203: To The Last Man

Written By: Helen Raynor
Directed By: Andy Goddard
Air Date: 20th January, 2008
Summary: It's Toshiko's turn again to fall in love in a single day, and TW manages to do the 'man out of time' episode much better than it did last year.

Skip down to the review.

Recap

A man and a woman wearing antiquated clothing and even more antiquated accents are running around a load of staircases in what briefly appears to be a Benny Hill sketch, the way they run into doors and appear at the end of other staircases. They scare the daylights out of a nurse, who addresses them in an appropriately working class accent in comparison to their “upper-middle toff” ones, and the caption helpfully informs us that we're in “St Teilo's Military Hospital” in 1918 (St Teilo being the patron saint of horses and fruit trees, if you were curious). They walk around the ward, and a nurse helpfully points them towards the bed of a young man who's curled up all cosy. Something weird is happening, and the nurses are all freaking out about it.

It seems that the two toffs (Gerald and Harriet) are playing Ghost Hunter, and run straight towards the sounds of time and space tearing apart (which sounds vaguely like someone tearing cracking plastic) and as something Spooky happens, they cling to each other, which should give a massive clue as to which organisation they belong to (hint: which long standing British organisation has performance appraisals which involve a great deal of inappropriate physical contact between underlings and superiors?). The word turns a bright blue-white, and when it fades, Toshiko Sato is in the room, along with the young man we just saw upstairs.

It would be more surprising if they didn't trail this to death and spoil the surprise.

Toshiko pleads with the man, Tommy, to tell 'them' or else it's the end of everything. It's always the end of everything though. Surely, after weekly planetary peril, it must lose its impact eventually? Maybe in 1918 they weren't facing Armageddon on a daily basis, because instead of hanging around having emotional crises like their counterparts in 90 years time will, when Tommy tells the toffs that they have to take him, they hop to it, apparently divining everything they need to know just from that one sentence, and run upstairs and promptly tell him to come with them.

Come with who? Torchwood of course. Didn't you notice their name on the pre-titles sequence?

Ninety years and one superquick titles sequence later, Tosh is getting ready for a date work, and her house is making me feel rather ashamed of the untidiness of mine. When she she have time to keep it so clean? I mean, I suppose the lack of carpets mean you don't have to vacuum but...

I digress. She gets ready and in traditional female style, takes so long that they have to make up a musical montage to get past it all. Fri 20 is circled on her calender. And apparently, in a very nice little segue, it's also Fri 20 in Jack's office, as he turns over his calender. Gwen is looking at a picture of Tommy, while Jack tells her about him, and Ianto lurks in the background making unhelpful comments.

Gwen apparently has never encountered this Tommy before (who is apparently either 24 or 114, depending how you look at it), even though he's been on ice in the Torchwood freezers for a while. We certainly have confirmation that it's been less than a year since the events of the pilot episode, if Gwen's never heard of him before, since once a year they unfreeze Private Popsicle (ok, that's a cruel name), so either it's been less than a year since Gwen joined, or she was off that day (and we certainly have confirmation that Jack was only absent from Torchwood for a few months, at most). Gwen is convinced they're having her on, but when Jack tells her that their frozen friend was born in 1894, she has a 'yeah right' look on her face, before you see the exact moment that she remembers she works for an alien fighting organisation out of an underground lair with a pteranodon pterodactyl for an office mascot, and the grin falls.

Exeunt from Jack's office, to meet up with Owen and Tosh.

“Is that a dress you're wearing, Tosh?” Owen sounds almost like he's continuing to be sort of a nice guy. It is indeed a dress, and a very unflattering one it is too. I take back what I said about the hot lady scientist last week. She's definitely going for the 'smock' look. Ugh.

They head down to the morgue/storage/creepy place we keep all the bodies and Jack explains that he's been at Torchwood for 90 years. “Longer than any of us. Well. Any of you.” Which is a rather perplexing statement really, but more on that later.

Apparently they need to wake him up once a year to make sure he's still in working order, that the brake fluids don't need replacing and that he's still road worthy. They revive him, with the added incentive of a few shocks from some defib paddles, and he's understandably a little out of sorts. He smacks Owen to the floor before Tosh manages to bring him to his senses. He recognises he's at Torchwood, and wants a cup of tea. Tosh looks at Ianto who smiles, and the moment her back's turned, stomps of with a “it's always me who makes the goddamned tea” look on his face.

Ah, the hardships of being the tea boy. So unappreciated.

So it's dinner time at Torchwood, and it's all very cute and familial. Apparently Torchwood have 'good' china and it's only for visitors. Presumably Ianto keeps the good stuff hidden down in the archives with the nice silverware and the Royal Doulton with the handpainted periwinkles (two hundred points and a ginger cookie for the first one to get that reference). Tommy's reminiscing about miniskirts and the sixties, while Gwen, like a dog with a bone, still wants to know why he's here. Jack is either ignorant or professing ignorance. I'm going with 'professing'.

Back in the infimary, Owen's going through all those neurological tests, while Tosh goes through the memory tests, and you'd rather think they would do this before they all went off and had dinner, but whatever. While Owen, Tosh and Tommy are getting up to fun things involving reflex hammers, Jack's having show and tell in his office, with the aid of what looks vaguely like overhead projector slides.

Take a deep breath. It's explanation time. Apparently what's going on is that a timeslide/slice/shift happens in the hospital, and there's a good possibility 1918 will try and coexist at the same time as whatever time is at the other end (i.e. As we've all figured out by now, today, 2008). Anyone who's watched any science fiction in the last twenty years will be able to tell you that that's a very bad thing. Jack pulls another one of his sex toys surprises from the vault, which is a sealed box from 1918, which apparently contains orders from Torchwood.

Gwen immediately tries to open said box in a classic case of 'I do not need a man to open a jam jar', and Jack points out with amusement that it's time locked. So it won't open til the shit hits the fan. So. Anytime now. Tommy and Tosh turn up, the former dressed in modern clothing, and as the pair of them get ready to go out down the pub for some innocent little drinkies, Gwen asks if Jack's keeping any more pretty boys on ice downstairs.

I'd think she was joking, except we all know about Gwen's taste in men, so I wouldn't put it past her to start jumping the cryogenically challenged. Jack snickers, and points out that he's Tosh's. Aww. Sweet. Owen is uncharacteristically subdued when Tosh thanks him for holding the fort.

Out Tosh and Tommy go, to a typically damn and grey UK day. They catch up, and it reveals how little life Tosh seems to have, and she doesn't even seem to think about it until Tommy mentions the things she said she'd do, like learn Spanish, and the piano. Her protest is that Torchwood is all consuming. Careful. That's probably what Suzie said, right before she turned into a crazy psychopathic killer who shot her boss. Although, in Torchwood, that's more a job requirement than a grounds for firing.

Ianto and Gwen, back in the batcave, have apparently commandeered Jack's office. God only knows where Jack is. Off on a rooftop somewhere, I suspect, practicing his Dark Knight impression. They're looking at photos of the Torchwood of 1918 and agree that being a bit of alright is practically a requirement to be Torchwood commander (that would be Mr. Toff aka Gerald). Turns out Ms. Toff died a year after the photo was taken, at 26.

Gwen comments that it was so young. Ianto returns that they all were, looking at a group photo. Which leads me to think that either the entirety of Torchwood Cardiff were all killed at the same time as Harriet Toff, or he's really not talking about Torchwood Cardiff circa 1918 at all. “Nothing changes,” he adds, face dead, staring off into the middle distance.

Gwen gets up to go and check out St Teilo's, and before she goes, chides Ianto and tells him to “bloody cheer up will you?”. So either she's a massively insensitive bitch, or she never learned what actually happened at Torchwood One. Ianto clearly struggles to offer a smile to placate her, but one might as well see the ghosts of his dead colleagues hanging behind him.

Tosh and Tommy are playing pool, and she's apparently a pool shark. Tommy asks if she has a boyfriend, and he apparently sounds like her mother. Funny. I thought her mother was dead. She asks about his girlfriend, and asks what happened. He says they sort of broke up, since the war changed him.

Gwen is stalking the halls of the deserted St Teilo's, and she needs to try harder to emulate the X-Files. It doesn't work if there's too much sunlight. She sees a man with crutches, who scares the life out of her by walking towards her, and after she screams and covers her eyes (destroying any hardcore heroine credentials she may have been building) he's gone. She starts running through the corridors, and I'm vaguely hoping for creepy children with dead eyes to appear and start talking in echoey voices. Instead what we have is the sound of pigeons flapping, and the lights flicker.

Someone creeps up behind her... but they're wearing high visibility jackets. So either they're ghosts with a very conscientious attitude towards health and safety, or they're actually modern day builders. Turns out they're the latter.

Scully does what any good girl should do, she calls in Mulder. Jack appears, all greatcoat and lingering stares at the walls, and realises that the demolition of the hospital might be stirring up the latent psychic energy of wounded soldiers and causing the timeshift. For some reason he relates this with his hand pressed to the floor. In a haunt voice, he goes on about the dead. And then, casually, throws off that he should know, since he was there.

Gwen shocks the hell out of me by not immediately going “what do you mean?”.

They contact Owen, who's sitting at Tosh's desk, and he takes time out of going through her drawers (because who wouldn't go through a coworker's drawers given half the chance), and says it's all quiet, but it's not his thing. They should call Tosh. Jack, however, would rather Tosh get a full date out of the day, continuing his efforts to keep the team happy, healthy and in love (or something).

It's only now I realise that Jack has traded his little blue headset thingy for the bog standard transparent coiled earpiece. I'm going to take a wild guess and figure that too many people were taking the piss out of it. I'm rather perplexed how just tapping the earpiece manages to make it work, but since we have the same situation on Stargate: Atlantis, I'll let it slide.

Mulder and Scully head back to HQ.

Tommy is awkwardly ordering a drink, and then catches sight of news of the Iraq conflict on the pub's TV screen. He then offers one of the more insightful commentaries on war by saying that “we won, the war to end all wars they said, then three weeks later they had the second world war...”.

I mean, really. Let's face it. The 20th century has been pretty bloody, and the 21st isn't shaping up much better. Tosh believes that the world is worth saving, in spite of wars, and Tommy abruptly says that if she calls him he 'brave handsome hero' he'll do whatever he says. And then, if all the foreshadowing isn't thick enough at this point, he raises his hand to his head in classic 'Deanna Troi: I Sense Something' mode and the scene cuts to the demolition of St Teilo's.

Mulder and Scully are still walking through the halls. Mulder gets distracted, and, brandishing a torch, goes hunting down darkened corridors for something he can sort of hear. He watches a nurse pushing a singing patient down the hallway. They both ignore him, even when he's rude enough to shine the torch in their faces.

Scully, meanwhile, is walking around even more darkened corridors, but without the aid of a torch. She actually tries the lights, which is far too sensible for scifi. The bulbs flicker like they're trying to light a rave, and, with a dramatic crash of metal sound fx, she sees the ghosts of a nurse and... I think that's Tommy, but I can't be sure. It just looks like a serviceman of some description.

Even MORE dramatic music plays when the nurse turns and looks straight at her, then walks towards her, says 'hello' a few times, then says she can 'see you' and starts screaming that Gwen “shouldn't be here”.

In what passes for British daylight, Tosh and Tommy are having more fun. He chases her along a pier of some description, then kisses her, which rather surprises her. She initially says she's 'too old' for him, and then he calls her a 'daft lass'. She gives him a quick peck in return. She asks what he wants to do, and he says he wants to go back to her house. He says it's hardly rushing, since she's known him for four years (so, Tosh has been working for Torchwood for four years...). They start to hurry back, but Jack calls, in a perfect example of dramatic timing.

Everyone sans Ianto are in the conference room, where Jack goes back to explanation mode, and basically says 'things happening, things are bad, we need to sort it, go team Torchwood' and yells for Ianto, who's apparently taken to hanging out in Jack's office (since that's where all the cool kids are these days), and he reports the box is still shut. Jack orders them to go take readings of the hospital.

Owen and Tosh go to St Teilo's, also known as the building that the NHS forgot, and he continues to actually act like the friend to Tosh that the series previously always implied that he was, and expresses concern for her wellbeing in a sweetly awkward way. Aww. I really like Owen this year.

Gwen calls, taking over from Jack in the 'interrupting emotional scenes' role, and asks Owen to look for 'a woman in strange armour ripping a union jack'. Gwen is skeptical about whether that's now. But it turns out that it's an ad for car insurance visible out of the window. And I think the 'woman in armour' looks a lot like Xena.

Machines go bleep as Tosh watches them, up in the ward, and alarms start going off. In Jack's office, the box suddenly opens itself, which is rather a cool thing to happen. He reaches inside to find a rather impressively long letter in neat handwriting. Even the old Torchwood logo incorporated hexagons I see (I have to wonder what the significance of the hexagon is). Ianto wanders in, apparently having nothing better to do, and looks rather thrilled at the fact that the box is open, all childish glee at finding out what's inside. Apparently they're instructions for Tommy, and Toshiko. (Duh-duh-duuuuh!)

Jack tells Team Sporky about the moment we saw at the beginning of the episode when the timelines crossed, and produces a sort of clockwork rift manipulator and tells Tommy that he has to do this. How many of those rift manipulators do they have lying around anyway?

Jack takes Tosh back to his offce, and tells her that unfortunately, three weeks after they send Tommy back, he gets executed for cowardice. Turns out that he forgets all his post-1918 memories (and they don't exactly explain HOW that works, but I suspect we're not supposed to look too deeply into that one), and gets sent, like the other soldiers who recover, back to the front. Jack looks like he's remembering actual events as he speaks, telling how they broke down again once they returned to the front. 300 of them get executed for cowardice, he says. Tosh is horrified, a little understandably.

Ianto is meanwhile presenting Tommy with his old clothes, who's surprised they've not been eaten by moths in the last 90 years. As if Ianto would let any moths into his archives. Creatures capable of destroying humanity, however, that's different. Tommy says he's going to be saving the world in his pjamas.

Hey! If it's good enough for the Doctor...

Even though Jack pushes Tosh to be strong enough to do the right thing, back in his office, because they know that she does (presenting her with a rather well-rendered sketch of herself from the letter), and she asks what she's supposed to tell him.

Outside, Tommy stands around awkwardly with Team Layabout, who aren't quite certain what he's supposed to do overnight waiting for his doom. He says that the soldiers used to drink, play cards, etc.. Apparently these are all activities that Team Sloth do a lot, since Ianto turns around to conjure up the necessities before Tommy tartly points out that he's the one going, not all of them. Cough. Good point.

Tosh comes out of her meeting with Jack, and all but propositions Tommy in front of the gang, saying that he can stay at her place. She shows him to her house, which he comments on being neat, and she says is because it's just her. Ok, apparently I have it totally wrong about how single people live. *eyes the pigsty of a house around her*

The music swells. Tosh never thought this would happen. She worried about him seeing her grow older. They kiss. And hardly chastely. Cut to...

The Love Shack Hub. Jack is sorting through papers, looking vaguely attentive to them. When Ianto walks in behind him, he doesn't look up and starts talking about how “this time tomorrow, he'll be back in 1918”. I suppose that's sort of true... although this time tomorrow would be 90 years away from 1918, but maybe they teach 'how to refer to weird and wacky temporal loops' in Time Agent school. Speaking of which...

“His own time,” Ianto says, pausing behind Jack a fair way. “Would you go back to yours, if you could?”

Jack's eyes flick up from his paperwork, staring somewhere off camera. He doesn't exactly seem surprised that Ianto's figured it out (and let's face it, he drops enough hints to let on) but certainly from his reaction I think we can guess Ianto's never let on that he knows before know. Maybe he doesn't know the specifics, but Ianto knows Jack's a man out of his time.

“Why?” he asks, “Would you miss me?”

“Yep.”

Wow. I think that's a fairly definite declaration of... something. Jack says he left home a long time ago, as Ianto slowly approaches, and adds that maybe it doesn't matter if he doesn't know where he belongs. Ianto leans against the edge of the desk, facing Jack, and anyone who's seen the previews knows what's coming. You can hear the squeeing of fangirls reaching critical levels.

Ianto says he knows that Jack gets lonely. Going home wouldn't fix that, Jack returns. He wouldn't have seen things he'd seen, “loved people I never would have known if I'd just stayed where I was”. Jack doesn't even look at Ianto while he's saying that, though Ianto's eyes drop on the phrase and he nods his head silently, looking a little sad. Jack does look at Ianto then.

“And I wouldn't change that for the world,” he says.

Ianto leans down and they kiss, just as passionately as Tosh and Tommy did not too long ago. And considering that the next shot is of those two in bed, I think we can safely assume what came next.

Although if you can't figure it out, I'm sure the fanfics will be up before long explaining it in glorious NC17 detail.

Tommy asks her what Jack told her, and Tosh admits that they send him back to France. Tommy realises that he dies, but when he assumes that he gets killed fighting, Tosh doesn't correct him. She just strokes his cheek.

Cut to daytime Cardiff. Tosh is standing around, looking angsty in a white robe. Tommy wakes up, and she tells him “it's time”.

Team BlackGoesWithEverything storm purposefully into the hospital with lots of cases to hand. Not sure what the cases are for, but they look impressive. They even have little lights on them. Tosh hands Tommy the clockwork manipulator, and Jack points out they can't be around when “it” happens. Where did all the demolition guys go, incidentally? And is Ianto still wearing the same outfit as yesterday? Certainly is the same tie...

Alarms start sounding again. Tommy has another Deanna Troi moment and goes wandering off down the hallway. Team Lemming head after. They hear voices. Tommy goes to the ward from where he was originally taken by Torchwood. He goes running off, followed by Tosh, and then by Jack.

Understandably, Tommy doesn't want to go off to get slaughtered in the trenches, and accuses Torchwood of being no better than the generals who ordered the soldiers to die while sitting behind the lines. He's not to know that Torchwood commander includes in the job description “likely to die by friendly fire”.

Tommy slumps against a wall, despondant, and Jack attempts to haul him up, trying to be the one to convince him to go on. Tosh tells Jack to leave, and crouches down next to Tommy and then...

Huh, I must have hit rewind or... nope! It's the moment of the timelines crossing. We know how the scene plays out, but we see it from closer up now. Toff and Toffette are standing in the now cool blue room, staring at the pair of them, shocked. Tosh persuades Tommy to tell Torchwood to take him away, and, in a flash of light and the sound of crackling plastic, Tommy and Tosh are alone again. Tosh tells him to use the Rift Manipulator (although it's now being referred to as a Rift Key for some unknown reason), tells him to remember, and, through floods of tears, urges him to go.

He walks away, there's a bright light, and suddenly he's gone.

Tommy reappears in a store room, and is instantly kicked out by a rather officious looking nurse.

Team WeBrakeForTemporalSchisms (I swear, I am so ruing my decision to not call them by the same name twice) are just wandering the halls, it seems, until Tosh appears, running, and yells, “Go! Go!” and suddenly they take off like frightened deer, as if they'd forgotten until that moment that their lives were in mortal peril.

Back in 1918, Team Toff haul past!Tommy out of bed and hustle him out of the ward. As they get to the door, Gerald turns around and looks at future!Tommy, who has appeared, and doesn't seem too surprised. He turns decisively, and leads past!Tommy to his new life as a resident of Torchwood's freezer section.

In the future/present er... 21st Century Hub, alarms are blaring (Torchwood apparently likes them alarms) and everyone starts yelling and pulling up maps with little dots that suddenly start appearing on them. Gwen asks what the hell they are, and Jack says that they're time shifts all over the city. Tommy isn't using the key. But it was 90 years ago, so surely even if he took half an hour longer to use the key, it wouldn't matter, right?

I'm sorry, I forgot. Accuracy is for losers and scifi buffs.

“One of us will have to go back,” Jack declares, and heads for the door.

Owen has the thoughtful look that says he currently is holding Derek, the lone Torchwood braincell of ideas. “You get stuck in 1918.” Well, for our immortal friend Jack that wouldn't be a problem. He'd probably enjoy going through World War II for, what, the third time? “I've got an idea.”

Owen is turning into the Deus Ex Machina of Torchwood this series. He saved the day in KKBB, and now he's doing it again. Through some technobabble pseudo-science, he knows how to send a psychic projection back in time. Jack's all set to get the shot and send his brain whisking back through time, but Tosh says she'll do it.

They all look at her, as if trying to decide whether she's serious or not and, hey, we thought Jack was supposed to be the hero. But, of course, she's the fair lady, and it's into the scary chair with the offshoot of the tinfoil cap of last week plastered to her head. Owen injects something into her, and she goes into some sort of trance.

Ninety years ago, everything's going crazy. Everyone's screaming, the lights are flickering and the Earth's shaking. Tommy is staring at everything with an abstract expression. Tosh abruptly appears, and tells him he has to use the Rift Key.

In the present, Owen is cradling Tosh's hand, fingers pressed against the pulse in her wrist, looking like he's trying to hide the fact that he's worried. Jack keeps glancing at his watch.

In 1918, Tommy says he's scared, and that he's a coward. He wants to know what he's fighting for. The music swells, and she says he's her brave handsome hero, and tells him to use the key. He gives the clockwork disc a quick twist, and apparently that's all that's required. Light blooms, plastic cracks, and suddenly the time space continuum is put to rights.

Which leaves Tosh to quietly fold up Tommy's modern day clothes, and seal them away to be stored in the archives, never to be looked on again. Owen appears, looks at her, and walks away, letting her finish.

Tosh is walking out of the door, putting her coat on, and Jack thanks her. Because I'm sure what she wants after saying goodbye to the man she had fallen for was a thank you. She heads out into the dreary Welsh day, into the rain, and Owen joins her, leaning on the railings, and I think that's where she and Tommy were standing not too long ago.

Owen tells her that the world is here because of her. She says it's because of Tommy, and she hopes “we're worth it” as she walks off, leaving Owen staring out at the grey water of the bay.

Next Week: Rhys finally figures out that Gwen hasn't been working for the police for a while now, and maybe she won't resort to Torchwood's drug of choice to make him forget this time out. Remember kids: just say no.

My recaps are getting gradually less sarcastic and longer with each passing week. I'm betting that by the end of the series, I'll just be transcribing the damned things word for word.

Anyway. I am still amused by the fact that the foreshadowing I referred to this morning is referenced on the documents on the website. Much amusement indeed.

I breathed a sigh of relief at the fact that Mr. Wise-Crack from last week was no longer present. Instead we have Ianto, who clearly has more of a sense of humour, but is actually Human. Thank god. I might have tried to drown my little Ianto voodoo doll in the hopes of shutting him up. I like the brief mention of Torchwood One. He's clearly not over it completely, but he's getting there. Torchwood has never touched on what it is to be the survivor of a massacre, except for Ianto cracking up and keeping his cybernetic girlfriend in the cellar, so a brief mention of it is welcome.

And, since I just know it's going to be the top topic of conversation over email with a certain friend of mine for the next week: the Jack/Ianto scene. We knew it was coming, to a certain degree, and I give up. I cave. I admit it. They're having sex. Sigh. Or at least they definitely are as of this episode.

But! (There's always one of those...) I'm still kinda of... eh. I think this episode clearly shows that Ianto clearly feels something for Jack. He's quietly figured out that Jack is out of his time, even though Jack has only given shadowy hints to that fact, and when Jack asks if he'd be missed, he doesn't even hesitate before responding. When Jack makes his statement that he wouldn't change anything, Ianto is the one that leans down and kisses him, rather forcefully in fact.

I think Jack does love Ianto, but not in the 'one twu lub' way that some fans would like. If you look on the website, there's an email between Gwen and Ianto to which he responds to the idea that Jack talks to him as being laughable.

So clearly, Jack doesn't care enough about Ianto to be straight with him. Ianto's the one that calls him out on being out of his time, he doesn't volunteer it, and when the subject comes up, he doesn't expand on Ianto's knowledge either. He may care about, or even love Ianto in a way, but not in the way that Ianto cares for/loves him, (given what we've known of Ianto's romantic history, I don't think he'd be involved with Jack if love wasn't a factor, though I think it's taken an awful beating by Jack leaving as he did - hence why it's not been until Jack says, here, that he's not going to leave again, that Ianto makes a move. Previously, it's always Jack that's been making the first move.) or I don't think Jack would have left with the Doctor. He wouldn't have said he 'has no one' in “Captain Jack Harkness”.

I think he also loves Gwen. I think that the loves that Jack has found which keep him attached to Torchwood, which brought him back after the Doctor offered him the chance to stay with him and the TARDIS, aren't as simple as purely physical attraction. There's something in the people he knows that holds him there, and gives him a reason to stay. He's still not decided whether he belongs in the 21st Century, he admits that himself. I think he loves Gwen for her humanity, and who knows what exactly he sees in Ianto (damn that off-camera relationship building - though perhaps its the fact that Ianto clearly has figured out some things about Jack that attracts him: it's much harder to be aloof if someone actually knows what you're going through), but Ianto's the one who's responded physically. If it wasn't for Rhys, I'm sure that Jack would be taking up something similar with Gwen.

Continuing with the Jack theme, we continue to get little hints of his past. Gwen has apparently become exasperated, and doesn't even ask what he means when he mentions being in World War I.

And here is where I return to Jack's peculiar little statement at the beginning of this episode about Tommy being with Torchwood “longer than any of you”. He implies that Tommy's not been at Torchwood longer than Jack, and yet surely, if Jack was working for Torchwood back in 1918, he would have found out about it. Unless he was working for a different branch or it was hidden from him for some reason, since he's certainly not in the group photograph, and there's no mention in the documentation of him being associated with Torchwood Cardiff of that time.

So was he working for Torchwood, but at the WWI front? The more we find out about Jack, the less we know.

Jack tries to be the hero twice this episode, the lead. He tries to get Tommy to stand up to his responsibilities, and then he moves to go and send his consciousness back in time to get Tommy to use the Rift Key. In both cases, Tosh steps in instead. Jack isn't the hero of this story, Tosh is. She's the fair lady whose heart is won by the brave and handsome hero. She's the only one who can reach him.

And, to be honest, I thought this was an awfully sweet story. She clearly already knew him, already had a crush on him, so the 'falling in love in a single day' story cliché isn't as grating this time around. She reacts like someone who doesn't know the man very well, but has been sort of loving him from afar, thinking of him.

And I did believe it. I didn't feel their affection was shoehorned, as I did with Owen and Diane last series. And I was sorry to see him go.

Speaking of Owen. He's a far cry from the angry man about who last April I wrote the following:

Owen Harper is a complete bastard, but he is not an irredeemable bastard. That is to say that we have no yet been given evidence that there is no hope for him, and that he will remain a complete bastard who you would never really want to talk to until the end of time.

The problem is, we haven't seen any indication that he's anything other than a complete bastard either.

The producers have described Owen as a sort of 'Jack-the-lad' character, but I can't see that in their characterisation of Owen. He's continually crass and rude, both to his male and female colleagues (which perhaps makes him an equal opportunity chauvanist). He has an attitude towards sex that's very detached; he'll use alien pheromones to get it when he can't even be bothered trying a pickup line. He's continually reinforcing the only evidence of his superiority (insisting whenever he's introduced that he's a Doctor).

To me, he doesn't come across as some cheeky charmer, he comes across as a man who's very angry at the world, and is lashing out at everyone he can reach. Even his relationship with Diane, perhaps the only one that had had any real meaning for him (depending on whether or not you believe in the onetruluv of Gwen/Owen... and even if you do, you have to admit that Gwen is not as totally emotionally engaged with Owen as Diane was; she was still very much in love with Rhys) was tainted by that anger. He got angry when she tried to leave, and his way of dealing with his loss was to get very angry, picking fights to the point where he was willing to let his anger kill him. He was so mad at people never taking him seriously that he killed Jack (the fact that he got better is beside the point).

My problem is that we've yet to see why he's so desperately angry. You can't really forgive him for his nastiness as he's not a sympathetic character; the writers have given you no way to see him as someone who has a reason to be angry. The one single ray of hope for the character is in the closing minutes of End of Days where Owen stares at Jack uncertainly, then starts to cry, and is forgiven by Jack. Clearly he did regret what he had done. Does this represent the start of a new, less crass git of a character?

He's a different man. He treats Tosh like the friend we glimpsed in the photographs on her fridge last year where they were side by side smiling at the camera. He's yet to insist that he's Doctor Owen Harper, instead just being that Doctor, and he says he doesn't want her to get hurt, and when she does, he comes and tries to offer some sort of quiet comfort.

I could actually like this Owen. I can see that maybe the writers are steering towards some sort of relationship between him and Tosh but, for the moment, I think they're better served by being the best of friends than any sort of sexual relationship (which, for some reason, fans are always desperate to see). They both need that, I think.

I can't help but think that the whole situation was a self-fulfilling time loop. I'm guessing that Torchwood came back and took the Rift Key off Tommy at some point before he was shipped back to France, and presumably figured out what needed to be done, since there was no other way they could have figured it out, to my mind. So, it's the closed loop of knowledge. The past got the information from the future, which got it from the past. Where did the Rift Key originate? What caused the time shifts originally?

Answers on a postcard, please.