Torchwood 2.3 - To The Last Man

I've always wondered if her name was a joke (Tosh) considering how un-Welsh she looks. There's not much joking at her expense in this epsiode though, she gets the whole run with her at the center of almost every scene.

There's a nice start that is obviously where the episode will wheel back around to, but what you think you know and what happens are different things. Substantially the plot is unaltered, what events bridge the beginning and the end are pretty standard sci-fi/time rift fare. But what elevates this episode is the facade of normalcy being subverted by the reality of the situation coming to a sudden conclusion. Like most dramatic events it happens too fast for the consideration of feelings and reactions, ones that normal humans undergo daily. The strength of this storyline is that this issue is tackled quite adpetly and the hero/ordinary man theme is both well worn and well used before this, but fits this epiosde like a glove.

The jumping back and forth in time, the old vs new Torchwood is superb and the WW1 and WW2 nostalgia episodes work really well in this format. However this should be the last for a while I hope as it's like the 4th or 5th show like this across both versions. (Empty Child, Human Nature, The Finale to Torchwood 1 off the top of my head - but I feel I'm missing a couple of others).

The comfy situation between Owen and Tosh continues, with nice moments of not jealousy, but protectiveness. Though where this leaves the Owen & Gwen thing - I don't know. Owen is a bit of a whore it seems and cares not for anyone's feelings and seems to have little of his own. But the development with Tosh seems quite natural and fitting. Not so with Ianto and Jack, who seem to snog at the drop of a hat. It's been established that Ianto is a bit of a swinging chap previously, but it seems far too convenient to have this set up, as in season 1 he was all for love of a woman who he saved from cybericity, but then drops into Jack's pants in virtually no time at all. There are much better sides to his chracter this time round, but it leads me to the suspicion that we are beginning to get to know him so that when they kill him off we care more than we would have last year. That's just a guess, but I get the feeling someone is for the axe this year.

9/10, good effort all round, still too much annoyance in interpersonal fancies, but a devent story and a cracking pace.