Totally Frakked: "Torchwood" And The Rampaging Sex Monster

Torchwood
Title: "Day One"
First Aired (US): 09/15/07

Let's face it; "Torchwood" is a dirty show.  The first episode was a little naughty, but number two comes in with double the double entendres and a sex-crazed alien that would make Captain Kirk blush.  There's some girl-on-girl action, enough straight sex to choke a frat boy and continuing discussions of Jack's ambiguous sexuality.  All that, plus plenty of action and a not bad emotional punch; "Torchwood" keeps itself busy.

Having followed Gwen Cooper through her recruitment into Torchwood, we now get to follow her through her first day, and as you might guess, it's a doozy.  After witnessing a meteorite crash to earth, she heads out to investigate it with Jack and the rest of the Torchwood crew.  When a joke goes awry she ends up cracking the meteorite and letting the alien... gas... thing leak out.  That sort of thing is never a good sign.

The alien gas cloud possesses a weepy girl standing around outside a club, who then proceeds to head inside and shag a random stranger until he explodes, literally, into a little pile of ash.  This news makes it to the Torchwood bunch, who head to the club to investigate.  In order to get the normal authorities out of the way, Jack has a body pulled out of storage to fake a suicide for the random dead guy at the club.  Gruesome, but effective.

There's a CSI-style investigation, full of technobabble and search radii, but the team eventually track the sex-alien possessed girl -- her name is, improbably, Carys -- to her home and pen her up in a holding cell.  This works out great except poor tortured Carys is putting out such a high dose of pheromones that Gwen is forced to make out with her in the cell.  Luckily for Gwen, only male orgasms will satisfy Carys' need for energy.  Hey, I told you it was a dirty show.

Of course, as is usually the way of things, Carys eventually escapes, tricking poor Owen into letting her out with those deadly pheromones of hers. Of course, this is only after some back and forth between Jack and Gwen about treating Carys like a human being and the introduction of a curious mystery about Jack's obsessive concern for a severed hand in a jar.  No, really.  A severed hand.  The team also figures out that the thing inside Carys will eventually make her pop like a balloon, and that the alien can't survive in our atmosphere without a host body.

Carys, in a gruesomely funny coincidence, works in a sperm donor clinic, so after she devours her ex-boyfriend she heads into the office to do a little "overtime."  The team is hot on her tail (so to speak) the whole time, and along the way Gwen cooks up a strategy to trick the alien.  When they arrive, Jack lays some kind of spooky, magical kiss on the alien, which makes her pass out and Gwen invites the alien to possess her body instead.  When the alien leaps out of Carys, Gwen tosses out a portable jail cell and traps the gaseous beastie until it kicks the alien bucket.  It's all very tidily wrapped up.

Well, mostly tidy, anyway.  Gwen's still feeling a little conflicted about killing creatures, even evil gaseous ones, and she's very curious to figure out exactly what is up with the mysterious, immortal Jack.  The two share a brief kiss after Jack helps her save Carys and the tiny, quiet smile on his lips afterwards is enough to make you suspect there will be more to that story.  The leads are already shaping up to be compelling, interesting characters, and in between all the sex, guns and aliens in this episode, there was plenty of character drama.  All in all, a nice blend.

Comments

[Jack]

small nitpick: it's Jack who tosses out the portable jail cell, not Gwen (she's just as shocked at the outcome as the alien).

[pfyre]

"she's very curious to figure out exactly what is up with the mysterious, immortal Jack. The two share a brief kiss after Jack helps her save Carys and the tiny, quiet smile on his lips afterwards is enough to make you suspect there will be more to that story."
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oh puhleeze - Gwen and her cow eyes too quickly start to grate on everyone's nerves... Jack deserves better and fortunately GETS someone loads better!

:D