Author: Michael Falkner

The Thing About Today – January 4

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January 4, 2020
Day 4 of 366

 

January 4th is the fourth day of the year. It is the eleventh of the Twelve Days of Christmas and the celebration of World Braille Day.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Missouri Day, National Spaghetti Day, and National Trivia Day.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1643, English mathematician and physicist Isaac Newton was born.
  • In 1762, Great Britain declared war on Spain and entered the Seven Years’ War.
  • In 1785, Jacob Grimm was born. He was the eldest of the Brothers Grimm.
  • In 1809, Louis Braille was born. He invented the Braille language.
  • In 1853, Solomon Northrup regained his freedom after having been kidnapped and sold into slavery in the American South. His memoir, Twelve Years a Slave, became a national bestseller.
  • In 1896, Utah was admitted as the 45th U.S. state.
  • In 1903, Topsy the Elephant was killed by electrocution at Coney Island, New York. The gruesome spectacle was filmed by the Edison Manufacturing movie company and released later as the first animal death filmed in history.
  • In 1959, Luna 1 reached the vicinity of the Moon.
  • In 1963, Canadian comedian, actor, director, and producer Dave Foley was born.
  • In 1984, Night Court premiered on NBC.
  • In 2004, NASA rover Spirit landed on Mars.
  • In 2010, the Burj Khalifa opened in Dubai. It was the world’s tallest building upon opening and retains the record as of this writing.

 

In 1916, Lionel Newman was born. He was an American conductor, pianist, and film and television composer. A member of the famous musical Newman family – he was the brother of Alfred and Emil Newman, grandfather of Joey Newman, and uncle of Randy Newman, David Newman, Thomas Newman, and Maria Newman – his eleven Oscar nominations contributed to the family’s record as the most nominated Academy Award extended family (with 92 nominations in total). He won the Academy Award for Best Score of a Musical Picture for 1969’s Hello Dolly!

Newman was the youngest of seven boys in a family of ten children, born in New Haven, Connecticut to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents. He joined 20th Century Fox as a rehearsal pianist under his brother Alfred’s guidance, eventually moving to Musical Director for Television, vice president in charge of music for both television and feature films, and senior vice president of all music at Twentieth Century Fox Films.

His tenure with Fox spanned 46 years and over 200 films. He was the musical director for all of Marilyn Monroe’s films and the musical supervisor for the original Star Wars trilogy. He died in 1989, but his legacy continues on at the Twentieth Century Fox Music Department, which was dedicated as “The Lionel Newman Music Building” in 2013.

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

Culture on My Mind – The Call of the Wild

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Culture on My Mind
The Call of the Wild
January 3, 2020

In this edition of Culture on My Mind, the thing that I can’t let go of is the late November 2019 trailer release for The Call of the Wild.

The Call of the Wild is a 1903 novel written by Jack London. Set in Yukon, Canada during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush, the story is centered on a dog named Buck. Buck is a large and powerful St. Bernard-Scotch Collie mix, and he is stolen from his California home and sold into service as a sled dog. He becomes more and more feral in the harsh Yukon environment and is forced to fight to survive. By the end of his journey, Buck emerges as a leader in the wild and becomes a legend in his own right.

The novel has been adapted to film and television at least eight times, and a big-budget version directed by Chris Sanders (the creator and voice of Stitch, and the director of How to Train Your Dragon) and starring Harrison Ford, Dan Stevens, Omar Sy, Karen Gillan, and Bradley Whitford should look amazing.

Unfortunately, I’m too distracted by Buck.

Instead of using a live dog in the role supplemented by CGI special effects for dangerous stunts, 20th Century Fox and the creative team decided to use a totally computer-generated dog with cartoonish responses as the story’s lead. It’s particularly disappointing given the long history of family films that include trained animal actors in starring roles. Disney alone has at least 70 titles that fit the bill, including the Homeward Bound/Incredible Journey films, Old Yeller, White Fang, Eight Below, 101 Dalmatians, and Benji the Hunted. Most recently, they released Togo for Disney+ and that film bridged CG and live-action quite nicely.

Even if Fox didn’t want to include Disney’s expertise – The Call of the Wild began development in 2017 and starting principal photography in late-September 2018, right in the middle of the negotiations for the Disney acquisition of 21st Century Fox – the talent and knowledge exists in the industry to make this film work with a live animal actor. Universal did it with two Babe films and three adaptations of W. Bruce Cameron’s work (A Dog’s Purpose, A Dog’s Journey, and A Dog’s Way Home). Columbia Pictures (now part of Sony) brought us The Adventures of Milo and Otis. Warner Bros made Free Willy. Paramount did Charlotte’s Web.

Not to mention the entire Benji franchise, of which only one title was touched by Disney.

Frankly, a story like The Call of the Wild deserves better than being undermined by cartoonish CGI effects. It’s possible that the effects weren’t finalized by the November trailer release, but several scenes certainly played like the cartoon responses were part of the joke. I just expected more of a White Fang than something like this.

The Call of the Wild hits theaters on February 21, 2020.
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Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

The Thing About Today – January 3

Michael Falkner2 Comments

January 3, 2020
Day 3 of 366

 

January 3rd is the third day of the year. It is the tenth of the Twelve Days of Christmas.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day, National Drinking Straw Day, and National Fruitcake Toss Day.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1870, construction began on the Brooklyn Bridge.
  • In 1892, English writer, poet, and philologist J.R.R. Tolkien was born.
  • In 1933, Minnie D. Craig was elected as Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives. She was the first woman to hold a Speakership in the United States.
  • In 1937, American director, producer, and screenwriter Glen A. Larson was born. He would create or work on several Generation X television classics, including Battlestar Galactica.
  • In 1938, The March of Dimes was established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a foundation to fight polio.
  • In 1953, Dragnet starring Jack Webb premiered on NBC.
  • In 1959, Alaska was admitted as the 49th state in the United States.
  • In 1975, actress, writer, and mathematician Danica McKellar was born.
  • In 1977, Apple Computers was incorporated.
  • In 1993, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine premiered.
  • In 2000, the final daily edition of Peanuts was published.

 

In 1961, the Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One (SL-1) nuclear accident occurred. The boiling water reactor was part of the Army Nuclear Power Program located at the Nuclear Reactor Testing Station near Idaho Falls, Idaho. The project was designed to create small nuclear power sources to provide electrical power and heat for remote facilities in the arctic.

The reactor was shutdown on December 21, 1960 for routine maintenance. Part of this maintenance was the installation of 44 wires to monitor neutron flux in the core. In preparation for a reactor restart on January 3, 1961, the main central control rod was to be manually withdrawn by a few inches to reconnect it to its drive mechanism. At 9:01pm, the rod was suddenly withdrawn too far.

Both boiling water and pressurized water reactors rely on the fission of nuclear fuel to produce neutrons. Those created directly after a fission event are called prompt (or fast) neutrons. Those created after the further decay of fission products are called delayed neutrons. Each of these neutrons can interact with the fuel to create more reactions, and each fission event generates heat with (eventually) generates power.

If enough fission events occur to make a reaction steady and self-sustaining, the reactor is called critical. Unlike what nearly every science-fiction property tells us, a critical reactor is a happy reactor. If the rate of fission events decreases, the reactor becomes subcritical. The reverse, an increase in fission events, causes the reactor to become supercritical.

These deviations from a critical state are controlled by reactivity. A positive reactivity event leads to supercriticality and a negative reactivity event pushes toward subcriticality. The withdrawal of a control rod, for example, increases the ability for neutrons to interact with fuel and is an insertion of positive reactivity.

If a significant number of prompt neutrons are created, the reactor becomes prompt critical and uncontrollable. It generates neutrons and power output at an exponential rate. This is what happened at SL-1.

The operators inadvertently pulled the control rod too far, and the rapid withdrawal inserted enough positive reactivity to make the reactor prompt critical. The reactor was rated for 3 megawatts, but in four milliseconds it generated 20 gigawatts of power. The fuel inside the core melted and vaporized, causing a slug of water to explosively propel the entire reactor vessel upward. The shield plugs were ejected from the top of the core, opening holes that sprayed radioactive water, fuel, and debris all over the room. The water knocked two of the operators to the floor, killing one on impact. One of the plugs struck the third operator in the groin and pinned him to the ceiling.

The entire event took approximately four seconds.

The operator that survived the event later succumbed to his wounds, however the radiation exposure from the accident would have killed all three even if they hadn’t suffered any physical trauma.

The event forced the Army to abandon the design. It also helped solidify the “one stuck rod” criterion in future designs to ensure that no single control rod withdrawal could lead to a similar accident. Essentially, a nuclear reactor must be able to maintain a shutdown state with the most reactive rod stuck at its maximum position.

Just like other major nuclear accidents, the event is used to train operators and engineers to this day.

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

The Thing About Today – January 2

Michael Falkner1 Comment

January 2, 2020
Day 2 of 366

 

January 2nd is the second day of the year. It is the ninth of the Twelve Days of Christmas, Ancestry Day in Haiti, and Carnival Day in Saint Kitts and Nevis.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Buffet Day, National Cream Puff Day, National Personal Trainer Awareness Day, and National Science Fiction Day.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1778, the State of Georgia was the fourth to ratify the United States Constitution.
  • In 1936, musician and actor Roger Miller was born.
  • In 1947, zoologist and author Jack Hanna was born.
  • In 1959, Luna 1 was launched by the Soviet Union. It was the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon and to orbit the Sun.
  • In 2004, Stardust flew by Comet Wild 2, eventually returning to Earth with samples.

 

In 1959, the Soviet Union launched a spherical satellite called Luna 1. Powered by mercury-oxide batteries and silver-zinc accumulators, the launch was manually controlled via radio since engineers of the time did not trust automated systems. When one of the engine commands was sent too late, the rocket picked up an additional 175 meters per second. Instead of impacting the lunar surface as planned, the vehicle missed its target and inadvertently became the first spacecraft to leave geocentric orbit and enter an orbit around the sun.

As part of its experiments, the spacecraft released one kilogram of sodium gas in order to track the craft’s trajectory and analyze the behavior of gas in space. It also took readings of the lunar magnetic field and the radiation in the outer Van Allen belt. It also took the first-ever direct observations and measurements of solar wind.

A similar mission was launched by the American space program two months later. After Luna 1‘s battery was depleted, the spacecraft settled into a heliocentric orbit between Earth and Mars where it still orbits to this day.

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

Timestamp #TW18: Adam

Michael Falkner6 Comments

Torchwood: Adam
(1 episode, s02e05, 2008)

 

A science-fiction staple trope hits Torchwood Three: Fake memories for everyone!

Gwen is late for work due to some morning frolicking with Rhys. Meanwhile, the Torchwood team is investigating a strange box with new team member Adam Smith. Gwen doesn’t recognize him since she’s been away, but after a brief touch on her shoulder, Gwen is fully onboard thanks to some false memories.

Adam does the same with Tosh, implanting some romantic memories after fiddling with his personnel file. Other changes include a playful Owen who is now wearing glasses and Jack seeing visions of a child in the containment cells. The cracks start to show when Gwen goes home but doesn’t recognize Rhys – Adam has never met the man, and his power tends to replace memories rather than merely inserting them – and calls in the team to deal with the supposed home intruder. Jack recognizes Rhys and, thanks to the engagement ring on her hand, Gwen is convinced enough to accompany her teammates back to the Hub.

Owen examines Gwen while Jack interviews Rhys to help jog her memory. Gwen returns home, and Jack keeps seeing visions of the kid. When Jack pursues a Weevil into the sewers, he finds a man who he recognizes as his father. Adam appears moments later and places a few more memories into Jack’s head while he probes the man’s past.

He thinks back to his childhood on the Boeshane Penninsula. His community was invaded by aliens, and Jack was given charge of his brother Gray when his father went back for his mother. In the confusion, Gray was lost, and Jack returned home to find his father dead. Jack is riddled with grief and guilt, and he storms away.

Owen and Tosh continue their investigation of the strange box. The box is made of wood, and Ianto offers to check his diary for any history of the artifact. Owen keeps flirting with Tosh, but she’s completely enamored with Adam. Owen professes his love for Tosh, but this only angers Tosh. Owen is devastated.

Rhys and Gwen go to a general store, and when the cashier ignores Rhys, he goes on a rant. Gwen laughs as some of her memories come back to her.

Ianto notes that his diary has no mention of Adam. When Ianto confronts the newest Torchwood member, Adam inserts false memories of Ianto as a serial killer. Adam relishes the thrill while Ianto is left crying on the floor. He then visits Tosh and leverages her fake memories of him to gauge her devotion to him. She claims that she would die to protect him.

Jack puzzles over why long-buried memories of his childhood trauma are surfacing now. He returns to the Hub to find Ianto begging to be incarcerated for his supposed crimes. Jack investigates, eventually finding the CCTV footage of Adam manipulating Ianto’s mind, and he finally uncovers the truth behind Adam’s touch.

Jack checks the records but can’t find a blood sample for Adam. The lights come up as the team arrives for the morning, complete with an apology bouquet from Owen to Tosh. Adam tries to bring the team in for a group hug, but Ianto rejects Adam’s touch. Jack confronts Adam by gunpoint and, despite Tosh’s protests, eventually sends the imposter to the cells. Adam claims that everything has changed the team for the better, but Jack is furious.

The team discusses the Adam situation as their real memories start to surface. Jack gives each team member a Retcon pill to wipe the last 48 hours – Adam’s existence – from their minds. Jack visits Adam one last time and Adam offers to revive a good memory for him. It’s a kindness born of an eternity spent floating in the Void: Jack recalls a day with his father and Gray. Adam can’t help himself, however, and inserts himself into the memory as means of survival. The memory is ruined and Jack takes the Retcon pill.

With no one left to remember him, Adam is destroyed.

The team wakes up sometime later, curious as to why the last 48 hours have vanished. All that remains is the bouquet and the mystery box that contained Adam’s essence. Jack figures out how to open the box, but all that it holds is sand.

Presumably from the memory of the Boeshane Penninsula.

 

The false memory and implanted memory trope is a staple of science-fiction. TV Tropes has a page dedicated to it, and the trope is everywhere. The saving grace is how Torchwood approached it with the show’s dark vision. In fact, Adam’s claim that his intervention has improved the team – gaslighting, anyone? – makes him a believable villain, and the writers hung a lampshade on his manipulation being a violation. Particularly with Tosh and the forced intimacy, which plays as an allegory for rape. Unfortunately, the recovery from that is never as simple as Torchwood‘s quick fix amnesia pill.

To that end, I enjoy the creepiness of this story, especially how it showed how vulnerable our heroes are despite their upfront strength. Guns and alien tech only discourage so much, you know? I also liked how the show keeps an eye on internal continuity: One of Ianto’s anchor memories was Lisa.

 

Rating: 4/5 – “Would you care for a jelly baby?”

 

 

UP NEXT – Torchwood: Reset

 

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

 

 

The Thing About Today – January 1

Michael Falkner1 Comment

January 1, 2020
Day 1 of 366

 

January 1st is the first day of the year. It is known as New Year’s Day for most of the world. It is the last day of Kwanzaa, the eighth of the Twelve Days of Christmas, and the second day of Hogmanay in Scotland.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Bloody Mary Day and National Hangover Day.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1735, famous American silversmith, engraver, and revolutionary patriot Paul Revere was born.
  • In 1752, Betsy Ross was born. This famous seamstress was credited with designing the Flag of the United States.
  • In 1801, Giuseppe Piazzi discovered Ceres, the first and largest known object in the asteroid belt.
  • In 1808, the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves took effect in the United States.
  • In 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation, issued by US President Abraham Lincoln, took effect in territory claimed by the Confederate States of America. While the order legally freed Confederate slaves, the American Civil War would continue for two years.
  • In 1898, the City of Greater New York was created. The first four boroughs – Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and The Bronx – were born out of land annexed from the surrounding counties. Staten Island would join them on January 25th.
  • In 1934, Alcatraz Island became a United States federal prison.
  • In 1983, the internet as we know it was born as the ARPANET adopted to the Internet Protocol.

 

It’s also celebrated in several countries around the world as Public Domain Day, an observance of when copyright protections expire and works enter the public domain. These copyright protections typically comprise the life of the author plus a certain number of years after their death as dictated by jurisdiction. After that period, the work becomes available to everyone without the need for prior authorization.

Notably, Australia’s restrictive copyright laws ensure that their first Public Domain Day won’t be until 2026. The United States was unable to celebrate between 1999 and 2018 due to the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998.

The first federal copyright law in the United States was passed in 1790. A virtual copy of Great Britain’s Statute of Anne, it offered 14 years of protections for “maps, charts, and books” with one renewal if the copyright holder was still alive at the end of the first term. The Copyright Act of 1831 added protections for musical compositions and extended the first term to 28 years. The second term was extended to 28 years by the Copyright Act of 1909, resulting in a total of 56 years for each copyright.

The Copyright Act of 1976 dramatically changed things by changing the term of protection to the creator’s life plus 50 years after death, including current works not in the public domain. It also created a 75-year term for anonymous works, pseudonymous works, and works for hire from the point of publication. This act was also the first time that “fair use” was codified.

And then Disney got involved. Mickey Mouse, created in 1928, would be protected under the 1976 rules until 2003. The Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) of 1998, heavily lobbied for by The Walt Disney Company and sponsored by Sonny Bono, extended copyright protections to the life of the author plus 70 years. In the case of corporate authorship, the term was extended to 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever expires first. For works published before January 1, 1978, protections were extended to 95 years after publication.

Mickey was saved from the public domain until 2024, but the collateral damage was the advancement of pretty much anything else into public domain.

Consider works authored in 1920. They were protected by the 1909 Act and therefore enter the public domain on January 1, 1977. Works authored in 1921 were protected by the 1976 Act and would expire on January 1, 1997. Works from 1922 would expire on January 1, 1998.

The CTEA made it so that works authored in 1923 wouldn’t enter the public domain until January 1, 2019. The change to copyright froze the advancement of intellectual property into the public domain, resulting in the loss of some works to isolation behind unnecessary legal protections by owners who did nothing with them or were long since dead.

Thousands of works were finally released to the public last year.

This year, in general, works (including printed music) published in 1924 will enter the public domain. Audio recordings published outside of the United States are included, but those published in the United States are still under copyright until 2025 courtesy of the Music Modernization Act. Unpublished works whose authors died in 1949 will enter public domain as well.

 

Happy New Year!

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

Culture on My Mind – The 2019 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar

Michael Falkner5 Comments

Culture on My Mind

Culture on My Mind
The 2015 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar
December 27, 2019

One of the holiday season traditions in my household is the LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar. These boxes contain twenty-four unique small builds, many of which are abstract, along with exclusive mini-figures and whimsical winter-themed spins on Star Wars staples. Among my favorites over the years are the winter Chewbacca, the rebel pilot snowman, and the AT-AT and R2-D2 pair with reindeer antlers.

This year’s box spanned the Skywalker Saga through The Last Jedi. A couple of my favorites were the X-Wing build and the mynock, the latter being a unique approach to the advent calendar.

As you can see, the day-to-day images are posted on my Instagram account. Feel free to follow me there for whimsical observations, tons of pictures of my dogs, and this annual tradition.

I hope this holiday season finds you and yours well. Stay warm, stay safe, and see you next year.

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Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

Timestamp #TW17: Meat

Michael Falkner8 Comments

Torchwood: Meat
(1 episode, s02e04, 2008)

 

Relationships are tough, but in Torchwood they are tougher.

Rhys is driving down the road, singing along to an advertising jingle, when his phone rings. Responding to news of a car accident, he finds that one of his company lorries has overturned and the driver has died. As he talks with the police officer, he watches as the Torchwood SUV pulls up and Gwen gets out.

He had no idea who she actually worked for.

The delivery truck was carrying meat, all of which Torchwood Three confiscates and takes back to the Hub for analysis. Gwen recognizes the lorry as one from Rhys’s company, and as they depart, Rhys tries to follow the SUV but is blocked by the police.

Owen analyzes the meat and discovers that the stamp that marks the product as fit for human consumption is a fake. Tosh calls Rhys’s company, posing as the police, and finds that the meat comes from Harries & Harries. Owen figures that the meat is alien and has been on the market for some time, and the team discusses the case over pizza (from which they remove the meat toppings).

Owen asks to see Gwen and she heads home. He tries to get the truth out of her, but she doesn’t break. When she returns to work, Rhys follows and watches her meet with Jack near the Roald Dahl Plass entrance to the Hub. When Gwen and Jack head to the meat factory, Rhys follows and is subsequently discovered. Jack and Gwen notice Rhys being taken and assume that he’s involved.

Rhys is taken inside the factory and questioned. He poses as a friendly face, suggesting that he could pick up where the former driver left off. While he’s inside, he discovers the source of the meat: An alien being that regenerates whenever someone slices a piece off of it.

It’s endless torture for the creature.

Rhys leaves the factory and returns home. Gwen’s not far behind him and they have a falling out over the whole affair. Gwen finally admits that she works for Torchwood, but Rhys doesn’t believe the scope of her career. So she shows him.

She takes him to the Hub and he sees everything from the invisible lift to Myfanwy the pterodactyl. He meets Jack, Owen, Tosh, and Ianto and learns what Torchwood does. He tells them what he saw in the warehouse, and after some conflict with Jack, reveals that he has applied to be the new delivery boy.

Jack calls for a team meeting, including Rhys.

Rhys provides the lay of the land, but Gwen is adamant that he doesn’t get involved. The plan ends involving stun guns, saving the alien, and sending it home through the Rift. Owen works on a model of what the creature looks like while Tosh brings him a sandwich. She hints at possibly starting a relationship with someone, but Owen is oblivious to her advances.

Rhys and Jack pick up the truck for the infiltration. While they drive, Jack explains why he picked Gwen for Torchwood. The team loads up in the back of the van and Rhys takes them to the warehouse. When Rhys tries to stage a distraction so the team can exit the van, he finds out that they’ve already gone.

Inside the warehouse, Jack, Gwen, and Tosh find the “cash cow” and discover that it is sentient, but their cover is soon blown and Ianto and Rhys are captured. They are taken by gunpoint to the creature, forcing Gwen to reveal herself. Tosh and Jack are also discovered, and Jack explains what the workers have on their hands. Ianto unties himself as Rhys is shot, and the ensuing fight prompts the creature to strain at its bindings.

Owen develops a sedative while the team dodges the out of control beast. Ianto apprehends the remaining workers as Owen realizes that sedatives won’t work, so he euthanizes the creature instead. Jack mourns for the loss as Owen tends to Rhys’s wounds.

Back at the Hub, Owen patches Rhys as Jack informs him that the workers have been given Retcon. The creature has been incinerated. Jack privately tells Gwen that Rhys will need to forget his adventure, and she requests to be the one to give him the Retcon.

She decides that she can’t do it. She gives Jack an impassioned speech and he relents, unwilling to fire her and lose her from the team.

He gives her the rest of the day off. Torchwood Three has a new team member.

 

Starting with the unnamed creature, the torture is heartbreaking. The howls and screams built instant sympathy, and the need to euthanize it was tragic. The actors completely sold all of it.

Noting, of course, that the creature wasn’t the point of the episode, it was great to see the team dealing with the repercussions of exposing their secret identity and not pushing the reset button less than an hour later. The Retconning of Rhys in Combat was troubling since it betrayed everything about a trusting relationship. This story builds an authentic yet complicated relationship for Rhys and Gwen, which makes them better characters overall.

On a final note, Jack’s flirtation has certainly amplified this season. This is the Jack that we all know and love.

 

Rating: 4/5 – “Would you care for a jelly baby?”

 

 

UP NEXT – Torchwood: Adam

 

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

 

 

Timestamp #TW16: To the Last Man

Michael Falkner1 Comment

Torchwood: To the Last Man
(1 episode, s02e03, 2008)

 

A story of love and loss across time.

Cardiff, 1918: At the climax of World War I, Gerald Kneale and Harriet Derbyshire of the Torchwood Institute are investigating reports of ghost activity at St. Teilo’s Military Hospital. Heading into the ward, they see a bright light and a glimpse into the future where Tosh and a soldier named Tommy are huddled. Tommy tells the 1918 Torchwood team that they need to take his earlier incarnation from the recovery ward to ensure his existence in the future.

Cardiff, 21st century: Tosh dances about in her home as she gets ready for work, then goes to the Hub where Torchwood Three is about to awaken Tommy Brockless from cryogenic hibernation. Apparently, they have to revive him every twelve months, and Tosh is able to calm him down when he comes back to life.

Tommy settles in for a meal with the team, complimenting Tosh on her dress while he eats. Later on, during his examination, he recites name, rank, regiment, and parents’ death dates. Elsewhere, Jack briefs Gwen on the events from 1918 where time zones were colliding. Agents Kneale and Derbyshire left orders sealed with a temporal lock, and when the time is right, Tommy’s presence will prevent the temporal collision from spreading to the rest of the world.

Tosh takes Tommy outside for a day in the world while Gwen looks into the 1918 Torchwood team. Gwen decides to investigate the hospital. She finds a man with a missing leg who vanishes and a team of firemen who intend to demolish the building. Jack arrives soon after and theorizes that the workers may have released psychic trauma that has charged the Rift. As the workers continue to tear into the building, Jack feels a burst of energy and sees a man being wheeled down the hallway. Gwen sees an injured man in a chair being tended to by a nurse. Unlike all of the other ghost sightings, however, this time the nurse notices her. Gwen’s not supposed to be here, she says as she chases her back.

Tommy and Tosh share drinks over a pool game. Tommy sees news from hostilities in Iraq on the television and laments the fact that there is always a war somewhere. He asks if the human race is worth saving, and Tosh immediately says yes. He feels a bit of the psychic energy from the hospital before the pair head to the boardwalk. Tommy gives Tosh a kiss, but she returns some mixed signals before kissing him back. It’s evident that they’re falling for each other, but before anything else can happen, Jack calls them to the Hub.

Demolishing the hospital is the trigger.

After a briefing, the team heads for the hospital to start setting up rift monitors. Owen cautions Tosh about her relationship with Tommy, telling her that he doesn’t want to see her get hurt. Gwen calls them with a strange note from the 1918 report: “Through a hole in the external wall, we hear the roar of great engines. Outside is a woman in strange armor, ripping a Union Jack, perhaps some future heroine of the Empire.” Owen spots a car advertisement through a hole in the wall matching the description. Today is the day, punctuated by the Rift monitors alarming.

On cue, the temporal lock lifts and Jack reads through his orders from 1918. The instructions are for Tommy and Tosh: Tommy needs to be ready to jump through the fracture when it opens, leaving present Tommy trapped in the past after sealing the fracture with a Rift Manipulator.

Separately, Jack tells Tosh that Tommy will die three weeks after returning. His mind will revert to the way it was before being frozen, shell-shocked from the war, and he will be executed for cowardice. Tosh protests, but she has no choice.

Ianto pulls Tommy’s hospital attire out of storage, preparing him for his trip. Tommy then joins the rest of the team in the Hub and wonders what to do with the rest of his time. Tosh offers to take him to her place for the night. Back at the Hub, Ianto asks if Jack could return to his own time as well, but Jack wouldn’t want to sacrifice all of the amazing things he’s done since leaving home.

Both couples consummate their respective relationships, but Tosh’s is bittersweet.

At 6:30 am, the Rift monitors alarm and ghosts begin to appear. Tommy hears the 1918 Torchwood team speaking to his past self, realizing that Torchwood took him for this purpose, and he begins to question his role in this operation. He says that Torchwood is no better than the Army, knowing that if he goes back, he’ll be headed back to the front.

Tosh comforts him as the fracture begins. They find themselves in 1918 and Tosh tells Tommy that he has to step up and save the universe. He issues his orders to Torchwood 1918. before Tosh kisses him goodbye. Tommy heads to bed like he’d never been away.

Tommy watches as Torchwood 1918 takes his previous self away. As he climbs into bed, he doesn’t trigger the device. Tosh engineers a psychic projection so that someone can remind him to use the key. Tosh volunteers since Tommy trusts her the most. Once projected into the past, she helps him to activate the key and seal the fracture.

Tosh laments Tommy’s sacrifice as she packs his modern era clothes away. Jack thanks her as she leaves. Outside, Owen tells her that she saved the world. Tosh disagrees: Tommy saved the world.

But she wonders if humanity is worth it.

 

It was great to see Naoko Mori in the spotlight as Tosh. The last episodes with her in a major role were Greeks Bearing Gifts and Captain Jack Harkness (also a time shift episode involving a world war), and they are few and far between. We also get a good look at the Torchwood Institute as it would have functioned closer to its inception.

There was a humorous callback to Doctor Who with Tommy’s remark about how silly it would be to save the world in pajamas. The Tenth Doctor embraced that silliness just after his regeneration.

Overall, this story was a breath of fresh air in a franchise that often deals with darkness and drama. It handled weighty issues like sacrifice and historical approaches to PTSD while letting the sun in for a little bit. That is much appreciated.

 

Rating: 4/5 – “Would you care for a jelly baby?”

 

 

UP NEXT – Torchwood: Meat

 

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

 

 

Timestamp #TW15: Sleeper

Michael Falkner1 Comment

Torchwood: Sleeper
(1 episode, s02e02, 2008)

 

What is humanity?

Beth and Mike, a happily married couple, are fast asleep when an intruder startles them awake. Mike faces the danger with a cricket bat while Beth calls the police. Two burglars enter the room, knock Mike out, and assault Beth. The criminals scream as the lights grow brighter.

Torchwood Three is called to the scene. One of the burglars is dead but the other is severely injured. Tosh and Jack investigate the bedroom while Gwen and Owen follow the ambulance to the hospital to interview the survivors. Both Jack and Owen suspect Beth in the incident, but Beth remembers nothing. The surviving criminal eventually succumbs to his injuries, but before he dies, he tells Gwen that “the woman” did it.

Beth is taken to the Hub for interrogation. Beth still can’t remember anything, even in the face of crime scene photographs. A power surge occurs, just like one at the hospital, and Gwen takes a more gentle approach. Tosh tries a body scan, but nothing is out of the ordinary. Things get weird when Owen tries to draw blood and two needles break against her flesh. Owen tries a scalpel with the same result. Beth also tells him that she’s never been sick.

Jack immediately believes that she’s an alien.

When Beth says that there’s no such thing, he shows her the captive Weevil, and it cowers before her. Beth, scared out of her mind, begs for a way to prove herself to him, so Jack brings the mind probe out of storage. Ianto objects since the last subject to be probed ended up exploded, but Jack assures him that it won’t happen again. Tosh commences the probe, lights flicker, and Beth passes out before sitting upright and displaying a lighted ridge-like formation on her arm. Beth repeats a series of words in an alien language, and Jack is satisfied when he recognizes them as name, rank, and serial number.

Jack tells the team about this species. It isn’t much since they don’t tend to leave survivors. Cell 114 infiltrate planets by disguising themselves as local inhabitants and relay the information home, leaving their sleeper agents completely unaware and cloaked in false identities. The implant in Beth’s arm is protected by a force field.

Jack shares the results with Beth, leaving her distraught. Gwen assures her that humanity doesn’t just lie in the body but in the mind as well. Jack rebuts, telling Beth that she will transform on invasion day and the Cell 114 inside her will take over.

Beth is in the middle of an identity crisis.

The team debates over what to do with her. Tosh suggests cryogenic storage with an electromagnetic pulse to disable the transmitter. Before she’s sedated, Beth asks for euthanasia if they can’t keep her humanity intact. Unbeknownst to the team, a secondary transmitter activates, waking sleeper agents nearby who kill loved ones and abandon tasks in progress.

The Cell within Beth awakens and breaks out of the vault. She escapes through the tunnels, and the team assumes that she showed them exactly what they wanted to see. Meanwhile, Beth takes advantage of her status off the alien network to visit Mike and say goodbye. The farewells become too much and Beth accidentally impales Mike with an alien blade. Jack and Gwen arrive and drag her away.

Across town, one of the sleeper agents kills Patrick Grainger, a local council leader. Another sleeper agent uses a fuel tanker to destroy a highway and underground fuel pipeline. More and more sleepers are scrambled to seed chaos and prepare the planet for invasion. The demand information from Beth and urge her to connect to the network. She reveals that there is only one agent left.

While the team panics about loss communications, Jack rigs a CB radio to reach them. They track the sleeper to an abandoned farm which was a front for a coalmine housing ten nuclear warheads. The soldiers guarding the arsenal are unable to stop him. When Jack and Gwen arrive, they ram him with the SUV.

The sleeper runs Jack through with the arm-sword while Gwen disables the transmitter. The sleeper tells Jack that they’re too late before committing suicide by bomb: The invasion is already underway.

Beth returns to the Hub for cryogenic freezing. She feels guilty for what she has done, but fears becoming an uncaring murderer. She thanks Gwen for her compassion, asking her to remember who Beth was before holding Gwen hostage with the arm-blade. Gwen begs the team not to kill Beth, realizing that Beth wants to them to kill her while she’s still human. She succeeds by threatening Gwen, falling dead as the team opens fire.

Gwen and Jack talk later, discussing the upcoming wedding and the invasion. Gwen believes that even if they haven’t stopped it, they know enough now to fight when the day comes.

 

This was a pretty straightforward story that outlined a hidden threat in society. The drama surrounding Beth’s humanity and identity crisis was riveting and engaging, and it kept the episode from becoming another monster-of-the-week bonanza.

The one link back to the continuing Doctor Who mythology was the mind probe, an element mentioned before in Frontier in Space and The Five Doctors. Other than that, this is all-new territory with an all-new threat.

 

Rating: 4/5 – “Would you care for a jelly baby?”

 

 

UP NEXT – Torchwood: To the Last Man

 

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.