‘The Ark in Space’ is one of those Doctor Who stories that I remember as an apex of horror from my childhood; it has been literally over a decade since I last saw it, and fans don’t need to be told that with this series in particular we must revisit childhood with caution, lest we die broken-hearted. And, indeed, there were things that did disappoint me about ‘The Ark in Space’ – the model work is especially poor – but all in all, I thought it stood up rather well. It is not quite the classic of repute, but it is a thoughtful story, and creepy enough, especially considering its budget.

The main problems I had were in the first two episodes. This is not a great Sarah Jane story - she doesn’t do much except get into trouble, and Elisabeth Sladen’s squawking approach here is a bit tedious. The pace is sluggish, and, as I said, the exterior shots of Nerva really saddened me. (The CGI replacements on the DVD are improvements, sort of, but they still jar horribly with the overall production aesthetic.) Most of the interior shots, too, looked like they’d been filmed in a high-school band room – I know the spareness of design is deliberate, but the whole thing just looks cheap, even for Doctor Who. Still, director Rodney Bennett uses the camera very effectively – he peeks around corners, and from across rooms, in such a way that we’re never quite sure whether we’re getting a monster’s-eye view or not. Quite effectively scary.

But things pick up considerably in Episode Three, and the final two episodes are very watchable indeed. The narrative moves better, Sarah gets to crawl around in a shaft, and the mature Wirrn costumes/puppets work surprisingly well (especially considering how silly the dead queen looks in the early part of the story). Harry, although initially twittering, establishes himself as one of the most likeable companions – amusing in his Wodehouseian verbal tics, but certainly no idiot, and brave and serious enough too; in other words, Harry Sullivan may *talk* like an upper-class ass, but he’s not a *comic* character. And the handling of Noah’s ultimate fate, and his continued devotion to his mate Vira, is extremely moving.

But the most interesting thing about the story is its thematic content. ‘The Discontinuity Guide’ chooses to read it in an optimistic light, indeed calling it “Robert Holmes’s most optimistic script, where he defends humanity (the instinctive Rogin) against insect-like conformity.” One can certainly make an argument for this, but such a reading seems to ignore some of the script’s obvious ironies. ‘The Ark in Space’ ends on a happy note, it is true, and does so on the strength of selflessly ‘human’ actions on the part of Rogin and Noah. And yet casting the story as a battle between the ‘instinctive’ human and ‘insect-like conformity’ is a strange interpretation – at the end of the day, the human race is still more insect-like than ever before, segmented away into individual honeycomb cocoons, and led by the stiff, unimaginative Vira (perhaps the most ‘insect-like’ of the humans we meet). In fact, the whole point of Holmes’s story seems to be that humans are fighting the very thing they are becoming – his (very funny) choice to play the High Minister’s jingoistic hymn to humanity over Noah’s horrific transformation gives us a perfect symbol for the story’s horror and essential pessimism. Even the Doctor’s celebrated (if slightly florid) “Homo sapiens!” speech, delivered in the face of the human ‘hive,’ contains bitter insights into human adaptability (and its dangers), and Baker’s sarcastic reading of the speech backs up this interpretation.

And what of the Wirrn themselves? Well, their ‘conformist’ nature remains up in the air too. Of course, it is impossible to say just how much of the Swarm Leader’s discourse is ‘his’ own thoughts and how much is Noah’s, but it cannot be denied that there is a tragedy, even a poetry, in the creature’s account of their war with the humans and the destruction of their once-peaceful society. The Wirrn are not simple monsters; true, they cannot be considered entirely sympathetic, as their actions against Earth are motivated wholly by revenge. But it must be pointed out that the desire for revenge in itself is an emotion-driven mindset (or an ‘instinct’-driven one, if you prefer) and that really doesn’t support an ‘instinctive human vs. functional insect’ reading of the story. Yes, the Doctor ultimately sides with the humans – but he does so in the context of ambiguities that lend ‘The Ark in Space’ a most satisfying adult quality. 

Ultimately, an entertaining story, and an interesting one.

If 'Greeks Bearing Gifts' was ludicrous but entertaining, then 'They Keep Killing Suzie' is even more so. The episode opens with some obligatory gore, as Jack et al are called to a crime scene where two corpses are sprawled on a bed with "Torchwood" written in blood on the wall. As Swanson tells Jack, "Somebody's trying to get your attention", to which he grimly replies, "They've got it." Cue the title sequence and the vague promise of a gripping thriller of an episode. The episode continues in this vein for a time after the opening titles, with Swanson angrily telling the team, "Torchwood walks all over this city like they own it. Now these people are paying the price" before coldly walking out. The plot thickens as Owen finds traces of retcon in traces the killer's blood, then the resurrection gauntlet comes out of the vault and suddenly the episode becomes an absurdity. Again.

The team's decision to use the gauntlet to resurrect Suzie Costello, who memorably committed suicide at the end of the series' opening episode 'Everything Changes' initially seems like an interesting use of the series' continuity and a chance for Torchwood to lay some of its ghosts to rest. Much is examined here, from Gwen's guilt about Suzie's death (and the revelation that Suzie had previously had sex with Owen), to Jack's stupidity in giving a woman with a dying father access to the gauntlet, and it briefly looks like the episode is going to go down the route of redemption, as Suzie saves Gwen and asks, "Maybe I came back for a reason?" And then she turns into a scheming mastermind and the end episode becomes bonkers.

It's difficult to emphasise just how great an air of stunned disbelief I had when I watched 'They Keep Killing Suzie' for the first time. The revelation that everything that happens in the episode is all part of an elaborate plan that she put in place in case she died so that the team would resurrect her represents a plan of such Machiavellian complexity that it is hard to believe that she managed to hide her villainy for so long before her fatal confrontation with Jack, especially when this episode sees her gloatingly dispatch her father, and cackling maniacally as Jack fires shot after shot into her twitching body with a complete lack of success. Presumably, she never invited them to her undersea base and didn't bring the henchmen to work. No wonder Owen glibly remarks, "You've got to admit, that's not bad. I'm picking her for my team", which is of course the sort of flippant remark that anyone would make if his or her lover was rapidly approaching the verge of death.

Because briefly, in the middle of the episode, 'They Keep Killing Suzie' decides it wants to be a comedy. Realising that Suzie is alive because the gauntlet is letting her drain Gwen's life energy, and locked in the hub by Suzie's machinations, Jack and the team are able to make a phone call. Rather than, say phoning Gwen to warn her what Suzie is doing, they phone Swanson, a woman who intensely dislikes them, and is forced to explain, "We're locked in our base and we can't get out", a statement that Jack is forced to repeat whilst her sniggering colleagues listen in. Swanson is actually well acted by Yasmin Bannerman and works well as a character; it's interesting to see what a career officer with some knowledge of Torchwood makes of them albeit without knowing what they really do, although it does raise the question of why Gwen had never heard of them in 'Everything Changes' and why nobody seemed to be able to tell anything about them, even something vague like "they're a special ops unit". It's almost as though the script editor still isn't paying attention, which incidentally brings me to several points of contention about the episode which I'd quite like answering:

Why does Ianto, who until last episode was still miserably reflecting on the traumatic death of his girlfriend and threatening to kill Jack for his involvement in it, now not only appear to have gotten over Lisa, but go off with Jack for a shag? Why are a statistically unlikely number of team members bisexual? Will the series culminate in a massive orgy between the five of them? Why does Gwen develop a gunshot wound when the gauntlet transfers her life energy to Suzie? It's almost as though writers Paul Tomalin and Dan McCulloch is dressing magic up in technobabble. And why doesn't Gwen seem overly concerned when she learns that Torchwood will sequester her corpse and belongings when she dies, just mildly indignant?

In the midst of all this silliness, we do get a couple of scenes worthy of note; when Gwen's belief in heaven is shaken by Suzie's brutal statement that there is nothing after death, Eve Myles makes Gwen look suitably distressed. This later gives rise to an interesting tidbit as Suzie tells Jack before she dies for (presumably) the last time that "There's something moving in the dark, and it's coming for Jack Harkness, it's coming for you!" With all the various hints about Jack's undead nature, this is presumably all leading somewhere: as the season lurches erratically towards a finale, it will be terribly interesting to see if everything gets tied up neatly. Whatever the outcome however, 'They Keep Killing Suzie' feels to me like a typical Torchwood episode; utterly ridiculous, but somehow obstinately entertaining.

Another character piece, but a vast improvement on the preceding 'Random Shoes', 'Out of Time' benefits from having three strong supporting characters, who in turn are used to develop three of the regulars to good effect. Portraying Torchwood as a group of trans-temporal social workers, trying to help three displaced people, could have been dreadfully cloying and sentimental, but a thoughtful script by Catherine Tregenna and solid, but restrained direction from Alice Troughton, make it succeed.

The plot of 'Out of Time' concerns three travellers dragged through time when their aircraft flies into the rift, desperately trying to cope with their situation. Some humour is derived from this scenario (for example Diane asking "what does that mean?" when she sees the Smoking Kills warning on a cigarette packet), but this is not Adam Adamant Lives!; after the initial scenes of the trio learning about the wonders of the present day, it gives way to darker emotions, as John discovers that his son has dementia and ultimately decides to commit suicide, and Diane breaks Owen's heart and flies off, with only Emma seeming to ultimately adjust as she heads off to London in the end, brimming with excitement about the future.

Partly, this works because the three characters work, and partly because each is essentially partnered with one of the regulars, to develop their characters in the process. Louise Delamere' Diane is sassy, independent, and brave and in fact sufficiently more interesting than Toshiko and even Gwen that it is shame that she doesn't become a regular. She's actually ideal Doctor Who companion material, keen to witness new wonders and telling Owen that if the rift won't take her back and that there is no way home, "Then it'll take me somewhere new." More significant is the effect that she has on Owen, who gets a very good episode here and some much-needed development that will set him up for the rest of the series, as he falls in love for possibly the first time and gets his heart-broken. The fact that his previous relationship with Gwen is ignored does rather give the series an uneven feel, but nevertheless there are some nice moments such as when Diane pointedly waits for him to pull out her chair and when she asks (possibly anachronistically) who all his beauty products belong to, and he gets a relationship beyond the usual casual shag/fuck buddy set-up. In short, she forces him to be more than the slightly misogynistic pig that he has been thus far: he even tries to arrange flying lessons for her, which results in disappointment but is probably the most romantic gesture he's ever made, and buys her a dress, so it's understandable that he goes off the rails in the next episode after she leaves him. Realising that he is in love for the first time, he confesses, "I'm scared. I'm fucking scared."

Olivia Hallinan's Emma also works well, initially shocked by the differences between her own time and the present (resulting in some humorous scenes) but ultimately seeming liberated by it. Pairing her with Gwen for the episode means that Gwen lies to Rhys again, this time about who Emma is, which naturally enough comes back to haunt her when he finds out and wants to know why she doesn't trust him, angrily demanding, "Oh, is it to do with work? Do you even know her?" and noting, "What worries me is just how easy it seems to be for you to lie to me Gwen!" On the other hand, when Gwen and Rhys take Emma to a club, we also see them relaxing together for the first time since the series began. Eve Myles also gets to do some slightly comic scenes, and proves rather good at it, especially when Gwen ends up showing Emma some pictures to illustrate just how "sexual aware" people are nowadays. And very awkwardly tries to teach her about the pros and cons of casual sex!

For me however, it is Mark Lewis Jones' John, and his relationship with Jack, that really makes the episode. For once, Jack ceases to be a gun-toting innuendo-generator for the first time since 'Bad Wolf'/'The Parting of the Ways', as in the hands of a writer who doesn't seem to have the brain of an adolescent, he forms a genuine friendship with John, another man out of time, but without the sexual overtones that normally overfill Torchwood. John becomes a tragic figure, as realises that everything he has ever cared about has gone, most notably when he meets his demented son, and when Jack frantically insists that he can still make a life for himself and he replies, "I did all that Jack, years ago, when I was meant to". For once, Torchwood really feels like an adult version of Doctor Who by being mature rather than by combining sex, violence and science fiction, with John so clearly determined to kill himself that Jack finally sits and holds his hand whilst he peacefully slips away. We also get some decent insight into what life is like for Jack, living out of time, as he confesses, "It's just bearable. It has to be. Because I don't have a choice", implying that Jack has contemplated suicide but not done it simply because he can't find a way to kill himself.

Overall, 'Out of Time' is a mature and touching episode which goes some way to really fulfilling Torchwood's "adult" remit. Ironically, whilst the innuendo and rampant shagging is largely absent here, we get some nudity for the first time. Sadly it isn't Captain Jack or Gwen, which would have pleased most audience members regardless of gender or sexual orientation, it's Rhys.

After a pair of variable character pieces, Torchwood gets brutal and bloody again with 'Combat', written by actor Noel Clarke. Having earned some popularity as Mickey in Doctor Who, Clarke here earns even more popularity by wiping the floor with the professional writers who have written the rest of the series: Torchwood has proved itself a shaky and erratic venture despite its usual entertainment value and 'Combat' is easily the best episode of the series to date.

The plot of 'Combat' is basically Fight Club with Weevils, but Clarke makes it work very well by taking it in unexpected directions. It is fairly obvious to the audience from the title and other clues what is going on almost from the start, and waiting for Jack and the team (who think that the Weevils are being used as weapons to murder people) catch up might have been frustrating. But once Owen goes undercover and meets the mysterious Mark, we get the unexpected development of Mark guessing that Own is connected to "those two in the SUV" and not really caring; he still shows Owen what he wants to know, and although he tries to force Owen to enter the cage, there is no indication that he actually wants to kill him. Mark himself is a great character, with actor Alex Hassell perfectly cast in the role: he's simultaneously charismatic and oddly repulsive and the overall effect is of a charming thug. The motivation of the fighters ("too much disposal income, not enough direction, that's us") makes an effect contrast with the recent spate of megalomaniacs and psychopaths.

'Combat' is really Owen's episode and Burn Gorman, who has shown promise despite the fact that his character is intentionally but sometimes overwhelmingly annoying, finally comes into his own here. With Owen falling apart following after falling in love and then being abandoned in 'Out of Time', Gorman conveys his emotional turmoil very well, as Owen gets involved in bar fights, rudely and rather cruelly ends his affair with Gwen, and eventually becomes so nihilistic that he talks the gun out of Mark's hand with a smirk and casually steps into the cage, standing still as the Weevil tears into him. The fact that he berates Jack for saving his life at the end suggests that the character isn't going to quickly become all sweetness and light again any time soon, and suggests interesting directions for him the remaining two episodes of the season.

The rest of the team is not forgotten though, Clarke demonstrating a fine grasp of characterization. Gwen's relationship with Rhys starts to reach breaking point, from the pre-credits sequence in which they are having dinner together and Rhys realizes that she is ignoring him. He angrily tells her, "You're just absent" before swearing at her and thus causing her to furiously leave with Jack. Despite Jack repeatedly warning her not to let her life outside of Torchwood "drift", things are clearly reaching breaking point, as she doses Rhys with retcon so that she can tell him about Owen without permanently ending their relationship, before returning to the Hub alone and weeping into a pizza. Eve Myles is very convincing in these emotional scenes, as is Kai Owen as Rhys.

Jack meanwhile continues to play the leading man with panache, and is clearly enjoying himself when he answers the dead man's phone and casually promises to stop the group kidnapping Weevils. The team work well as unit here, with Toshiko gleefully monitoring Mark's background check on Owen and pointedly asking Jack if he'd be prepared to let a human get beaten up and abducted as bait in the way that he is with a Weevil. Ianto gets the least to do here, but even the Weevils get some development, as one of those help in the hub weeps pitifully in its cell as its fellows are tormented.

Director Andy Goddard does a fine job with the episode, the "Fight Club" scenes in the house and Owen and Jack's bar brawl looking convincingly brutal, although bar far the most unpleasantly violent scene is Mark's punching of the helpless chained Weevil, which is really rather disturbing. The best thing about 'Combat' however remains the near-perfect balance of plot and character, and the fact that the episode has a consistent tone throughout; Owen's fake jellied eels business adds a flash of humour, but it neither detracts from nor clashes with the drama. Sadly, Torchwood has proved that it can't maintain this level of quality, but with a second series already commissioned I fervently hope that Noel Clarke gets to write for the series again.

After all the adolescent shagging and innuendo that litters Torchwood like turds on a beach, 'Captain Jack Harkness' finally gives the series a mature and touching gay relationship, whilst continuing to develop Jack's character and building up tension in preparation for the series finale. The relationship between the two Captain Jacks is handled subtly and touchingly, and in a series that has seen a statistically unlikely number of the regulars demonstrating bisexual tendencies, it is very pleasant to finally have the issue of same-sex relationships addressed by a writer who, as in her previous 'Out of Time', appears to actually be an adult rather than a horny and sexually confused teenager pretending to be one. The mutual attraction between the Captains is underplayed for most of the episodes, and largely conveyed by the body language of actors John Barrowman and Matt Rippy, and is a genuinely touching example of unrequited attraction, with Jack telling his namesake, "I just think you should live every minute like it's your last" and nobly even persuading him to go after his girlfriend and kiss her goodbye. Even more touching is the climax of this subplot, as the pair kiss passionately, but does have one minor problem associated with it: it is virtually impossible to believe that an officer in the military in the nineteen forties would be stupid enough to kiss another man like that in front of a crowd of people, especially when that crowd includes his men, and it is, unfortunately, even more unlikely that they would then follow him into battle, which we know that they do from the minute that Jack reveals the circumstances of the Captain's death. Making a stand for equality is great; doing it in a story set in that era makes the writer look like a romantic fool.

Nevertheless, 'Captain Jack Harkness' is a very strong episode, and in addition to letting the star of the show get something approaching a meaningful emotional connection with somebody, it also asks fresh questions about him. The mystery attributed to Jack in the series has largely concerned the fact that his team-mates know little about him; the audience however knows that he is from a different time zone, that the hand in the jar with which he is so obsessed is the Doctor's from 'The Christmas Invasion', and that he can't die as a result of Rose resurrecting him in 'The Parting of the Ways'. What 'Captain Jack Harkness' does is reinforce how little even the audience knows about him, as we learn, "I went to war when I was a boy. With my best friend" and that the enemy ("the worst possible creatures you could imagine") forced him to watch his best friend tortured to death, and then they let him go. More strikingly, we also learn that we don't even know his real name. Although ironically, it's also at this point that Jack's refusal to tell anything more on the grounds that Tosh wouldn't want to know starts to wear thin, because the audience would clearly like to know.

In the midst of all of this, writer Catherine Treganna gives the rest of the team plenty to do. Whilst the sexual politics of wartime England are ignored, the racial politics are not as Toshiko faces inevitable problems in wartime England ("Why's George dancing with a Jap?"); interesting, the bile all comes from the wives and girlfriends of the soldiers rather than from the soldiers themselves. Tosh also gets to use her brain by trying to find a way to communicate across time, whilst Gwen gets to play detective, Owen determines to save his friends whatever the cost, and Ianto is forced to take desperate measures to stop him, insisting, "Jack would never allow it" when Owen starts trying to find a way to open the Rift. Unfortunately, in an example of just how ridiculously overwrought Torchwood tends to be, Ianto decides to try and stop Owen not by, for example, hitting him over the back of the head with the butt of his gun, but by actually shooting him, which seems a little extreme. Although in retrospect, this pales into insignificance next to the tripe that follows. The script also reminds the audience just how screwed up Ianto must be by this point, as he tearfully sobs, "Jack needs me!" having only previously been reminded about Lisa, which is presumably meant to count as interesting characterisation, but just serves as a reminder that the script-editor is a hack.

'Captain Jack Harkness' also introduces the profoundly sinister Bilis, a man who exists in two separate time zones and who has spun an elaborate trap that inexorable starts to close around the Torchwood team, as he skilfully manipulates them all. Director Ashley Way makes the scene in which Jack and Ianto find a picture of Bilis an impressively sinister moment, by reminding the audience that Gwen is alone with him in the theatre, and coaxes a supremely chilling performance from actor Murray Melvin. Melvin emphasises just devious and cunning Bilis is, and although Ianto realises, "It's a trap! Billis wanted you to find it" when Owen locates the missing piece of the Rift Manipulator hidden in his clock, he fails to prevent its use. All of which builds suspense up for the following episode, although one final annoyance concerns that the fact that we don't get an explanation for who built the Rift Manipulator: the nearest we get is actually in a deleted scene on the DVD release, and that only raises more questions as it raises interesting possibilities about exactly who built the Hub.

Overall, despite some flaws, 'Captain Jack Harkness' is a rather good episode. It benefits from a very polished production, with the nineteen-forties scenes invoking the look and feel of the period perfectly, right down to the music: the BBC is renowned for this sort of thing, but it's still appreciated. The end result is an episode that provides a promising set up for the series finale, as Bilis trap causes the Rift to open. Which makes it a real shame that the finale in question is about as entertaining as being kicked in the testicles.