2.03: To the Last Man

[Dave]

Warning - Various Spoilers follow....

...getting more spoilered as they progress - - -

from SFX
It incorporates a hospital shifting in time, a soldier named Tommy and some never-before-seen Torchwood employees.

from What's On TV
Toshiko falls for a soldier who unwittingly holds the key to saving the world when the team investigates an old hospital that is haunted by ghosts from 1918.

TW Magazine
Every year TW revives a WW1 soldier from suspended animation, waiting for the day the world needs him for a purpose they don't yet know. He is revived for a day and let out of the Hub. He is called Tommy Brockless and Tosh looks foward to the defrosting day, and is happy to be his escort for the day. "Heart" sums up the episode apparently.
Helen Raynor wrote the episode in order to gets Tosh to "grow up" in terms of personal relations ships since she's a bit naive.

Torchwood.TV
Toshiko falls for a handsome soldier trapped out of his time, who unwittingly holds the key to saving the world. With an old hospital haunted by ghosts from 1918, a crisis foreseen by Torchwood 90 years ago is about to reach its climax. Time zones are colliding, but, with life-and-death decisions to be made, will Torchwood be able to stop an explosive end for the city of Cardiff?

from sf-community
Spoilers: right-click to highlight

Spoiler

The action partially takes place at St Teilo's Military Hospital in 1918.

The Torchwood Institute once had people called Gerald and Harriet working for them.

Gwen is menaced by a one-legged man in a hospital. Very David Lynch.

Captain Jack has sealed orders from past Torchwood employees that can only be opened at a certain critical time.

Owen discovers that he is to become a father after a fling with a lady who is out of this world. Literally.

A blank piece of paper is deployed by Captain Jack to explain how a Time shift works.

Two of the Torchwood team share an almighty - distinctly non-platonic - snog.

Toshiko wears a dress for an important day at the office - and we get to see her flat!

The final shot of the episode is unbelievably moving and brilliant.

 

[Pyan]

I...will...resist.....
What did we ever do to you, Dave??

 

[Dave]

Sorry, but I like Time Travel stories and couldn't resist myself. It is your decision what you do, I'm only giving you the opportunity.

Just one thing from those (and no big spoilers) - and it is pure speculation - but it sounds as if there has been a Torchwood Institute in Cardiff since, at least, 1918. I hadn't realised that before. In 'Doctor Who' we saw there was a Torchwood Institute in Scotland from the time of Queen Victoria, and the one in Canary Wharf, London (which would presumably be fairly new.) We also know that the Rift was present in Cardiff during the time of Charles Dickens. The Cardiff base being very old actually fits with what has been shown - the glazed wall bricks look very much like a Victorian London Underground Station and I had wondered about that before. So, can we assume it has been there since the founding of Torchwood?

 

[Pyan]

It would make sense...a "head office" in London, perhaps, and a "branch" in each capital city.
Perhaps there's one in Dublin, as well, disused since 1922.

 

[Lenny]

The first few episodes of the first series told us that there were different branches of Torchwood. Captain Jack himself told us that:

- London is TW1
- Glasgow is TW2, and is run by "a very strange man"
- Cardiff is TW3
- And TW4 is in an unknown location. In fact, it's "missing". One can only presume that it was in Ireland

Torchwood Institute - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'll try and find the quote.

 

[Ice fyre]

Maybe the Cardiff Torchwood was established as the second as perhaps the Torchwood estate in Scotland would have been too far away from the seat of Goverment.

Cardiff would have been a good location as it was closer to the capital and safer in case of invasion, as the enemy would head for London first. The London Torchwood perhaps was the third, 1.Being the estate 2.Cardiff say a bit before WWI 3.Canary Warf in the ninties as it was built all state of the art new headquarters leaving Cardiff to be the backup team. Glasgow I havnt a clue where they fit in.

 

[Pyan]

What, no comments yet?
Well, the new series continues to be head and shoulders above the first one.
A nicely intricate time travel/save the world episode, with some genuinely scary moments, and a chance for Tosh to be centre stage for a change.
Loved the "old" Torchwood operatives.

7.5/10


Spoiler:

Spoiler

Anyone else really creeped out by the moment that the nurse went down the side passage, and then stepped back and saw Gwen?

 

[Dave]

I agree with your points rating, but I was expecting much more. The plot was fairly pedestrian, straightforward and not very original. Having said that, it was still much, much better than the depths of last season.

Toshi falls in love a little too easily, methinks. She's only known him for 4 days. In between his last visit, she had that one-night stand with an alien.

Where did the Time Key come from? It was sort of: here's a Time Key that you need to seal the Rift. Apparently, it came from the Torchwood vaults, but obviously not from Gerald and Harriet, since they hadn't a clue what to do until Tommy told them.

Speaking of the vaults, there were quite a few more suspended animation chambers to open. I would guess between 18 and 24. Who else are they keeping on Ice down there?

And Ianto makes tea... but eventually gets what he always wanted. I thought they could have left that unrequited love hang for a few more seasons.

And another thought: The ghosts seen back in 1918 - they were just Gwen wandering around (maybe the demolition men too, although there was no descriptions and ghosts usually wear white sheets, not yellow hard hats and fluorescent jackets!)

 

[Essie]

I have to say I agree with most of what's been said already - not hugely original but not a bad episode at all. The tension was built well at times which is something I generally think Torchwood lacks. A much better effort all round.

Toshiko falling in love in four days - I suppose she's had a few years to let those feelings develop in her head even while he's not there - it's really him that had fallen for her in four days.

 

[Ursa major]

It would make sense...a "head office" in London, perhaps, and a "branch" in each capital city.
Perhaps there's one in Dublin, as well, disused since 1922.

Glasgow is TW2, and is run by "a very strange man"

I thought (but I may be wrong) that Cardiff wasn't designated as the capital of Wales until the 1960s at the earliest. (Oh, and Glasgow still isn't the capital of Scotland.)

Rift(s) aside, the places chosen are the largest, in terms of population, in their respective countries.


As to the episode itself, the key was the bit that stood out as requiring the most suspension of disbelief; we can only hope that an explanation turns up (though I doubt that it'll be in good time). The episode was again above the standards of Series One.

 

[Mary Hoffman]

The plot was fairly pedestrian, straightforward and not very original. Having said that, it was still much, much better than the depths of last season.


Where did the Time Key come from? It was sort of: here's a Time Key that you need to seal the Rift.


And Ianto makes tea... but eventually gets what he always wanted. I thought they could have left that unrequited love hang for a few more seasons.

I was disappointed with this one, although agree that that there were moments of tension. It was just SUCH a straight line plot, totally predictable, no twists.

And the locked box opening with a puff of Potter-type gold dust and the flipping Time Key, looking like something from the Golden Conmpass. ... well!

And, Dave, did you not see series 1? Ianto and Jack have already had it off (see Ianto's comments about Jack's bedroom manners last episode).

And his "love" is still unrequited, I reckon.

Mary

 

[Essie]

Anyone else think the Ianto / Jack storyline is crowbarred in to give Ianto some purpose? It just seemed so irrelevant.

 

[Lenny]

First of all, something from Dav'es spoilers. particularly the one from SF-Community:

Owen discovers that he is to become a father after a fling with a lady who is out of this world. Literally.

Wait... did I fall asleep and miss something?

---

Overall, a good episode - I agree with other that it's keeping with the high standard of the season so far. Again there was a bit of humour, with one line I loved:

"Well, you could come back to mine, but there's only room for one and it's bloody freezing". I chuckled. And I have to mention, that came a minute after a glaring continuity issue - Tommy is chasing Tosh along the bridge, she drops her bag, he picks her up in a fireman's lift, and spins her around... her bag is on her shoulder. He puts her down and she drops it.

BBC - Torchwood - Torchwood

About 21 minutes in.

Oh, and I have to say - Tosh's pad is nice. Very stylish.

---

Next weeks looks like a lot of fun, but I won't say much more until the thread is started for it.

 

[Mad Tam McC]

When Tommy explained to 1918 Torchwood that they had to take him away from upstairs I thought they seemed to get the idea of what to do fairly quickly, especially when it seemed like ghosts were talking. 'Oh that means we have to put him in one of the cryogenics things and wake him up each year.'

Mind you they do deal with things like time-travel so...

The psychic bit at the end didn't seem quite right. This wee injection and Tosh can go and speak to someone telepathically.

Does anyone else think that a TV series with 1918 Torchwood would be good. A mixture of WWI and advanced alien technologies, but they can't be used for winning the war.

 

[Pyan]

I thought (but I may be wrong) that Cardiff wasn't designated as the capital of Wales until the 1960s at the earliest. (Oh, and Glasgow still isn't the capital of Scotland.)

Oops! my apologies to any Edinburghers present!

I should have said, as Ursa says, the largest city in each country.

 

[Essie]

As you said about the bag.

Yeah - noticed that too - we rewound it to check and she definitely dropped it.

 

[Dave]

Mary - I'm afraid that I did miss Ianto and Jack coupling last season - was that after they discussed 1001 things to do with a stopwatch then? If so, it wasn't shown on screen.

Lenny - the spoiler website did say that one of the spoilers was a red herring. That must be the one, though it could yet relate to another episode. Oh, and don't wait for me, start a thread on next week if you want to. I can't believe they are going to add 'him' to the team!

Mad Mac Tam - Yes, the psychic bit also seemed off to me, I forgot about that.

And I would also like to see a steam-punk version of Torchwood, if only for one episode.

 

[Moonbat]

It was a bit pridictable for a 45min eipsode, kind of realised what was happening almost as soon as it started, just a simple time loop (simple?)
I liked the old torchwood, and the development of Tosh's character, but it did seem to have some plot holes.
Are we to believe that the 'rift' caused the time shift, and it was entirely lucky that they took Tommy from 1918 and froze him so that once they had dicovered the time key (which was a golden compass and didn't really seem to unlock, it opened a bit and then closed after releasing some visible (to the viewer) rift energy) he would be able to take it back from the future to the past where it was required? to clounter the time shift.
If the key already existed then surely the two old Torchwood people could have used it and would not have had to lock Tommy in a draw for almost a century.
and since when did Cryogenics exist in 1918, cryogenics that were good enough to anually thaw and re-freeze a subject without ill effects (except for a cough).
Tosh's amazing boomerang bag didn't help, nor the passionate snog between jack and Ianto, what a waste of a scene that was!
The only good bit was the ghostly explanation of time shifts, not that we haven't heard that before.

I do kind of like Torchwood, I'm just a bit starved for decent TV sci-fi at the moment, both Dr Who and Torchwood seem to have childrens science, everything just needs a long semi-technical word and it can be explained.

 

[Lenny]

and since when did Cryogenics exist in 1918, cryogenics that were good enough to anually thaw and re-freeze a subject without ill effects (except for a cough).

It was explained as alien cryogenics.

Something along the lines of:

"Torchwood has been using alien cryogenics for decades".

 

[Ice fyre]

Mary - I'm afraid that I did miss Ianto and Jack coupling last season - was that after they discussed 1001 things to do with a stopwatch then? If so, it wasn't shown on screen.

What do you think they were doing with the stop watch? Timing each other's press ups? Dont think were ready for explicit homosexual sex just yet on Torchwood do you?