Day 756 - Utopia

So this is where things get a little confusing. I'm now very near the end of the third season of the new version of the show and this episode also carries on directly from the last episode of the the first season of Torchwood, with Jack hearing the materialisation of the TARDIS. Strangely in Torchwood it appeared that the TARDIS was materialising inside the hub itself when in actual fact it's just outside but I can look past such things.

So the Doctor has landed the TARDIS in Cardiff in order to soak up energy from the rift running through the city. As the Doctor spots Jack sprinting towards the TARDIS he tries to make a quick dematerialisation but not before Jack manages to grab hold of the door and ends up riding the TARDIS through the vortex! The TARDIS doesn't take too kindly to this and also due to Jack's freaky immortality the ship travels all the way to the end of the universe to try to shake him off.

The Doctor, Martha and Jack discover a small group of survivors on the planet they land on, all of which are waiting for the completion of a giant rocket which they believe will take them to Utopia, a place where they can survive the end of the universe itself. In charge of getting the rocket up and running is Professor Yana, played by Derek Jacobi! 

Now if you've got a great actor like Derek Jacobi in an episode then why limit him to just one character! Martha discovers that the kindly professor is actually a Time Lord who is hiding as a human using a similar fob watch the Doctor used in Human Nature. Instead of being thrilled the Doctor seems terrified at the prospect that another one of his own people survived the Time War and it becomes clear that this is because he suspects which one it is..the Master!

The scenes where Yana is beginning to realise there is something hidden inside him are some of the most exciting and thrilling scenes in any Doctor Who ever! When I first watched this I had no idea that the Master was returning and therefore this was just about the most exciting thing that could ever happen to me. Yes it's sad but undeniably true. We even hear a sound clips of the previous Masters! I mean come on! That is pant wettingly exciting!

Derek Jacobi is superb obviously. As soon as the watch is opened and he turns to face the camera there is no doubt in your mind that you are now looking at a completely different man. How the hell does he do that? It's all in the eyes somehow. Which is rather appropriate for the hypnotic Master.

Unfortunately Derek Jacobi's turn as the Master is even briefer than his turn as the Master in Scream Of The Shalka as he is soon shot by his assistant shortly before stumbling inside the TARDIS and locking the Doctor out. For the first time we see the Master regenerate and he turns into John Simm!

Harold Saxon aka the Master has officially arrived in the new series! Woohoo!

Day 755 - Blink

" The Lonely Assassins, that's what they used to be called. No one quite knows where they came from, but they're as old as the Universe, or very nearly. And they have survived this long because they have the most perfect defence system ever evolved. They are Quantum Locked. They don't exist when they are being observed. The moment they are seen by any other living creature they freeze into rock. No choice, it's a fact of their biology. In the sight of any living thing, they literally turn into stone. And you can't kill a stone. Of course, a stone can't kill you either, but then you turn your head away. Then you blink. Then, oh yes, it can."

Steven Moffat creates a terrifying new monster for the new generation of Doctor Who fans, the weeping angels!

This story is pretty much perfect. It's an episode I would happily show to someone who had never seen Doctor Who before as an example of how awesome the show can be. Each season tends to have an episode which does dot feature to much of the Doctor in order that the filming schedules can be completed and in some ways you would think that this would be a detriment to the show but on the contrary it allows them to come up with great ideas like this one.

The hero of the story is a young woman called Sally Sparrow who finds herself getting involved with the sinister weeping angels. These statues cannot move whilst they are being observed but as soon as you look away or blink then they'll get you! The way they kill their victims is also an interesting thing. They send you back in time and effectively let you live to death. This is what has happened to the Doctor and Martha and now they are cut off from the TARDIS and need Sally's help to prevent the angels getting their hands on it.

Some of the writing is just beautiful. After meeting a young police office called Billy, the very next time Sally sees him is as a dying old man in a hospital after the angels have zapped him back in time. He has a message for Sally from the Doctor but has been told that the only time he will see her again is the day he dies. Sally says she will stay with him to which he replies "Thank you Sally Sparrow, I have until the rain stops". Simple and beautiful.

Days 753 to 754 - Human Nature / Family Of Blood

Now we're back into some great Doctor Who with this two part story which sees the Doctor transforming himself into a human in order to hide from a race of aliens known as The Family who wish to consume the last remaining Time Lord which will then allow them to live forever.

Therefore for most of this story we do not see the Doctor at all but his human counterpart, John Smith who is working as a teacher in a boarding school in the year 1913. He has no memories of his previous life and it's left to Martha to look after him. Martha is working as a maid at the school and is the only one who knows that they are in hiding. After 3 months, if the family do not find the Doctor then they will die so all Martha has to do is wait and then when the 3 months is up she can open the fob watch where the Doctor's consciousness is stored and he will return to normal. Sounds simple enough.

Unfortunately it's not long before John Smith is falling in love with the nurse at the school and this is where things get complicated. First of all Martha is pretty pissed off that the Doctor has fallen in love with a human and it's not her. Secondly it makes restoring the back to normal and therefore effectively killing John Smith all the more heartbreaking.

These are the kind of episodes I love. Science fiction gives us a chance to explore the every day human emotions but applied to far out ideas. Here we have an ordinary man, John Smith. He has dreams of being an adventurer called the Doctor but has no idea that these dreams are in fact true. When faced with the prospect that his whole life has been a lie he completely breaks down as I imagine we all would. As Joan begins to suspect the truth about her new love we get some fantastic scenes where she subtly tries to quiz him about his childhood and starts to realise that the facts spouting out of his mouth sound simply like entires in an encyclopedia. 

In one tear wrenching scene as John Smith realises he must sacrifice himself in order to save the world, he and Joan hold hands over the fob watch and see what their entire future together could have been, with their marriage and subsequent children. As Joan puts it "The Time Lord has such adventures. But he could never have a life like that"

With the Doctor back, he quite insensitively asks Joan to join him on his travels. She's tells him she can't as the man she knew is dead and the Doctor merely looks like him. He continues to try to persuade her until he gets the coldest response ever of "Tell me one thing, if the Doctor had never come here. If he'd never chosen this place..on a whim, would anyone here have died?"

For the most part the people who meet the Doctor seem to get something positive out of it, for example a completely differbt outlook to life. With regards to Joan, she sees the Doctor as the man who killed her future husband. Not a pleasent man at all!

Day 752 - 42

What a confusing title for a blog entry that is! Yes this episode is called "42" which is play on the popular tv series 24. Just as 24 is set in real time, this episode too is set in real time (sort of) with the action taking place over the 42 minute length of the episode.

The basic plot is that Martha and the Doctor find themselves trapped in a spaceship which is 42 minutes away from plummeting into a sun. It sounds like a really exciting idea for a story but I've always found this episode to be the weakest one of this series and as such it took a lot of effort to watch.

There are some "sun creatures" who possess a couple of the crew members who then go round lazering people to death with heat rays from their eyes. It's all a bit "meh". They become a little more interesting when one of them possesses the Doctor leading to a horrible scene where Martha has to try to freeze the creature out of him by forcing him into a cryogenic chamber.

Martha and one of the crew members attempt to get through a series of locked doors which can only be opened by answering some pub quiz style questions.. for some reason. Luckily the Doctor has just updated Martha's phone allowing her to call her mum to get some of the answers. She doesn't tell her mum she is actually on a spaceship in the future which I guess is understandable. However this is where there is a least some intrigue in the plot as at the end of the episode we see a sinister woman recording the phone conversations. Martha's mum has been persuaded to work for the mysterious Harold Saxon.

Apart from that bit of excitement, this one was all a bit dull really. The last couple of days have been really tough for some reason and my motivation to watch an episode each day has been waning. But I must not give up now!

Day 751 - The Lazarus Experiment

Having written for the series a couple of times already, this time Mark Gatiss is actually starring in an episode of Doctor Who. I've always though Gatiss was an awesome actor. He is blessed with one of those voices that I could listen to for hours. It's also cool as he is a life long fan of the show so is clearly loving his appearance in the series.

He plays Professor Lazarus, the creator of a machine that can rejuvenate old people back into being young again. Unfortunately after exposing himself to the first test run of the machine, he slowly begins to turn into a monster who then goes round killing the people who have come to see his miraculous project in action. I took some delight in the death of one woman, which makes me sound awful, but she was a right stuck up bitch. The Doctor bursts into the room, warning everyone to get out as they are all in terrible danger, to which this woman replies that the only danger is that someone will choke on a olive...she just really annoyed me so I'm glad she got it!

What turns what good be a typical monster run around story into a great story is slowly finding out the background of Lazarus. As a child he was forced to hide in fear in a nearby Church during the blitz, sure that he was going to die. Since that day he has done everything he can to hold back death. 

He shares some great scenes with the Doctor where they discuss life and how living a very long life isn't always a good thing as you have to see loved ones pass away whilst you continue to live.

It's in this story that Martha finally gets to become a full time companion too. At first the Doctor wants to drop her off home after meeting his promise of giving her a short trip in the TARDIS. By the end of the story he knows they have grown to close and admits to the inevitable conclusion that she is his new companion. I think at first he didn't want to call her that as it would seem to soon after Rose and almost like he was cheating on her but by this point he realises she is going to be around for the foreseeable future.

We also get to meet Martha's (rather annoying) family again and her mother takes an instant dislike to the Doctor who she doesn't trust one bit. It's not helped by the fact that the mysterious Mr Saxon is sending her messages warning that the Doctor is dangerous. Just who is Mr Saxon??

Days 749 to 750 - Daleks In Manhatten / Evolution Of The Daleks

Spiderman is in this one! Well he's not Spiderman but Andrew Garfield who plays Spiderman in the most recent movies has a part in this episode. That's quite exciting. The casting of this show has come a long way since Ken Dodd!

It was in the last episode that the Doctor finally revealed the truth to Martha about how he was the last of his kind after a huge war with a race called the Daleks. It's pretty handy that he told her this as the very next story features the return of the Cult of Skaro from the last series!

Escaping the last story through the use of an emegency temporal shift they have found themselves in 1930s New York where they are hiding out under the newly constructed Empire State Building. The building has been designed to their specifications in order that the gamma strike which is soon to hit the Earth can be captured and used in "The Final Experiment"

The Final Experiment is the Cult's last ditch attempt at the survival of the Dalek race. They are the final four Daleks in existence and yet humans are the great survivors who go on and on. Therefore their plan is to combine their DNA with that of humans and turn themselves in to Dalek/Human hybrids. As one Dalek brillantly puts it, "A life outside the shell, the children of Skaro must walk again."

Daleks have been in the show for a very long time, almost from the very beginning, and therefore I welcome any story which allows them to develop or at least give them something different to do. Seeing the Doctor chatting to a humanoid Dalek, one is beginning to show real emotion and compassion, is fantastic.

Some other aspects of the story work less well. For example, the scene where the Daleks explain their plan to the captured humans that they soon plan to convert. The Doctor is "hiding" in the background but he's still clearly visible to all the Daleks! How can not a single one of them notice that their greatest enemy just happens to be in the room with them!

By the end of the story only one Dalek remains alive. In all the universe, just one. Unfortunatley he escapes using another emergency temporal shift but the Doctor knows that he has not seen the last of this lone Dalek.

750 days done, with only another 150 to go! The end will be here before I know it...and then what the hell will I do??

Day 748 - Gridlock

The Doctor continues on his rebound from Rose by taking Martha back to New Earth, a planet to which he took Rose in the previous series.

This time we see more of the slums of the city and it's walled off motorway. A motorway with the worst traffic jam ever! Some people have been on the road for years! And the scary thing is they just accept this, they don't see it as strange and it's not until the Doctor starts making them question what is going on that start to realise that things are terribly wrong. 

As part of this story there are a number of hymns sung by the drivers whilst trapped on the motorway and I believe this episode was even nominated for a religious award due to this. But it seems to me that whoever nominated this episode has kind of missed the point of it. If anything this episode is an attack on religion. The drivers are blindly accepting things on faith alone and when the Doctor demands that they face the truth, such as when he asks if they have ever seen a police vehicle, they turn hostile at him questioning their beliefs.

Of course every Doctor Who story has to have a monster of some kind and even more exciting is that the monsters in this episode are returning creatures to the show. Of all the great creations of the past to return their is certainly a few that I was clamouring for at this point but this one took me completely by surprise! Macra! The giant crabs from the second Doctor story The Macra Terror. The story that actually no longer exists! Well it's safe to say I did not see that one coming!

The Macra aren't the only face from the past that the Doctor meets however as it is time for The Face Of Boe to make his third and final appearance in the series and more importantly reveal his greatest secret. Just before he dies he tells the Doctor "You are not alone". Therefore there must be at least one more Time Lord out there...and I think I know which one!

Day 747 - The Shakespeare Code

It's been over 6 years since this episode was first broadcast and I've only just realised that the title is a take off of The Da Vinci Code! What a moron!

So as the title suggests, Martha and the Doctor travel back in time and meet William Shakespeare. Each series of the new series seems to have an episode devoted to meeting a famous historical figure. Here it's Shakespeare, before this we met Queen Victoria and before that it was Charles Dickins.

Its nice to see Martha's ethnicity gets a mention at the start of the episode. It would have been weird not to at least mention that black people weren't exactly treated well this far back in history. she says "I'm not exactly white" to which the Doctor replies "I'm not even human, just walk round like you own the place. It seems to work for me." Brilliant! 

Shakespeare is a fun character to meet and we see many of his more famous line interwoven into the story. Its also great how he is shown to be of a supreme intelligence with the psychic paper not working on him etc. It can be a bit of a cliche to portray historical figures as less intelligent than ourselves and so its cool here when at the end of the story Shakespeare reveals he twigged on pretty much straight away that the Doctor was an alien and Martha was a human from the future.

The alien threat is a trio of Carrionites who pretty much have all the quality of witches and are using the power of Shakespeare's words to bring more of their kind into our world. The explanation being that they developed in such a way to use language where we would use mathematics. It's sort of works I guess.

Queen Elizabeth is also mentioned several times throughout the episode but is not seen until the very end. She is not exactly pleased to see the Doctor for reasons unknown to both us and him and its cool that this got addressed in the 50th anniversary episode which saw the tenth Doctor meeting her again...or for the first time. Time travel is complicated!

The unrequited love that Martha is developing for the Doctor is further evidenced here. Staying over in the house of Shakespeare, they are only given one bed to sleep in and the Doctor makes several callous remarks clearly showing how oblivious he is to how Martha feels for him. It doesn't help that he is still talking about Rose! Adric must be spinning in his grave...well if he had a grave and wasn't splattered all over prehistoric Earth...

Day 746 - Smith & Jones

A Judoon platoon upon the moon!

It's nice to be back into the swing of things with a proper run of Doctor Who episodes in front of me after the confusing couple of weeks of Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures!

Martha Jones makes her debut as the new companion. Following on from the popular character of Rose cannot have been an easy task (considering the Doctor is STILL whinging on about her!) but by now I'm so used to the ever changing companions that it didn't really bother me. If you are the sort of person who doesn't like change then Doctor Who is definitely not for you! Even the lead character completely changes every so often!

Martha is also officially the first black companion the show has ever had. Unless you count Micky. This isn't really picked up on in this first episode but will be noted on when the Doctor takes her back in time to Elizabethan England, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

So this first episode of series 3 (or series 29!) revolves around the kidnapping of an entire hospital and its transportation to the moon! Martha is working in the hospital as a trainee Doctor and luckily for her and everyone else one of her patients happens to have two hearts..it's the Doctor! Bet you didn't see that coming.

A race of aliens called the Judoon have captured the hospital to segregate it from the rest of planet Earth so that they can hunt down the alien fugitive hiding within. This fugitive is not the Doctor but another alien altogether, an alien vampire!!

The Judoon are a cool design, basically they are humonoid looking rhinos! Space Rhinos! They go around the hospital, scanning everyone in order to track down their prey. They are police for hire and woe betide anyone who gets in their way.

After overhearing Martha speaking to another doctor and realising she is an intelligent woman who can keep a cool head in a crisis, the Doctor is soon dragging her out on to the surface of the moon to have a look round. Meanwhile the vampire is attacking the humans in order that she can assimilate their blood and maker herself appear human when the Judoon finally get round to scanning her.

I quite enjoyed this one. The idea of suddenly finding yourself trapped on the moon is pretty terrifying. The sheer loniness and desolation would be horrific. And the fact that you can see the Earth in the sky but have no way of reaching it makes it all the more scary!

As well as meeting Martha we are also introduced to her family, something which seem far more important in the new series than it ever was in the old one. They seem a bit less unlikable than the Tyler family but to be fair they do spend most of this episode arguing so maybe not making the best first impression on me.

There also seems to be many posters littered around proclaiming "Vote Saxon" and the mysterious Mr Saxon also gets a fleeting mention at the end of the episode..I wonder who this could be.

At the climax of the story, the Doctor invites Martha to make one trip with him in the TARDIS as a way to say thank you for her help on the moon. After Rose he says he prefers to be on his own and Martha's flirting with him doesn't go down to well. The first signs of unrequited love are being shown and I'm afraid Martha is probably going to end up with a broken heart soon. 

Welcome aboard Miss Jones!

Days 744 to 745 - Torchwood Series 1 (Part 2)

So now I'm back to the final two episodes of Torchwood series 1, both broadcast on New Years Day 2007. 

The first episode sees Captain Jack come face to face with the real Captain Jack, the pilot from whom Jack stole his identity when the real Jack was killed in action. This meeting is orchestrated by the unfortunate entering of a temporal rift by Jack and Toshiko sending them both back in time to a dance hall in war torn Cardiff.

Whilst Jack is busy getting to know Jack, Toshiko desperately tries to leave messages for the rest of the Torchwood team to find in the future which will allow them to bring them back to the present. Wow, that was a confusing sentence.

Real Jack (as I shall now be calling him) only has this one last day to live and Jack knows this (as in our Jack). This leads to many scenes of Jack pleading with the real Jack to make the most of this last night. He gets a little bit more than he bargained for when real Jack starts to reveal some attraction to our Jack, something that was very unacceptable back in the 1940s. Meanwhile Toshiko is facing prejudice of her own, being of Japanese origin. 

Owen wants to open the rift to bring them back but Ianto warns him that it is far to dangerous and they have no idea what the consequences will be. This is actually a really cool moment. Ianto pointing a gun at Owen as he prepares to activate the rift manipulator is pretty damn dramatic! Poor Owen is not in his right mind, still angry that the love of his life, whose name I have forgotten (she certainly made an impact on me) was taken from him by the rift. He believes opening the rift may also allow him to get her back..was her name Denise? Debra?

So anyway the rift is opened just as real Jack gives our Jack a big snog right in front of everyone (not sure how that will go down! But I guess he only had one day to live anyway) and Toshiko and Jack are transported back to the present day.

The second episode deals with the consequences of the rift opening with people falling through time left right and centre. A mysterious man named Billis appears to each member of the team telling them the only way to put things right is to open the rift all the way. In order to tempt them he shows them people they have lost, who he claims can be returned to them. Only Jack remains adamant that the rift remain closed.

 

To cut along story short, they open the rift, a big monster comes out whose shadow kills people (so a bit crap at night then I imagine) and then Jack lets the monster kill him, which in turn kills the monster. If that sounds rushed then it's because it is! You would think that a monster rampaging through Cardiff would make up a good bulk on the story but its tagged on right at the end and only lasts a few minutes before the creature is defeated.

 

The most awesome part of the story comes at the end. Gwen is asking Jack what vision would have persuaded him in to opening the rift to which he replies "the right kind of doctor". As he wanders out of his office he hears the familiar sound of ancient grinding engines as the TARDIS materialises out of sight. The rest of the team enter just in time to realise that Jack has disappeared! It so exciting because at times you forget that Torchwood is in anyway linked to Doctor Who so to suddenly hear the TARDIS is just bloody amazing. Nerd-gasm!

 

And so ends the first series of Torchwood. At least its all uphill from here!

 

DIANNE! Her names was bloody Dianne!... I think.

Day 743 - Invasion Of The Bane

I'm officially getting very confused now, Torchwood, Doctor Who, The Sarah Jane Advenures. They have officially all started now. Things would be easier if it wasn't for the fact that some series run at the same time meaning I am having to alternate between episodes. This is adding the extra danger that not only may I miss watching an episode one day but I may watch the wrong one!!

After meeting the Doctor again recently in School Reunion, Sarah Jane has finally come to terms with how she was effectively dumped back on Earth and has decided she can continue her adventures alone. "Life on Earth can be an adventure too, you just need to know where to look"...apparently.

A young girl, Maria, has just moved on to Bannerman Road (a link to Delta and the Bannermen??..probably not) with her divorced father and it doesn't take her long before she discovered that the "crazy" lady who lives opposite her is actually battling aliens! In this pilot episode? The alien threat is the Bane, who are creating a drink called Bubble Shock, to take over the world. It's secret ingredient is a piece of loving Bane so that when activated it turns the human race into mindless Zombies. Unfortunately for them there is about 2% of the population who remain immune to the highly addictive nature of Bubble Shock and so in order to perfect their recipie they are scanning each child that enters their factory tour in order to create the "archetype" I.e the perfect human, which will then allow them to adjust the drink so that everyone loves it. This archetype comes in the form of a young boy who is soon reduced by Sarah Jane and by the end of the episode becomes her adopted son, Luke.

Making up the rest of the team are Sarah Jane's super alien computer known as Mr Smith and? Of course, K9. Unfortunately K9 is helping to block up a black hole somewhere and so is not briefly seen. I must admit this confused me a little bit. I think he has his ass stuck in it or something. Seems strange why they would do this. It seems that they just didn't really want K9 in the series so they had to think of  a reason for him not to be there and this was the best that they could come up with.

I really enjoyed this episode. It's a very childish sort of show but then that is what it was designed to be so you can't really grumble about that. It does seem strange though that this all exists in the same universe as Torchwood where things are much grittier and "swearier". Elizabeth Sladen steps back into the role of Sarah Jane as if she never stopped playing the part and it still seems strange and terrible to me that she is now no longer with us.

Ok so that's a quick summing up of the pilot episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures...back to Torchwood tomorrow...I think. This is getting so confusing!

Day 742 - The Runaway Bride

You know who I feel sorry for? Adric. The poor guy was the Doctor's companion throughout one of his traumatic regenerations and eventually dies whilst trying to save the planet Earth and the Doctor barely gives him a second thought. Roll forward 5 more regenerations, Rose gets trapped in a parallel world and he won't stop bloody moping about her!

Picking up straight from the end of Doomsday, the Doctor looks up from the TARDIS controls to find a bride randomly standing opposite him. It's Catherine Tate as the fantastic Donna Noble! She's perhaps a bit more shouty here than she would be in later episodes (oops spoilers!) but I always loved the character.

Some really exciting moments in this one including the TARDIS chasing a taxi cab down the street, crashing into other cars etc. How this never got reported to the police I'll never know! Unless the other drivers thought the TARDIS was the police? It does say "Police Box" on it after all.

The main plot of the story involves a giant spider, the Empress of the Racnoss who has come to Earth in order to awaken all her children who are buried in the centre of the Earth. In order to do this she needs a certain type of energy and has manipulated a guy called Lance into effectively turning Donna into the key that is needed to release them.

Of course with Catherine Tate in a starring role you are going to get a fair bit of comedy and there are some hilarious moments with my favourite probably being when herself and the Doctor are desperately trying to hail a taxi in order to get Donna back to the church in time for her wedding. After several failed attempts Donna decides that they are not stopping as they think she is in fancy dress due to the fact that she is in a wedding dress. Just as she is thinking this, a motorist shouts to her "Get off the sauce darling!" to which she realises "They think I'm drunk". It only gets worse when a second car drives past and the guys shout "You're fooling no one mate". Poor Donna "They think I'm in drag!!!"

Rose gets a fair few mentions in this episode which I suppose was only to be expected. She was the first of the new series companions to leave and the effect that her departure has had on the Doctor is pretty devastating.

Overall I'd say this was a much better Christmas episode than the 2005 special, but I think I would be in the minority there. A lot of people did not like Donna as a character and hearing the news that she was going to return as a full time companion in 2008 made some fans very nervous. But I loved the idea. As a slightly older woman she escapes the growing cliche of having the companion falling in love with the Doctor and being all dewy eyed over him.

Upon being offered the chance to become a full time companion at the end of this story, Donna turns the Doctor down, much to his embarrassment. She realises how crazy his life is and she could not handle a life like that. She is terrified by him.

Days 731 to 741 - Torchwood Series 1 (Part 1)

So for the last ten days I have not actually been watching Doctor Who! This in itself is quite a scary thing. It was the plan all along to include Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures but it still felt a little bit like I'd failed when I didn't watch a Doctor Who episode.

So the plan was to blog about each episode but this is proving to be impossible to keep up with so I thought with Torchwood I could blog about each season as a whole which gives me time to catch up. The only problem with this is that as the first season of Torchwood comes to an end it is interuppted by the Doctor Who Christmas episode of 2006 and the beginning of The Sarah Jane Adventures. Therefore this blog enty covers only the first 11 episodes of Torchwood Season 1 and the final 2 episodes will be covered separately. It's so nice when a plan comes together.

As a spin off Torchwood is a little bizarre. Doctor Who is primarily a family show and therefore you would expect that any related spin offs would be equally family friendly but this is far from that! This is an adult show in every sense.

The first episode sees a normal police office, Gwen Cooper getting lured into the world of Torchwood when she witnesses the team bringing a corpse back to life in order to quiz him about his killer. Plenty of swearing here which feels really jarring when you think this is related to Doctor Who. It's interesting to note though that Captain Jack never swears which I've got to think wasn't an accident. They couldn't really have Jack swearing like a trooper here when he'd been clean mouthed in Doctor Who.

Speaking of Jack, its here that we discover that Rose has really screwed him over when she brought him back to life at the end of The Parting Of The Ways. Now he is immortal, demonstrated rather successfully when Suzie goes rouge and ends up shooting Jack through the head, only for him to stand up again! He tells Gwen that he is hoping his problem will be solved when he finds "the right kind  of doctor".

The second episode takes the adult nature of the show to further extremes where we have a sec crazed alien possessing a young woman and making her have sex with as many men as possible causing them to dissolve into dust whilst she feeds off their orgasmic energy! All this from the same show that brought you The Macra Terror, good grief!!

It seems very much like the writers know the limits have been taken away from them and so they have gone absolutely crazy! But its almost like leaving kids alone with a jar of sweets, they will eat them all and make themselves sick without a parent there telling them when they've had enough. I'm not sure that that metaphor makes sense, I'm very tired!

Captain Jack has a mysterious severed hand which is stored in a bubbling jar of liquid... I wonder whose hand that is..

I guess I should have mentioned exactly who the Torchwood team are. First we have Captain Jack, we already know who he is. We then have Gwen who is the latest recruit to Torchwood and its through her that we discover all about this crazy world. Then there's Owen who is the doctor of the team and to be honest is a bit of an arsehole. It doesn't take him long before him and Gwen are having an affair whilst Gwen's poor boyfriend Rhys doesn't even know what her new job entails! Then we have Toshiko who is probably the most sympathetic character. She is the computer expert and harbours unrequited feelings for Owen, more fool her! The final member of the team is Ianto. His role seems to be pretty much as Jacks personal assistant. Oh and he has a half converted cyber girlfriend who he is hiding in the basement. We've all done something daft like that.

The series is set in Cardiff, where the rift in space and time as first mentioned in The Unquiet Dead is dumping a load of alien junk into the city.

Many people said that Russell T Davies had a "gay agenda" when writing Doctor Who. Now that is utter nonsense. It's just that as a gay man himself he was obviously more willing to include a character that reflected his view of the world. In Torchwood, this is turned up to 11! Jack is omnisexual (he will do anyone and anything!) but every single team member has a gay kiss at some point in this series. And that's great to be honest. One day we will hopefully live in a world where these things won't even be an issue. But I should get off my soap box now.

I must admit to enjoying these episodes more than I expected. It made a nice change from Doctor Who whilst still holding on to some of the same ideas so as to at least feel slightly familiar. 

Oh and one more piece of information. Torchwood is an anagram of Doctor Who. I've done my work and now you leave this blog a wiser and better person.

Days 729 to 730 - Army Of Ghosts / Doomsday

Watching Doctor Who in a pub! Why have I never done this for the previous 728 days of my challenge! Well I guess because I haven't had the opportunity and secondly it would turn me into a raving alcoholic!

On Wednesday 20th November (yes that's how far behind with this blog I am!) The White Horse in Nantwich had a Doctor Who night in the run up to the big 50th anniversary special on the Saturday. The plan was to watch one episode for every Doctor! That day I had just watched Army Of Ghosts so Ben joked that I probably wouldn't fancy watching Doomsday (which was one of the Tennant episodes on the list of potential ones to watch) as I would then have to watch the same episode again the next day! However fortune smiled on me when it turned out that we reached the tenth Doctor at about 23:50 and everyone was kind enough and understanding enough to hold off the next episode for 10 minutes so that it would officially be the next day. Yes my OCD would not allow cheating of even 10 minutes!

So that was a cool experience. I got to watch Doctor Who with other people. It was almost like I had friends for a moment. I'm kidding of course, I have no time for friends when there are 900 days of Doctor Who and related spin offs to watch! I have my priorities absolutely spot on!

On top of all that I met a nice lady who hadn't even come for the Doctor Who night but it turns out she used to work on Doctor Who during Tom Baker's time! She had been in the TARDIS and everything. I tried to hide my jealousy as best I could and act all cool. I think I pulled it off.

Rose Tyler: Planet Earth. This is where I was born. And this is where I died. For the first nineteen years of my life nothing happened. Nothing at all. Not ever. And then I met a man called The Doctor. A man who could change his face. And he took me away from home in his magical machine. He showed me the whole of time and space. I thought it would never end. That's what I thought. But then came the Army of Ghosts, then came Torchwood and the war. And that's when it all ended. This is the story of how I died.

So this is the finale to series 2 (or season 28 as it should correctly be called! Why does no one listen to me??). We finally get to find out more about the mysterious Torchwood that everyone has been banging on about all series. They are the organisation set up by Queen Victoria and tasked with gathering up all the alien space junk they can in order to arm the human race against the future. I've just realised I'm getting way ahead of myself here and pretty much quoting Captain Jack from the spin off series of Torchwood when he says the same lines at the start of every episode which gets annoying much more quickly than you may imagine.

Mysterious ghosts are appearing around the world, with people believing they are their lost loved ones returning to them. The Doctor believes otherwise though and after finding a "void ship" in Torchwood realises that these ghosts are creatures coming through from a parallel world using the gap that the void ship has created when bursting through into our world. It soon becomes evident that these ghosts are really Cybermen!! But the twist is that the Cybermen don't have the technology to have created the ship. But they didn't create the ship, the ship created the hole and they simply followed through. So what's in the ship? It's only the bloody Daleks!! Daleks and Cybermen in the same story. When I first saw this I thought I was going to explode.

Pretty soon the Daleks and Cybermen have an hilarious stand off with the Cybermen offering the idea of an alliance. Of course the Daleks are having none of that and pretty soon there is an all out war going on!

As well as the Cybermen coming through, Pete Tyler, Micky and Jake also travel through to our world and here it suddenly becomes clear as to why alternative universe Jackie was killed off in the precious episode as now we have both a Jackie and Pete who are alone and therefore a perfect match for each other. Science fiction is awesome!

Whilst all this is going on we have the resolution of Rose's time in the series and her departure is pretty heartbreaking I have to admit. It has less of an impact of me now but when I first saw this I was pretty devastated at the way she is written out of the series. Having decided he can open up the void and suck all the Cybermen and Daleks through it, the Doctor tells Rose she needs to go back with her Mum and Dad etc to the other world where she will be safe. She refuses to leave the Doctor and the others zap back to the other world without her.

Unfortunately with the void open and Daleks and Cybermen sweeping into it Rose loses her grip of the handle she is holding on to and falls. Fortunately ( and I must say, inexplicably!) Pete arrives in time to whip her back to the other world before the doorway closes for good. The Doctor and Rose have been permanently separated. Well until series 4 (season 30 dammit!) where they completely ruin this ending by bringing Rose back. But I'm not talking about that yet.

The Doctor finds one small gap which has not yet closed which comes out on a lonely beach in Norway where he can at least say goodbye to Rose, the companion who helped him overcome the horrors of the Time War. Rose finally admits to loving the Doctor (as if we didn't know) and just as he is about to say the same thing (at least I think that it what he was going to say!) the rift closes and he is left all alone in the TARDIS and crying. Aww.

But to emphasise the fact the the Doctor's adventures never stop, even after this heartbreaking moment, the Doctor looks up to see Catherine Tate standing in his TARDIS, wearing a wedding dressing and yelling at him. I did not see that one coming when I first watched this I must admit. However there is now going to be a short break before I move on to the Christmas episode as I take my longest ever break from Doctor Who in nearly 2 years! It's time for Torchwood! God help me! I must keep telling myself that it does get better, it does get better. Well more specifically it gets better, then it gets absolutely bloody awesome and then it gets mediocre. I can't wait!