Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

iWho Podcast: Torchwood - Cyberwoman

"Do the Hustle..."

Tachyon TV present an alternative DVD commentary to Torchwood: Cyberwoman

Topics up for discussion include: 'That's Life', Glyn from 'Big Brother', Ice Warrior Drink Holders, Firefly Night, Ianto's Smart Car, and Yello's 'Oh Yeah!'

The podcast is available from the usual place

“NO” IS THE HARDEST WORD TO SAY

Well I wonder what this episode could be about? A supposedily heart wrenching tale of love, loss and betrayal; and the best title they can come up with is “Cyberwoman”. Ahhh the boundless poetry that beats in the heart of an Englishman- SORRY!!!!!!! “Welshman”.

In my experience it takes about 3 drafts to get a script into a shape where other people can usefully comment on it. Until then the mechanics of the structure and plotting are still to raw and the characters and dialogue too sketchy. Now once handed over to your producer and/or script editor, they read it, hopefully like it, and then they kick the living shit out of it.

They take your carefully crafted screenplay, strip it apart, reveal the short cuts and cheats you hoped you could get away with and effectively force you to go and do it again- but this time better. They questions characters motivations, actions, reactions. The logic of even the smallest event is looked at from all angles, in an attempt to gauge how it affects the narrative as a whole. Is the audience getting enough information, too much perhaps- in the wrong order? Or if in the worst case scenario, your screenplay sucks- what if anything can be done to save it?

Their views should be respected and listened to because they’re on your side and they have the script’s best interests at heart.

They can be nice and lie through their teeth, gush effusively about the masterpiece you’ve crafted- trouble is if your unedited script makes it to screen, it’ll only be ripped to pieces by critics or bloggers such as ourselves, by which point it’s too late. On the other hand if you’re RTD everyone will love it because it’s obviously “Brilliant!” by dint of you having written it and we have to sit through ill-plotted monkey dribble like “New Earth”.

The main problem is seems to me in Torchwood or Who is their over-reliance on "character" to the detriment of the story!

Repeatedly we have “character” scenes that are so over whelming, so big, so dominating- all action around them has to effectively stop until people have had their “moment”.

Doomsday’s scene as Jackie and Peter come face to face is a prime example. The Cybermen and the Daleks are enthusiastically blowing seven grades of shit out of the Torchwood staff, the building and each other. Our brave heroes find the only empty corridor in the building and decide with the world about to end and no paper bags to hand, a five minute reunion scene would work fine just about now!

YOU CANNOT STOP THE PLOT FOR THIS STUFF!

Shift the scene to a more logical point when death isn’t quite so omnipresent! At least have the Cyberman and or Daleks trying to cut their way through a door!

Screenplays are all about story. Not character! Not dialogue! You populate your story with characters who are defined and revealed by their actions and dialogue. But all are subservient to the story.

So however good the scene where Ianto faced down Lisa had been, acted, directed, written, it was always going to suck because the way the characters got to that point is retarded to a level rarely reached in modern TV. (Mickey’s amazing ability to hack into a military grade computer system, using a one word password, and then firing a missile comes close).

The script proves the writers don’t understand the first thing about real characters. Ianto’s betrayal is inexcusable. There is no way he would be allowed to carry on at Torchwood. This is the equivalent a member of the Spooks team letting his al-Qaeda girlfriend into MI5 head quarters. Two corpses and a bit of shouting later he gets to keep is job- I think not!
Mike Yates betrayed the Doctor and Brigadier for far better reasons and the writers at least had the courage to follow through the logical consequences. They even brought him back a few stories later in a modified form. And this was in those cave-man days of the 70s, when the writers were- well just shit I guess you could say and wouldn’t have thought of things like character arcs.

I crave plot, dramatic not just emotional tension. I crave logic to be applied actually.

And why does no one shoot the Cyberwoman in her un-converted head or is that just not cricket?

And correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Jack have a fucking blow torch in his hand! Why can’t he use that to destroy the human part of the cyborg? “Man in a Suitcase” managed an impressive full body burn back in the 60s (an episode guest starring Donald Sutherland as I remember) a nasty grisly death, but this is ‘adult’ sci-fi so why not?

Suppose the burn didn’t kill her and oh I don’t know- she used the handy pool of water to put out the flames- see where I’m going? She staggers out all charred and a little gooey- ten times as scary and no kiddes to worry about since is is after all- an adult show, so bring it on!

Yeah but that would all be too simple. We’d probably have to loose the genius brain swap climax and the Cyberbabe/pterodactyl punch-up.

Russell and co laughed for three weeks at the thought of the cute cyberchick taking on the pterodactyl - hmmmm they really need to get out more! Comments like this keep appearing again and again in Confidential and whatever the Torchwood equivalent is. Stick a few writers and a bottle of wine in a room together and you will get ideas like this. Like oh I don’t know wouldn’t it be cool if the Daleks and the Cybermen turned up in a story together- how ace would that be!!!! (sorry wrong blog again)

This is supposed to be Sci-Fi where I always thought you needed to have some logical rationale for why things happen. Otherwise where does it stop? Attacked by a cyberwoman, shall we shoot her, shall we burn her with the blow torch, no set the pterodactyl on her! Obvious solution when you think about it. You might as well drown her in jelly. Sure that one would keep the writers giggling for a while, but its just as shit an idea.

Just because something looks cool, or made everyone laugh is not a reason to include it in the script. However Russell I do think that hidden in another alcove of the Hub should be an emergency inflatable Margaret Thatcher droid, just in case the team comes under attack by some alien who just happens to habitually pee his pants at the sign of a large latex former Prime Ministers. You could call it the Maggy-Tron.

Now we’ve had We(evils) so what could we call our aliens that’d sound cool- ahhh the V(nasties), O’rribles- ahhh see what I did there- I’m soooo funny!

In all seriousness, this is not TV that will last or gain a loyal following. The lighting is horrible, the scripts paper thin, the dialogue- hmm sort of involved Jack stating the bleeding obvious:

“Run away fast.” “We need guns lots of them” “Keep running” “We can’t let her get out of here” “Did I mention my running plan?”

It’s a bizarre childish misfire by writers who don’t understand the genre they’ve chosen to work in. They think they’re a hell of a lot smarter than they are, when each week another ten inch nail is hammered relentlessly into the coffin. They don’t seem to be able to grasp the very basics of plotting! In real life one thing happens after another. In screenplays, one thing happens because of another!

Hitchcock towards the end of his career as he craved artistic recognition, (basically he wanted an Oscar before he croaked) started making up psychological or sociological bull-shit to try and give what were still effectively suspense thrillers deeper meanings.

Assembled journalists listen eagerly as he told them how the blasé attitude to life shown by the Tipi Hedran character in the Birds’ was a reflection of societies in general. News to the screenwriter Evan Hunter who thought he was working on a screwball comedy which simply took an unexpected side step into the horror genre!

I quote Evan Hunter:

“This was utter rot, a supreme showman’s con. When we were shaping the screenplay, there was no talk at all about symbolism….”

“Characters in screwball comedy have no depth. They merely represent conflicting attitudes. We were trying to tell a story lighter than air. As far as I was concerned, everything that preceded the first gull hitting Melanie on the head was pure gossamer”

Now I’m not saying that Torchwood or Who’s characters should be mere cyphers, but their emotional turmoil should not be the spine stories are hung from! It should be a reflection or a result of well plotted stories!!!!!

At the same time as he was attempting to convince people of the “importance” of the films he was now making, Hitchcock was busy poo pooing Evan Hunter’s concerns about some no unsubstantial holes in the logic of the story they’d crafted together.

“Don’t worry it all goes too fast for them Evan” was Hitchcock’s reply.

BS Mr. Hitchcock.

Girlfriend in a Coma

Lady in Silver
Is cyber-converting me

Torchwood: Cyberwoman

I am going to start by saying that I thought Cyberwoman was the best episode of Torchwood so far and the best Cybermen story in a long while. It was tragic, gruesome, horrific, well acted, fabulously directed and was a really enjoyable 50 minutes of television.

"Is it wrong that I found the Cyberwoman sexy?"

I thought the opening scenes were great as it really showed the camaraderie that exists within the Torchwood team, but it also showed that Ianto is a bit removed from that team spirit, which might explain how he gets away with things later on in the episode. It also suggests that they have all been together for quite a while now. Apparently something very similar happened in an episode of Firefly (which I have never seen before but which I am reliably informed is very good). Well if you are going to nick stuff then you might as well nick stuff from something good. And you can’t say Doctor Who doesn’t to that.

Is it wrong that I found the Cyberwoman sexy? Admittedly the Cyberwoman looked more like a big breasted woman dressed in a full on fetish suit, complete with gaps to flash a little bit of flesh (and high heels), than what we know of Cybermen but I don’t have a problem with that. I found that it was a far better portrayal of the actual mechanics of Cyber conversion than Doctor Who ever did. Here we actually saw it for what it was and it isn’t pretty. Doctor Who could never do something like this simply because it would have been too much for a family audience but Torchwood can, so I say more power to it. I also want to know how in the hell she managed to run in those heels.

"I await the scene where Sarah has girl-on-girl action in The Sarah Jane Adventures"

I guess whether or not you think this episode was ‘adult’ or not depends on your definition of what makes a show adult. If you thought that this was puerile nonsense and the same of Day One then you would probably consider the entire slasher movie genre of horror films to be puerile, which some people do, but most people would not have a problem saying that they were for adults and not children.

As far as I am concerned Torchwood is the same thing. It is not for children and this episode is certainly not. If nothing else will give the DVD an 18 certificate then this episode certainly would in particular the scenes of the Japanese Doctor in his partially converted phase. It wouldn’t be the swearing in this case (as there wasn’t much of it and even then it was in keeping with the situation. I mean you’d tell Jack to fuck himself if he told you to kill your girlfriend, even if she had been turned into a psychotic cyborg killing machine), or the sex, but rather the blood and gore and the scene of the Cyberwoman being pecked to death by a pterodactyl. Having said that if those two episodes were like something you would see on CBBC then I await the scene where Sarah has girl-on-girl action in Sarah Jane Adventures, or shags someone in a toilet.

It did rather make me laugh when they discovered a cyber conversion unit in their basement and never knew that it was there in the first place. One could argue that for a secret organisation they have very lax security if they could allow that the happen without anyone noticing. You could also argue that if Ianto was allowed to get away with this then who really runs the show at Torchwood. It is often said that an organisation would crumble without its administrative staff and perhaps this is just symptomatic of that. Big up the support staff!

It was about time Ianto was given something to do and I thought that Gareth David Lloyd was excellent in this episode. You really felt for him and believed that he would do everything he could he to help the girl that he loved. I mean wouldn’t you? I know I would. Again another reason for the Cyberwoman looking like she did could be a reason to make you believe that Ianto thought that there was still a chance that she could be converted back. I mean if she had been turned into a full on Cybermen he might have thought better of it and it might have had the same effect if she had looked the Japanese Doctor did after his partial conversion. Now that was pretty gruesome but the very idea of Cyber conversion is pretty gruesome isn’t it. He might not have, but you know what I mean.

I know some people can’t believe that Jack let Ianto carry on with his job as though nothing had happened but the way I see it is that you really couldn’t let him go as he knows far too much about the inner workings of Torchwood to be let out into the streets. I guess that Jack could have given him one of those memory draft things he gave to Gwen in the first episode but as was proved in that episode they don’t always work and I really don’t think that Jack was going to kill him. I have also noticed that Jack hasn’t sworn once this series (well not that I have noticed anyway) whereas most of the others have at some point (actually I am not sure that Tosh has either).

Poor Tosh didn’t have a great deal to do in this episode either. She did more than she normally does I will grant you but she still doesn’t have a great deal to do. I hope that she gets her chance later on, I really do. Jack is getting more like the Ninth Doctor week by week. I wonder if that is why some people are having a problem with him as he has changed from a cocky, annoying character into a more introspective darker character whereas the Doctor has gone the other way. Just a thought. Don’t all jump on me at once!

Owen did what all single blokes would do if they had Eve Myles on top of him, and thought they were about to die horribly, and snogged her face off. Gwen didn’t seem to object either did she? Just like she didn’t seem to bother with Jack’s seeming sexual harassment (well according to OG anyway) in the last episode. She loves it. The hussy! It certainly seems like Gwen will end up getting of with Owen over the course of the series. You can just see it happening, there is definitely some sort of spark there. A shame really as I was hoping that it would be her and Tosh!

I actually liked the final scenes with the Cyberwoman-pterodactyl face off. Yes, it was farcical and a bit silly but it just worked. Only in a show like this or Doctor Who can you get away with that sort of thing and it just worked. It was really about the only thing they could do at the time anyway. They had no power and bullets weren’t going to kill her were they. I was a bit surprised with the final scenes to be honest as I expected the pizza delivery girl to have been cyber-converted but no the Cyberwoman somehow managed to transplant her brain into the skull of the pizza delivery girl. Yes that does sound far fetched doesn’t it but you do have to remember this is science fiction and it doesn’t have to make sense. It also showed how far away she had gone from being human at that point and it wouldn’t have been good if she had managed to save herself from the pterodactyl and then convert the pizza delivery girl into a Cyberwoman as well and then escaped from the hub and went around Cardiff trying to cybernise the entire population would it? That would be daft.

I really enjoyed Cyberwoman and I am really enjoying Torchwood, far more than I ever did watching series 2 of Doctor Who. I, for one, am glad they are making this show and hope that it runs and runs.

Mystery Cyber-Theater Three Thousand

Ten Things Less Stultifyingly Retarded Than Torchwood's Attack Of The Cyberminge:

"You were due at the ship five minutes ago, Kroton. Cyberleader Wirgun sent me to find you. What are you doing here?"

"Looking at the sky, Liron. Wondering if I'll ever see it again."

"What difference does it make?"

"None, I suppose..."

"You act strangely, Kroton. Do you have a malfunction?"

In the time it wastes to watch this elephantine colostomy bag of an episode, I could have read Throwback: The Soul Of A Cyberman FIVE TIMES, and I bought the book from Amazon just to prove it.

Torchwood? Ed Wood, more like.

The Humper Book Of Persistent Torchwood Stains has this to say about Cyberwoman, sprayed on the wall with the blood from its own slashed wrists: THE PAIN THE PAIN OH GOD IT HURTS.

Not quite an invasion...

Having recorded "Cyberwoman", I finally had time to watch it today. The dilemma occurred when my copy of The Cybermen boxset arrived, and I had to make the heartbreaking decision of whether to watch "Cyberwoman" or make a dent in "The Invasion". I fear I made the wrong one.

Now, Cyberwoman wasn't terrible by any means, but there were many points when I found myself irritated by the script. I find the same faults as I did in Chris Chibnall's episode on Life On Mars last year: the actual words spoken. The plot is fine, and moves at a good rate. The characterisations are fine, and exploits a valid point, that Ianto has not been part of the team so far, while the others have been bonding.

Although, having said that, it seems an inappropriate point in the series to have an episode based around a minor major character, as we haven't yet seen the rest of the major characters in starring roles. As has been pointed out, Tosh's most complex line so far seems to have been "Go, Gwen", which isn't exactly character development. If this had been at about episode 7 or 8, I could understand, but as it is, Ianto's role as the least used character is undermined by having had little chance of development for the other characters.

I suppose it was brought to this point to coincide with the release of The Invasion. Shame, as that caused by dilemma earlier aswell.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, back in paragraph 2, I was talking about the script. So many lines are meant to be meaningful, and yet are out of place, cliched, and inappropriate. Lines like "Sometimes, in order to save what we love, we have to risk losing it.". Now really, what does that tell us that we didn't already know?

Now, how on earth was she cybernised in that way? And since when did the Cybermen understand the concept of breasts?

"YOU SHALL BE UPGRADED. YOUR BOSOM WILL BE ENHANCED TO ACHIEVE MAXIMUM ... ERRMMM... YOU SHALL HAVE AN ENLARGED CHESTAL REGION TO FACILITATE... WELL... OH, THE HELL WITH IT, BECAUSE WE LIKE NICE TITS."

Visually, she looks like a model sporting some new metal-fetishist lingerie. She looks like a woman with some bits added on, she doesn't look as though she's gone through any conversion. Practically, she still has a lot of flesh on show, which must be inappropriate in battle, as the flesh would be the weakest part. Also, she seems to be walking like a human with metal on the outside, so how has being "cybernised" affected her movement? Theoretically, if she was only part cybernised, why is she wearing a complete outfit that looks like she's meant to look like that? Where's the broken metal, the shards of bone sticking out, the hideous scars interlocked with machinery cutting through the muscles and through the skin? I know it's disgusting, but it would be more realistic, like the gory corpse of the semi-nerd.

And speaking of, wasn't that gruesome? Lovely and gory, with blood all over the place, and bits of metal sticking out. Although I wasn't expecting the metal eye to have been implanted. Why would the machine implant an eye at a time, when in the DW CGI scenes we always saw it lowering a complete facial mask down? And how come it can do eyes for him, yet her semi-cybernisation didn't include a face?

Is the Pterodactyl dead? It fought with the Cyberwoman, and presumably she won, so where is he? Oh well, if Pthomas appears in a later episode, we'll have our first major continuity blooper I believe! Pterrific!

The directing is fine. It's all very different to Doctor Who, and the slightly shaky camera shots are very 24, trying to give a more realistic look, not always with complete success.

Now, the acting. Oh, a critic's goldmine here. I suppose it comes as read in a british TV show that at least some of the acting will be appauling, and so on that tally the show does quite well. However, Caroline Chikezie is noticeably wooden (There's irony for you) in her stint as a mostly human, although when she becomes mostly cyber her acting becomes either better or more appropriate.

Oh, and what's with her voice? How does it change from being human to being cyber? I can understand the dramatic reasoning behind this move, but surely her voicebox must either be human or cybernetic, it can't switch between them!

Back to the acting. The Pizza girl is irritating. And why, when she has Lisa's brain, does she continue in the welsh accent? Lisa's brain should use Lisa's accent, but instead the old boyo voice kicks in.

The team put up a strong showing again, and finally Gwen steps out of the limelight long enough to show her in the team. Jack is not up to his full standard, but still provides a sterling performance. Owen seems to be much more mellow, and is much less irritating than previous occasions. And Tosh is... well, she's the extra one to make Ianto look like an outsider.

But, of course, this is Ianto's episode. And, although not exactly David Tennant or Johnny Depp standard, he still ends up above Orlando Bloom (who doesn't) with a decent performance as the heartbroken man with mixed loyalties. His performance is quite touching, and he creates the right sort of mood in each scene he's in.

So, the writing is slightly below par while the plotting is above par, the directing is good and the acting is fine. A moderately well earned 7/10 for this.

The Bumper Book of Made-Up of Made-Up Ptorchwood Facts has this to say about Cyberwoman: The original idea for a Cyberwoman and the original design came from the intended shooting script for The Tenth Planet, the second episode of which was to have featured the Cyberwoman in all her fleshy glory. However, when William Hartnell first saw the actress in her costume, he went into a coma which he didn't recover from until after the filming of episode 3. But he smiled all the way through.

Silver Plated, at Best.

Oh dear.

That was something of a mess wasn't it?

So many questions, so very little of it making any sense.

Let's start at the very beginning (A very good place to start) and attempt to define what it was trying to be.

It was the basic "trapped in a sealed area with a killer" scenario, so that was either Alien or The Thing.  Then there was the "divided loyalties/betrayal by a trusted lieutenant" subplot from 24 or any kind of political/spy thriller you can think of.  Who can forget the "make a woman out of machinery" thread from Buffy or Weird Science.  And finally there was the "snog in the locker" from Grange Hill.  There's one more obvious influence, but I'll save that for later.

So, as I've already stated, a bit of a mess.

As to the detail of the story.

I'm guessing that whatever the sum is, they're overpaid

We open with the highly professional, dedicated and elite team of alien hunters playing basketball in the office.  In the office.  They have a firing range, huge basement areas with nothing in (allegedly), store rooms in which to keep dead bodies, prison cells and who knows what else and yet no gym.  They have to play ball in the middle of the office.  We have to assume that somebody, somewhere, that is separate from the government, outside the police and beyond the United Nations must be paying these numpties to goof off like this and pop down the pub once an episode.  Where do they get their money from, how much do they get (I'm guessing that whatever the sum is, they're overpaid) and do they ever have to suffer from any kind of staff appraisals?

"So Captain Jack, do you feel you've achieved your targets this year?"
"Hell, yeah.  I've defended the planet from alien invasion."
"Really?  That's rather a broad statement.  Would you care to elaborate?"
"Um,  Sure.  Well there was the necromancy"
"You brought an alien back to life?"
"No, a human.  Then there was the time we chased down a shag monster."
"Come again?"
"That's what she wanted, yeah.  But she died in a puff of smoke."
"I see.  Anything else?"
"Well, yeah.  We solved a 50 year old murder case"
"An alien murder?"
"Nope.  Human again."
"So you went to the Police?"
"No, we pretty much just killed the guy."
"I see.  So not really much alien invasion, then"
"Well, there was the Cyberman, Cyberlady, hybrid thing."
"You were invaded by Cybermen?"
"Well, not as such.  There was just one and she was kind of made by one of the team."
"And you've disciplined this person?"
"Well, we made him pick up some rubbish."
"Harsh treatment, indeed.  Moving on, there seem to have been some unauthorised staff changes."
"Well, we lost a member of the team."
"In the line of duty?"
"That kinda depends on your point of view.  She shot herself after going on a killing spree."
"I don't suppose that she killed aliens, did she?"
"Afraid not, no.  More humans."
"So you replaced her through proper channels?  Classified job advertisements and the like?"
"Well, I did think of doing that, but in the end decided to give the job to a local copper."
"A highly qualified and decorated officer?"
"No, just a bit of a nosy one, to be honest."
"Right.  Fine.  And these requests for danger money?"
"Yeah, those are totally justified."
"Yes, you seem to be claiming compensation for being fatally shot?"
"That's right."
"Fatally?"
"Right through the forehead.  Yep."
"And yet they apparently managed to miss your brain."
"I'm lucky like that."
"And the electrocution?  Was that, too, fatal?"
"Oh yeah.  I was a total goner.  Both times."
"Of course you were.  Finally, you seem to be spending a lot of money on pet food."
"That'll be for the Pterodactyl and the Weevil."
"The what and the what?"
"We have a Pterodactyl flying around here somewhere.  Likes Barbecue sauce."
"Where did it come from?"
"I can't tell you that.  At least not yet."
"And the Weevil?"
"Right.  Now THAT is an alien."
"Which you're feeding?"
"Yeah, actually it's about dinner time.  Would you like to see him?"
"Certainly, yes."
"He's down in the cells.  Here have this nice bottle of Chianti, these fava beans and tell him you're a census taker."

I'm sorry, that went on a bit longer than I'd planned.  Where was I?  Oh yes, that's right.  I was complaining about the show, wasn't I?

So, with the rest of the Jack Pack out of the way, Ianto embarks on his own little project.  His cyber-girlfriend.  Now, this young lady used to work for Torchwood and yet  nobody else seemed to have the slightest idea who she was.  I'm guessing that she didn't work for Torchwood Three (or Cardiff, if you'd prefer) so where did she come from?  And whilst we're on the subject, where did the cyber conversion unit come from?  The only Cybermen, to break through before the massed 'ghost attack' appeared in London, which is where they did the converting.  So how did Ianto mange to schlep that thing the length of the M4 and install it in the basement of the Millennium Square without anybody noticing?

He even managed to install all the slice and dice extras in the ceiling.  Was it me, or did they just seem a little too inefficient to be of Cyberman design?

All the blades and saws popped out of their nice little alcove in the ceiling - Which begs the question of why were they hidden in the first place?  Did the cyber equivalent of Ann Maurice want them tidied away when they weren't in use?  And why did they just whirr, buzz and whip around the pace before getting on with the cutting up?  Again, not an efficient use of time.  Silly Cybers.

She might as well have whined "I'm a Chav" for all the sympathy I could muster

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't disgust an emotion?  Cyber-Lisa checked out her reflection and decided that as an incomplete upgrade, she was disgusting.  But she was thinking like a cyberman at this point, so would of had the emotional range to be feel, or recognise, disgust.  Was this meant to allow us to feel pity and to empathise with her?  Because it didn't work.  I was just surprised that she cared what she looked like from an aesthetic point of view.  She could have decided that her appearance was unacceptable or unsatisfactory but as it was she might as well have whined "I'm a Chav" for all the sympathy I could muster.

Now, as has been stated elsewhere on this site (I can't remember the identity of the poster and the quote has been changed) there seems to be a juvenile approach to the whole adult theme.  A lot of the time, it seems to be more of a teenage script than an adult one.  This week's sniggering example can be found after Gwen and Owen have shared an anticipated last kiss in the morgue drawer.  Afterwards, she said that she had felt his hard on.  Now, perhaps I'm not moving in the right circles anymore, but I haven't heard that phrase since I left school.

She could have said "I could feel you were enjoying it" or "Tell me that was your gun I was lying on" or even "You were pushing me into the roof" but no.  She had to call it a hard-on.  It was just too schoolyard for me.

Thank goodness for dinosaurs

I must admit that I found it rather amusing when Jack told Tosh that they needed a last line of defence against and that she was it.  Great!  A techo-geek with a hand gun.  It's just as well the cyber conversion removed all that tedious need for intestines and internal organs otherwise I'm sure Cyber-Lisa would have been messing her metal pants with worry over that.

Still, thank goodness for dinosaurs.  Which is a sentence I don't get to write often enough.  Squirt her with the reptilian equivalent of BBQ sauce and just pull an Elvis (by which I mean leave the building, rather than any  kind of rude euphemism).  Why didn't she just zap Big Bird with her hand buzzer?  It killed Jack (twice) so should have been enough to at least put Dino of it's Trill.

I mean pecked to death by a Pterodactyl.  It's not a classy way to go is it?  It's not even a convincing way to go.

I really wanted her to have a top knot that wasn't quite screwed on straight

And then we come to the other movie reference I mentioned.  The tremendously ridiculous and illogical "brain swap" between Cyber-Lisa and Pizza girl can only have come from Steve Martins The Man with Two Brains and the screw top method he had of accessing the brain.  I really wanted her to have a top knot that wasn't quite screwed on straight.

Why would a cyber conversion machine have an option for removing a brain from a cyberman (albeit an incomplete disgusting one) and put it into an inferior human head?  It makes no sense.

In fact, that is pretty much my opinion of the whole episode.  It just didn't work.  Too much strained logic and suspended disbelief.  Okay it wasn't as bad as the first two episodes, but it was much worse than the Ghost Machine.

I'm starting to lose faith, you know.  It was all going to be great when Captain Jack on the scene, but things just haven't work out that way.  Being killed just doesn't seem to have agreed with him.  I will, of course, continue to watch the show, but I'm going to record it in future and watch it at a more civilised hour.

I'm In Love With A Psychotic Cyborg - Should I Take Her Back?

Jeremy Kyle: A whining Welshman obsessed with a psychotic cyborg from a parallel universe. A bi-sexual American who can't die or stop shouting. And a pizza delivery girl with her brain missing; so what's new? All that and an exclusive interview with Terry the pterodactyl coming up next on The Jeremy Kyle Show...

Run titles

JK: Hello and a big, big welcome to the show. Our first guest is a man who's entire world was turned upside down when he discovered that his girlfriend was actually a psychotic cyborg from an alternative dimension intent on destroying our planet. He's been through a lot so let's welcome Ianto Jones to The Jeremy Kyle Show!

Ianto shuffles onto the stage, sniffling forlornly into a tissue.

JK: Welcome to The Jeremy Kyle Show. Let's talk, if we can, about those horrific events that have scarred you for life. On The Jeremy Kyle Show.

Ianto: Well, I was working at Torchwood One, innit, and I had arranged for a bit of nookie in the stationary cupboard with this woman who sat at the desk opposite me -

JK: This was company policy, wasn't it?

Ianto: Yes. Anyway, I stopped by the toilets to get some condoms (the audience applaud wildly) but when I got to the cupboard I... I... (starts sobbing)

JK gets down on one knee and coos: It's OK, you can do it...

Ianto: When I got there she was a bloody cyborg, innit!

The audience gasp.

Ianto: At first I thought she'd been to some extreme metalwork version of Anne Summers. I mean, she was pretty sexy with these enormous Jean-Paul Gaultier breast caps and this strange, shiny gimp mask with these handles on it so you could....

JK: Let me stop you there. Tell us how you felt when you realised this wasn't just some perverted sex game gone wrong?

Ianto: All of a sudden all hell broke loose. This really smug bloke with cardboard glasses started blowing things up and I suddenly realised that my girlfriend was actually in the process of being converted into a (sobs uncontrollably again) robot!

JK: It's OK. You're a very brave man for coming here today. Look at me. Look at me. LOOK AT ME!

Ianto wipes away his tears and looks at him.

JK: Tell us what happened next.

Ianto: Well, in all the confusion I grabbed her - and most of the room's equipment - which I then managed to sneak into my new workplace in Cardiff.

JK: That's hard to believe - how on earth did you manage that?

Ianto: Er....

JK: Never mind. So what happened next?

Ianto: My work colleagues found out and they got very, very angry.

JK (touching Ianto's knee tenderly): Tell me, did they ostracise you?

Ianto: Oh, they always did that. They never let me play basketball. Not even once, innit! I was just the office dogs-body. It was always the same thing - "Make me some coffee, feed the dinosaur, phone in for pizza" - that sort of thing.

JK: And you really, really love this woman... robot... thing... don't you? Yes or no?

Ianto (sobbing again): I'm so sorry!

JK: Sometimes you just have to look at your relationship and say, 'she's a toaster and there's no future in it'. I'm sorry, but that's a fact. Shall we bring her on? Ladies and Gentleman please welcome to The Jeremy Kyle Show Lisa, the psychotic cyborg from an alternative universe!

The crowd go wild as Lisa stomps onto the stage. She immediately grabs the nearest chair and smashes it into a thousand pieces. The crowd start to boo.

JK: Steady on, young lady! Anymore of that kind of thing and you can get off my stage immediately! You are a total disgrace!

Lisa: You will be like me.

JK: Not with my legs, I won't. So, Lisa, can I call you Lisa?

Lisa: I am Lisa .2 - faster, stronger, sexier.

JK: Angrier? Yes or No? Look at me!

Lisa: Puny human fool.

JK: My researchers tell me that you attempted to bond our producer to a photo-copier. Yes or No?

Lisa: She was incompatible.

JK: Don't worry - I saw her attempt to do the same thing to herself at a Christmas Party once. Now this is a very delicate question, but I just have to ask: how do you go to the toilet?

Lisa: Toilets are irrelevant!

JK: OK, let's bring Ianto's boss onto The Jeremy Kyle Show. Ladies and gentlemen - Captain Jack Harkness!

Jack bounds onto the stage and unholsters his gun.

Jack: GET AWAY FROM HER NOW - I'M GONNA BLOW HER *bleeping* HEAD ALL OVER THE SHAGPILE! (heh, I just said "shag")!

The Jeremy Kyle bouncers swarm in and break Jack's neck.

End of Part 1

JK: Just before the break Captain Jack Harkness was about to shoot one of his employee's semi-converted girlfriends in the head. Have you calmed down now, Captain?

Jack: YOU'VE GOT TO KILL IT!

JK: Look at me.

Jack: NO!

JK: Look at me.

Jack: **** NO!

JK: LOOK AT ME!

Jack flounces off-stage in a huff and the audience boo.

JK: OK, let's bring out another witness to these horrific events - Toshiko Sato, welcome to The Jeremy Kyle Show!

Sato skips onto the stage with a look of mild bewilderment of her face.

JK: Alright my sweet -

Sato: Go Gwen!

JK: Fair enough. So what was your part in all of this, darling?

Sato: Er...

JK: Come on! You must have done something!

Sato: Hmmm... errrrr...

JK: Don't play the innocent with me and your drippy doe-eyes - what was your role in all of this?

Sato: Er... Go, Gwen?

JK: Useless.

Transmission lost...

The Bumper Book of Made-Up of Made-Up Facts has this to say about Cyberwoman: this episode never happened. Honestly, it didn't.

'She just a cyberwoman, with evil on her mind.'

What an odd series.  After last week's wierdly structured and bizarrely directed episode I really feared that this was a duck, a bungle, a six hundred and fifty minute mistake being played out tortuously over thirteen weeks.  But tonight's episode lived up to the promise of the opening episode, delivering enough shocks, surprises and thrills to just about scrub out the memory of last week's misstep.  Still open to question however, is whether the series would be essential viewing were it not for the Doctor Who connection and the mystery of the hand applications.

Not that it began well, with what can best be described as a distracting homage to the teaser for the Firefly episode Bushwacked with all the basket ball and the time rift pulling some really, really cheesy metal music from the 1980s to accompany the reveal of the cyberwoman.  And that costume!  On the one hand, it was obviously designed to look completely outrageous and disconcertingly sexy, but in the context of the episode it really, really jarred and must have been a real pain for actress Caroline Chikezie (late of As, If and Footballer's Wives) who should be congratulated for being able to produce a credible performance beneath the silliness.

This was the classic base-under-siege that the mother series has always done so well, although it also owed some debt to the works of John Carpenter and Ridley Scott.  It still, understandably, continues to look like a much cheaper series than Doctor Who, and the re-use of the CG for the cyber-converter was a shame although the pterodactyl looked good.  It's a risk to run a bottle episode this early in the run, but as I think I've said in earlier reviews this is not a show about original ideas and why should that matter if its also entertaining?  So what too if they're trotting out the usual debates about what tis to be human as though it hasn't already been looked at ad-nauseum on Star Trek. 

Hold on -- sorry, I think that sentence gatecrashed from the negative review the evil version of me is writing in the Bad Torchwood dimension.  Where was I?  Oh ...

The real key on this occasion was of course that as well as simply battling the alien presence to the death, Torchwood was fighting with itself and the implications of that death.  This was a pleasingly streamlined story, free of the flab that's been dogging the series.  Developing the narrative in near real time helped enormously, and although we're yet to see writer Chris Chibnall tackle Doctor Who, it's almost as though he'd seen what worked there and transfered it here.

As an internal security system, a giant dinosaur is certainly novel and one of the key decisions in this series seems to be to run with the idea of incongruous juxtapositions.

Some might criticise that again we're supposed to be surprised by the manic secrecy of a character we've had little time to get to know but the performances really went some way to filling in the blanks -- John Barrowman's disappointment clashing with David-Lloyd's desperation.  Given this more dramatic material, the cast either toned down or keyed up their work accordingly and for the first time there was real chemistry and urgency.  For some reason the lack of overall characterisation seemed less important and actually worked to the episode's advantage -- Ianto points out that Jack (and we) didn't know about this because no one's bothered to ask.

[Good lord, according to the wikipedia Gareth David-Lloyd is currently dating Sara Lloyd Gregory who played Carys in Day One, and he actually essayed the role of Yanto Jones in RTD's Mine All Mine.]

Will the pterodactyl fight another day?  As an internal security system, a giant dinosaur is certainly novel and one of the key decisions in this series seems to be to run with the idea of incongruous juxtapositions.  The show is unapologetically serving up B-movie material (and in this case with a manga tinge) within a serial format and there's really nothing wrong with that if it's done with these winning sensibilities.  The problem last week was that the underlying sense of ludicrousness was taken far too seriously, whereas here the madness was instead being played straight and it worked very well.  A balance too was struck between the larger than life dialogue of the opener and something far more realistic -- and the fall out from Suzie suicide finally bit as it wasn't clear if Jack really would shoot Ianto in the head (or vice versa).

What is becoming abundantly clear is that Torchwood, possibly because of the alien influence have a very different sense of morality considering that they're the good guys.  In those closing moments, who did they kill?  Even though Lisa had swapped her mind into the body of Annie the pizza girl, which is monsterous act, wasn't she fully human?  Even though she still suggested upgrading wasn't that just psychological conditioning which could have been reversed?  Didn't she, despite the new outward appearance, deserve a second chance?  And how can anyone trust Ianto now -- is it wise not to kick him out of The Hub -- or is this a better the devil you know call?

[Incidentally, Annie actress Bethan Walker has a myspace profile.]

Does the episode prove that Torchwood has legs after all?  I'm still scratching my head.  In a sense, this wasn't an episode that displayed all of the apparent promise of seeing a full blooded sci-fi story on the streets of Cardiff.  How it scored instead was that despite being a direct sequel to a Doctor Who episode, it still managed to have its own tone and style and a sense of story that could and would not have worked at seven o'clock on a Saturday.  Although the debate about whether that's a good thing still rages, and it's really difficult not to talk about the series without referring back to (and I'll say it again) the mother series, it's still quite exciting to see that material being produced without exceptions being made for the sake of the kids.

Silver Lady

Another week, another ho-hum episode of Torchwood.

Where to begin? Well the good news is that I’ve finally given up on this spin-off being anything more than a novelty. With each new episode of Who I feel a genuine thrill as the credits crash in and we head off on another trip through time and space (okay, Cardiff and London these days. But you get my drift). Watching each new Torchwood fills me with about as much anticipation as those Monday nights watching Enterprise did. It’s just there; and for once in my Who-viewing life, it doesn’t make a jot of difference wither it’s crap or brilliant.

Which is a good thing, as for the second week - or is it third…frankly I’ve even stopped counting how many episodes in this is - running, this is about as derivative and predictable as TV sci-fi gets. Ooh, look it’s Alien one minute; oh now it’s ‘Dalek’ with less subtext and more gratuitous violence. Next it’ll be an episode of 24 as two of the principals point guns at one another and threaten to blow each other’s lack of brains out. There’s probably some drinking game you can play whilst watching Torchwood where you take a swig every time you recognise any television, film or even ballet homage and end up getting very, very pissed. But the good news is that you’ll wake up the next morning having forgotten everything.

So, having done little more than stand around looking enigmatic - or at least as enigmatic as Welsh people ever look- Ianto Jones is being given some ‘character’, is he? Well, if you consider character to be suddenly inviting over Japanese scientists from God knows where to have a gander at your former girlfriend who’s now dressed as though she’s appearing in the next Janet Jackson video he is, anyway. And of course, this being Torchwood, said scientist gets to fondle the bare flesh of this nubile Cyber-babe before getting mashed rather unpleasantly into some sort of makeover programme victim crossed with a box of Meccano. Cos’ apparently the Cybermen have taken to converting whole bodies with cybernetic organs, rather than the much more efficient brain-in-a-helmet method they used previously. And how - I cannot even begin to care - is this supposed to make conversion quicker and easier? Don’t ask me, as the episode itself comes to the opposite conclusion itself anyway.

There’s probably some drinking game you can play whilst watching Torchwood where you take a swig every time you recognise any television, film or even ballet homage and end up getting very, very pissed

And what is Ianto’s beef this episode, anyway? Is he really that grief-stricken that he’s forced to betray his colleagues and friends for the sake of saving his now 50% mechanical lady (which must be some sort of comment on the sex-toy industry)? Or is he just pissed at the rest of Team Torchwood for not letting him join in with the basketball games and bond like a bunch of freaking sitcom characters from some American abomination over pizza and 7-Up? Either way, his emoting in this episode was perhaps some of the worst blubbing from a boyo that you’d see outside of a Big Brother eviction night. Glyn to win? Not if this streak of principality piss was to have his way in the name of Cool Cymru.

So once Lisa the Cyber-lady goes postal it’s only a matter of time before the whole thing substitutes shouting characters for any attempt to build any real tension. And the genre clichés come so thick and fast that you’d be hard-pressed to jot them all down before the next one hits you in the face like some kind of Quentin Tarantino wank-athon. In fact with its cast of anonymous ciphers and cheap-looking setting - four episodes down and Torchwood is already resorting to bottle shows in order to keep the budget balanced - you can’t help but be reminded of the cheapo, straight to video films (usually starring the likes of Miguel Ferrer or Lance Henrikksen) that clutter up the Sci-Fi channel’s schedules at a similar time of night. Oh, and of course there’s the obligatory swearing and shoe-horned-in sex that has become this series’ only truly consistent quality. This week: Owen and Gwen share a where-did-that-come-from snog whilst Captain Jack tongues the life back into Ianto - in glorious parallel! So, does this mean that Gwen’s much mooted fling will be with Owen rather than the rumoured Toshiko (if so, at least she won’t be having to make passionate scenes with the human equivalent of creosote). And it’s only a surprise to find Jack not frenching the Cyber-babe into submission as she fails to electrocute his grinning arse into this side of next week.

Is Ianto just pissed at the rest of Team Torchwood for not letting him join in with the basketball games and bond like a bunch of freaking sitcom characters?

But before I even mention the laughingly predictable bit when Lisa the Cyber-lady begins to question this ‘human thing called…love’, I’ll try and be kind for a few nano-seconds and mention one or two moments that I did like. Such as the rather gruesome post-conversion shots of the Japanese scientist - Torchwood actually taking advantage of its post-watershed slot in the right way for once - and the continuing peeling of the onion that is Jack’s background. Honest to God, it’s only Jack that keeps me watching each week, as the faceless goons surrounding him seem to get more and more bland the more we know about them. How is this possible? Perhaps Chris Chibnall has actually nailed the art of making characters less interesting than what’s on the page; and how’s that for a good Season Three omen, eh?

At least the Bride of Frankenstein denouement made me giggle. Poor Ianto - left as bereft as Big Brother’s Glyn on the first day he tried to boil an egg all by himself - trudges off to pick up bits of his former girlfriend before fading away once more into the brickwork. ‘Put the kettle on will you, there’s a cariad, eh?’

I’m not even going to bother saying that next week’s looks like it has potential, as I’m getting just a mite tired of being proved wrong. Oh well, where’s that copy of ‘The Invasion’ that send-it.com kindly posted me two days early..?

(The Bumper Book of ‘Torchwood’ Facts has this to say about Cyberwoman: in a discarded sub-plot, the Cyber-conversion equipment was to be used to fill the gap in Gwen’s teeth, thus saving the Mill millions on continuity)