WRITER: Helen Raynor DIRECTOR: Colin Teague
CAST: John Barrowman (Capt Jack Harkness), Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper), Burn Gorman (Owen Harper), Naoka Mori (Toshiko Sato), Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones), Kai Owen (Rhys Williams), Gareth Thomas (Ed Morgan), Ben McKay (Bernie), Llinos Daniel (Eleri), John Normington (Tom Flanagan), Emily Evans (Lizzie Lewis), Christopher Elson (Young Ed Morgan), Christopher Greene (Young Tom Flanagan) & Julie Gibbs (Bernie's Mum)
After Gwen retrieves some alien technology, the team discover it has the ability to retrieve emotional echoes from the past, leading Owen to investigate an unsolved murder...After the frankly embarassing Day One last week, the quality takes a modest step up with Ghost Machine. This is probably because the plot revolves around time-travel (well, kind of), a plot mechanism that has always been easier to do justice to on a BBC budget -- see Life Is Mars.
I don't mean to be condescending, as Torchwood is certainly a series with financial clout in UK terms, but it will never be able to compete with the visceral thrills of its big-budget US counterparts. That said, time-travel is a sci-fi staple that demands things of plot and character (not flashy directing and expensive effects), so the result here is an interesting mystery.
It's good to see someone almost steal the show from Barrowman and Myles -- the improbably-named Burn Gorman as Owen Harper. Gorman is the team's tech-savvy Cockney, a sterotype that irritates in movies like Tomb Raider, but Gorman makes this cliche more palatable than usual. He has a presence and charisma that seems more natural than most others in the show; indeed, some of that Torchwood team positively disappear into the background at times!
Eve Myles is fine, but she often seems ineffectual and lacks that indefinable sparkle. If Torchwood is the supposed tonal opposite of Doctor Who, then it's clear Myles is playing Gwen as a mirror-image to Billie Piper's Rose. She's can be quite moody at times, although there are times when her icy pout melts (mostly in scenes with her cloying boyfriend).
The central plot isn't original, but it's entertaining enough and belatedly moves into a more interesting realm. One early complaint about Torchwood is the hackneyed investigations of the team: they essentially just enter names into computers (or read phone books!), access CCTV cameras to track people, then interview people whilst posing as officials, and sit back as the suspects fill in all the blanks! One scene in Ghost Machine when Gwen interviews an elderly man called Ed Morgan is a particularly indicative of this trait. It's a shame, as there are far more interesting ways to investigate crimes (just watch CSI, or even Spooks) and since Torchwood has access to all-manner of technology, it's a bit annoying to see the supposed high-tech team reverting to these cliches.
Torchwood is also undisciplined with its "adult show" labelling. That tag should mean telling stories with adult themes without treating the audience like children (something Battlestar Galactica does brilliantly.) Torchwood should be written as if it were an episode of Prime Suspect or Spooks, but enjoy the freedom a sci-fi premise has over those reality-based series.
Unfortunately, while the stories have certainly not been ideal viewing for young children, there's still the unmistakable air of a kid's show being "sexed-up" by desperate adults. In Ghost Machine there's a quasi-sexual sequence where Gwen is taught how to fire guns by Jack; it's awfully done and has no relevance to the plot (but hey, we had GUNS... see, Doctor Who doesn't have guns! We're, like, a proper show for grownups!) Sigh...
But, back to the plot, which is easily the star of the show. Writer Helen Raynor crafts a ghost/time-travel conceit that's quite fun, with an alien device able to "transport" you back to view the past (or future). The mystery surrounding an unsolved murder from 1963 isn't going to give Poirot sleepless nights, but it's structured well and builds to a decent finale.
Overall, Ghost Machine is a good episode that succeeds thanks to its plot structure and a winning performance from Gorman. Torchwood itself still doesn't gel as "adult sci-fi" for me, mainly because we're living in an age where Lost and Battlestar Galactica mix adult drama with sci-fi to a superb degree.
In comparison, Torchwood is just terra-firma Doctor Who with some swearing, sex and violence thrown into the mix. And that's not the same. How about giving us some character relationships with depth and believability? Or tackle issues like abortion, paedophilia, illegal immigrants, global warming and stem-cell research through allegorical sci-fi? Then you might actually have something genuinely beyond children and able to stimulate adult minds.
