Written By: Chris Chibnall
Directed By: Ashley Way
Air Date: 16th January, 2008
Summary: Spike turns up in Sunnydale Captain John Hart turns up in Cardiff, and immediately snogs Captain Jack. Well, who wouldn't given half a chance?
Team Torchwood is chasing a blowfish in a really natty tie, who's terrorising Cardiff by stopping at red lights to let old ladies cross. Naturally, Our Heroes are going to shoot him for this, and they chase him down, ready to do him in for following the Highway Code, when Jack turns up and shoots him dead. Naturally, the Scooby Gang are a bit shocked, and surprisingly fail to shoot him dead for breaking all their hearts and then fucking off without so much as a 'gone out for a packet of cigarettes' post-it note on Tosh's monitor.
We get to see how much Jack contributed to office inefficiency (presumably due to his constant sexual harrassment of the employees) by The Minions running around actually doing their jobs. Gwen has reached the five minute mark in the episode without having an emotional crisis, which has to be some sort of new record. She shoves Jack into a door, and then fails to follow it up by kicking him in the goolies. The computers, feeling unloved, start making funny noises, coincidentally, that coincides with some sort of Rift activity, which is actually Spike coming out through a Hellmouth on a roof carpark somewhere.
Spike immediately puts any doubt to rest about his intentions by killing someone, and when Team "Last one to get snogged's a wet blanket" (gah, I'm running out of names to call these guys) turns up, Jack gets a message from Spike telling him that he needs his help, and that apparently Star Wars films are alive and well in the 51st century, which I guess makes Jack R2-D2 in this little analogy.
R2 immediately steals the team's car, and Ianto, displaying the fact that he's currently in possession of the GunToting Maniac's one functioning braincell by hailing a taxi and presumably telling him to step on it.
R2 arrives at a bar, snogs Spike, and they immediately get into one of the funniest fights I've seen in a while. Then the Have A Go Heroes show up and spoil all the fun, though Tosh seems to be picking up on the whole one-big-orgy vibes that R2 and Spike are apparently giving off, and starts hitting on Spike. Well who wouldn't. Spike tells them that there's a load of bombs hidden around Cardiff, and that they all have to be found. It'll be like a treasure hunt.
So it's back to the underground Treehouse of Horror, now with 25% less mildew. R2 hits one Gwen, who has apparently still not forgiven him for fucking off without a word and is apparently engaged to Mr Tubby and Loveable. Except apparently no one else will have her. Aww. Well. You knew sleeping with Owen would have lasting consequences.
... What?
Spike says his name is Vera, and Team GoodTimes splits up into pairs to search the city. Jack warns Gwen not to kiss Vera, clearly dealing with jealousy. Gwen and Vera check out the docks, and unfortunately, there's no recreation of the scene in Batman Begins with everyone getting slaughtered. Instead, they find ShinyThing #1 and Vera kisses Gwen in celebration, who passes out because Vera pulled a Yolanda (see: Firefly) with the paralysing lipstick, although the colour of said lipstick wasn't much. I think he would have suited a nice Plum Sunset. He points out that he and Jack "had something" so is CLEARLY dealing with some issues that causes him to eliminate the competition for Jack's affections. Weirdo.
Anyway. Spike/Vera carries on making the rounds. Punches Tosh, shoots Owen, steals ShinyThing#2, and heads out.
Meanwhile, R2 and Ianto, who can be C3PO in this analogy, except I'm not calling him that because I'm not typing it out again and again and misspelling it every time, are checking out an office and R2 displays a heretofore unseen fetish for offices, which Ianto remarks upon and is properly creeped out by. R2 also awkwardly winds up asking for a date, after which Ianto tells him to get the hell lost and check out the roof. And then says yes to the date, presumably in an effort to get R2 to go away as fast as possible.
Ianto carries on checking out the office, but is interrupted by Spike, who apparently has a soft spot for the suit (must be a 51st century thing) since he lets him live and puts him in a lift, allowing Ianto to demonstrate that he actually seems to have grown a personality in the series intermission. Spike carries on up to the roof, has a lovers quarrel with R2, who tosses ShinyThing#3 off the roof, so Spike retaliates by pushing R2 off the roof.
R2 shatters on the ground in a million... actually. No, he's Jack, so he just gets bent the wrong way into a V shape over a bench. JesusfuckingOW. You know, that HAD to hurt. Spike takes ShinyThing#3 and the MagicWristComputer.
Ianto continues to prove that he is the only competant member of AliensRUs by finding and saving everyone else. Seriously. They would be so screwed without him.
Spike's in the hub, assembling the things that come out of the ShinyThings, which kinda looks a bit like it belongs in Babylon 5. You know. The triangle thing. Oh, never mind. I think most of the people who watch this show especially in the US don't remember B5. For shame. Team Rambo show up, waving guns around, and Spike gets a bit of a shock when Jack shows up as well, remarkably un-V-shaped. They decamp to Jack's office, because it has better furniture, and Spike turns on the Triluminary (again, B5... ah, screw it, I give up) which actually turns into a bomb by a vengeful murder victim. It attachs to him with the somewhat random time limit of 10minutes til detonation.
He immediately handcuffs himself to Gwen in an attempt to get Torchwood to cooperate. Gwen then apparently decides that being engaged to Rhys is too much to deal with, and she drags him off to the Rift in order that she and Spike only die and they don't blow up the shiny happy city of Cardiff. Only works with Tosh and Ianto. Owen is apparently now in posession of the braincell, and hauls Jack off to the lab where they do strange things involving blood. First office fetishes, now this.
Gwen is apparently carrying out her deathwish, but in the nick of time, the shiny cool sports car arrives with Jack and Owen riding together, Jack holding a great big needle, and in an utterly Freudian move, he jumps Spike and plungs the long large needle straight into Spike's heart. The bomb, which was coded to Spike's DNA, falls off, because the needle had the DNA from everyone in Team Spooky in it, in a move which can't possibly come back to haunt them. Jack throws the bomb into the Rift, which explodes and knocks them all back in time to the night before.
Jack kicks Spike back through the rift, but not before Spike says something about having 'found Grey' which triggers some sort of flashback, which might as well have been caption "foreshadowing". Team TooCoolForThree (BBC Three that is) head off for night, having saved the world Cardiff once more. Huzzah!
So, yeah. I loved it. This is the show I wish I was watching the year before last (such a long hiatus, damn you). It's a lot tighter, snappier, funnier, and is the show we KNOW those who write it can write. I remember watching the first series of Torchwood and 'eh'ing at the hit and miss nature of it all, surprised given the extremely tight writing to be found in the same team in Doctor Who. They really did need all that extra lead time.
And more coherently, I'm relieved that the fanficcers got it wrong and there was no immediate reconciliation. Jack does immediately start hitting on Gwen and Ianto I noticed though *eyerolls*. I thought Gwen was no longer the slightly useless character she was last time. She said she'd been running Torchwood while he was gone (did they ever mention how long he was gone?) and you can see it. She bosses people around and they accept it. Ianto is less of a shadow character, which is nice. Owen is less of a bastard, and Tosh is... pretty much the same as before. But then she was my favourite character before. I wanted Jack to explain a few things to his team, but I suppose it's hard to break the habit of a lifetime, and, also, it might get a little tedious explaining things the audience already knows.
The story is tighter, it's gripping, and there's a tantalising hint of what will probably be the overarching plot of this series (that, or it'll be forgotten until the one episode that sorts it out), namely the flash of what looks like a child's hand. I'm hoping it's not Jack's child, simply because that's just a bit predictable.
Seven days until the next episode. And I've had to write this with some bloody Norman Wisdom documentary going on. *grabs the remote* Ah. Repeats of Mock the Week. Much better.
Next Week: There's aliens stalking around Cardiff. As if we didn't already know that. But these ones have funky arms.
Previous Episode | Torchwood Home | Next Episode: Sleepers