Torchwood Episode Discussion (Spoilers for all eps aired in the UK)

[scarimor]

Tonight's the best so far.

[discodiva]

Excellent!......really really really enjoyed that....


Deeds xx

[jonno]

Indeed. Very good - surprisingly ... thought provoking? Poor chap.

[ShadowMaat]

Poor, poor Ianto. Poor, STUPID Ianto.

Definitely the best ep of the lot, not that there are many to compare it too. The DW trait of humanizing the monsters continues brilliantly. And more of those murky shades of gray, too.

Gareth did a phenomenal job in this ep. Some of the shine has come off Ianto, now, but he's still my second fave character. I'm amazed he wasn't brainwiped and tossed out with the trash, though.

[Toresica]

Whether it was an indication of shippy stuff to come (ack) or whether it was put there to get it out of the system - ah, too many whethers. I'm probably over-thinking it

The way I saw it, it was just to again illustrate Jack's character - the fact that, as we know from Doctor Who, he's very sensual/flirtatious.


If it was shippy stuff, there would have been fewer scenes of her with her boyfriend.

[Madeleine]

Definitely the best so far.

Ianto wasn't what he seemed at all. He seemed very cerebral, very contained in the first three eps, and I know that we hardly saw him but still...

It was such a surprise to see him being so love-is-blind BLIND STUPID. Poor chap, I can understand how his cyber-fiancee conned him into helping her, but not why he didn't tell the others. If they'd have met Lisa while she was still helpless and seemingly human in her personality, I think they might have seen things differently and tried to help him. As it was, they came into the situation after things had gone south, when they had no choices.

Poor chap, but what an idiot.

Who's going to clean up the mess of the dead guy and the dead pizza girl? Ianto has enough conscience to know it's his fault and *feel* that it's his fault; now his Lisa is dead will he go numb and find it easier to dispose of those bodies, or will he find it makes him too sick?

I don't even know if Ianto is in future eps. I'd like him to be for *him*, but I don't see how he can maintain his position after what he did, and the show will lose credibility if they don't find a really good excuse. (Mind you, we're talking about a show with a pterosaur attacking a half woman half robot, so I can cope with a little bit of unrealistic employment ettiquette.)

[Chaka's_Mum]

Hmm. Still waters run deep, they say; and Ianto proved that last night in spades!

I have to admit that I was torn between feeling incredibly sorry for him and wanting to give him a good hard thwack.

I guess we will never really know at what point Lisa completely became Cyber-Lisa, or even whether she was still Lisa from the outset. Part of me wonders whether she really was still in there - or whether the Cyber-part of her was simply telling Ianto what he wanted to hear so he would continue to keep her alive and find a way of healing her so it could step in and continue the 'upgrade'. That was certainly Jack's assessment of it, anyway; and I find myself agreeing with him, particularly after that poor delivery girl was still wibbling on about upgrades once she had her unwanted new brain.

I am also amazed that he's not been 'wiped' and returned to civilian life for making such a right royal mess; but then, with all that 'I clean up your crap while you lot go out and shoot lots of guns and stuff and don't get a word of thanks for it' followed by the 'have you ever been in love' stuff, perhaps Jack understands where he's coming from and is prepared to cut him a bit of slack. Who knows? Either way, he's back on bin-bag duty again in the final scene, and will probably remain so for some considerable time after that little escapade.

Isn't Owen a creep, by the way? Hiding in a mortuary refrigerator with Gwen while a Cyber-woman searches for them, and he snogs her (and what a snog it was!)? Then he follows it up with the feeblest, crappiest, most clichéd excuse of all time.

As for Jack giving Ianto the kiss of life, he needs to go back on the First Aid course. If you don't get their head back properly, all you do is blow air into their stomachs, you know!

A fabulous rollercoaster ride. I loved it.

[scarimor]

I guess we will never really know at what point Lisa completely became Cyber-Lisa, or even whether she was still Lisa from the outset. Part of me wonders whether she really was still in there - or whether the Cyber-part of her was simply telling Ianto what he wanted to hear so he would continue to keep her alive and find a way of healing her so it could step in and continue the 'upgrade'. That was certainly Jack's assessment of it, anyway; and I find myself agreeing with him, particularly after that poor delivery girl was still wibbling on about upgrades once she had her unwanted new brain.

That was the clincher for me - "we can upgrade together". It seemed that she was still seeing the human aspect of her (and by extension Ianto) as the defective part that needed fixing, i.e. upgrading.


And Ianto still couldn't bring himself to stop her. Even after she's killed-by-upgrade the professor, tried to 'upgrade' Gwen, killed Jack twice, sliced open a delivery woman's head to use as a brain carcass... he still can't bump her off.

Isn't Owen a creep, by the way? Hiding in a mortuary refrigerator with Gwen while a Cyber-woman searches for them, and he snogs her (and what a snog it was!)? Then he follows it up with the feeblest, crappiest, most clichéd excuse of all time.

snog, snog, recurring motif, snog snog

As for Jack giving Ianto the kiss of life, he needs to go back on the First Aid course. If you don't get their head back properly, all you do is blow air into their stomachs, you know!

It didn't look like the "kiss of life", did it? It looked more like the kiss of his life - something to do with Jack's immortality, perhaps? He can breathe a little into the dying?

[Willow'sCat]

Best episode yet.

I have to admit that I was torn between feeling incredibly sorry for him and wanting to give him a good hard thwack.

You as well hey? I did feel sorry for him but it was so creepy to think of him still loving that thing. I guess love it blind and stupid.

Isn't Owen a creep, by the way? Hiding in a mortuary refrigerator with Gwen while a Cyber-woman searches for them, and he snogs her (and what a snog it was!)? Then he follows it up with the feeblest, crappiest, most clichéd excuse of all time.

Oh I think this is going to be interesting.

As for Jack giving Ianto the kiss of life, he needs to go back on the First Aid course. If you don't get their head back properly, all you do is blow air into their stomachs, you know

I got the impression that he was giving him his life *force* or whatever it is that makes Jack now immortal. Kind of like the whole Doctor/Rose thing *kiss* in PotW. I don't think it was meant to be CPR or anything.

I don't have a problem with how Ianto was shown in this, it is obvious they all, even Tosh I am sure, have massive problems. None of them are the full picnic basket, and really after what they have been through how could they be?

It looks like they were at the front so to speak when Canary Wharf happened, you can't go through that and be normal. As long as they don't go too far the other way and just pretend it all never happened I will be fine with seeing Ianto back to the coffee guy.

I have to say I LOVED Jack in this, he was there, so far I felt he was kind of just making up the numbers but here he was brilliant, and I didn't even mind the threats of violence towards Ianto. He had to do what he had to do and remember The Doctor in Army of Ghosts

Spoiler:

actually did take the lives of human/Cybermen (at Torchwood when they were only wearing the ear pieces, he used the sonic screwdriver on one and also didn't really protest that much when *was it Yvonne?* took the ear piece out)

so Jack is actually not that bad in my book.

Next week looks really interesting... do we get to see some of Jack's past?

[ShadowMaat]

I can sort of understand Ianto's faulty logic in not telling the others- as he said himself, their job is to DESTROY alien incursions, and deep down he probably knew there was no saving her. Or at least he knew that would be the team's reaction. They didn't know her, they wouldn't care; all they'd see is a monster, not the woman behind it. But when she killed the doctor (small d) and he decided to cover it up, that's where things started to go wrong.

Do you think there's a chance Ianto ever would have said anything if anyone had ever asked? That was another point he made (at least to Jack), "You never asked about me." Maybe it's showing that Jack's hands-off policy might not always be fore the best.

I also want to know what Ianto knows about Jack to call him the "worst monster of all." There has to be more to it than the Lisa situation.

[Madeleine]

I also want to know what Ianto knows about Jack to call him the "worst monster of all." There has to be more to it than the Lisa situation.

Yeah, he said that twice, and no one responded directly to it.

I wonder where Jack himself would fit into the Torchwood philosophy. Does anyone senior to him know his origins? (Is anyone senior to him, or are the various Torchwoods independent franchises?) Given that the institute was inagurated to protect Britain against, amongst other things, The Doctor, I doubt there'd be much room for calling *any* futuristic time traveller 'Friend'.

Might Ianto know that Jack isn't from thier time? I reckon he knows *something* about Jack that we don't.

There's still the matter of the Hole In Jack's Mind that we found out about in The Empty Child. He seemed so un-dark then: he was clearly shady and we didn't really know what side he was on, but somehow as a cheerful but dodgy fella in the 1940s he was a lot less dark than the 'Good Guy' Jack we now have. I'm looking forward to finding what that's about, anyway.

[ShadowMaat]

One of the things that bothered me about this ep was that there was no moment of realization for Ianto. I can see wanting to keep the characters morally ambiguous and all, but... this nags at me. As far as Ianto is concerned, he was still fully right in everything he did... and Jack was still wrong in everything he did. It's like there was a scene missing or something because as it stands, having someone angry and resentful (and slightly unbalanced) on your team doesn't make a whole lotta sense. I can't understand why Jack kept him on and I can't understand why Ianto would still want to be part of Jack's team. The nods at the end were laughable. What were they supposed to mean? All is forgiven? I've got my eye on you? Is this my cue to enter the scene? I can't see how everything could go back to normal after something like that and I get the feeling there won't be a lot of follow-up in the next ep.

[scarimor]

What is Torchwood's chain of command? Who put Jack in charge of a team? What his is "rank", if he has any? By what authority does he give orders to the others? What assumption do they (especially newcomer Gwen) make about his right to give them orders? How does Gwen know Jack has a mandate? Does he have a mandate anyway?

Who's in charge of this whole kaboodle and (aside from Queen Victoria) who puts/keeps people there?

[GateGipsy]

One of the things that bothered me about this ep was that there was no moment of realization for Ianto. I can see wanting to keep the characters morally ambiguous and all, but... this nags at me. As far as Ianto is concerned, he was still fully right in everything he did... and Jack was still wrong in everything he did. It's like there was a scene missing or something because as it stands, having someone angry and resentful (and slightly unbalanced) on your team doesn't make a whole lotta sense. I can't understand why Jack kept him on and I can't understand why Ianto would still want to be part of Jack's team. The nods at the end were laughable. What were they supposed to mean? All is forgiven? I've got my eye on you? Is this my cue to enter the scene? I can't see how everything could go back to normal after something like that and I get the feeling there won't be a lot of follow-up in the next ep.

I came in here to say pretty much the same thing but you beat me to it!

This was such an open ended episode. Why was Ianto so convinced that Jack could save her? If he was so utterly convinced that Jack could save her, why didn't he go to her in the first place? And with Ianto clearly suffering from a rather bad case of post traumatic stress syndrome, shouldn't Jack have got him help at the end of the episode?

I really hope that the reason we're left with all these questions is because that was a deliberate plot device for a future episode!

[The Signal]

Ianto, Give him something to do FCOL

Yup, that'll do it....

A great episode last night, with John and Gareth both on top form as Jack and Ianto. Jack showed what he's really made of, and how far he will go to keep people safe. I can say with almost compelte certainty that if it had been before The Parting Of The Ways, he would have helped.

Ianto is such a tragedy, he was taken for granted by the rest of the team, damn near ignored, and this episode shows the consequences of that. He was doing something that he knew was wrong, but for all the right reasons, but because he was ignored no one saw it coming, so no one found out until it all went wrong, which sadly for Ianto and Lisa, meant the woman he loved had to die.

Would Jack have shot Ianto? In a heartbeat. Would Ianto have shot Jack? No. I think even though he did it for love, he knew that he couldn't get what he wanted, and that he was going to fail, he was desperate and wouldn't give up.

The defining ep for me was Ianto holding the gun to Lisa/Pizza Girl, it was then when he realised what he HAD to do. But just because he knew he had to do it, it doesn't mean that he could. When it was all over Jack seemed to let it go, water under the bridge, and I think that the only reason he did that was because he knew that Ianto wanted to pull that trigger, but he couldn't find the strength. To me that's important, though Gwen is the human side of it all, the outsider, the show still needs someone who can't always cope. That is Ianto's purpose.

The writing was great, acting was even better, and the story was absolutely bloody brilliant. An easy:

9/10

Just one thing, I think Jack can expect some difficult questions from Owen pretty soon regarding how he's still alive.