STORY PLACEMENT

 THIS EPISODE TAKES

 PLACE BETWEEN THE TV
 EPISODES "KISS KISS
 BANG BANG" AND
 "TO THE LAST MAN."

 

 WRITTEN BY

 JAMES MORAN

 

 DIRECTED BY

 COLIN TEAGUE

 

 RATINGS

 3.8 MILLION

 

 RECOMMENDED 

 PURCHASE

 'THE COMPLETE SECOND 

 SERIES' BLU-RAY DVD

 BOX SET (BBCBD0040)

 RELEASED IN JUNE 2008.

 

CLICK TO ENLARGE

  

 BLURB

 When a burglary

 turns into a

 slaughter,

 Torchwood suspect

 alien involvement.

 Who is Beth, and can

 she be as innocent as

 she seems? But when

 the investigation

 escalates into a city

 -wide assault, Jack

 realises that the

 whole planet is in

 danger.

 

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Sleeper

23RD JANUARY 2008

(50-MINUTE EPISODE)

 

 

                                                       

 

 

The second offering of Torchwood’s second series is far less contentious than

the first, and as a result it will appeal to a much wider audience. Sleeper, by James Moran,

has a much tighter plot than the preceding episode, but more importantly it is also a much more traditional science-fiction / horror story.

 

 

“She has no idea she’s not human.”

 

The ‘Sleeper Agents’ are certainly an remarkable creation, but I don’t think that they would have been half as effective as they ending up being without Nikki Amuka-Bird’s emotionally intense performance driving the story forward. Here we have a woman - Beth - who has never been ill, never been to a hospital, never even had a needle puncture her skin. And why? Because she is an undercover alien killing machine and she does not even know it.

 

Moran manages to delicately balance Beth’s emotional turmoil with the more melodramatic ‘alien invasion’ element of the plot. Arguably it is Beth’s heartbreaking story that makes the episode so memorable - the accidental killing of her husband and her ensuing death wish are just the icing on the cake really; it is the knowledge of what she truly is that destroys her. From the moment Jack tells her what she is, she is doomed.

 

 

“It’s not just her. She’s part of a cell and its activated.”

 

That said, images of the Sleeper Agents rampaging through Cardiff do leave their mark. I am not sure whether it was deliberate on the part of the writer or director Colin Teague, but at times I was reminded of the Terminator movies – particularly so when Jack revealed his rather inelegant run ‘em over solution. Further, little touches like the mother letting go off her pram as she is ‘activated’ really give the episode a distinct sense of horror that extends well beyond the gore. Hearing the car plough into that pram is just horrible.

 

I think what makes Sleeper work so well though is that it manages to show Jack and Gwen’s contradictory attitudes each contributing to the resolution of the problem. It is not so blatant

a case of Jack’s hard pragmatism versus Gwen’s soul as it probably would have been were this episode set in the first series – it’s more a case of good cop, bad cop = job done.

 

 

Finally, it is difficult not to review Sleeper without commenting on some of the beautiful little character scenes. The already notorious ‘Mind Probe’ scene is particularly outstanding, as

is Owen’s “let’s all have sex” moment. And just when Ianto thought the end of the world could not get any worse…

 

On the whole, Sleeper is an altogether different animal from Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang – the incongruent titles tell their own stories. My personal preference, I am slightly embarrassed

to say, is for the much more mythology-driven (and substantially more lewd) season opener, but all the same Sleeper cannot be regarded as anything but a positive triumph.

 

Copyright © E.G. Wolverson 2008

 

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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