Director: Ashley Way
Cast: John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper), Burn Gorman (Owen Harper), Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones), Naoko Mori (Toshiko Sato), Kai Owen (Rhys Williams), Nerys Hughes (Brenda Williams), Sharon Morgan (Mary Cooper), William Thomas (Geraint Cooper), Robin Griffith (Barry Williams), Collette Brown (Carrie), Danielle Henry (Megan), Ceri Ann Gregory (Trina), Jonathan Lewis Owen (Banana Boat), Morgan Hopkins (Mervyn), Valerie Murray (Registrar) & Pethrow Gooden (Shop Assistant)
Gwen finds herself pregnant with an alien baby on the morning of her wedding, with the child's shape-shifting mother attending the nuptials...
After the death-obsessed ramblings of the past few weeks, Torchwood bounces back with a light and frothy comedy episode written by Phil Ford (Sarah Jane Adventures), for a story that's occasionally awkward and silly, but well-paced and amusing enough to hold your attention...
The episode gets off to a spirited start, with Gwen (Eve Myles) attending her Hen Night with a few partygoer friends, as flashbacks reveal why she was late and has a bandaged forearm: she's been busy chasing an alien shape-shifter around town before it bit into her flesh, and was gunned down by Jack (John Barrowman).
I really like the way Torchwood has fun with the line between normality and its fantastical premise -- it's a divide the show should play with more. Something Borrowed essentially has these separate worlds colliding at the worst time imaginable for Gwen – as she wakes up on the morning of her wedding, to find she's heavily pregnant!
As Jack quickly deduces, the alien that bit Gwen was actually a "Nostravite" -- who procreate by biting unwilling hosts, thus impregnating them to carry their babies. Fortunately, Rhys (Kai Owen) is aware of Torchwood these days, so can be told the awful truth, but can they proceed with the wedding and lie to their friends and family about Gwen's condition?
In some respects, it's a relief Gwen's pregnant-with-alien, as it didn’t seem like any of her work colleagues had even been invited to her wedding! But now, with extra-terrestrials involved, Jack sends Ianto (Gareth David-Lloyd) to get Gwen a bigger wedding dress, Tosh (Naoko Mori) arrives to offer moral support, and Owen (Burn Gorman) comes to believe he can used the Singularity Scalpel seen in Reset to... well, yeah, it's abortion – but this episode isn't interested in ethical debates...
No, Something Borrowed is just a thoroughly unashamed romp: Rhys has a best-man called Banana Boat (Jonathan Lewis Owen), the comedy of Gwen and Rhys trying to put a brave face on the unmentioned pregnancy elicits a giggle or two, and Nerys Hughes is a memorable guest star as Rhys' meddling mother Brenda.
To complicate matters, the alien baby's shape-shifting mother is in attendance at the registry office (taking the form of an alluring woman in black), waiting for her baby to reach maturity inside Gwen before biting through her stomach to retrieve her child. These aliens have obviously never heard of Caesarean Section!
The mother later kills randy wedding guest Mervyn (Morgan Hopkins) after luring him back to a hotel room for sex, before being discovered by Tosh and Banana – who she neutralizes by spinning them into a tar-black cocoon. The mounting danger leaves Jack with no option but to stop Rhys and Gwen's wedding in the middle of their vows – much to Rhys' fury and the guest's utter confusion!
From here, Something Borrowed really starts to hit a stride, even if it's at the expense of plausibility and restraint. The shape-shifter begins taking the form of various guests, leading to a case of mistaken identity when Jack thinks "ugly bitch" Brenda is the enemy, and a touching moment between Jack and Gwen is ruined when "Jack" grows a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth and attacks her.
Owen tells Rhys about the Singularity Scalpel, which can be used to destroy the alien baby without harming Gwen, but suggests Rhys use it on his fiancé – because the hand injury he sustained in Dead Man Walking has left him without the necessary precision.
Eventually, Rhys and Gwen take refuge from the chaos in an outside barn, and Rhys successfully manages to incinerate the alien baby growing inside his fiancé with the scalpel, before firing up a chainsaw to fend off the alien-mother if she discovers them.
With bullets failing to have any effect on the hormonally-charged alien mum, Jack has snapped together an enormous Men In Black-style gun and arrives at the barn (just as Rhys' chainsaw humorously runs out of fuel) and blasts the alien dead.
The denouement finds Gwen and Owen finally getting married, Jack sharing dances with Gwen and Ianto on the dance floor, and everyone being drugged with a cocktail of memory-wiping Retcon and champagne – so they'll wake up the next day with no memory of what happened. Or that Gwen and Rhys even got married, assumedly! Later, Jack returns to the Hub and leafs through some of his old photos -- which include a wedding photo of him with his unmentioned wife!
I had fun with this episode and it was a welcome change of pace, even if it rapidly became too brainless for its own good. The enthusiasm of the performers and the energy in the script kept everything rocking along very nicely, but the last 20 minutes were awash with absurdities: the invulnerability of the alien to regular bullets, the decision to save Gwen the same way they saved Martha from a similar threat a few episodes ago, and the ridiculous way the wedding resumed with no mention of the alien or murdered Mervyn.
I know it's only a television show, but such oversights always drag me out of stories. I just expect more from the "adult" strand of the Whoniverse. Doctor Who and Sarah Jane Adventures can get away with lapses in logic like these, but Torchwood should be more water-tight in its storytelling.
Overall, while Something Borrowed wasn't quite the hilarious and farcical juggernaut it was intended to be, I'd be lying if I said I didn't smile quite a few times. The FX/make-up for the aliens was particularly frightening (inspired by 30 Days Of Night?), the nods to Men In Black were amusing (the opening vibe was very MIB, and Ianto mentions "scum of the universe" at one point), and the episode flew by in a delirious buzz. A flawed but funny wedding day caper. Let's hope their honeymoon goes smoother.
5 March 2008
BBC Three, 9.50 pm
Cast: John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper), Burn Gorman (Owen Harper), Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones), Naoko Mori (Toshiko Sato), Kai Owen (Rhys Williams), Nerys Hughes (Brenda Williams), Sharon Morgan (Mary Cooper), William Thomas (Geraint Cooper), Robin Griffith (Barry Williams), Collette Brown (Carrie), Danielle Henry (Megan), Ceri Ann Gregory (Trina), Jonathan Lewis Owen (Banana Boat), Morgan Hopkins (Mervyn), Valerie Murray (Registrar) & Pethrow Gooden (Shop Assistant)
Gwen finds herself pregnant with an alien baby on the morning of her wedding, with the child's shape-shifting mother attending the nuptials...After the death-obsessed ramblings of the past few weeks, Torchwood bounces back with a light and frothy comedy episode written by Phil Ford (Sarah Jane Adventures), for a story that's occasionally awkward and silly, but well-paced and amusing enough to hold your attention...
The episode gets off to a spirited start, with Gwen (Eve Myles) attending her Hen Night with a few partygoer friends, as flashbacks reveal why she was late and has a bandaged forearm: she's been busy chasing an alien shape-shifter around town before it bit into her flesh, and was gunned down by Jack (John Barrowman).
I really like the way Torchwood has fun with the line between normality and its fantastical premise -- it's a divide the show should play with more. Something Borrowed essentially has these separate worlds colliding at the worst time imaginable for Gwen – as she wakes up on the morning of her wedding, to find she's heavily pregnant!
As Jack quickly deduces, the alien that bit Gwen was actually a "Nostravite" -- who procreate by biting unwilling hosts, thus impregnating them to carry their babies. Fortunately, Rhys (Kai Owen) is aware of Torchwood these days, so can be told the awful truth, but can they proceed with the wedding and lie to their friends and family about Gwen's condition?
In some respects, it's a relief Gwen's pregnant-with-alien, as it didn’t seem like any of her work colleagues had even been invited to her wedding! But now, with extra-terrestrials involved, Jack sends Ianto (Gareth David-Lloyd) to get Gwen a bigger wedding dress, Tosh (Naoko Mori) arrives to offer moral support, and Owen (Burn Gorman) comes to believe he can used the Singularity Scalpel seen in Reset to... well, yeah, it's abortion – but this episode isn't interested in ethical debates...
No, Something Borrowed is just a thoroughly unashamed romp: Rhys has a best-man called Banana Boat (Jonathan Lewis Owen), the comedy of Gwen and Rhys trying to put a brave face on the unmentioned pregnancy elicits a giggle or two, and Nerys Hughes is a memorable guest star as Rhys' meddling mother Brenda.
To complicate matters, the alien baby's shape-shifting mother is in attendance at the registry office (taking the form of an alluring woman in black), waiting for her baby to reach maturity inside Gwen before biting through her stomach to retrieve her child. These aliens have obviously never heard of Caesarean Section!
The mother later kills randy wedding guest Mervyn (Morgan Hopkins) after luring him back to a hotel room for sex, before being discovered by Tosh and Banana – who she neutralizes by spinning them into a tar-black cocoon. The mounting danger leaves Jack with no option but to stop Rhys and Gwen's wedding in the middle of their vows – much to Rhys' fury and the guest's utter confusion!
From here, Something Borrowed really starts to hit a stride, even if it's at the expense of plausibility and restraint. The shape-shifter begins taking the form of various guests, leading to a case of mistaken identity when Jack thinks "ugly bitch" Brenda is the enemy, and a touching moment between Jack and Gwen is ruined when "Jack" grows a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth and attacks her.
Owen tells Rhys about the Singularity Scalpel, which can be used to destroy the alien baby without harming Gwen, but suggests Rhys use it on his fiancé – because the hand injury he sustained in Dead Man Walking has left him without the necessary precision.
Eventually, Rhys and Gwen take refuge from the chaos in an outside barn, and Rhys successfully manages to incinerate the alien baby growing inside his fiancé with the scalpel, before firing up a chainsaw to fend off the alien-mother if she discovers them.
With bullets failing to have any effect on the hormonally-charged alien mum, Jack has snapped together an enormous Men In Black-style gun and arrives at the barn (just as Rhys' chainsaw humorously runs out of fuel) and blasts the alien dead.
The denouement finds Gwen and Owen finally getting married, Jack sharing dances with Gwen and Ianto on the dance floor, and everyone being drugged with a cocktail of memory-wiping Retcon and champagne – so they'll wake up the next day with no memory of what happened. Or that Gwen and Rhys even got married, assumedly! Later, Jack returns to the Hub and leafs through some of his old photos -- which include a wedding photo of him with his unmentioned wife!
I had fun with this episode and it was a welcome change of pace, even if it rapidly became too brainless for its own good. The enthusiasm of the performers and the energy in the script kept everything rocking along very nicely, but the last 20 minutes were awash with absurdities: the invulnerability of the alien to regular bullets, the decision to save Gwen the same way they saved Martha from a similar threat a few episodes ago, and the ridiculous way the wedding resumed with no mention of the alien or murdered Mervyn.
I know it's only a television show, but such oversights always drag me out of stories. I just expect more from the "adult" strand of the Whoniverse. Doctor Who and Sarah Jane Adventures can get away with lapses in logic like these, but Torchwood should be more water-tight in its storytelling.
Overall, while Something Borrowed wasn't quite the hilarious and farcical juggernaut it was intended to be, I'd be lying if I said I didn't smile quite a few times. The FX/make-up for the aliens was particularly frightening (inspired by 30 Days Of Night?), the nods to Men In Black were amusing (the opening vibe was very MIB, and Ianto mentions "scum of the universe" at one point), and the episode flew by in a delirious buzz. A flawed but funny wedding day caper. Let's hope their honeymoon goes smoother.
5 March 2008
BBC Three, 9.50 pm
