Torchwood One: Before The Fall

 

Torchwood One Before The Fall

Going into Torchwood One, I was aware that it is serialized storytelling, a three part story, and as such, I knew that in some other shows serialized episodes can blend together. That wasn't the case with Torchwood One ultimately, but as a result I made the choice of reviewing each episode immediately after I listened to it when it was fresh in the mind. A lot of the criticisms I have for episodes (fuck it, most) are resolved in this very own set. So, you're essentially watching past Plum review these episodes as they've experienced them, thinking that all the episodes were going to blend into a blob and there was no other way. Well. there was. and so this review is a testament to experimenting I will probably never do again because this was kind of disastrous and most of the problems I mentioned turned out to be irrelevant and I bet there are other problems in these stories that are more worth mentioning that I didn't notice because I was too busy trying to figure out how a three-parter works, damn it. Ah. Yeah.

So, Torchwood One is essentially the Yvonne show. Did you like her in Alien/God Among Us? If the answer is yes than I don't really have to sell you on this one. Yvonne's character in this series is only moderately different, even though it's a different universe Yvonne we're focusing on. The differences are that this Yvonne is part of a much more proficient and military organization than the rag-tag Torchwood Three, but that's superficial. This Yvonne is slightly more emotionally sensitive, but also miles more patriotic, which ultimately can make her just as cruel. If you're looking into buying this set soley for Ianto, while he's good, and is technically the second main lead, it really really is the Yvonne show. Ianto buffs are probably better off picking up either Fall To Earth, Broken, The Last Beacon or Dinner With A Show for their Ianto fix. Torchwood One is in many ways brilliant, but it really wasn't what I was expecting, even from the first episode. Maybe I should just get into these reviews - which I will state, I wrote a while before, right after I heard each episode. 

New Girl by Joseph Lidster

The First Twenty Minutes of New Girl is probably the best pilot for Torchwood One you could possibly imagine - an office building, bureaucratic, brimming with life filled characters that already have a unique depth to them, and it's all kept perfectly and wonderfully dissonant. The opening parts of New Girl are just incredible, and it really introduces the plot quite well, and Rachel's first day is magnificently portrayed. Every single bit of it is just immaculate in it's subtlety. I especially love the early line where Yvonne corrects Rachel - "No. We're not defending the Earth. We're defending Britain." There's the entire theme around Torchwood One distilled into one line, what should be this range's mission statement. Torchwood One is fucked up. I'm glad the series doesn't shift that aspect from Army of Ghosts to the side. Torchwood One should and does have a very different atmosphere from Torchwood Three, and it should also be ready to jump deeper into greyer waters than before. Nowhere in Torchwood will you find a better scene than Yvonne's playful bait and switch of Rachel in the Elevator. The whole scene has so many layers to it, and each time one's peeled back you realize how detailed Yvonne's character has become since those early days in Army of Ghosts. Army of Ghosts' Torchwood has been fully extrapolated into something real, and something mundane and so undeniably frightening that when the story stops being about Rachel's first day into this wondrous new world for her and more about a barely evident conspiracy, you can't help but feel a tinge of disappointment. Or perhaps more than a tinge. Beyond introducing Torchwood One and the integral concepts of it, there's very little point to New Girl as a story, at least at first glance. In many ways it's a brilliant balancing act, a sleight of hand if you will, simply because in terms of plot, it tricks you into thinking there isn't one. When the alien machine is introduced, you think that will be the focal point of the episode. Nope! When Rachel goes out for lunch with an alien you think that will be the point of the episode! Nope! Is the main plot about Rachel being retconned? Then why isn't that focused on? Is the episode about Guleeranna being a spy? What's the point of this anyway? Making the audience have these questions is absolutely ridiculous for a pilot - and there is the argument that New Girl does too much. It's got a lot to do and a lot of time skips to do it in after the first half. Doing this big story about office politics that mean nothing, well, That's a bold move, but while all the threads do come together it does make it feel a lot slower than it could be. Especially when your entire second half of the story is taking the premise you painstakingly crafted in the first, and blowing it up. If I were writing the tale, I'd definitely make this two episodes, the first half of episode one being this episode's first half, and then couple that with an Alien of the Week story so it feels more like a Torchwood story with stakes and movement to it, and then the second half covering what it does in a more deliberate and obvious manner than what it does. The subtlety works for the creeping atmosphere of the piece, but it doesn't work quite so well to have the plot's important elements delivered subtly. And when your episode one twist is so huge, it might even be better to set this apart even further so the twist can hit harder later. I would listen to a whole series about Yvonne, Ianto, Rachel, Pippa, Guleeranna, Dean, Kieran and Tommy, and that's part of this stories' credit that it introduces these characters so well, but it's frustrating that it makes you think this series is about "this" when it's actually about "this" and half these characters won't exit episode one. And only Tommy appears in following sets. That's especially sad when these characters are ones that I would love to see more of. For every brilliant thing New Girl does it raises another question. The good content is so good that I can't rate this lowly, and it is a magnificent script, but even a high quality and excellent story can reek of missed opportunity, and nowhere is that clearer than this flawed beauty of a tale: 8/10 

Through the Ruins by Jenny T Colgan

Right off the back I'm going to note that next to everything the previous story did is justified. It's so well justified that my worries about the future and missed opportunities in the previous tale are irrelevant, and now looking back (I write these reviews after I hear each episode) New Girl is probably a 9? But honestly I might keep it as it is. Through The Ruins is another banger, honestly, and much like New Girl it's not a flawless script but it is a story that does hit the right notes when it needs to. Split into two plots, one thread (the main one) follows Yvonne on her essentially going rogue while she's tracked down by Torchwood agents due to the effects of the last story (It's a three-parter, I'm trying to be as vague as I can with spoilers.) It honestly rules, and is essentially similar to See No Evil in that it's the "Yvonne is a badass episode." I don't think you can really complain about an episode where Yvonne gets to shoot a lot of people and go on the run from the government, and also have a fricking motorcyle chase with a tentacle monster. She's paired with Ianto's flatmate, a new character named Soren, who's relationship to Yvonne feels rather unique, as he's somewhat similar to Andy but in other ways rather not. He's essentially a character for Yvonne to bounce off of and it works well. Yvonne being on the run is a fantastic choice as her character, while great at the top, is always entertaining when she's scrounging for power in anyway she can get. The story uses her merciless attitude and yet her compassion to give the episode it's strongest moments. Damian Lynch's turn as Kieran is startlingly different from episode one, and that could be considered a problem if not for the fact that the character he is now compliments the story so well, giving weight to the events of New Girl. So all in all, Yvonne's plot is pretty much perfect. Ianto's plot of the story is frustratingly thinner and is probably responsible for most of the problems of the episode. When Ianto, Pippa and Dave go on a training trip (an "away day," they call it) to have "teambuilding," and they're paired with an obnoxious team organizer named Ziggy who opens the day telling them to do wacky things about themselves, they're shocked to find their new gun exercise is testing live weaponry and they could die any moment. This part of the episode feels not only disjointed from the other half of this one, but it feels partially disjointed from New Girl as well due to how little sense it makes. This potentially infuriating addition to a story that was fine as it is is saved by a remarkably poignant conclusion that actually had me rather sad. As it is though, I'd almost wish this set was 6 half hour parts instead of three one hour plots, because in both of these episodes there is a mild sense of disjointedness. Considering Torchwood Soho would later pull this, it seems to me like the most logical outcome. The material is good, I just feel that if there was a stronger separation and more fleshing out of each individual piece (which I'm still not sure how it all fits together yet) it would be to the story arc's overall benefit. As it is, Through The Ruins validates most of my problems with New Girl, and although it raises some new ones, the future of the series looks only positive from here. 8/10

Uprising by Matt Fitton

Wow. This may be the best boxset long story I've ever picked up, and it comes to a downright majestic conclusion in Uprising, which is difficult to talk about as most of what makes it truly awesome, comes at the conclusion of the tale. Even what I found to be the flaws in Through the Ruins, much like New Girl, seem to be negligible in context. The ultimate flaw with Before The Fall is likely the disconnect between the A and B plots in the second episode, as well as that episode one feels like two stories, the story of Rachel's first day, and then the story of Yvonne's fall from grace. As such, the only issue with the arc I can really give is this aspect of pacing, which I can hardly think anyone could really be pissed about, especially since it's a problem later fixed in releases like Parasite and Ashenden. Uprising doesn't feel like two distinct plots like the first two tales did, it has so much to do, but that's not to say it doesn't have a distinct cliffhanger in the center waiting to be used as well (Torchwood going into Red Mode, the alien's arrival.) It's so hard to talk about Uprising, like seriously, as a lot of it is stuff I don't want to spoil. It's ultimately exquisite Yvonne content where she gets to literally girlboss and gaslight her way back to the top of Torchwood One, and to my surprise, Ianto is used quite nicely too. Ianto's relationship with Yvonne is fascinating, as it's very much him in a phase where he's still in universe the coffee boy, and whilst we know Ianto's depths, and his cleverness, which is shown apart, unlike Torchwood Three, Torchwood One has a very serious hierarchy, and Yvonne dominates these stories. There are a few things keeping Uprising from bonking up to a 9, like the aliens, which although are delightfully camp, don't always fit the atmosphere of this one, especially when their entire schtick is complaining about their hotel in a story that otherwise is glued to the dramatic. But really, this one just closes phenomenally, and if the first set is anything to go by, Torchwood One maintains the high level of quality kept in the Torchwood Monthly Range and The Story Continues Sets. God. It's almost as if Torchwood works as serialized storytelling or something. That'd be wild, and it's definitely not a thing that was done to universal acclaim on television or anything haha: 8/10 

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