Category: 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.

cc-break

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.

 

 

Timestamp #TW14: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

Michael Falkner7 Comments

Torchwood: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
(1 episode, s02e01, 2008)

 

Nothing good happens at midnight in Cardiff.

As evidence of that claim, a sports car pulls up and motions an elderly lady across the street. When the light turns green, the car speeds off, but Torchwood is in pursuit. After a short chase, the team catches up to the Blowfish and Owen shoots out the car’s tires. They find the Blowfish holding a family hostage. The Blowfish taunts the team and urges Ianto to shoot him, but a mysterious gunman shoots the Blowfish between the eyes.

Yes, Jack, they missed you.

Back at the Hub, Gwen airs her frustrations with Jack’s disappearance. Jack says that he found his Doctor, but came back for the team. The moment is interrupted by Rift activity as a mysterious man appears from thin air and walks into a mugging. This stranger, Captain John Hart, solves the problem by dropping the mugger off the side of the car park. He threatens the victim, vowing that he was never there, and then retires to a nearby club. He tells everyone who he doesn’t find attractive to leave, and when that doesn’t work, he pulls two handguns. The crowd panics.

While Torchwood Three investigates the dead mugger, Jack gets a holographic message from John. After a nod to Star Wars, Jack rushes off to find the new arrival. Inside Bar Reunion, there’s a reunion involving kissing, fighting, and drinking to the sounds of Blur.

Torchwood Three responds to the disturbance, Jack and John catch up. John went to rehab for drink, drugs, sex, and murder. Jack finds out that the Time Agency has been shut down with only seven agents left in the field. John ridicules the team name – “Oh, not Excalibur?” is a nice nod to the original pitch for the show – and explains that they were partners for two weeks. Except that it was two weeks in a time loop, so it was more like five years.

John finally explains that he’s looking for three deadly radiation cluster bombs scattered across Cardiff. They must be found and neutralized or else the Earth is in danger. The team takes John back to the Hub (which is missing a pterodactyl) and scan him for weapons. He has a lot of them.

Gwen takes Jack aside and asks about his time away. Jack talks about seeing the end of the world but tells Gwen that he came back for her. Gwen reveals that she’s engaged to Rhys, mostly because “no one else will have” her. Well, then, back to work.

Tosh finds the bomb locations and Gwen organizes teams to search in pairs: Jack and Ianto, Owen and Tosh, and Gwen and John. Jack takes Gwen aside and they hash out her plan to figure out what John is really up to. Jack relents, but warns her not trust him and not to let John kiss her.

Gwen and John find the first cluster bomb at a container shipping yard. John double-crossed Gwen by kissing her with poisoned lip gloss. Gwen is paralyzed with a time limit of two hours before her organs shut down. John locks her in the container and leaves, disposing of her mobile phone along the way.

Owen and Tosh search through an abandoned building. They find the bomb, but John ambushes them. Tosh is knocked out and Owen takes a bullet to the hip. Elsewhere, Jack and Ianto search an office building and sort through their relationship. Jack goes to the roof while Ianto looks through the office floor. Ianto is ambushed by John and told to help his friends. John goes to the roof, and after Jack throws the final bomb over the side, John pushes the good captain over for good measure.

The murder rehab never worked.

Ianto goes to Owen and Tosh. After dressing the gunshot, they all go to the docks and rescue Gwen.

Meanwhile, John takes Jack’s wrist device and returns to the Hub. He retrieves a pyramid-shaped device from the Blowfish’s corpse but is surprised by the Torchwood team… including a resurrected Jack Harkness. John reveals that there are no cluster bombs, but rather an Arcadian diamond that belonged to a former lover that he killed. The “bombs” were a tracking system to find the diamond, but the loot is a trap. It turns out to be a bomb that locks onto the DNA of her murderer – John Hart – and will kill him in ten minutes.

John cuffs himself to Gwen and swallows the key, forcing the team to find a solution. They take John to the Rift where he first arrived while Jack and Owen develop a DNA plan. They inject John with the DNA of every Torchwood member, forcing the bomb to detach. Jack tosses it into the Rift and the shock wave launches all of them back to the moment when John arrived.

John produces the key and unlocks the handcuffs. Gwen sucker punches him and Jack shows him the door. As John disappears into the Rift, he reveals something: “I found Gray.”

Jack is stunned, but won’t reveal who Gray is. The team gets back to work.

 

The team is pretty much right where we left them, though the tensions are high due to Jack’s disappearance. James Marsters – Spike of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel fame – amps up that tension with a good dose of chaos thanks to Chris Chibnall’s fast-paced writing.

Otherwise, the threads are laid for the season ahead with John Hart, Gray, Gwen’s pending nuptials, and the team’s distrust of Jack, all starting with this exciting return episode.

 

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

 

 

UP NEXT – Torchwood: Sleeper

 

 

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 #194: Time Crash & Voyage of the Damned

Michael Falkner18 Comments

Doctor Who: Time Crash
Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned
(Children in Need and Christmas Specials, 2007)

When you look deep into the pockets of the universe, you never know what you find.

Time Crash

Immediately after Martha left the TARDIS and the Doctor once again took flight, the blue box goes haywire. The Doctor stabilizes the time capsule, but he finds himself face-to-face with the Fifth Doctor. The Fifth Doctor is confused but the Tenth Doctor is amused, getting nostalgic about the frowny face, the hat, the coat, the crickety-cricket outfit, the brainy specs, and even the decorative vegetable on his lapel.

The Fifth Doctor is beside himself, but his frustration is interrupted by a warning that two TARDISes have merged and have the potential to blow a hole in the space-time continuum the size of Belgium. The Fifth Doctor thinks that the Tenth Doctor is a fan, possibly from LINDA. The Tenth offers the Fifth a sonic screwdriver but remembers that he went hands-free at this point in his lives.

At the moment of Belgium, the Doctors initiate a supernova and a black hole at the same time and separate their capsules. The Tenth works to send his predecessor home, curious if Nyssa and Tegan were with him, or whether he has encountered the Cybermen, the Mara, or the Master yet. The Tenth Doctor admits that he just faced the Master, prompting the Fifth to ask about “that rubbish beard.” The Tenth replies that the beard is gone, replaced by a wife.

Oh, Steven Moffat and his jokes about homosexuality.

As the Fifth Doctor returns his time, the Tenth takes a moment to say goodbye. After all, the Fifth Doctor was his Doctor.

The moment is broken when a ship crashes through the TARDIS walls.

Her name is Titanic.

Voyage of the Damned

The Doctor uses the TARDIS console to regenerate the capsule’s walls and materialize aboard the cruise liner. He finds a Christmas party in full swing, complete with aliens and seemingly robotic angels, as the starliner Titanic settles into orbit with the planet Earth spinning around below.

The ship’s captain offers his stalwart crew a tot of rum to celebrate the holiday. The bridge crew leaves except for a midshipman who quotes regulation to the captain, and he’s allowed to stay behind.

The Titanic is a Max Capricorn cruiseliner, which the tuxedo-clad Doctor discovers as he views a promotional ad before rejoining the party. He finds that the robotic angels, the Host, are the shipboard information system. The ship was named after the most famous vessel of the planet Earth and is en route from Sto to observe the human holiday. The angel short circuits and is taken below to the engineering section with all of the other malfunctioning robots.

Among all the lovers in the room, the Doctor meets Astrid Peth, a member of the ship’s staff who accidentally drops a drink tray. She wants to travel like the Doctor, and realizing that it’s never too late, he reveals himself as a stowaway. She’s impressed – almost like love at first sight – and offers a drink instead of reporting him. The Doctor joins a table with Morvin and Foon Van Hoff, a couple in sparkly Western-style dress who are being mocked by the black-tie guests. The Doctor uses the sonic screwdriver to pop a champagne bottle and douse the bullies before joining the Van Hoffs for a trip to the planet below. En route, he spins Astrid around and brings her along. After a poorly researched historical brief, the party is joined by a small spiky red-skinned alien before they all transmat down to a deserted city.

The Doctor is perplexed: London should be bustling with people, but there’s not a soul in sight.

He asks Wilfred Mott, a newsstand operator, where everyone is on a night like this. He points to the last two Christmas invasions as examples that drove people to flee the city just in case. Better the devil you know, right? The Doctor and Astrid are beamed back up, mid-sentence, due to irregular power fluctuations on the ship. The Doctor is intrigued.

Meanwhile, the captain has magnetized the hull to draw in nearby passing meteors. The midshipman is perplexed. The Doctor discovers that the shields are down and tries to warn the bridge, but he’s ignored and apprehended. He tries to warn the passengers but is taken away. The captain also shoots the midshipman to prevent him from stopping events. He has been extorted in some way.

The passengers start to come around but everyone is too late to stop the collision. The ship is struck on the starboard side and mayhem erupts. As the Host come back to life in engineering, the Doctor notes that the chaos has stopped for the time being. He also remarks that Titanic is a bad name for a ship and that his tuxedo is awfully unlucky.

One of the crew inadvertently causes a hull breach but the Doctor re-enables the oxygen shield. He also watches as the TARDIS drifts by. Luckily, it locks on to the nearest planet and flies into the blue. Unfortunately, they can’t reach it.

Another bit of bad luck? The Host are now programmed to kill.

The Doctor makes contact with the bridge and Midshipman Frame. They discover that the storm drive engines are spooling down. If ship loses locomotion and plummets into the planet, it will cause a nuclear explosion and a planetwide extinction event. The ship is a timebomb.

The Doctor – “I’m the Doctor. I’m a Time Lord. I’m from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. I’m nine hundred and three years old and I’m the man who’s going to save your lives and all six billion people on the planet below. You got a problem with that?” – believes that it’s never too late and asks the survivors to confide in him. He takes charge and rallies them to both escape and save the planet. Astrid really believes in him.

As they move through the ship, Mr. Copper, the historian, keeps getting information about the planet below all wrong. They discover a disabled Host and the Van Hoffs (who are robotics experts) start trying to fix it. Meanwhile, Bannakaffalatta (the small red alien who is really a cyborg) scouts ahead through the wreckage as Astrid and the impossible Rickston Slade try to move enough wreckage to get everyone through. Astrid and Bannakaffalatta develop a special relationship as they go.

Midshipman Frame discovers that the Host are corrupted after they kill survivors in the galley. He warns the Doctor just as the Van Hoffs fix their disabled robot. The group of survivors rush to safety, learning on the way that the Host are being controlled from Deck 31. The Host assault the bridge, forcing Frame to deadlock the hatches and seal himself in without escape.

The survivors take a meal break while they have a chance. The Doctor and Astrid continue building their relationship while Copper reveals that he lied to get his job. The Host banging on a nearby bulkhead force the survivors to press forward, but that leads them to the space above the nuclear engines. The space between bulkheads is spanned by a narrow bridge, and as Morvin declares that he and Foon will go last, the deck gives way and he plummets to his doom. Astrid comforts Foon as Slade crawls across the bridge.

Bannakaffalatta goes next, followed by Astrid and Copper. Foon refuses to cross and the Doctor promises to come back for her. The Host stops banging on the bulkheads, but only because they take flight and start using their halos as deadly discuses. Bannakaffalatta reveals his nature to the survivors with an electromagnetic pulse, disabling the Host but giving his life in the process.

Copper salvages the electromagnetic transmitter as a remaining Host rises. The Doctor stumbles onto a security override that allows him three questions, so he learns that the Host have been instructed by their leader to kill the survivors. The Host raises its halo to strike but Foon wraps it in a rope and jumps over the side, sacrificing herself for the group.

Vowing that no more shall die tonight, the Doctor sets everyone to work. Astrid makes her case to join him on the TARDIS and he agrees that it would be wonderful to have her step back in time with him. He sends the survivors with the EMP unit and his sonic screwdriver, and with a kiss from Astrid, he rushes down to Deck 31.

Astrid, Copper, and Slade successfully defeat a group of the Host while the Doctor reveals himself as a stowaway and negotiates his arrest. The survivors make it back to the ballroom and while Copper and Slade work on the distress signal, Astrid convinces Frame to give her enough power to transmat to Deck 31 and help the Doctor.

The Doctor arrives on Deck 31 and meets the ultimate authority behind the night’s events: Max Capricorn. Or rather, the disembodied head on a rolling robotic life-support system, running the company by hologram in a culture that distrusts cyborgs. Capricorn is angry that the ship hasn’t crashed yet, and the Doctor takes the time to unravel the plan. Capricorn’s company has failed and he has been pushed out by the board, so if the Titanic destroys the Earth, he gets revenge as the board gets jailed for murder. Capricorn will survive in a special chamber and live out his life far away.

Capricorn reveals that he can remotely shut down the engines, forcing the Titanic to crash. As Capricorn orders the Doctor’s execution, Astrid rushes in with a forklift and drives Capricorn’s robotic body over the side into the engine below. The Doctor, begging inside for just a little more time, watches as she falls to her death.

The resolute Time Lord declares himself as the next highest authority on the ship and orders the Host take him straight to the bridge. They burst through the deck and the Doctor takes the helm from Midshipman Alonso Frame, steering the ship straight into the atmosphere. He calls up Buckingham Palace, ordering the Queen and her corgis to evacuate just in case his calculations are off. On the street below, Wilfred screams at the sky.

The Titanic barely misses the palace (but gets a Christmas greeting from the Queen) and sails into the sky, using the heat of re-entry to restart the auxiliary engines. The Doctor did it again.

He has an epiphany and tries to use the teleport bracelets to restore Astrid using their safety protocol. He’s only partially successful due to the damage in the system, bringing her back as only a fragment of her former self. The Doctor apologizes and kisses her in a bittersweet goodbye before opening a porthole and sending her atoms to fly among the stars forever.

Frame, Copper, and Slade, the only survivors of the starliner Titanic say their farewells to the Doctor. Copper offhandedly remarks that, if someone could decide who lives and who dies, it would make them a monster. The Doctor hands him a bracelet and they teleport to the surface. The Doctor refuses Copper’s request to travel with him, but he does explain that the credit card that Copper carries for Earth incidentals makes him a millionaire.

Copper dances away with the promise he will make the Doctor proud… and that he will always remember Astrid.

The episode closes on a dedication to Verity Lambert, OBE. She was the first producer of Doctor Who, and she died a month before this story was originally aired.

Both of these episodes were pure fun. Starting with Time Crash, we get the first multi-Doctor story of the revival era as well as the first time a classic-era Doctor’s actor was in the opening credits. It was directed by Graeme Harper, whose first credited directorial work in Doctor Who was Peter Davison’s last story.

It’s a better two-Doctor story than The Two Doctors, but that’s not hard to do.

It also marks the return of Steven Moffat to Doctor Who, a name we will see one more time in the Tennant era. The Curse of Fatal Death, The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, The Girl in the Fireplace, Blink, and this small story are leading to bigger adventures for him in the coming years.

Moving to Voyage of the Damned, we get a rollicking adventure with a celebrity guest star as a one-shot companion. Kylie Minogue is magnetic in this story and it’s a shame that we didn’t get the chance to see her as a regular. She did a magnificent job in driving the contrast between the lonely Time Lord and one who travels with companions. She also indirectly proved the points that the Doctor is not a god and that he is not infallible.

The Host look very similar to the Axons and the Capricorn cyborg is reminiscent of Davros. We also get a couple of cameos with singer Yamit Mamo (including original song “The Stowaway“) and BBC journalist Nicholas Witchell. If you look closely at the Titanic‘s band, you’ll also note Murray Gold and Ben Foster.

The big drawback to this episode was the overuse of the Hans Gruber moment. The slow-motion shot of someone falling while looking up towards the camera happened four times – the steward, Foon, Morvin, and Astrid’s respective deaths – and that count is bordering on comical.

Regardless, this pair of stories was an entertaining adventure and a fantastic lead-in to Series Four.

Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

UP NEXT – Torchwood: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

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: Sarah Jane Adventures Series One Summary

Michael Falkner2 Comments

Sarah Jane Adventures: Series One Summary

 

This was a pleasant surprise.

I mean, yes, the headline is Elisabeth Sladen reviving her iconic role as Sarah Jane Smith, one of my absolute favorite companions in Doctor Who. But I have also seen so many franchises falter when trying to cater to a younger crowd. All too often they water down the property to make it more – shall we say? – palatable for children, and that tends to carve away the support structure. Everything that made the material strong gets lost in an attempt to gain more eyes.

It’s insulting, really. It’s almost as if creators are asking children not to think or analyze, but just consume.

The Sarah Jane Adventures did not do that. It tackled issues important younger audiences – who could readily identify with the stars of the show – while not pulling any punches with the Doctor Who style. It was refreshing for the genre.

The characters are strong overall, and while I fault the BBC for removing Kelsey Hooper because they thought that there were too many women on the show, Clyde Langer is a decent enough replacement. I’m really enjoying the mentoring relationship between Maria and Sarah Jane, and the evolution of Sarah Jane Smith as she builds a family on Bannerman Road is beautiful.

(Other sources claim that Porsha Lawrence-Mavour was fired due to being rude and difficult to work with, but I haven’t seen anything definitive on that.)

When I was coming up to this show in the Timestamps Project, Michael French of Retroblasting told me that he enjoyed it. That was a strong endorsement, and it’s one that I agree with. I’m also glad that he didn’t spoil the big twist with Mr. Smith because that was fun to watch without knowing about it beforehand.

Series One comes in at an average of 4.3. In comparison to Doctor Who, that’s on par with Series One and Series Three near the top of the stack. This series easily beats the first series of Torchwood.

Invasion of the Bane – 5
Revenge of the Slitheen – 4
Eye of the Gorgon – 3
Warriors of Kudlak – 4
Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? – 5
The Lost Boy – 5

Sarah Jane Adventures Series One Average Rating: 4.3/5

 

From here, the path for the Timestamps Project continues on a mostly airdate order. Next up is Time Crash and Voyage of the Damned, followed by the second series of Torchwood and Series Four of Doctor Who.

We’re also on the verge of the holiday season, so Timestamp releases may take a break here and there over the next month or so. Keep an eye on the Facebook page for the most up to date scheduling info.

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Time Crash & Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned

 

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 #SJA6: The Lost Boy

Michael Falkner8 Comments

Sarah Jane Adventures: The Lost Boy
(2 episodes, s01e06, 2007)

 

Mr. Smith, the planet needs you.

After Alan Jackson discovered the truth about the Bannerman Road Gang, he and Maria discuss her adventures. He decides to keep it all secret by putting the house on the market and moving away. Across the street, Sarah Jane and Luke are stargazing when Maria breaks the news. Alan joins the conversation and eventually realizes that staying is the best option for his family. The group watches the Kalazian Lights fly through the night sky.

The next day, the group is startled by a televised press conference about a missing child who looks just like Luke and was last seen boarding the Bubble Shock bus. Sarah Jane has Mr. Smith scan Luke to determine reality and the supercomputer declares that Luke is the missing boy, Ashley Stafford. The lack of bellybutton is credited to the Bane, an egg-born species, being offended by its presence.

Chrissie Jackson calls the police and Sarah Jane reluctantly turns Luke over. The neighborhood watches as Ashley’s parents arrive. Tensions rise – Chrissie gloats at the drama she’s created – and Sarah Jane is taken into custody. She is later released, thanks to UNIT.

Luke is taken to his new home but as trouble fitting in with the expected lifestyle. He’s also dismayed that he’s locked into his room at night. Jay and Heidi Stafford contact a character named Xylok through their television, reporting that they have him in custody. Luke is also prohibited from seeing his friends or even attending school again.

Maria tries to console Sarah Jane but she’s convinced that the only path forward is to dissolve the Bannerman Road Gang, suggesting that Maria should move away. Sarah Jane holes up in the attic and Mr. Smith suggests that she needs a purpose. He points her toward the Pharos Institute, a research center where alien technology is being used to conduct experiments into telekinesis. There she meets an annoying child prodigy named Nathan Goss.

Clyde and Maria decide to skip school to see Luke. Maria is stopped by a teacher, but Clyde is able to sneak out. Unfortunately, Heidi refuses to let him in. She also claims that Ashley is a great skateboarder, which Clyde knows to be a lie. After Clyde leaves, Nathan arrives and tells the supposed parents that they have a problem. Luke tries to escape and is stopped. He learns the truth about his captors: They are the Slitheen from their failed revenge attempt, this time with improved skin suits.

Sarah Jane is directed by Mr. Smith to return to Pharos and steal one of the telekinetic headsets. After she leaves, Clyde heads to the attic and asks Mr. Smith to analyze a photo of Ashley and his parents. Mr. Smith reveals that he is the Xylok and that he faked the photo. He digitizes Clyde, TRON-style, and stores the boy in his memory banks with a fiendish laugh.

I didn’t see that twist coming.

Sarah Jane sneaks into Pharos with her sonic lipstick. She swipes the headset, which triggers an alarm, but escapes with secret agent flair.

Clyde wakes up inside the supercomputer. He watches as Sarah Jane turns the headset over to Mr. Smith and tries to figure out how to make contact. Meanwhile, Maria desperately tries to find Clyde. Alan decides to accompany Maria to the Stafford residence. When they find no one home, they decide to break in. Alan stumbles across a skin suit and Maria discovers what’s going on. They return home to find Chrissie and Maria sneaks away to tell Sarah Jane about the threat.

Clyde uses the internet to warn Alan through his laptop. Alan rushes to tell Sarah Jane just as Mr. Smith reveals himself and tries to kill Alan, Maria, and Sarah Jane. The humans escape and retreat to the Jackson house. Mr. Smith incapacitates Clyde as a result.

Sarah Jane tells the Jacksons about a crystal that she was sent from the Krakatoa volcanic eruption. It turned out to be a Xylok memory crystal, and Sarah Jane used it to build a supercomputer. She puts the pieces together that the Slitheen plan to harvest Luke’s telekinetic energy for sale on the open market, and she knows that they are probably at the Pharos Institute. They head out, stopping for vinegar at a chip shop along the way.

The Slitheen try to harvest the energy but Luke escapes after overloading the system. He dodges the Slitheen and leaves just before Sarah Jane and the Jacksons arrive. The Slitheen take Maria hostage to disarm Alan, then explain how Mr. Smith contacted them with a promise of revenge. Sarah Jane determines that they are all being played by the Xylok to harness Luke’s powers.

Luke returns to Bannerman Road and is coerced into donning the headset. Mr. Smith channels the telekinetic energy to propel the Moon toward Earth in an effort to crack the planet and release the rest of the Xylok.

Sarah Jane strikes a bargain with the Slitheen by asking Alan to stop the supercomputer. She uses the Slitheen teleporter to return to the attic and confront Mr. Smith. He thanks her for helping him to execute his plan, showing mercy by returning Clyde. Sarah Jane distracts the Xylok long enough to release K9 from his black hole mission. K9 fires on the supercomputer while Sarah Jane uploads a virus that wipes Mr. Smith’s memory. The supercomputer shuts down and K9 returns to the safe.

The Bannerman Road Gang, now with a forgiven Chrissie, watch the Slitheen fly away. Mr. Smith reboots with a renewed purpose to safeguard the Earth while Sarah Jane reflects on her newfound family.

 

The first series of The Sarah Jane Adventures ends with style as this adventure touches on almost the entire lifespan of this family’s story so far. It also throws the audience a nice twist by revealing that a powerful ally has been scheming against our heroes this entire time.

The entire gang gets involved to not only save Luke, but to also save the world.

 

Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

 

UP NEXT – Sarah Jane Adventures: Series One Summary

 

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.