Torchwood: A Day in the Death

[fairyd123]

As this episode ended and BBC 3 went back to showing their highly obnoxious adverts for the Lily Allen show I confess that I turned my tv off and just sat there for a moment, completely speechless. It's pretty rare for a tv programme to have that effect on me. I was convinced that the writers were going to take the easy way out - that there was going to be an alien mcguffin hidden away amongst Richard Briers' characters belongings, a handy box of nanogenes perhaps, that would fix Owen right up. A magic wand would be waved and all would be right in the world of Owen Harper. So for the twist to be that there is no twist - that Owen remained every bit as dead as he was at the beginning of the episode was a bit of a shock. It's a hell of a ballsy move on the part of the production team for Owen to remain Zombie Owen and I'm not quite sure where they're going to go with it but you have to give them kudos for being different.

I thought A Day in the Death was a wonderful episode. Considerably less barking than last week's which also meant that it was marginally less fun but it was far more emotionally satisfying. The episode could have been horribly hokey. If Dead Man Walking was all about the power of death, A Day in the Death was all about the power of hope. How the tiniest glimmer of light can overwhelm an ocean of darkness. As such it could have been rather corny and sentimental but like last week was saved by another extraordinary performance from Burn Gorman.

I thought the framing device of the world's worst therapy session was very rather clever and certainly very different from any Torchwood episode that had come previously. Burn had fantastic chemistry with the actress playing the suicidal Maggie and they played off each other really well. I really liked how unsentimental their scenes were. There were no platitudes, no false hope, Owen didn't lie that one day Maggie was going to wake up and all of a sudden it wouldn't hurt anymore. Because life is just life. It can be incredibly cruel and Maggie doesn't need or want Owen to pretend otherwise. Although man the Torchwood writers have vicious imaginations - the image of a blood drenched Maggie in her wedding dress emerging from the crashed car was truly horrifying.

Burn was again superlative - really there aren't words to describe how good he's been in these 3 episodes. Some of his scenes were like watching an acting masterclass - particularly his end monologue which was just superb and had me choking up a little. Owen in this episode was funny, flirty, feral, disaffected, terrified, violent, cruel, distinctly unhinged and at the end of the episode somewhat serene, finally at peace with who and what he is. A Day in the Death was about the life, death and re-birth of Doctor Owen Harper (and how much do I love the concept that his re-birth was the result of an alien species wanting to reach out and communicate, connect with us) Not exactly an easy task for Burn to pull off then - especially the sequence when Owen, stripped of purpose, is going ever so slightly insane in his apartment. I do think that with a lesser actor this episode would have been plain horrible but he pulled it off with ease. Genre shows rarely get any respect but if there is any justice Burn should really win an award for his turn here - it's some of the most impressive work I've seen in a long while.

But oh Jack - what have you done? By bringing Owen back from death Jack has condemned him to be forever dead. In this episode Owen is stripped of his job, his rank and his purpose. He's marginalised and reduced to little more than the "teaboy" an irony which is not lost on him. Owen has no body heat, can't feel anyone touching him, can't make love, can't eat or drink, presumably has no need of sleep and he can't even breathe. The sequence where he realises that he can't fulfill his purpose in life, that of being a doctor - of saving lives, because he has no breath with which to perform mouth to mouth resuscitation was absolutely heartbreaking. So Owen gets to die forever as Torchwood's very own Mr Glass - seems like a fate almost as cruel as Jack becoming the Face of Boe.

Loved the Owen/Ianto sequences. Interesting that Owen seems to have used Ianto as his own personal yard stick for how good his life is. For Owen it didn't matter that his life wasn't all that great because at least he had the comfort of knowing that Ianto's was worse. Poor Ianto who haunted the Hub at all hours like a ghost and whose main job was to pick up Owen's rubbish and make the tea and coffee. Ianto, who foolishly allowed the boss to fuck him occasionally when he wasn't losing his mind over his dead cyber-girlfriend. So for he and Ianto to effectively switch places, for Owen to realise that Ianto has a much better life now that he's a more fully integrated member of the team and with Jack whilst he has been relegated to making the coffee was a bitter pill for Owen to swallow. But I loved that Ianto didn't crow, didn't gloat. He was terribly apologetic when he took Owen's badge and gun, in the very awkward scene where Owen serves everyone coffee Ianto is the only one to look after him as he leaves - checking he's OK and he's the first one to encourage Owen to fight. They were such lovely nuanced moments which effectively hinted at a closer friendship between the two characters than we've ever seen on screen.

But Owen don't you know that Ianto allowing you to touch his coffee machine is practically a declaration of love!

The TinTin conversation was truly, deeply surreal but worked rather well - helped enormously by GDL's reactions to Owen besmirching the honour of his childhood favourite!

Also I know that the Janto shippers haven't had much to cheer about in the last couple of episodes but the fact that Owen speaks about them as a couple and is clearly jealous of what they have does rather speak volumes.

I'll be honest - I don't really see the Tosh/Owen. I liked them far better as friends in To the Last Man it played a lot better. The scene where Owen is breathtakingly cruel to Tosh was hard to watch - even harder when he broke down and hurled himself into the Bay for a cathartic dip. Still gotta give Tosh credit for sticking to her guns and not being shy or ashamed any more of how she feels for him. It still comes across far more as friendship to me, even in the lovely sequence where he's confessing that he's scared to her but they do have a nice chemistry together.

Some interesting directing in this episode. Particularly the scenes with Martha and Owen and Ianto and Owen where the action was framed by the lit glass globes filled with alien plants - they really did lend an otherworldliness to the sequences.

And how much does Torchwood pay its employees? I loved Tosh's place but I adored Owen's - that place was huge! Would set him back half a million easy even in Cardiff!

The music was also fabulous - "Owen's theme" was rather haunting and I'm still humming it now.

I'm not quite sure what to make of Jack in this episode. It was a very different Jack to last week where the father/son vibe was very strong. Jack was almost cruel in this episode to Owen. He jokes about him making the coffee, stands by while Owen is "drowning himself" and he offers little support to Owen. I'd like to think that Jack was practising his own brand of tough love, letting Owen work through his problems on his own, knowing that he would come out on the other side. He certainly showed faith in Owen - allowing him to take the task of breaking in to retrieve the alien artifact. One thing I've really liked this series is that they are constantly showing us how much faith and pride Jack has in his team. I would have liked Jack to be perhaps a tad more supportive of Owen's plight, after all if anyone knows what he's going through he does, but then I guess it fit rather well into the unsentimental approach for Jack not to be offering hollow words of comfort to him.

This could almost have been the Jack lite episode there was so little of Jack, Gwen (and why does she appear to be in charge again?) and Ianto in it, but actually I think if they'd been in it more they would almost have been in the way. This was very much Owen's story.

This was also another episode in which Martha's presence was completely pointless and bless Freema her line readings were a little dodgy as well. Still at least that's Martha's Torchwood stint over with now. I did think her goodbye scene was incredibly odd. The staging was rather bizarre - they all looked incredibly uncomfortable, as if they were standing to attention as they said goodbye. And John's acting choices in that scene were very strange. There was no warmth coming from him in that scene whatsoever. Compare it to how excited Jack is in Reset when Martha appears in the Hub. I don't know whether he was just exhausted or whether he was encouraged to perform in that way but the scene was cold and awkward and the kiss somewhat embarrassing with Jack looking horrified that Martha was kissing him. A real off note in an otherwise strong episode.

But now that we are at the end of the arc I am, as I feared I would be, a little baffled and concerned as to the point of the arc. It seems clear to me that Freema's appearance was a result of internal show politics rather than any need to include her from a story perspective and whilst she wasn't heavily used in either Dead Man Walking or A Day in the Death her appearances did completely derail the team dynamic which had been so lovingly built up prior to her arrival and I can't help but resent her a tad for coming along, disrupting my show and reducing the screentime of my favourites for almost a quarter of the episodes. It's sad that her appearance, instead of making me eager to see her in Who again, has actually made me dislike the character because her presence in Torchwood was just so pointless.

The pessimist in me also can't help but feel that the producers wouldn't have showcased Burn Gorman quite so prominently in these three episodes if he was still going to be around at the end of the series. Everyone has suggested a June start date for filming of series 3 and the fact that Burn doesn't start his run in The Revenger's Tragedy until June 10th is not a great sign. Owen is now (to quote the remake of Dawn of the Dead) "Dead-ish". Realistically how much more mileage can the producers get from a character who is a walking zombie and who can't get into any fights because any injuries won't heal? You can't have him in a physical relationship with Tosh or anyone else without it effectively being necrophilia! Any relationship is going to have this dark, almost perverse edge to it - because he's dead!The producers really have written themselves into a hole and if they're not careful the antics of Dead-ish Owen will start to come across as rather Weekend at Bernies. So let's hope a magic wand gets waved by the end of the series.

Favourite lines:

I'm wrong

I'm broken

I'm Doctor Owen Harper and I'm having a very bad day

Oh and as for that shot from the trailer? I'm calling it now that "Jack" is the shapeshifter in that sequence...... well he bloody better be!