‘We’ll face the future together.’ Cleverly, this uses the nature of Rani’s story – the older version remembering the key moment of her youth – as a mirror for Sarah Jane. For Doctor Who fans, there’s a lovely JNT style flashback to Sarah’s adventures The Time Warrior, Planet of the Spiders, The Hand of Fear and The Five Doctors. And there’s the promise that ‘he is coming back’.
‘Playtime is over.’ After the knockabout Prisoner of the Judoon, this is more substantial and interesting. The premise is similar to Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? in that it features another woman living in Sarah Jane’s house, and a crisis point in the past that has led to this moment. And there are some similarities in setting, too – the peeling Victoriana of the British seaside (here, Danemouth: a nice Agatha Christie reference).
‘Sarah Jane really does have a habit of meddling. It’s a pity she didn’t take up knitting instead.’ As usual, the second episode is a bit less interesting than the first, and I’m not entirely sold on the benefits of swapping a deserted and condemned council estate for the hi-tech surroundings of the nanoform factory. But this is fun enough, particularly the sub-plot of the Chandras coming face to face with the Judoon (Gita’s curtsey is peerless).
‘I am Sarah Jane. I’ve just been upgraded. And you will obey me.’ Third series, third opener that imports a monster from Doctor Who. This is a bit different because the Judoon (or at least this Judoon, Captain Tybo) isn’t the villain. He’s transporting the eponymous prisoner, Androvax, when his ship crash lands. The complication being Androvax is able to possess humans – giving Elisabeth Sladen the opportunity to play the baddie.
‘Sometimes the Doctor must look at this planet and turn away in shame.’ Victory at a terrible cost, so business as usual for Torchwood. It works better than some Doctor Who finales by virtue of being quite so bleak, even if there are strong Turn Left overtones to it (the UK collapsing into martial law as people are rounded up and bussed away). Clearly the murder of Jack’s grandson for the sake of all the millions of children being harvested by the 456 is more extreme than Donna choosing to sacrifice her own life to save the “proper” timeline, but in the end it all boils down to the same thing.
‘There’s nothing we can do.’ The first half of this episode is Torchwood Gogglebox, as the team watch the negotiations with the 456 and the British Government’s response. At first, they bargain with the lives of the easily forgotten: failed asylum seekers, one child for every million people. When the aliens reject the offer, and stick to their demands for 325,000 kids, the discussion descends into squabbling over exemptions and throwing the underprivileged under the bus. That’s one way to level up, I suppose.
‘We want your children. We will take your children.’ The first half of this episode is a mash-up of various popular TV shows of the 2000s. The Torchwood team turning out their pockets and going out to add to the stash is Hustle, Johnny’s own hustling is like something from Shameless, and the scenes set in the corridors of Whitehall come from any number of political thrillers (although Capaldi’s presence inevitably recalls The Thick of It). And is Hub 2 the same warehouse the Doctor, Jack and Martha hid out in during The Sound of Drums?
‘If you’re the good guys, who am I working for and why do they want you dead?’ The 456 remain noises off in an episode that focuses on Torchwood as fugitives, fleeing a conspiracy to take them off the board ahead of the aliens’ arrival. This makes for a gripping interlude as Gwen and Rhys hide out, Ianto makes covert contact with his family, Jack demonstrates his most remarkable restorative powers yet, and Lois flirts with becoming Torchwood’s Deep Throat.
‘I can survive anything.’ Almost a different show, this feels less like a sexy version of Fringe and more like a 21st Century reimagining of Quatermass, with a Nigel Kneale-ish streak of brutality. The cold open, children encountering what looks like an alien spaceship in 1960s Scotland, flips to present-day Cardiff and Gwen going about her business while around her kids on the way to school suddenly freeze and without much preamble we’re straight into the story.
‘The worse it gets the more I love it.’ This one almost feels like it was written as a counterpoint to Midnight. That went dark, with the Doctor failing to hold together a small group of humans stuck on a stranded bus: he even makes reference to it: ‘humans on buses, always blaming me.’ By contrast, this could be called Midday, and not just because it’s set in the blazing dunes of Dubai. Other than the unnamed bus driver, who gets croaked early on to establish the danger of trying to pass through the wormhole unshielded, all the passengers live because they work together, don’t turn on each other, and trust the Doctor. After the darkness of the back half of Series Four, this looks like a return to bright, light comedy.
Next Time... 