Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

Your Head A Splot

Cardiff + Rift + ghosts + third episode = no such bleedin' luck.

Bloody hell, Jack probably can't even tie his shoes without setting off some brand new fan controversy. Once again, some blog members loved the episode, some members hated it; but all opinions seem to derive from it not being anything like last week's. I'll go one further; I dunno what the hell I watched but after the first fifteen minutes it certainly wasn't Torchwood. But what a great first act, eh? No messing about here. Chase. Alien gizmo. Creepy Silent Hill visions. Ghosties. Pow! And all before the opening credits.

And then suddenly it was over. Somehow the mystery had warped into some kind of backstreet cop show, which was odd as I don't remember blinking. Memo to self: jest ye not about The Bill, for it shall come to pass. What the hell happened?

"Memo to self: jest ye not about The Bill for it shall come to pass"

The Ghost Machine is a step up from the load of old clap that was Day One (thank God they didn't refer to that kind of 'ghost' this week), but mainly from not drawing attention to its own paucity, or indeed in the latter half to much of anything. After three episodes it still isn't clear what this programme is really supposed be yet. Jack is quite right - why is Torchwood bothering with piffling little incidents like this? It's like calling up the Doctor to investigate why the jam disappears from the fridge (except they already did that with Fear Her). If 'the twenty-first century is when it all changes', then why are we already getting low-rent filler episodes this early into the series? And if, as the more forgiving reviewers state, this was intended to be a 'human' drama this week, then why are the majority of the humans continually being left out of it?

If Torchwood is reminding me of anything, then - in keeping with the recurring animation metaphor - this week was the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon show where each time one of the kids would be singled out for their own special adventure and life-affirming lesson at the end. This time it was Gwen and Owen's turn. Jack, aside from giving firearm lessons, basically looked aloof and barked out orders. And as for the other two, Tosh and Ianto had better hope the next piece of alien technology that falls to Earth is the Charismatron uncovered in 1979 Paris, lest they disappear altogether next time they turn sideways to the camera. As sci-fi fans we would poke fun at Blake's 7 a lot when frequently there wasn't the funds to cover more than the Scorpio crew, Servalan and an expendable guest star of the week, but now that the BBC drama department has allegedly got more money than God, what happens? There just isn't enough for five main cast members to actually do.

"Owen Harper may have had more to do this week, but like Linda McCartney quorn sausages, I'm reluctant to call it 'meat'"

I still want to give Owen Harper a slap, but not for the same reasons as last week. There was no question for me about who got to shine in The Ghost Machine, and it wasn't Burn Gorman's 'you slaaaaaaag' Grant Mitchell impressions; Owen may have had more to do this week, but like Linda McCartney quorn sausages, I'm reluctant to call it 'meat'. Consistency has not been this show's strong point so far, has it? The man can lark around an alien sex cloud spooging its way through the seedy underbelly of Cardiff, but one unsolved murder and he goes all DCI Meadows on everyone. You watch, by next week he'll be back to normal with his huge gob threatening to swallow his entire body like the Vacuum Monster in Yellow Submarine.

Nope, The Ghost Machine was Gwen Cooper's episode, hands down. Gwen's character development is the one thing this episode got absolutely right; she's stopped singing the Beatles song 'You Can't Do That' and settled into her place to the point where resolving the two aspects of her 'Secret Squirrel' work (that had to be Russel) and private life might not be quite so daunting after all. Eve Myles performed a damn fine job of conveying genuine fear and trauma from being indirectly close-up responsible for a person's death; but more than that, there was so much joy to be had from the more mundane scenes where the emotion device tells Gwen that maybe she has got a good thing going with her relationship, and where Jack teaches her how to shoot (again, a scene that I'm sure was included at Russel's behest), even though the two-handed Lara Croft demonstration by the end of one session was just ridiculous. Sooner or later Owen's going to kill the mood by replacing Jack's guns with a joke flag pistol that says BANG.

"Gareth Thomas probably thought he'd been mistakenly given the script to The Way Back again and started searching the office for Terry Nation's corpse"

Aaaaand... there isn't a lot else to say really, save that 'splot' is the sound effect made by a damp squib hitting the floor. The actual murder plot ammounted to one part action, five parts introspection and dropped plot hints delivered with all the complexity of the 'three of these things belong together' song from Sesame Street. Poor old Gareth Thomas- all those grand Shakespearian aspirations, and twenty-five years after Blakes 7 ended he's a fat old loony in a Cardiff flat. The closest he gets is one last 'tortured by inner demons' fling, but that's probably because he thought he'd been mistakenly given the script to The Way Back again and started searching the office for Terry Nation's corpse. No wonder he threw himself with gusto into the Marc Antony resolution at the end, as openly laughable (trust me, I did) as it was.

What did Torchwood even accomplish this time around? They prevented the potential murder of a feckless dolt whom the whole estate would have been glad to see the back of anyway; helped to hasten the perpetrator's departure by a probable hour or so, given that he was already on the suicide watch list twice over; and they consigned the first of no doubt many magic-wand devices to the bin with only the vaguest non-answers to its origin, purpose or who the hell even found it in the first place. In short, sod all. So they solved a forty-year-old murder case. Big deal; after they disappear into the shadows again, who's left to know, care or be believed? There's no consequence, and therefore no point. There are episodes of Lost more conclusive than this.

Meh. Chin up lads, the conversion chamber says it'll be fanwank territory next week, and with that Cybernavel on display I choose my words deliberately.

The Humper Book Of Made-Up Torchwood Fucts has this to say about The Ghost Machine: the emptiness of the last half-hour can be attributed to the removal of all of Gareth Thomas' "MUST RENOUNCE! FREEDOM PARTY!" lines.

Your Ghost

Torchwood: The Ghost Machine

I have to say that I really liked The Ghost Machine. I thought it was very dark and quite spooky. There were touches of humour in this episode but the general mood of the episode was dark. There were some quite adult themes in the episode with mentions of murder and rape and suicide, and the swearing was noticeable by its absence (well I certainly didn’t notice any). I think it was more noticed in the first episode because it was the first time that there had ever been swearing in anything Doctor Who related. By this third episode I think that people have just got used to the fact that occasionally people do swear and are less bothered by it.

The main characters had all settled down by this episode and at the start of the episode it seemed that Gwen was now fully a part of the Torchwood team, and that it had been a while since Day One. Just watch her with Owen for proof that she seems more settled in her role within the team, she was sharing a joke with him and also seemed genuinely concerned after he had witnessed his flashback. Even her boyfriend now seemed resigned to the fact that she was spending less and less time at home. Another reason for assuming this is set some time after the events in Day One.

Burn Gorman as Owen was pretty good in the episode and he actually had quite an interesting part in the episode as he really took it personally after he had witnessed what would end in a rape and murder. He was less jack-the-lad and cocky in this episode and as such came across a lot better than he had in the previous two episodes (which after having read what some people were calling his character in the forums can only be a good thing).

A shame the same cannot be said for Tosh and Ianto. To Gareth David-Lloyd’s credit his role in this episode amounted to little more than serving coffee and a blink or you’ll miss it appearance at the end of the episode. The problem with Tosh’s character is that they really don’t know as yet what to do with her. She is basically the technical support and spends most of her time in front of computers and does very little else. Having said that that is her role in the outfit so she is only doing her job but I would like to see her do more. I am confident that later on in the series her character will be seen away from a computer doing something a little more exciting.

Eve Myles was great as Gwen in this episode. She is such a strong character and is getting stronger week by week. I think it helps that out of all of the main characters she is the one we can identify with and that she has a life outside and friends apart from the other regular characters. Her boyfriend serves very little purpose apart from showing the audience that Gwen is one of them and is not a character that they cannot recognise. The scenes between them just being an average couple are not at all relevant to the plot but they are nice little scenes that show us how human and how real she is. And is it me or does that gap in her teeth make her even more appealing?

Jack is getting more and more like the Doctor each week and it is know revealed that he no longer needs to sleep. Barrowman is as commanding as ever as Jack here and the scene between him and Gwen in the target range was quite amusing as the ever so macho and totally gay John Barrowman can make a woman turn to mush just by standing behind them. My girlfriend says that she knows exactly how Gwen would feel in that particular scene.

I do feel that the title The Ghost Machine is a bit of a misnomer as there weren’t any actual ghosts in it, rather they were memories of previous events amplified by the alien machinery. Memory Machine sounds like a really crap title so I can understand why they used the term ghosts instead. I did wonder why Gwen witnessed a totally different event to that of Owen and that of Bernie because after Gwen went to visit the old man who she had seen in her vision it wasn’t ever mentioned again. I guess it added some colour to the episode though.

The same can be said for Gwen’s use of the device to remember happy times with her boyfriend when she came home to an empty flat. Again it was nice little scene that really made her appreciate what she has at home and I am pretty sure that they made up that night after their little tiff earlier in the episode. They do say the making up afterwards is the best thing about having an argument.

I must admit that is was a bit of a shock to see Gareth Thomas playing a grumpy old man here, as I just didn’t think he looked that old. I saw him at a convention, oh about ten years ago now and he was looking quite old then but I wasn’t quite prepared by how old he actually does look now. It was also a surprise to hear him speak with a Welsh accent. It was the first time I had heard him speak in his native accent. Having said that I felt the same seeing Griff Rhys Jones in Mine All Mine.

I thought the story was very well written and directed (I like the urgency of the opening chase sequence through the streets of Cardiff as well as the chase scene between Owen and the hoodie wearing Bernie; there was also some nice effects during the hallucinations caused by the machine) and am really looking forward to Raynor’s two parter next year. The Ghost Machine was a nice little character piece with a twist in the ending (albeit one that could be worked out a little earlier than when it happened unlike in the opening episode.).

Next weeks episode looks really good too!

Torched Out

Last night I did something that I've never done before. 

After watching The Ghost Machine, I sat down to write a review and as usual checked Outpost Gallifrey just to see what the general fan reaction had been, especially since I'd spent the I spent the closing minutes with my head hidden under a pillow trying to block out all sound and vision.  I clicked across the rating forum and began to read overwhelmingly positive reviews.  Third time lucky, some said, better late than never said others.  The little bar charts were showing high ratings and I began to wonder what I'd missed.  I turned off my computer, and watched the episode again.  And although I could see the second time around that there were things to admire it was still fundamentally a disappointing experience.

Tonight I sat down for the fourth time trying and write a review and found myself looking at the screen, and the little curser blinking in and out.  As the minutes passed by, something dawned on me.  I didn't know what to write.  I actually have writers block.  I'm so indifferent about the episode that I simply can't craft that indifference into words.  I actually wrote down some notes on viewing the episode the second time around and considered simply posting them, but they're really not that interesting.  On one line I've written enigmatically 'director Colin Teague'.  Yes, and?  On another: 'Tales of the Unexpected'.  And finally Jack's closing dialogue: 'A million shadows of human emotion - we've just got to live with them...' which looks good on paper but didn't quite work on screen.

The search for Bernie worked quite well.  And I continue to enjoy the performances and some of the writing was very good indeed.  But eventually I realised that this was the most exciting moment....

 

And there's not much more you can say about that really ... [picture via]

Third Time's the Charm

I have to say that I’m feeling my years today. It’s quite a sobering, not to mention depressing, thing to realise that even the heroes of ones youth get old. I swear that I only looked away for five minutes and suddenly Roj Blake is this overweight, old man. How did this happen? When did it happen? Blake’s 7 was only a couple of years ago and now Gareth Thomas is barely recognisable. Mind you, Splot does sound like a backwater planet on the fringes of the galaxy where Blake could have been hiding from the Federation all these years. I realise that there may be some people reading this who will have no idea what I’m talking about. To them, I can only say that it’s too bad that you missed out. They were good times.

But that’s enough of looking into the past. Well, for me anyway. The Jack Pack, of course, spent a fair bit of time doing just that and to great effect.

It always has to rain in adult drama

This is what I’ve always imagined by ‘adult drama’ - It was dark, gritty, raining (I’ve no idea why it always has to rain in adult drama) and what swearing there was seemed to fit without feeling forced in just to show ‘grown up’ credentials. The same with the sex scene - It was suggested, talked about, skirted around and was far more effective for the restraint. I feel that I can forgive them whatever growing pains they experienced in last week if this is the shape of things to come.

For me, this episode was better than the other two combined. I really enjoyed it.

It would appear that time has passed for Torchwood and that Gwen has settled in to her new role more than when we left her at the end her first day. She seems to have acclimatised to Torchwood and is even comfortable bantering with Own and teasing him. Witness the way she introduced the two of them whilst they were looking for the little lost boy at the station. She ranked herself a Detective Inspector and him a Detective Sergeant. It was his look of slight offence that amused me the most.

The episode starts with a chase through the streets of Cardiff, having already found traces of alien something on the mean streets. I liked this idea as it suggests that, like he did in The Empty Child, Captain Jack is running sweeps for Alien Tech and going after what they find. It provided a nice piece of character continuity as well as a nifty way of starting an episode with action.

I know he served in the war, but do we know if the rank is for real? I don’t know if he’s really up to his Captaincy. He seems to be all serious and shouting lots all of a sudden. Perhaps it’s the ‘Doctor Who School of Command’ or something, but ol’ Jack certainly doesn’t seem as laid back and cool as he used to.

Turning into RoboCop

Having said that, he was still a little flirty during the firearms training sequence, which I thought was stylishly shot and a nice red herring. I had expected Gwen to have to save the day by turning into RoboCop and blasting the baddies in small alien bits. But no, it was just part of her training that she may, or may not, need at some point in the future. Somehow I imagine that she will have to pump a little lead before too long.

It was during that scene that we learnt that Jack not only lives in the Torchwood facility, but also doesn’t sleep at all. I can only assume that this is something to do with what Rose did to him. There’s an old Greek proverb (which I rather like) that says that "Sleep and death are brothers" so I suppose by following that logic, if Jack can’t die then neither can he sleep. Just think how much late night TV the poor chap has to sit through waiting for something to happen. I bet he’s got a huge DVD collection.

It was good to see some more character development and personality coming through as well, this week. Owen ceased to be the Worlds Most Annoying And Pointless Character (Patrick Troughton’s grandson has that honour for his role as Much in the new Robin Hood series) and he actually gets some depth. It’s no longer such a laugh being in the alien hunting team and there are responsibilities to having such knowledge and power. The scene between him and Ed Morgan was really quite tense. If he keeps developing a personality, I might even like him a little bit come the end of the series.

Perhaps Tom Cruise was getting too interested

As further proof that Gwen is fitting in well with the rest of the Jack Pack, how long did it take her to flout the rule about not removing alien technology from the base? It was touching to see her ‘remember’ all the good times with her lump of a boyfriend and have her realise that (bad lasagne aside) there are things in the ‘normal’ world that can also be worth pursuing. Having said that, I think calling him gorgeous may have been stretching things a little too far.

I liked the idea of the ‘device’ picking up on the residual emotions and chemical deposits to allow the user to experience what had happened, but I did spend some time wondering why such a thing would have been built in the first place. I eventually reasoned that, if it worked with alien physiology as well as with humans, then it could have been useful to a Police force to find out what had happened at a violent crime scene. Of course, once you pop the other half on it, then you could conceivably prevent crimes from happening, too. I started getting a bit ‘Minority Report’ at this point and wondering how many times you could prevent a future event (even only a possible future event) before the whole thing became open to abuse and arresting people for a crime they might commit. Maybe this is why it was dropped into the rift in the first place. Perhaps Tom Cruise was getting too interested in it.

I wasn’t sure how it could ‘predict’ what emotions and chemical emissions would be at any given point at some time in the future before I realise two things. One was that I wasn’t thinking four dimensionally and why could it not navigate time in both was to detect these readings. The other was that it’s Torchwood and not Tomorrow’s World - It doesn’t need to make sense.

25 years!

So there we have it. A very good episode and one that, I hope, will set the bar for everything that follows it. It may not have been totally original, but there are only some many stories to be told. What holds your attention is the way they tell their version of this story. I for one think that they succeeded very well.

Oh and I just looked Blake’s 7 up on IMDB. Apparently it ran from 1978 to 1981, which means it finished 25 years ago. 25 years! No wonder I feel old. I remember that final episode like it was just last week.

Here’s a question to ponder. When we see John Barrowman pop up in a sci-fi show in 2031, will we be able to say, "I remember that final episode of Torchwood so clearly"? That’s the sign of a true classic and a real challenge for today’s heroes.

Magic 3

Corr! That was bloody good, wasn't it?

Again, I refuse to read the other reviews first, lest they impede my judgement. But I for one thought that was fab. Well, the last five minutes were a bit dud, but aside from that, what a cracker!

Not that it was anything special. It was basically a filler episode, where it isn't one of the opening or closing episodes, or anything particularly important for the show, where any main changes occur, or anything like that. No, it fits in just after the opening two episodes, and just before a Cyber episode. And yet, it's bloody good.

It all starts with a 24 cum The Bill type chase, ending in a fabulous teaser cliffhanger.

Hands up those of you who spotted John Normington in an instant? I just had to find out if this really was the epitomous Morgus, and Hurray! It was! I knew I recognised those eyes. No looking directly at the camera this time, though. That was left other casual cameos later.

We finally see why Burn Gorman got the part. Sure, he may look like his head is in two pieces, but he sure shows his true colours here. He demonstrates the height of fear in the most extraordinary of situations. It's much easier for the girl, she's faced with a man coming towards her, and she can imagine he's threatening to kill her, whereas he has to feel the same emotion in a different situation. And he pulls it off superbly.

The direction was a bit hit-and-miss at times, such as the scene where Owen confronts Ed. It was a good technique, but it was done a little too much, and I started to feel a bit seasick. And the scene where Ed throws himself on the knife could have done with an establishing shot of him really looking at the knife, really thinking about it. At first I wasn't sure if he'd just tried to hug her and got it wrong. The gun scene was also a bit too long. It should have only taken about a minute for Jack to show Gwen how to use his weapon, although I understand the wanting to build up a rapor between them.

Of course, John Barrowman is near faultless as ever. "Near", I hear you ask? Well, the scene at the end is a bit dull, but that can't really be helped, it was always going to be an anticlimax. But aside from that, this episode really rounds off the introduction of the characters, and it's really gotten Jack off to a flying start.

The writing was excellent, with characterisations spot on. Everyone in the hub was doing exactly what they should be doing, what their personality meant they would be doing. This is what RTD needs to learn: human nature. Basic human nature. That's where his work fails. He can write a perfect Doctor, but he just doesn't have the hang of humans.

So, all in all, it definitely seems to be getting better. And, what's astonishingly more. there was nothing in here I'd be ashamed of watching with my parents. No swearing, no sex, it's all clean. There's no way I'd have been able to use the phrases "cum", "pulls it off", and "Jack off" in last week's review without everyone noticing. Be honest, you didn't notice it this week, did you? The risky one was "It should have only taken about a minute for Jack to show Gwen how to use his weapon", but I think I got away with it. See how many other double entendres you can spot!

9/10 Maybe that's a bit generous, but it's hard to penalise it. (Teehee, another!)

Ghost Lite

Boring, predictable shite.

I’m not sure if I really need to say much more. I had rather high hopes for this episode. But having gone into it following a one-off finale to The Royle Family which left me with a smile on my face and a tear in my eye, this was arguably the most arse-numbing fifty minutes of television that I’ve endured since the days of Enterprise. So where - seeing as it seems I’m obliged to look - do I begin?

Well, the script’s pretty much a rehash of episodes from any three genre shows of the past decade (and yes, Angel and Buffy (notably the episode ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’) spring most to mind). Then there’s the disturbing lack - some three episodes in now - of any notable characterisation amongst the regulars, bar Gwen. Okay, Owen gets to emote and do some actual acting in this episode. But with a face like his, this is hardly a turn for the good.

It starts okay - and with the lost little boy at the railway station had more than a hint of Sapphire & Steel about it for a moment (until I remembered that PJ Hammond’s episode is still a few weeks away). But pretty soon it becomes such a confused mish-mash of tired old science fiction ideas (ghosts as deja-vu; a machine which can show the past and predict the future) that I had given up this particular ghost before the half-way mark.

I mean, how bad an actress is Naoko Mori, seeing as she’s already been upstaged by a space-pig in ‘Aliens of London’? Just to get your hopes up there’s an all-too-brief cameo by John ’Morgus’ Normington, but like all the good points it’s gone before you’ve even noticed it. And Jack seems to be getting more and more like the Doctor by the week. Oh look, they’ve just ripped off Johnny Smith’s visions from The Dead Zone too, as Owen experiences first-hand the death of Lizzy Lewis which underpins what plot we have.

By the time Gareth Thomas pops up as the latter-day murderer Ed Morgan, you’re long past caring. And all that’s left is some idle rumination as to whether the late Blake had sobered up in time after last March’s Star One before they offered him this gig. At least the great Welshman does the decent thing and falls on his sword, so to speak.

And what was the deal with Gwen using the Ghost Machine device to relive happier times with her boyfriend (it’s not as though it had been proven to be so personally selective with the other flashbacks, was it?). And dare I even mention the quite ridiculously OTT gun-porn scene in which John Barrowman and Eve Myles all but lick each other’s barrels out while Jack shows Gwen how to handle his weapon. For a minute there I thought I was back in the 1980s watching a Schwarzenegger NRA promotion video.

Oh, and could someone please teach the members of Torchwood how to run - all this T1000 style flailing of upper limbs is playing bloody murder on my television’s vertical hold!

Enough already. This was the television equivalent of mogadon. Bring on the Cybernised-shagfest that next week’s episode promises to be…

(The Bumper Book of (yawn, yeah whatever) ‘Torchwood’ facts has this to say about Ghost Machine: to save money for the series’ excessive special effects budget, the actor playing Ianto Jones is paid by the word).

Ghosts in the Machine

Ghost Machine Review:

Yawwwwwwnnnnnnnnnnnn...

Sorry, that's all I can manage without slipping into a ****ing coma.