“Looking a little bit worried there Rex, like this might all be your fault…”

Hello Everyone :-)

Bit late on this but my weekend has been smattered with pub visits and other such procrastination, but we got here in the end. Torchwood is the order of the day today.

So, quick recap, people have stopped dying, the CIA has flagged Torchwood as connected and they’re bringing them to the US to get to the bottom of it.
We start this episode where we ended last week; Jack, Gwen and Rhys have been captured by Rex Matheson of the CIA. Gwen and Jack are forced onto a plane to Washington DC and Rhys is left in Wales with Anwen (cutest baby of the week award winner).
Meanwhile back in CIA headquarters Esther Drummond and Rex (Rex albeit unknowingly) are being set up by their own organisation because they know too much.

This wasn’t quite the punchy, action packed second episode I was expecting but I enjoyed it none the less. There is a lovely bit of ‘will they won’t they’ suspense when Gwen et al are on the plane, ripping it to bits to try and save Jack. It’s an excellent bit of writing by Doris Egan, as is the rest of this episode, come to mention it.

Thumbs up all round cast wise. Alexa Havins as Esther is infinitely more interesting than last week and she has the most amazing shoe collection.
Captain Jack takes a back seat in this one mainly because for the most part he's suffering the effects of arsenic poisoning. Not that that means he's dull (when could Captain Jack ever be dull?!?!) but he’s a little more reigned in. Gwen however is at her best. Eve Myles is great, I just love Gwen and this episode made me want to be her when I grow up. She starts tearing the plane apart trying to build a home made antidote to cure Jack and there is the well publicised smack in the face that she delivers to the CIA Agent Lyn Peterfield (played by Dichen Lachman who delivers some of the most ridiculous ‘villain’ faces I’ve ever seen) which is a definite ‘get in!’ shouting at the TV moment.

I must applaud Bill Pullman’s performance as Oswald Danes. I love Bill Pullman, to me he will always be President Thomas J. Whitmore from ‘Independence day’ (who delivers the excellent ‘we will not go quietly into the night’ speech), but in this he is truly creepy. He’s like the kid in your class who was always a bit odd and has grown up to be properly unhinged (my class had a boy called Daniel, he routinely used to put his head down on the table and start smacking his forehead against it and if we ever had food tech he used to linger that little bit too long around the knives). This episode also introduced Jilly Kitzinger (Lauren Ambrose) the PR agent who is a bit savvier that she lets on. She and Danes look set to be a sinister double act of the highest order.

Arlene Tur is great as Vera Juarez the surgeon who operated on Rex in the first episode. Her role could have been fleeting but it’s a stroke of genius because she gives us an entirely new insight into the ‘Miracle Day’ and the implications that it has for the Human race.
It might be because I work in a healthcare environment but I think the whole medical subplot is great. Vera takes part in a forum of other doctors and medical boffins to discuss what the chuff is going on and how they’re going to deal with it. Vera is brilliant because she sees the bigger picture (something people lack in many areas of healthcare). People aren’t going to die so emergency admissions aren’t emergencies anymore; hospitals need to concentrate on dealing with minor problems quickly to free up room for people that need beds. She also has a brilliant epiphany about antibiotics and how giving them to people that can’t die is counter productive. In a show that is so clearly fantastical in its ideas these scenes really bring it back to earth and looks at the logistics. If this actually happened the medical world would have to radically reform itself and go from predominantly saving lives to pain management. It’s a really clever aspect of the story and I commend whoever decided to go with it.

I really enjoyed it this week. Nicely paced, mixing the plane drama with the medical stuff and what’s going on at the CIA. We were left with an excellent ending and plenty of questions. Who is Jilly? Why is Jack suddenly mortal? Who’s mucking about with the ‘Morphic Field’ (I love the names they come up with for this stuff!)? Why does Brian Friedkin (Wayne Knight, the one off of ‘Jurassic Park’ that gets spat at by that Dinosaur with the flappy head things) have it in for Torchwood? Who are the people in the masks we see in all the promo trailers? Hopefully some of those questions will be answered sooner rather than later but regardless, it’s still looking good for Torchwood!

Torchwood is back on Thursday at 9pm on BBC1 (it clashes with The Rattigan Enigma by Benedict Cumberbatch on BBC4, I’ve been waiting all year for that  and it clashes with one of my favourite shows, thank god for Iplayer).

I’m forgoing my ‘reasons to be cheerful’ today because last weekend was a tragic one by anyone’s standards.
The car bombing and subsequent shootings in and around Oslo, Norway on Friday 22^nd July claimed the lives of 76 innocent people. The gunman wasn’t (as so many ‘experts’ on rolling news channels claimed) from some Islamic fundamentalist sect, he was a native Norweigan with disgusting, far right, extremist views who wanted attention. The only encouraging thing to come from this is the demonstration of unity displayed by the people of Norway. The images of tributes left for the 76 and of people with roses stood shoulder to shoulder to remember the dead are some of the most moving things I’ve ever seen.
Saturday brought with it the news that the singer songwriter Amy Winehouse had bee found dead in her home.  I’ve heard a lot of people say since Saturday words to the effect of ‘she had it coming’ and ‘she only has herself to blame’. I implore these people, do some reading into addiction before you contribute this opinion to any discussion in which you may find yourself. Addiction is an illness and like all illnesses it needs treating properly and again like all illnesses, it is the sufferer that decides they need treatment. Unfortunately for Amy this realisation didn’t come soon enough. No matter what you thought of her, the world lost a musical talent at the weekend and two parents lost their daughter.
My deepest condolences are with the friends and family of the 76 and of Miss Winehouse.

Goodbye till next time :-)
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