‘There are opportunities here, with the Institute.’ A portmanteau explaining how each of the team came to join Torchwood Three, wrapped in a framing narrative reintroducing Captain John in time for the series finale. It’s a neat enough way of spending time with the whole team before writing two of them out, but like most of the vignette episodes none of the individual elements has the time or character development required to make it anything more than passable.

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‘Why are you doing it? What are you trying to protect? What are you fighting for?’ A script that plays to the show’s strengths, with a focus on Gwen and Rhys’ relationship impacted by Torchwood; Gwen putting her police skills to practice to solve a mystery, and real lives intersected by the Cardiff rift. The result is easily Chibnall’s best work for the series, and a template of sorts for Children of Earth, with Jack’s involvement in a longstanding cover-up.

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‘All those acts performing for us. Part of history, trapped on film forever.’ P.J. Hammond’s second Torchwood script feels more like Sapphire & Steel than his first, with creepy circus acts stepping out of fading silent movies to hunt the living. Ideas of film capturing living history even as it supersedes it (the point being, travelling shows lost their audiences to the picture houses), and film being a medium where the past and present collide and allow malevolent Time to break through are exactly the kind of mystery medium atomic weights might have been assigned to investigate.

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‘Get back, you ugly bitch!’ The season’s comedy episode sees aliens crash Gwen and Rhys’ wedding, with the twist that Gwen’s heavily pregnant with one of them. The ensuring farce balances between comedy and soap opera, with an unwelcome return of Jack and Gwen’s unlikely romance plus Tosh’s tentative relationship with Owen, Thematically, it’s very loose – “relationships” include a cheeky hook-up with an alien shapeshifter, and Tosh having to bat away the unwelcome advances of Banana Boat.

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‘Now who are you and what do you want?’ Another episode that feels rooted in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and specifically Dawn’s sudden appearance in Buffy’s life at the start of Season Five. Adam’s purpose is – in some respects – even sadder. He can only exist if he’s remembered, and so he has to insert himself into Torchwood’s memories, in the process detaching great chunks of their real memories like melting icebergs.

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‘What is this, Scooby Doo?’ I haven’t watched this since broadcast and remembered it as being fairly risible. I was wrong: it’s very funny, angry and real. The scenes of Rhys in the Hub are particularly effective, as he braves Gwen’s wrath to offer Torchwood a route into busting open the illegal meat factory. But there are loads of great moments: Rhys observing Torchwood arriving on the scene of his lorry crash; Rhys confronting Gwen, which is written and played as a real couple’s row; Tosh’s increasingly unsubtle attempts to seduce Owen.

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‘Your life will be like a thread stitching time back together.’ A year after Doctor Who did its own First World War sacrifice story, Torchwood presents its own version, with Tommy Brockless plucked from 1918 by Torchwood, defrosted once a year for a check-up until the time comes when he’ll need to be sent back to meet his destiny, saving the future, and his reward, death in front of a firing squad. The complication: Tommy has found a reason to live in Tosh, and so heroic sacrifice holds very little appeal.

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