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STORY PLACEMENT THIS EPISODE TAKES
PLACE BETWEEN THE TV
WRITTEN BY CATHERINE TREGENNA
DIRECTED BY ANDY GODDARD
RATINGS 3.79 MILLION
RECOMMENDED PURCHASE 'THE COMPLETE SECOND SERIES' BLU-RAY DVD BOX SET (BBCBD0040) RELEASED IN JUNE 2008.
BLURB An alien with the power to change memories infiltrates Torchwood, can the team save themselves before it's too late? With Captain Jack caught up in memories of his lost family, and Gwen struggling to remember Rhys, it takes Jack’s love of Ianto to reveal the truth. But there's always a price to pay.
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Adam 13TH FEBRUARY 2008 (50-MINUTE EPISODE)
Some of Torchwood’s most engrossing episodes to date have come from the pen of Catherine Tregenna. However, even when faced with the unenviable task of scripting two back-to-back episodes, the Welsh playwright manages to deliver two magnificently diverse and enthralling science-fiction stories.
Whilst admittedly it took me a while to figure out what the hell was going on here, once I’d ‘got it’, I found myself captivated by this story. Adam, an alien being whose origins are not really explained (save for a passing reference to the Void), infiltrates the Hub by planting false memories in each team member’s head. The trouble is that in pushing these new memories in, he squeezes old memories out. Gwen forgets all about Rhys. Owen forgets how badly his mother treated him in his youth. Tosh forgets her lonesomeness. This serves as a brilliant device not just to depict the regulars in a new way, but also to explore the age-old argument of ‘nature versus nurture’.
“He didn’t exist until two days ago.”
Take Owen, for example. Free from the memories of how badly his mother treated him, he loses all his scorn and his scepticism. He also becomes nervous and nerdy, overcome by his unrequited feelings for Tosh. Burn Gorman seems to have relished the chance to play his character differently; he imbues the ‘geek’ version of Owen with an awkward amiability that seems unsettlingly proper for the character.
It isn’t all fun and games though as Adam has Ianto thinking that he is a serial killer. With vivid memories of unspeakable acts playing out before his eyes, Ianto begins to look like a murderer. He begins to act like one. There’s one particularly harrowing scene where Jack gives Ianto a lie detector and realises that he truly believes that he is a killer. Gareth David-Lloyd’s performance in this episode is truly haunting.
Even Gwen and Tosh, the former minus a relationship and the latter plus the same, are very different people as a result of their modified memories. Gwen treats her fiancé Rhys like a stalker, while Tosh walks around with her nose in the air, confident to the point of arrogance now that she believes someone loves her.
“I searched for Gray for years… I never found the body… I let go of his hand… It was the worst day of my life.”
However, as intriguing as all of the foregoing is, Adam will doubtless be remembered as the episode that first gave us some insight into Jack’s formative years, hundreds of subjective years ago in the distant future. The Boeshane Peninsula, first mentioned in the Doctor Who episode Last of the Time Lords, is realised beautifully by the production team. It feels very familiar, yet remote. It has the sense of being some far-flung oilrig out in the Middle East; a haven for privileged westerners. It may only be a fleeting glimpse into Jack’s past, but it is certainly an insightful one.
In the context of the episode, the way in which Adam inadvertently restores (only to corrupt) some of Jack’s long lost memories works splendidly, but in the larger context of Doctor Who mythology, the weight of some of the revelations here mean that Jack’s sacrifice at the end of the episode as he swallows those amnesia pills is all the more traumatic.
Having Jack find these memories only to lose them again also works fantastically from a storytelling point of view. Whilst Jack may have recovered these memories only to lose them again, the audience still remember. And I’m sure that I’m not just speaking for myself when I say that Adam has served only to further whet my appetite for the inevitable, and I would imagine impending, Jack mythology episode(s). Has John really found Gray, Jack’s little brother? And if so, is he alive or dead? Who were the creatures that ravaged the Boeshane Peninsula? And why were some of Jack’s memories hidden? And by whom? I have said it before and I shall say it again – as things stand, Captain Jack is cloaked in far more intrigue than a ‘mysterious’ Time Lord that I could name. Well, maybe not name, but...
And so once again, Tregenna and Torchwood make for a tremendously action-packed and affecting fifty minutes. If this show keeps churning out episodes of such soaring quality, then Doctor Who really is going to have to do something spectacular come spring to top what is turning out to be an astonishingly first-class season of television.
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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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