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Cyberwoman

5TH NOVEMBER 2006

(50-MINUTE EPISODE)

When the list of Torchwood episodes was announced, I’m sure that I wasn’t alone

in having my interest piqued by this one. I’d never really considered the possibility of Doctor Who monsters showing up in Torchwood; I thought that the production team would dismiss an idea like that out of hand as ‘fanwank’. After watching this outstanding episode, however, I’m glad that they didn’t.

I like this episode for two reasons. Firstly, Chris Chibnall’s Cyberwoman is the first televised show to truly explore the horrors of cyberconversion. Relatively ancient Doctor Who novels like Iceberg and Killing Ground as well as the more recent BBCi webcast Real Time (with which Cyberwoman has much in common) have gone into all the grizzly detail, but no matter how good one’s imagination is, seeing the results of it on screen in live action is a different matter entirely. Talk about gore; that Japanese Doctor’s face was not a pretty sight once Lisa had finished with it!

Secondly, two words: Ianto Jones. Until now he’s been only a peripheral character, yet this episode manages to afford him so much depth. We learn that during the battle of Canary Wharf, his girlfriend Lisa was working in Torchwood Tower when she was captured by the Cybermen and given a quick and botched upgrade. Ianto managed to rescue her and bring her Cardiff, where until now he has kept her hidden in the basement in the hope that one day he can make her human again. The trouble is, in this episode she gets loose and wants to ‘upgrade’ everyone in reach!

“I clear up your shit. No questions asked and that’s how you like it.

When did you last ask me anything about my life? Her name’s Lisa. She’s my girlfriend…”

Gareth David-Lloyd gives an absolutely spellbinding performance as Ianto, which John Barrowman matches every step of the way. Cyberwoman is so well written because when watching it, you can’t help but feel for Ianto and hate Jack for what he is doing. It’s like a big brother telling his little brother to keep away from a girl that he knows is trouble; only in this case, the trouble is multiplied by about a million fold. It also feels like Jack is being forced to take Ianto seriously; he has probably never thought about him as being anything other than his tea boy and lackey – I certainly doubt that Jack thought him capable of such duplicity.

“If she’s alive, you execute her. You execute her or I’ll execute you both!”

Jack’s brutal reaction is necessary, and as an audience we know this, but it still does not stop us smiling when Ianto punches Jack in the face and tells him “One day I’ll have the chance to save you, and I’ll watch you suffer and die.” I don’t know how these two are going to be able to resume a normal working relationship after this episode; things are certainly going to get interesting.

On the action front, Cyberwoman is surprisingly slow for the most part, though the short, sharp bursts of action are well worth the wait. Gwen’s harrowing experience trapped in the cyberconversion unit is utterly chilling, as is the Pizza Girl’s grisly end. Even Jack himself suffers multiple deaths at the hands of Lisa – it’s almost as if he wants to die. And on what other show (except maybe Doctor Who) would you see a cybernetic woman fighting to the death with a pterodactyl? We even get a different sort of ‘action’ as Gwen and Owen get it on whilst hiding from Lisa. As Owen puts it, “kind of embarrassing” considering that they were not killed. Gwen is certainly getting about…

All things considered, Chibnall’s Cyberwoman is an astounding piece of television and I really can’t see why critics and fans alike are giving it such a roasting. As far as I can see,

it is four hits out of four for Torchwood.

Copyright © E.G. Wolverson 2006

E.G. Wolverson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

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