We are coming tomorrow – Torchwood ToE Day Two
Where Day One of Torchwood: Children of Earth set pieces of a greater mystery into place by establishing new characters and the mysterious premise for the series Day Two offered crisp dialogue and a hurried pace without a huge push on exposition. The excitement of the second installment, it would appear without having seen the whole series was a solid choice in pacing and characterization, which I will discuss after the jump.
Jumping straight into the destruction we are left with in Day One, Day two starts with Gwen Cooper deafened and evacuating the crater that was formerly Torchwood headquarters. The shear scope of destruction is established by wide shots, allowing the viewer to see just how epic this story is. Besides the occassional monster we’ve rarely seen destruction of this scale in the Torchwood universe (though blowing up buildings such as Whitehall is pretty regular in the new Doctor Who Universe.)
Almost immediately we’re given a tone for the night’s episode. Government agents sent for clean up attempt to kill Gwen immediately. She handles them with ease, takes their guns and winds up in a double handed gun shoot out with a sharp shooter while trying to make her escape (not bad for a pregnant woman). The action from this point forward is taunt and littered with solid acting and some great dialogue.
The female government agent, Johnson, we meet at the end of season one begins the pursuit of Gwen almost immediately with the inadvertent help of PC Andy Davidson.
We get a hint of the humor under pressure presented when Gwen, cornered starts shooting at the vehicle Johnson and Davidson, whose not convinced Gwen is a terrorist as he’s been told.
“What kind of terrorist shoots the wheels?” Davidson asks.
“A clever one,” Johnson replies with deadpan delivery.
It is this play of words that keeps the plot moving as fast as the action. The rest of the episode is a good guys on the run scenerio that kept me on the edge of my seat.
The idea of family also continues to play out between four prevelant camps in the episode. Those camps are the government players, including scenes with John Frobisher and the fear he has for his family, Gwen and Rhys who reunite after Gwen’s escape from Johnson and her agents, Ianto who receives help from his sister and brother-in-law, and definitely not last, Captain Jack, whose family is a culmination of all of the above.
It is Jack’s tale that is perhaps most harrowing, and if anyone has a beef to send them over the edge it would be him. We get to see just how true the fact is that he can never die and what that actually means. In relation to this a guard sums up best what Captain Jack has echoed about his condition in the past. He says, approximately, “If that’s living perhaps he should have remained dead.” In that moment Jack’s character is made immediately more sympathetic. What comes next for him is horrifying.
By the end of Day Two though the team of course is reunited through some great surprises and daring do and help from Lois Habiba, the government assistant with the inside track and conscious. She also echoes another common theme in the Doctor Who universe when she makes note that Torchwood appears to be neither good nor bad, that there are elements in our universe that transcend such simple moral dichotomies.
And unlike the day earlier there is only one new incident of children standing still, this time to announce the 456 will arrive, tomorrow. The day ends with the government having deciphered transmitted plans for an environmental facility we can only assume is there to contain the 456 and having built it. Mr. Dekker is used to coyly make some illusions to other aliens seen in Cardiff, particularly the Sleveen <sp> who had a little bit of a gas problem in their episodes, in anticipation for their arrival by the audience.
Over-all epsisode two does well to move the action forward, if not necessarily advance plot points by quantum leaps. If we do get to meet the 456 in the pivot point of the mini-series the storyline should be fast and furious. And we still have Clem MacDonald roaming the streets, waiting to play his part.
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action from the get go.
Well let me carry the bag. You want your trigger finger free don’t cha? Rhys Williams
“We’re the only family he’s got” Ianto’s brother in law
Body bag morgue of Jack Harkness, creepy
If you aren’t the bad guys, but you aren’t the good guys then who do I work for? Idea that some things transcend traditional ideas of good or evil.
Torture of Jack unbelievable.
