An old cinema, the "Electro", re-opens, to show old films of Cardiff to a small audience, which includes Gwen, Ianto and Owen. Ianto seems the keenest on this, while the others seem interested only because the cinema has shown Rift activity in the past.
Ianto: "It's more than just a cinema, it's the Electro!"
Gwen: "Oh wow!"
Shades of Ray Bradbury, and ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’ follow, as somehow a film of a traveling company from 1898 has become spliced with the other films, and runs the projector by itself. The company includes Jack, with a gun at his head, performing the act of "the man who couldn't die" (now that would make for good family entertainment). It also includes the Ghost Maker (Circus Ringleader) and Pearl (Mermaid), who manage to escape from the film; much like Arnie did in ‘Last Action Hero’, or Clive Barker novels, or ‘The Ring’.
Gwen: "It's the same picture over and over again!"
Owen: "Yeah, come on let's go!”
In the dead of night, the escaped characters start roaming the streets of Cardiff. From a hideout in an empty disused Swimming Pool (was Pearl meant to have drunk it dry?) they steal the last breath of the innocent people they meet, keeping their individual breaths in a silver flask, leaving the dehydrated victims comatose, with a heartbeat but with no breath. Torchwood starts investigating the casualties and begins research on these old traveling companies. Jack tells of the "Night Travelers", who only perform during night and “who come out of the rain.”
Jack and Ianto visit a psychiatric hospital and to talk to someone who actually escaped from the travelling show. She is perceptive enough to know that Jack is older than he looks and does not belong here. Meanwhile, the Ghost Maker shuns taking the breath of Owen, since he doesn’t have one to take. (Owen is still looking good for a dead man!)
Eventually, as Ghost Maker and Pearl return to the Electro to try to free the Strongman and the remainder of their company from their celluloid prison, Jack realises that the only way to stop them is to re-film them and then expose the negative to light.
I thought that the end was quite rushed. Torchwood fail to capture the flask without some of the breaths being lost, and five of the patients at the hospital die. They only manage to save one boy, who seems quite cheerful now that is an orphan without any siblings. No explanation on why Jack himself, was never trapped on the film. No explanation of how, or by whom, they got trapped to begin with. No explanation of what reality or planet within the Rift such people would come from. Still, probably one of the better episodes, I thought.
Ianto: "It's more than just a cinema, it's the Electro!"
Gwen: "Oh wow!"
Shades of Ray Bradbury, and ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’ follow, as somehow a film of a traveling company from 1898 has become spliced with the other films, and runs the projector by itself. The company includes Jack, with a gun at his head, performing the act of "the man who couldn't die" (now that would make for good family entertainment). It also includes the Ghost Maker (Circus Ringleader) and Pearl (Mermaid), who manage to escape from the film; much like Arnie did in ‘Last Action Hero’, or Clive Barker novels, or ‘The Ring’.
Gwen: "It's the same picture over and over again!"
Owen: "Yeah, come on let's go!”
In the dead of night, the escaped characters start roaming the streets of Cardiff. From a hideout in an empty disused Swimming Pool (was Pearl meant to have drunk it dry?) they steal the last breath of the innocent people they meet, keeping their individual breaths in a silver flask, leaving the dehydrated victims comatose, with a heartbeat but with no breath. Torchwood starts investigating the casualties and begins research on these old traveling companies. Jack tells of the "Night Travelers", who only perform during night and “who come out of the rain.”
Jack and Ianto visit a psychiatric hospital and to talk to someone who actually escaped from the travelling show. She is perceptive enough to know that Jack is older than he looks and does not belong here. Meanwhile, the Ghost Maker shuns taking the breath of Owen, since he doesn’t have one to take. (Owen is still looking good for a dead man!)
Eventually, as Ghost Maker and Pearl return to the Electro to try to free the Strongman and the remainder of their company from their celluloid prison, Jack realises that the only way to stop them is to re-film them and then expose the negative to light.
I thought that the end was quite rushed. Torchwood fail to capture the flask without some of the breaths being lost, and five of the patients at the hospital die. They only manage to save one boy, who seems quite cheerful now that is an orphan without any siblings. No explanation on why Jack himself, was never trapped on the film. No explanation of how, or by whom, they got trapped to begin with. No explanation of what reality or planet within the Rift such people would come from. Still, probably one of the better episodes, I thought.
