Behind the Sofa: Torchwood: Small Worlds

(sound of gun being cocked)
Back in you go Querry...

(sound of heavy metal door being swung shut)
All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension. Non-Welsh elements may not be used where there is life. Medium atomic kittens are available: Kinnock, Leek, Caerphilly, Jones, Daffodil, Rugby, Bassey, Sterophonics and Sheep.

Kinnock and Bassey have been assigned.
Why, in this multi-channel, niche programme, quagmire we find ourselves seeping into, is there no 24 hour PJ Hammond channel? All PJ.

All the Time. Surely the audience for such an endeavour would be vast and such a major draw with advertisers of psych-tropic drugs in the shape of cartoon characters, intravenous gravy manufacturers and Vim.

Worse than a drunk, at half 2 in the afternoon, attempting to swat his invisible demons, in a betting shop doorway.

Sparing no expense luring PJ out of his Midsomer Murders turmoil meant that they were unable to case cast JP as the obligatory blinking extra in now legendary nonce collision scene. The kid at the centre of all this plot looked extremely uncomfortable, as if she had foreknowledge of something that'll happen in 30 years time when the severed head of a long since dead Angus Deayton presents some of her scenes on the Christmas Day edition of Before The Were Famous #57 by which point the little girl will be president of Greater Englandland, or a Hollyoaks woddentop, or the worst multiple homicidist in history. Torchwood has a lot to answer for.

..
.

..including the casting of every dealer's pin-up Pete Doherty as the main alien threat.

The lengths that the prosthetics experts had to go to to make him look more human will surely ensure Torchwood gets the make-up gong at the next Academy backslapping fest (as it also wins the internet vote for the best god damn show in the world anywhere). The fairies themselves were fine, although they did show up the rest of the ensemble for the wooden tosspots they are, especially when they attacked the BBQ scene and the step dad from the worst casting agency in the world. I admit that acting against nothing is difficult but some of that scene looked much worse than a drunk, at half 2 in the afternoon, attempting to swat his invisible demons, in a betting shop doorway.

Mercifully there was actually very little of the Torchwood quintet aside, from Jack and Gwen, and the story at least afforded Jack more opportunities not to indulge in too much shouting and gesticulating. I said not too much, but all the hallmarks of his subtle and so well underplayed character were still there as he attempted to dry hump an OAP, whilst fully clothed. The cad!

No wonder she fell for him 60 years ago. What sane woman/man/sentient mineral wouldn't?

And it comes to something when even the Torchwood SUV gets some much needed character development.

We see several hitherto unseen features of the most ugliest vehicle in history. Why should a secret, covert, organization require such strong branding on its fleet of vehicle? They're not trying to sell ice cream or anything on the streets of Cardiff, are they?

Perhaps it doubles up as some sort of frozen confectionery delivery mechanism to off set the soaring costs of the gas guzzler? And if the petrol consumption wasn't an issue then surely the vehicle insurance process for such a pimped up, testosteroned out, fuckvan would drive any sane man half insensible. You can just imagine Ianto getting a little bit flustered at a certain time of the year as he's faced with the question Has the vehicle been modified in any way above the manufacturer's original specification?

. 17 pages of itemized additions later and he'll still not have even gotten anywhere near mentioning the jewel encrusted seat-flush dildos, the velour prisoner restraints or the needles that deliver genetically enhanced rat glands direct into the eyeballs..

.
The Torchwood Bumper Book of Date Rape Techniques has this to say about Small Worlds: scattering rose petals on the bed of your loved one prior to engaging in a night of Ugandan discussions - erotic. Leaving them there to choke on during the night - idiotic.

Things are getting strange, I'm starting to worry
This could be a case for Mulder and Scully
And indeed it was. You had Spooky Jack and Gwen the sceptic with Catatonia's Welsh lilt and a plot stuck together with bits left over from The X-Files. And Angel.

And The Outer Limits. Freak weather conditions from The Claws Of Axos. Police drama a la T** B***.

Dark secrets from Harry Potter. For at the third or fourth time this series, they threw half a dozen other recognizable programmes into a blender, and hoped the resulting concoction would still be palatable. Hidden agendas.

Failed romances. Mysterious past lives. Heavy-handed moral subtext.

ENOUGH already!
What Torchwood really needs - or needed, it's probably far too late now - is to ditch Eric Saward's evil Kamelion twin and bring in a proper nuts-and-bolts script editor; someone who knows that events shouldn't happen just to be 'cool' or to advance the plot, one who will stand up to Russel and say no, this jumble of different concepts isn't going to work , and put a red marker pen through all the extraneous twaddle. Imagine the writers' brief for a series where the premise is just so overcomplicated and so wrong that every episode has to be The Five Doctors.

I'm pretty sure we're looking at it now. Where's Terrence Dicks when you need him?

Imagine the writers' brief for a series where every episode has to be The Five Doctors.

I'm pretty sure we're looking at it now

There is quite a lot to like in this episode, but it's mainly in dribs and drabs instead of as a satisfyingly whole. PJ Hammond gave it his best shot, and I'm loathe to place any blame directly at his feet, but you can see how the need to tie so many elements together proved too much even for him. The bulk of Small Worlds is perfectly acceptable within its own episode microcosm, but put it anywhere near the rest of Torchwood's own 'continuity' and it INSTANTLY falls to bits.

Let's face it, unless there's a later episode with Ianto's head on a spike with a basketball net in his mouth, logcal running order is never going to be restored ever.
I can also see Hammond watching the finished programme and tutting at the numerous little things that would have gelled so much better had the production team taken a little extra care to visualise them properly. For instance, why did the fairies kill everyone on the boxcar except Jack?

Unless they somehow know already he's immortal, there's no reason for them not to be completely indiscriminate, and it would have been so easy to have Jack spit out a few rose petals and let that carry the whole scene. What exactly were the fairies' motives anyway? Unless I read the confusing explanations wrong, they're all the souls of dead children, so why go through the whole 'Chosen One' rigmarole in the first place?

Why did they wantonly kill off Jack's aged love-interest, if it wasn't simply to foreclose the intriguing mystery subplot once it had done its job, in EXACTLY the same way The Ghost Machine did? Was it to protect the fairies' sanctity? Then why reveal themselves when gatecrashing the party?

(And wasn't that completely unnecessary anyway? They were far more sinister as indistinct shadows; first rule of horror, sudden death is scarier when you can't see it. Knock it off with the whole 'Back off!

We've got a CGI station and we're not afraid to use it!' attitude, and spend that money overcoming the ridiculous limitations the show enforces on itself.) And what happens to all the witnesses, once Torchwood has buggered off and left them without staying to clear the mess up?

I could go on and on and ON.
And that ending. Hnnngh.

If it were a Twilight Zone episode, or some other anthology series, I'd have said it was brilliant; particularly for that pure Hammond final shot that confirmed they were never going to win, because the evidence proved that the timeline was preset and events had already happened. As a Torchwood ending, where the supposedly high stakes are repeatedly thrust in your face every week, it absolutely wound me up. It was Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix, where the big twist you'd lead yourself to believe turned out not to be a twist after all, and the dark mystery had been played out absolutely straight.

With all the piecemeal knowledge Jack decides to divulge bit by bit over the course of the episode, I half-expected some mythical Seventh Doctor Macguffin to be pulled out of a hat at the last moment; but oops, nope, can't deal with it, sorry. It was all a MASSIVE chicken-shit fakeout. Why did Jack feel the need to keep shtum and jeapordise the team's chances even more?

Why not just tell everyone in advance that they're a bit fucked instead of messing with their heads for fifty minutes? Besides the obvious reason of not having a show then, I mean. If I were Gwen I'd be doing far more than just glowering at the end - he might not be able to die, but I bet Jack could still feel the bruises from a bloody good collective kicking.

The only source they haven't yet liberally pilfered from is Douglas Adams, and somewhere Oolon Colluphid is penning a new book entitled 'Well That About Wraps It Up For Torchwood'

Torchwood 3 really is a Mickey Mouse outfit, isn't it? We empathize with Mulder and Scully when they fall from grace, as every failure takes them one step closer to the ultimate truth. I'm just not getting that with Torchwood.

Why are we watching this bunch of complete losers? Five weeks in and there's still no reason to like any of them when they repeatedly accomplish nothing, and half the shit they bring upon themselves. We don't want our heroes to predictably win every week, but we expect them to at least try.

Cowardice might be more realistic human behaviour but it makes for spectacularly bad telly. Where's the conflict and drama if your group cops out at the first sign of real foreshadowed trouble with over half the series still to go?
I sat through four episodes of Doctor Who Weakly to get this far and really wanted Small Worlds to turn the whole shebang around.

But despite penning undoubtedly the best instalment of the series thus far (turning a deaf ear to the 'not much contest' line from the Greek chorus), if the man who gave us Sapphire Steel can't elevate Torchwood beyond a thematic and structural mess with his trademark brand of extra-dimensional weirdness, I don't honestly see what hope is left for it, unless someone is prepared to take the bold step of turning it into genuine black comedy. That would be brilliant. As it is, the only source they haven't yet liberally pilfered from is Douglas Adams, and somewhere Oolon Colluphid is penning a new book entitled 'Well That About Wraps It Up For Torchwood'.

Next week: Not Cardiff. Gabriel Woolf just skated down the road.
The Bumper Book Of Persistent Torchwood Stains has this to say about Small Worlds: The forthcoming CD of Murray Gold's Torchwood music includes the tracks 'I Saw Remembrance Of The Daleks Once', 'ZOMGWTFDRAMA', and 'Emote, Damn You'.

It may, or may not, surprise you to find out that I really enjoyed Small Worlds. In fact I have enjoyed every episode so far this series even the much maligned Cyberwoman. What I do like about the series is the fact that each episode has been very different from other episodes, and it looks like next weeks episode is going to be completely different again.

What this episode is more like than anything else is a Sapphire and Steel episode, which is not that surprising given that the episode is written by Peter J (PJ) Hammond who has spent the last god knows how many years writing for series like Midsomer Murders (where I also believe that Kevin Clarke spends his time nowadays). He does seem very at home writing these kinds of stories and there were certainly elements present in this episode that he had used before in his Sapphire and Steel episodes such as the use of nursery rhymes and spooky children.
The ending of this episode is certainly the most this episode is like a Sapphire and Steel episode as if you remember in Adventure Two Steel had to sacrifice the life of one of the characters in order to solve the problem and save time or the world.

In that episode it was the kindly Ghost Hunter Tully and in this episode it is the rather spooky, Jasmine.
Now this ending is certainly not going to appeal to Doctor Who fans who love the fact the Doctor will generally always save the day and not let anybody die in the process but like in the Sapphire and Steel episode in this case it was about the only way that Jack could see to end the problem.