said that my girlfriend really enjoyed this episode and said that it was her favourite episode of the series so far, by a country mile. And, after reading some of the live journal communities, of which I am a member, this episode seems to have been very popular with the female viewer, more than the male viewer. I am not sure if that does have anything to do with the fact that there is no aliens or anything like in the episode or not.

If you don't like dialogue-heavy, emotional scenes then you probably wouldn't have enjoyed this episode, but I thought it was perfectly pitched, and there were some great characterisation in this episode.

We learned quite a bit about Captain Jack in this episode about how he too is a man out of his time and how he obviously isn't all that happy about the situation. If any of the main characters could identify with the three people who were stranded in our time then it is certainly Jack. We also saw Owen, for the first time, affected by his lifestyle of leaping into bed with lots of different women, all though quite how he does it is anyone's guess as he is hardly a good looking bloke is he? I think he is just a jammy bastard really.

The episode belonged really to the three guest stars: Mark Lewis Jones, Louise Delamere and Olivia Hallinan and all three of them gave excellent performances. Lewis Jones' John Ellis's part of the episode could probably have been one of the most emotional character arcs I have witnessed on television for a long time and if you didn't get a lump in your throat when he broke down at the sight of his only son vegetating in a care home, unaware of anything or anyone around him then I don't know. Perhaps it hit home to me a bit more because I recently lost my Nan and even though she was not in the kind of state that John Ellis's son was in, I know how I would have felt if that had been me.

Olivia Hallinan gave a believable performance of a young girl from the 1950's and it is her who was probably the only one of the three 'temporal immigrants' who would be able to lead a full life in a time fifty years from what she knows. The scene's where Gwen was telling her about sex was extremely funny and was the kind of talk you could imagine an older sister giving to a younger sibling (not that I would know but is sounds like it would be) and her shock at finding out that Gwen and Rhys are living together despite the fact that they are not married was quite typical of what a well bought up 1950's girl would think like, as was when she was getting off with a bloke in a club and just assumed that all he wanted was a kiss and a cuddle. Yeah, right, and the rest.

Louise Delamere's Diana Holmes, was another strong female character much like Delamere's character in The Chatterly Affair, and both of them were women who were very sexually liberated for their times. I think she must have the monopoly on that type of role, and you have to admit, she does it so well. There was certainly more than a hint of Amelia Earhart and Amy Johnson in her character, which I am pretty sure, was deliberate. I loved the way that she wrapped Owen around her little finger, and really got to him, actually admitting that their little affair was more than just casual sex, which is what most of Owen's sexual encounters up to that point had been, even with Gwen I would say. Perhaps that is not how Gwen would view it, but from Owen's point of view I would say that it definitely was just casual. We will have to wait and see on that point because it seems that Gwen spills the beans to Rhys in next week's episode.

My girlfriend also thought that Diana knew more than she was letting on about the rift and thought that perhaps she had come through the rift before. After all she did get back into her plane at the end and did fly back the way she had come, so maybe she was trying to make her way back to her own time or maybe she just wanted to start again somewhere else. Whatever she was planning on doing she was certainly a very confident woman who would probably be able to cope with anything she came up against.

Certainly it was the John Ellis character that bought out the emotion in the episode with the whole finding his son thing and then him trying to kill himself at the end of the episode. I knew that that scene would not have been that popular with some of the viewers and the whole idea of letting someone end their own life is not considered to be a popular one, and I am sure that if I was ever in that situation I would probably have a different opinion to how I did during the episode. In this case John wanted to end it, had nobody else to miss him, would have done it anyway even if Jack had tried to stop him, so what choice did Jack really have? And Jack did the noble thing and helped him to do it in a dignified way. It was simply the right thing for Jack to do.

I must admit I did find the line where Owen was telling Diane how he felt about her how he just thinks about what she is wearing etc and then kills the romance stone dead by mentioning how her face looks when she comes. Well who said romance is dead? That certainly did raise a giggle. Given Owen's usual demeanour with woman, he can be a charmer when he wants to be as the scene where he takes Diana dancing (even though it was on top of a multi-storey car park in Cardiff) shows.

Catherine Tregenna certainly has a handle on the characters in the show and she makes a good job of a script where very little happens and the brilliant thing about it is that you don't really miss the fact that there isn't a lot going on, as you are drawn into the dilemma's of the characters and what might become of them. That is the mark of a good writer making things interesting even if nothing actually does happen. Certainly I didn't miss the fact that there was no alien involvement. I mean who is to say that you have to have alien involvement in every episode? In this case the episode worked better because it was just about people rather than about aliens and I am certainly looking forward to Tregenna's next episode of Torchwood in a couple of weeks.

Still, it could have been a lot worse, the person in the plane landing in 21st century Cardiff could have been Glenn Miller. What a thought!

 

Lost Perspective

It's always very helpful when sitting down review something when one of the characters within has actually explained what's wrong with the episode.  There was Jack, sitting in the hub, looking up at Tosh and actually saying (I'm paraphrasing) "These are just three people who are lost who can't go home.  We don't have an enemy to fight this time."  As he sat there, it finally felt as though the story had ground to a hault.  I looked up at the clock and noticed that there was another twenty-minutes to go and wondered what the hell they'd be filling the following twenty minutes of screentime with.

Thing is, I was strangely upbeat going into this episode.  I told everyone here I was looking forward to it and a particularly good episode of The West Wing tonight ('Hi, Senator. Why don't you take your legislative agenda and shove it up your ass. '  'She's a fine looking woman.' etc) put me in a good mood.  The episode began rather well with the lovely landing of the plane and the appearance of the three strangers in time and the explanations and then ... Asda?  Immediately it began to become apparent that episode would once again be demonstrating the legion of issues the series has had so far.  Having selected to retread one of the old, old sci-fi standard, off the shelf, plotlines, they decided to trot through all of the expected scenes without putting a new spin on any of them whatsoever.  Oh for goodness sake.

"The episode began rather well with the lovely landing of the plane and the appearance of the three strangers in time and the explanations and then ... Asda?"

I should temper this a little bit by saying that even that opening scene in the supermarket was as funny as these things usually are with the accepted standards of our time being put under the microscope of another -- the children's tv presenter on the lad mag, 'smoking kills' and the price of eggs (or in this case junk food).  Such scenes were splattered throughout the episode as Emma misunderstood the advances of the man in the club and John had to deal with the pipe smoking ban in the pub.  The problem is that after a while they become repetitious and perhaps more damagingly for Doctor Who fans not anything that doesn't happen whenever the Doctor's companion appears in another time -- that misunderstanding of new rituals for comic effect.

Throughout I wondered if there would be a twist, such as that they're all aliens or they somehow planned the time slip or that there would be a way home or that they weren't time travelers at all just faking it for some nefarious gain.  Perhaps the twist was that there was no twist in which case -- wah!  I'm sorry but narratively chaining each of them to the one regular character who was most likely to empathise with them and their plight in the hope of illuminating a regular just isn't enough.  It's all very well presenting what appears to be a grand romance about loss and sacrifice but you still need proper jeopardy, something to fight for.

"Perhaps the twist was that there was no twist in which case -- wah!"

I can absolutely see that this is supposed to be the episode about character building -- Gwen talked once again about having two lives and is seen to question her relationship to Owen; Owen on the other hand didn't seem to think anything about their relationship as he realised he actually had the capacity to fall in luurv; and Jack continued to come to terms with the fact that he too is a man out of time, as we gained some confirmation that he might have dropped through the rift and that he is indeed born in the future.  The problem is, because of what I'm going to continue to describe as the random characterisation of the series, none of this seemed like a progression -- just an emotion of the week which could change next time.  I can't simply start liking a character such as Owen when he's been so negatively written in the past, especially when he seems to have a silly walk - the whole wide shoulder thing is becoming increasingly old.

As with so many of these episodes, there was a tension too between the really great performances and the embarrassing dialogue.  Example:  No Angels' Louise Delamere sparkles away throughout the episode proving once again that she's one of the nation's hidden treasures and (I can't believe I'm typing this) actually some of the scenes with Burn Gorman had a light romantic touch.  Except there in the middle of one of the endless bed scenes, just as we're actually beginning to fall for the two of them, he gives a speech talking about how he's obsessed with her clothes, her look, what she's thinking about and oh yes, the face she makes when she cums, which strands the scene as you're simply not able to listen to anything else as you try to deal with the implications of that.  It might sound real, and I'm sure it's perfectly good pillow talk in some homes, but it kills the mood of the scene stone dead.  Was there any need for that?

"In a bizarre coincidence, all three of the time travelers (whose connection at no point had been explained) decided to make big life (or death) decision at roughly the same time."

The inability to close out an episode satisfactorily continues.  In a bizarre coincidence, all three of the time travelers (whose connection at no point had been explained) decided to make big life (or death) decision at roughly the same time.  It was almost as though they could tell that the episode was coming to a close.  Although all television dramas with multiple plotlines suffer from this issue (see nearly every episode of Boston Legal) here it jarred because with perhaps the exception of Emma none of them seemed to have a reason to make the decision right there and then.  Diane didn't fly off because she'd heard about the death of John for example which would have made sense.  And speaking of John what are we to make of Jack's decision to let him kill himself and actually sit in the car and watch?  I can't decide if I really hate Jack now.  And what are his colleagues going to make of the decision?  .  Watching the series you'd never know (although reading the website you might).  I guarantee it won't be mentioned next week.

Reading Sean's review, I wonder if I've entirely lost perspective and I'm just off looking for flaws and unable to enjoy the show for what it's purporting to be.  Whenever I write these reviews I'm always analysing the storytelling, how it fits within the overall structure of the series, the disappoinments.  Perhaps when I rewatch this I will be able to pay closer attention to the incidental pleasures -- the reappearance of Reece, Owen's charm (for once), the great performances.  But I can't sit here and lie and say that I enjoyed these fifty minutes when I spent most of them literally growning and shouting at the screen like a madman or a football fan watching their team go down five-nil in the FA Cup.

"But I can't sit here and lie and say that I enjoyed these fifty minutes when I spent most of them literally growning and shouting at the screen like a madman or a football fan watching their team go down five-nil in the FA Cup."

I just keep hearing that opening introduction: 

"Torchwood. Outside the government, beyond the police. Tracking down alien life on earth and arming the human race against the future. The 21st century is when everything changes... and you've gotta be ready."

And wondering when we're actually going to get to see that series.  That series sounds great.

The Good Life

It’s been a very long time coming, but finally I can say just one simple word about an episode of Torchwood.

Superb.

Because on whatever level you care to mention - acting, direction, scripting, music - Out of Time was a sumptuous piece of television. About what seems like several years ago, I suggested in one of my reviews that this series was bound to hit pay dirt at some point. Too much time and effort, too many talented and dedicated people and too much hope and expectation hade been lavished on this show for it to just dribble away into the directionless mess that it’s largely been since ‘Cyberwoman’. And finally we have a fifty minutes in which we can all be justly proud. Adam Stone, this episode is for you.

it’s certainly the first time an edition of Jack and the gang’s activities has made me cry for the right reasons

So, how exactly does this most frustrating, confounding and downright disappointing of shows finally find its feet and deliver a piece of drama much more befitting of the title than a dozen forays into ‘adult’ ideas of sex and relationships? Well, by just doing the simple things really: telling a good story very, very well. It’s hardly original - there’s as many televisual homages on display here as any other episode of Torchwood - but for once you’re so swept up in the sheer majesty of it all as to forgive even the ladled-on sex scenes and inappropriate use of swear-words ('fuck buddies’, I’ll have you…). And it’s certainly the first time an edition of Jack and the gang’s activities has made me cry for the right reasons.

So let’s get the weak aspects out of the way first for a change, shall we? Yes, it’s derivative: pretty much any sci-fi show - from Quantum Leap all the way to several incarnations of the Star Trek franchise - have taken their turn in doing the ‘fish out of water’ culture clash story of two completely at-odds worlds coming together and watching the sparks fly. But for once Torchwood seems to have got over its own self-perceived notion of how clever-clever it is and concentrated instead on what makes good drama: memorable, sympathetic characters and an emotional core that makes us care what happens to them. I swear, there is more depth to the three time-lost protagonists of this episode than there has been to most of the other ragamuffins on show this season; and the effect seems to even be having a beneficial effect on Team Torchwood. Steady now, but you might even end up liking them this week - even Owen. And I honestly thought I’d need to do a Neil before ever saying that last sentence.

And it’s utterly charming. Who’d have ever thought about the possibility of Torchwood doing that, eh?

And the good points? Well, pretty much everything else to be a fair. Right from the teaser, this is an episode that hits the ground running; with characters (albeit archetypes) who immediately elicit our sympathy and undivided attention. There’s the pioneering, Amelia Earhart-style pilot; the naïve waif who finds the 21^st Century’s idea of the dating game all a bit too much; and finally, in John Ellis, arguably the most well-rounded of guest stars this season. Helped by the fact that Mark Lewis Jones gives an absolutely superb portrayal as a man for whom time has - quite literally - passed him by. I’m not sure what is the most moving moment in this episode, so I guess I’m gonna have to mention both: when John visits his Alzheimer’s riddled son in the nursing home (anyone with an elderly relative will bite back the tears at this point) or the almost impossibly moving scene when Jack agrees to sit with him as he gasses himself to death in a car. Torchwood has longed to wear its adult credentials right from day one, but for once the moniker couldn’t be more fitting. A parable for the ongoing euthanasia debate, perhaps? One thing is certain, the death of John Ellis in this episode is shocking, moving, surprising and just about everything that brilliant drama should be. And I can’t think of a better compliment for how much Torchwood raises its game this week than that.

And like good drama should do, ‘Out of Time’ leavens its more serious issues with some lighter ones; principally in Gwen’s touching friendship with an eighteen-year-old whose wake-up call to the 21^st Century world of sex and clubbing is handled very amusingly. Then there’s the romance between Owen and the high-flying (in a more literal sense of the term) Diane Holmes; something which would have been unthinkable for this character just a few episodes ago. Yes, the dialogue occasionally still feels like the taste of steel in one’s mouth (can we not have some passion without pornography in this programme?) but the brief - and oh so tragic - love affair between the two is perfectly written, played and resolved (with just a hint that she might one day return…). Favourite bit? It’s gotta be Owen deciding to stop playing the arsehole routine, and finally wine-and-dine a lady the way he should. And it’s utterly charming. Who’d have ever thought about the possibility of Torchwood doing that, eh?

Most of all though the triumph of this episode is that it actually has me believing that a Season Two may be worthwhile

But I think what raises this episode above so much of the dross we’ve seen this year is the sheer simplicity of it all. As Jack himself says, for once there is no puzzle to solve and no enemy to fight. And Torchwood’s high concept - and frequently low sense - persona takes a back seat as instead a simple tale of love, loss and the finite unfolds quite beautifully. Even the regulars - bar Tosh, again - get their moments to shine. Ianto gets to play comic relief around the supermarket; Gwen (following on from ‘Random Shoes’) gets to be the heart of the group; Owen plays romantic lead; while Jack…well, finally we have some of the humanity back that seemed to have been lost after his unwanted resurrection. And many more loose ends regards Captain Harkness are set up here which simply demand some tying up over the last three instalments.

Most of all though the triumph of this episode is that it actually has me believing that a Season Two may be worthwhile. There’s enough in this fifty minutes to prove that Torchwood has the necessary components to produce worthwhile, compelling drama if it could only get its head out of its enlarged libido and realise that the trappings of modern TV are nothing without a sold core of believable, likeable characters and some powerful, provocative scripts to match. ‘Out of Time’ has it in spades; my one fervent hope is that Torchwood's final three episodes have at least the ambition to match it.

(The 'Torchwood' Book of Made-Up Facts has this to say about Out of Time: plans to include a complimentary bottle of gin with this week’s 'Radio Times' were vetoed at the last minute when a North-Eastern lecturer ordered multiple copies)