Director: Andy Goddard
Cast: John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Burn Gorman (Owen Harper), Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper), Naoko Mori (Toshiko Sato), Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones), Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones) & Paul Kasey (Weevil)
The team mourn Owen's death, although Jack has a plan to bring him back to life, but it comes at a price...
BBC Three debut Torchwood episodes now, so I'll be reviewing episodes a week ahead of their BBC2 transmission. Consequently, if you're watching at BBC2's pace, there are MAJOR SPOILERS below...
Matt Jones, writer of the unsettling Doctor Who two-parter Impossible Planet/Satan Pit, transfers his talent to spin-off Torchwood – a show that would seem to suit his darker imagination. You could even say it fits like a glove...
Dead Man Walking continues events from Reset, with Owen (Burn Gorman) lying dead on a mortuary slab with a gunshot wound to the chest, awaiting an autopsy by Martha (Freema Agyeman) – although I think it's clear what he died from, Dr. Jones! Regardless, Captain Jack (John Barrowman) stops the procedure and races across Cardiff to meet with a little girl, who's apparently a gifted psychic whose Tarot cards point Jack in the direction of the abandoned St. Mary's Church...
Inside, Jack finds the floor is covered in sleeping Weevils, but he cautiously makes his way to an opening in a stone wall, where he retrieves a small wooden chest. The Weevils suddenly become aware of Jack's presence in their midst, but Jack manages to escape from the church and arrives back at the Hub – where he opens the chest and takes out a Resurrection Glove...
As demonstrated in two episodes last season, these Gloves have the power to bring dead people back to life for a few minutes (although villainous Suzie managed to hold onto life by draining energy from Gwen in They Keep Killing Suzie.) Jack assembles his team around Owen and manages to bring their friend back to life; frightened and upset at the horrific darkness that awaits him in the afterlife. The team say their goodbyes, with Tosh (Naoko Mori) professing her love for him, and Jack admitting he actually just needs Owen's code for an "alien morgue." Oh, right. Huh?
As the title gives away, Owen somehow manages to stay "alive" beyond the Glove's allotted resurrection time, although he doesn't have a heartbeat and pulse. They perform medical tests, but can't explain what's keeping him alive – as he's definitely no extracting energy from anyone close by, as Suzie achieved. However, the Resurrection Glove itself is seen flexing metallic fingers, and Owen later begins to occasionally slip into a "dimension" of perpetual darkness and eerie whispers. Martha then realizes Owen's body is actually changing, transforming, and is already 40% inhuman...
After dismissing Tosh, claiming her declaration of love for him was fuelled by the grief of losing a friend, Owen's eyes turn inky black and he starts talking to himself in a baritone alien tongue (strong echoes of the possession quirks from Jones' Impossible Planet episode, actually...)
Owen disappears to a nightclub, but finds he's not the same smart-talking lothario person anymore, failing to get aroused by a beautiful woman because he has no blood circulation (ahem). Jack arrives and Owen takes out his frustrations in a fist-fight, incensed that he's been dragged back to life and rendered subnormal.
Both Jack and Owen are arrested and thrown in a cell together (great idea, Cardiff police), where they share their unique viewpoints on life and death: as Jack is immortal and psychologically unable to take delight in everyday detail, and Owen is "living" on borrowed time and noticing beauty in the smallest of things.
It's a well-written scene for the pair, nicely balanced by Torchwood's most hilarious moment of bad-taste ever -- when Owen projectile vomit his bloated stomach of alchohol by hand-standing against a wall. It's a shame the episode's best scene ends with Jack ridiculously securing their release by verbally giving guards a Torchwood "passcode". Does anyone else find it irritating that the series is yet to decide if Torchwood is a top-secret organization, or in the public domain?
Back at the hub, Tosh has found CCTV footage of Owen being possessed by an entity, and knows he's in danger. Seriously, if Torchwood didn't have security cameras and internet access, they'd be screwed most weeks. How did Torchwood cope before the information age?
Jack and Owen are walking back from prison late at night, when they find themselves being chased by gangs of Weevils (who are suddenly more prominent than rats in this episode), and become corned atop a multi-storey car park. However, the advancing Weevils merely cower to the floor in front of them, apparently in reverence to Owen...
Later, at the hub, Owen's presence around the team's own captured Weevil has a similar effect, and Owen is perturbed that he's seemingly become "King Of The Weevils". Gwen (Eve Myles) has since deduced that Owen has actually possessed by "Death" – which has been reincarnated inside Owen as a host vessel. According to legend, the last time Death walked the planet it had to devour 13 souls in order to stay, but was previously prevented from doing so.
Fearing that he'll kill innocent people once Death completes its transformation inside him, Owen decides to neutralize himself by having his brain frozen by injected themaldehyde...
However, during the process, Martha and the team are attacked by the Resurrection Glove – which scurries around the room and eventually clamps itself over Martha's face, draining life from her and turning her into an 80-year-old woman. Owen manages to destroy the wayward Glove by blasting it with a gun, before he suddenly starts spewing a strange black cloud...
There's a rather annoying cut to hospital (to avoid explaining how the cloud escaped the Hub?), where the team have rushed Martha to hospital for treatment – with the doctors saying her old age is putting strain on her heart. Owen seems better now, but knows that the escaped cloud of "Death" (known as "Dulok" or "Hunger") is targeting the hospital to harvest the 13 souls it needs to survive.
Indeed, a cloudy Death-figure is stalking the wards, revealing a skeletal appearance that resembles the Grim Reaper of myth, and causing elderly patients to die when it approaches. Torchwood order an immediate evacuation of the hospital – and people seem to accept Gwen's pleas for them to leave at face-value! Why couldn't they just hit the fire alarm, anyway?
The hospital quickly empties of people, but a child cancer patient called Jamie is left behind, and becomes Death's only available target. Gwen reports to Jack that there are 12 confirmed deaths so far, meaning Death only needs to kill once more and it will be free to spread across the world.
Owen finds Jamie and realizes the only way to defeat Death is to have faith and tackle the problem head on, so he locks his colleagues out of the hospital and grapples with the skeletal figure himself. In the ensuing brawl, Owen consumes all of Death's energy, forcing it back into the darkness beyond life, and saving the world.
In the denouement, Martha confirms that Owen is being kept alive by all the energy he took from Death (and, by extension, 12 innocent dead people), but the energy is dissipating. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell if Owen has 30 days, weeks or years of "life" before the energy vanishes... but he promises Jack he'll make the most of his borrowed time.
Dead Man Walking is an extremely mixed bag, told quite confusingly and with little regard for logic at times. I'm still puzzling over Jack's reliance on a kid Tarot reader to show him where another Resurrection Glove could be found! Why is Cardiff suddenly awash with Weevils? Why was there a Resurrection Glove inside an abandoned church anyway? Did Jack honestly just resurrect Owen to ask for codes to an "alien morgue"? Presumably, this alien morgue would remain locked forever if they couldn't talk to Owen?! Hmmm.
The narrative is very strained in places, although the episode settles whenever Burn Gorman is given time to sink his teeth into the script. He cuts a chilling figure whenever possessed and was plausibly emotional about his circumstance in the nightclub and prison cell scenes.
Unfortunately, the episode is quite clumsy and ridiculous at times, primarily because so much is left unanswered or frustratingly vague. Why was this Resurrection Glove able to move around and rapidly age people? We're told that different gloves may have different properties, but it all smacks of rewriting established rules to suit the story to me.
I'm also very confused about the rules governing Owen's rebirth. It's acceptable that he could be brought back to life because an entity had hitched a ride inside him, but surely once Death left his body, Owen should die? There was no reason for him to continue walking around as one of the "undead" once the engine for that ability evacuated. Unless I missed something?
A litany of illogical moments scuppered this episode for me, particularly once Gwen solves the underlying mystery by reading about a myths on a website and making assumptions. That seems to be the established way cases get solved on this show, doesn't it?
There is some good stuff, though: Burn Gorman gives an excellent performance throughout, the direction is strong from Andy Goddard (I particularly like the "dark dimension" Owen is thrown into), the nightclub and prison cell scenes were both solid in terms of writing and acting, the projectile vomit scene was laugh-out-loud funny and joyously distasteful, the climax at the hospital was quite tense, and the eventual reasoning for Owen to continue "living" at least made sense. Kind of.
It's just a shame Matt Jones (whose TW/DW episodes all show a fondness for possession, demons and death!) doesn't manage to craft a water-tight story. I liked the overall idea behind Dead Man Walking, and it kept me firmly entertained, but I was furrowing my brow every few minutes whenever the story danced around logic and strained to keep itself buoyant.
This episode was quite disappointing under scrutiny, and requires an absence of disbelief (never mind suspension) for full enjoyment, but Burn Gorman just about manages to keep you interested, and it's certainly not boring.
As side-notes: Freema Agyman is so marginalized, it would have been wiser to pack her off to UNIT, and I fail to see the point in making Owen "undead" -- as Jack's immortality is already sapping drama from life-threatening moments. Hopefully Owen will regain his humanity next week, and stop avoiding the situation with Tosh...
20 February 2008
BBC Three, 10.00 pm
Cast: John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Burn Gorman (Owen Harper), Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper), Naoko Mori (Toshiko Sato), Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones), Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones) & Paul Kasey (Weevil)
The team mourn Owen's death, although Jack has a plan to bring him back to life, but it comes at a price...BBC Three debut Torchwood episodes now, so I'll be reviewing episodes a week ahead of their BBC2 transmission. Consequently, if you're watching at BBC2's pace, there are MAJOR SPOILERS below...
Matt Jones, writer of the unsettling Doctor Who two-parter Impossible Planet/Satan Pit, transfers his talent to spin-off Torchwood – a show that would seem to suit his darker imagination. You could even say it fits like a glove...
Dead Man Walking continues events from Reset, with Owen (Burn Gorman) lying dead on a mortuary slab with a gunshot wound to the chest, awaiting an autopsy by Martha (Freema Agyeman) – although I think it's clear what he died from, Dr. Jones! Regardless, Captain Jack (John Barrowman) stops the procedure and races across Cardiff to meet with a little girl, who's apparently a gifted psychic whose Tarot cards point Jack in the direction of the abandoned St. Mary's Church...
Inside, Jack finds the floor is covered in sleeping Weevils, but he cautiously makes his way to an opening in a stone wall, where he retrieves a small wooden chest. The Weevils suddenly become aware of Jack's presence in their midst, but Jack manages to escape from the church and arrives back at the Hub – where he opens the chest and takes out a Resurrection Glove...
As demonstrated in two episodes last season, these Gloves have the power to bring dead people back to life for a few minutes (although villainous Suzie managed to hold onto life by draining energy from Gwen in They Keep Killing Suzie.) Jack assembles his team around Owen and manages to bring their friend back to life; frightened and upset at the horrific darkness that awaits him in the afterlife. The team say their goodbyes, with Tosh (Naoko Mori) professing her love for him, and Jack admitting he actually just needs Owen's code for an "alien morgue." Oh, right. Huh?
As the title gives away, Owen somehow manages to stay "alive" beyond the Glove's allotted resurrection time, although he doesn't have a heartbeat and pulse. They perform medical tests, but can't explain what's keeping him alive – as he's definitely no extracting energy from anyone close by, as Suzie achieved. However, the Resurrection Glove itself is seen flexing metallic fingers, and Owen later begins to occasionally slip into a "dimension" of perpetual darkness and eerie whispers. Martha then realizes Owen's body is actually changing, transforming, and is already 40% inhuman...
After dismissing Tosh, claiming her declaration of love for him was fuelled by the grief of losing a friend, Owen's eyes turn inky black and he starts talking to himself in a baritone alien tongue (strong echoes of the possession quirks from Jones' Impossible Planet episode, actually...)
Owen disappears to a nightclub, but finds he's not the same smart-talking lothario person anymore, failing to get aroused by a beautiful woman because he has no blood circulation (ahem). Jack arrives and Owen takes out his frustrations in a fist-fight, incensed that he's been dragged back to life and rendered subnormal.
Both Jack and Owen are arrested and thrown in a cell together (great idea, Cardiff police), where they share their unique viewpoints on life and death: as Jack is immortal and psychologically unable to take delight in everyday detail, and Owen is "living" on borrowed time and noticing beauty in the smallest of things.
It's a well-written scene for the pair, nicely balanced by Torchwood's most hilarious moment of bad-taste ever -- when Owen projectile vomit his bloated stomach of alchohol by hand-standing against a wall. It's a shame the episode's best scene ends with Jack ridiculously securing their release by verbally giving guards a Torchwood "passcode". Does anyone else find it irritating that the series is yet to decide if Torchwood is a top-secret organization, or in the public domain?
Back at the hub, Tosh has found CCTV footage of Owen being possessed by an entity, and knows he's in danger. Seriously, if Torchwood didn't have security cameras and internet access, they'd be screwed most weeks. How did Torchwood cope before the information age?
Jack and Owen are walking back from prison late at night, when they find themselves being chased by gangs of Weevils (who are suddenly more prominent than rats in this episode), and become corned atop a multi-storey car park. However, the advancing Weevils merely cower to the floor in front of them, apparently in reverence to Owen...
Later, at the hub, Owen's presence around the team's own captured Weevil has a similar effect, and Owen is perturbed that he's seemingly become "King Of The Weevils". Gwen (Eve Myles) has since deduced that Owen has actually possessed by "Death" – which has been reincarnated inside Owen as a host vessel. According to legend, the last time Death walked the planet it had to devour 13 souls in order to stay, but was previously prevented from doing so.
Fearing that he'll kill innocent people once Death completes its transformation inside him, Owen decides to neutralize himself by having his brain frozen by injected themaldehyde...
However, during the process, Martha and the team are attacked by the Resurrection Glove – which scurries around the room and eventually clamps itself over Martha's face, draining life from her and turning her into an 80-year-old woman. Owen manages to destroy the wayward Glove by blasting it with a gun, before he suddenly starts spewing a strange black cloud...
There's a rather annoying cut to hospital (to avoid explaining how the cloud escaped the Hub?), where the team have rushed Martha to hospital for treatment – with the doctors saying her old age is putting strain on her heart. Owen seems better now, but knows that the escaped cloud of "Death" (known as "Dulok" or "Hunger") is targeting the hospital to harvest the 13 souls it needs to survive.
Indeed, a cloudy Death-figure is stalking the wards, revealing a skeletal appearance that resembles the Grim Reaper of myth, and causing elderly patients to die when it approaches. Torchwood order an immediate evacuation of the hospital – and people seem to accept Gwen's pleas for them to leave at face-value! Why couldn't they just hit the fire alarm, anyway?
The hospital quickly empties of people, but a child cancer patient called Jamie is left behind, and becomes Death's only available target. Gwen reports to Jack that there are 12 confirmed deaths so far, meaning Death only needs to kill once more and it will be free to spread across the world.
Owen finds Jamie and realizes the only way to defeat Death is to have faith and tackle the problem head on, so he locks his colleagues out of the hospital and grapples with the skeletal figure himself. In the ensuing brawl, Owen consumes all of Death's energy, forcing it back into the darkness beyond life, and saving the world.
In the denouement, Martha confirms that Owen is being kept alive by all the energy he took from Death (and, by extension, 12 innocent dead people), but the energy is dissipating. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell if Owen has 30 days, weeks or years of "life" before the energy vanishes... but he promises Jack he'll make the most of his borrowed time.
Dead Man Walking is an extremely mixed bag, told quite confusingly and with little regard for logic at times. I'm still puzzling over Jack's reliance on a kid Tarot reader to show him where another Resurrection Glove could be found! Why is Cardiff suddenly awash with Weevils? Why was there a Resurrection Glove inside an abandoned church anyway? Did Jack honestly just resurrect Owen to ask for codes to an "alien morgue"? Presumably, this alien morgue would remain locked forever if they couldn't talk to Owen?! Hmmm.
The narrative is very strained in places, although the episode settles whenever Burn Gorman is given time to sink his teeth into the script. He cuts a chilling figure whenever possessed and was plausibly emotional about his circumstance in the nightclub and prison cell scenes.
Unfortunately, the episode is quite clumsy and ridiculous at times, primarily because so much is left unanswered or frustratingly vague. Why was this Resurrection Glove able to move around and rapidly age people? We're told that different gloves may have different properties, but it all smacks of rewriting established rules to suit the story to me.
I'm also very confused about the rules governing Owen's rebirth. It's acceptable that he could be brought back to life because an entity had hitched a ride inside him, but surely once Death left his body, Owen should die? There was no reason for him to continue walking around as one of the "undead" once the engine for that ability evacuated. Unless I missed something?
A litany of illogical moments scuppered this episode for me, particularly once Gwen solves the underlying mystery by reading about a myths on a website and making assumptions. That seems to be the established way cases get solved on this show, doesn't it?
There is some good stuff, though: Burn Gorman gives an excellent performance throughout, the direction is strong from Andy Goddard (I particularly like the "dark dimension" Owen is thrown into), the nightclub and prison cell scenes were both solid in terms of writing and acting, the projectile vomit scene was laugh-out-loud funny and joyously distasteful, the climax at the hospital was quite tense, and the eventual reasoning for Owen to continue "living" at least made sense. Kind of.
It's just a shame Matt Jones (whose TW/DW episodes all show a fondness for possession, demons and death!) doesn't manage to craft a water-tight story. I liked the overall idea behind Dead Man Walking, and it kept me firmly entertained, but I was furrowing my brow every few minutes whenever the story danced around logic and strained to keep itself buoyant.
This episode was quite disappointing under scrutiny, and requires an absence of disbelief (never mind suspension) for full enjoyment, but Burn Gorman just about manages to keep you interested, and it's certainly not boring.
As side-notes: Freema Agyman is so marginalized, it would have been wiser to pack her off to UNIT, and I fail to see the point in making Owen "undead" -- as Jack's immortality is already sapping drama from life-threatening moments. Hopefully Owen will regain his humanity next week, and stop avoiding the situation with Tosh...
20 February 2008
BBC Three, 10.00 pm
