TORCHWOOD 2.11 – "Adrift"

Writer: Chris Chibnall
Director: Mark Everest

Cast: John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper), Burn Gorman (Owen Harper), Naoko Mori (Toshiko Sato), Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones), Kai Owen (Rhys Williams), Tom Price (PC Andy Davidson), Ruth Jones (Nikki Bevan), Robert Pugh (Jonah Bevan), Oliver Ferriman (Young Jonah) & Lorna Gayle (Helen)

Helen helps her police friend Andy investigate the disappearance of a teenage boy, leading her to make an unsettling discovery about Jack...

Scheduling note: Adrift will be shown on BBC2 tomorrow at 9pm, with episode 12 premiering on BBC Three at 10.35pm...

Writer-producer Chris Chibnall returns to wrap-up the season by penning the last 3 episodes. Adrift sees Gwen (Eve Myles) helping her ex-colleague PC Andy Davidson (Tom Price) investigate a boy's disappearance, while touching on the difficulties of balancing married life with the demands of Torchwood...

The episode get off to a bland start, with teenager Jonah Bevan (Oliver Ferriman) disappearing while walking home late at night, having just texted his mum Nikki (Ruth Jones). PC Andy asks for Gwen's help in locating the boy (who has been missing for 7 months now), as he suspects the reason for Jonah's disappearance has an "otherworldly" explanation. He shows Gwen CCTV footage where a spark of light can be seen just before Jonah vanishes... and the presence of Jack (John Barrowman) at the scene shortly after.

After confronting Jack with Jonah's story, he has no explanation to give her, but Tosh (Naoko Mori) notices that a "negative Rift activity spike" coincides with Jonah's vanishing act. Can it be that the city's Rift works both ways, and people can actually slip through time and space?

Once again the this episode shows us the (now marital) difficulties between Gwen and Rhys' (Kai Owen) relationship, as a result of Gwen's fraught working life saving the world. It's a topic that's always returned to, and to be honest I'm bored by it now. Myles and Owen are both excellent together, with their heartfelt performances going some way to making this subplot work, but there's nothing new to add. Rhys grouches about Gwen's workaholic ways, Gwen feels guilty but can't put her marriage before saving the world, and there's a no-doubt temporary reconciliation at the end.

PC Andy is revealed to still have feelings for Gwen (they dated a few years ago), and disliked Rhys enough to protest by avoiding her wedding day. I'm glad Tom Price gets a chance to shine in this episode, having been a background face for most of Torchwood's run, and it was refreshing to see a different character for Gwen to bounce off. Of course, Andy is essentially a wet-blanket type who missed his chance for love, and is always brushed aside if anything supernatural looms, so his role isn't particularly exciting here. It's just a mild diversion, but a welcome change to the usual Gwen/Jack pairing.

Having met with Jonah's mum Nikki (Ruth Jones) -- who is religiously recording her son's favourite TV on blank videos -- Gwen and Andy attend a support group she's set up for parents of missing children. Against their expectation, the church venue is soon packed with people, prompting Gwen to cross-refer the missing people with "negative spikes" from the Rift. After hours of work, Tosh and Gwen present their findings to Jack: people are being sucked through the Rift. Jack agrees, but has no solution. The Rift's nature is beyond their control.

Awhile later, after stumbling upon a half-naked Ianto (Gareth David-Lloyd) and Jack going at it in their office (quite surprising, and very unprofessional), Gwen receives a GPS from a mystery sender – pinpointing a small island in the middle of the Bristol Channel. Gwen suspects Ianto has passed it onto her (for some strange reason), but can't be sure. She hires a boat with PC Andy to investigate, but leaves him behind – arriving at the desolate island alone.

After climbing to the top of an abandoned lighthouse, Gwen notices someone being led away under a blanket (why the need for secrecy on a deserted island?), with Jack close behind. She follows them to some underground bunkers, using her Torchwood passcode to gain access to a strange, depressing facility -– full of mentally ill people, a few nurses, and dozens of rooms identified by scrawling on chalkboards. One door reads "Jonah's Room".

Jack appears, unhappy to see Gwen has found this place. Gwen demands answers and enters Jonah's room alone to find them. Inside, she approaches a middle-aged man who has been badly burned. It's an aged Jonah (Robert Pugh) -- who explains he was blinded by a bright light as a teenager and found himself transported to a burning planet. After being rescued, he (assumedly) was brought back to this facility for medical treatment...

Gwen is shocked by his tragic story, and demands Jack tell his grieving mother the truth. Jack is dead against that, but Gwen is adamant it's the fair thing to do. Nikki is taken to the facility and brought inside Jonah's Room to meet her son, shocked and confused by his current state. As she recoils, disbelieving, Jonah proves he's her son by recounting memories of things only her son would know. Nikki begins to soften towards him, finally hugging the son she lost 7 months ago.

Unfortunately, Jonah suddenly hits a period of "downshift", according to a nurse who rushes in to help him. Nikki and Gwen watch in terror as Jonah lets out a bloodcurdling scream (that will last 20 hours); a sad repercussion of his insanity, after staring into the heart of a Dark Star after the Rift spirited him away.

One week later, Nikki is still visiting Jonah whenever he's in a "good phase", but admits to Gwen that she's have preferred never to know the truth, and be left alone to grieve with her memories of her fun-loving teenage son. Gwen is saddened, reflecting on the damage her well-meaning investigation has caused. At home, Rhys finds Gwen has prepared a romantic meal for them both, promising to try harder to separate her work and social life – as it's the normality of everyday existence that Torchwood are fighting for.

There are a few good ideas in Adrift, and Jonah's 20-hour scream surely ranks as one of Torchwood's more frightening scenes. It's one of those simple ideas that gets under your skin the more you think about it. Actor Robert Pugh also does fantastic work as the adult Jonah, particularly considering he's hidden behind a full-head of make-up and had such limited screen-time.

Ruth Jones was fine as mother Nikki, but I think she was miscast – as she never quite managed to bring the rawness of the character's emotions to life. As an actress with a comedy background (Saxondale/Little Britain/Gavin & Stacy), perhaps some of my misgivings can be put down to personal perceptions of her, but I was never wholly convinced.

The storyline was another example of Torchwood's nonsensical style, with half the plot clouded in vagaries and everything else falling apart under scrutiny. Where did Jonah actually go? Who rescued him and how was he returned to the near-present day? He aged 30-odd years, so was he returned to Cardiff in the late-70s to grow up in that bunker? Or did he spend his adult life somewhere else? If so, why bring him back "home" to Cardiff –- just to lock him inside an offshore island "prison"?

Also, if Jonah was sent mad by staring into the heart of a "Dark Star" (itself silly and vague), why are the other residents of the island's facility all crazy, too? Did they all just happen to stare into brain-frying special phenomena after the Rift took them? After all, there has been no evidence before now that going through the Rift causes mental health issues.

But what really confused me was the CCTV footage of Jack arrivng where Jonah vanished. How did he know to go there if there's no way to predict "negative Rift spikes"? Why was he there anyway, if he knows people are being transported to other times and places? And what could he possibly do to help?

Maybe I missed snatches of dialogue that answered some of my questions, but the episode just wasn't convincingly put together. Chris Chibnall did a great job with the human drama (spinning gold from small scenes with new characters), and the Gwen/Rhys scenes were enjoyable – even if their quarrelling is overplayed on Torchwood nowadays. And it's even worse now Rhys knows what's at stake with Gwen's job. Does he seriously want her to be home for dinner if there's an alien invasion going on, or suchlike? He should be more understanding, I think.

But Chibnall's scripts never feel at ease with science-fiction stories. In Adrift, it's like he came up with a loose sci-fi way to explain "missing persons" cases, but just couldn't actually have it make sense. If it wasn't for the strong performances from Myles, Owen and Pugh, coupled with the entertainment value of Price's PC Andy character, this would have been a total waste of a promising idea.

A handful of moments work brilliantly, but the audience are always one-step ahead of the plot. Gwen noticed a correlation between negative Rift spikes and the missing people a good 5 minutes after I did, and she took an eternity to twig that the bunker's rooms all contained the missing kids! Dullard.

Overall, Adrift just didn't work for me, despite the best efforts of the cast to squeeze every last drop of drama from the script. The script kept you guessing about Jonah's fate – but then the explanation was just inscrutable nonsense. It's also worth mentioning that Adrift is another very depressing episode – as we've had nothing but doom and gloom every since Owen was shot in Reset. It's hard to believe the first episode's breezy, humorous energy was part of this season (and also written by Chibnall), as Torchwood has slowly slid back into season 1 doldrums...


19 March 2008
BBC Three, 10.00 pm