The missing people in Cardiff are mounting up… but where? Gwen discovers a dark secret Captain Jack has been harbouring for many months...
Length 48’32”
First Transmitted
In unedited form at 10:00pm on Wednesday 19th March 2008, BBC Three.
In edited form at 7pm on Tuesday 26th March 2008, BBC Two.
The BBC Three broadcast was immediately after the BBC Two broadcast of From Out of the Rain
Guest Cast
Guest Stars: Kai Owen (Rhys Williams); Tom Price (PC Andy); Ruth Jones (Nikki); Robert Pugh (Jonah); Lorna Gayle (Helen), Young Jonah (Oliver Ferriman)
Writer Chris Chibnall
Director Mark Everest
Setting
The night of Jonah’s disappearance seven months earlier at the Barrage, and then across a week, including Monday 27th – as we known this season is set in 2008, that would place these scenes in October (and Jonah’s disappearance in March, just after Jack returned from his travels with the Doctor, and shortly after his 15th birthday – his DOB was 15th Feb 1993).
Did You Spot?
Although Gwen has referred to herself as Mrs Williams privately, she still seems to be using the Cooper name professionally – the end credits reflect this.
Twisted Reality
In reality, the Barrage doesn’t lead anywhere, so Jonah wouldn’t have been walking home through it. When Andy is showing Gwen the security camera photos from the night Jonah went missing, he refers to Jack as ‘Mulder’ the central character from The X-Files, an American show that Torchwood owes a certain amount to. During the first meeting for the missing persons support group, PC Andy quotes the line “If you build it, they will come”, from the film Field of Dreams. Jonah’s name is most likely a reference to the prophet, who was similarly swallowed and later spat out (in his case, by a giant whale). Jonah Bevan lived in the nonexistent Cliffs Rise in Penarth. The majority of the missing persons ads that Gwen looks at use the Gills Sans typeface – an unusual choice for the police, but not at all unusual for the BBC, who have adopted it as one of their standards.
Love is in the Air
Andy had feelings for Gwen from three years ago, which was enough to stop him turning up to her wedding. Jack and Ianto heat up the greenhouse – “Weevil Hunting” seems to be a euphemism to them. A fellow officer gives Andy a very sensitive touch when he’s on the phone to Gwen.
Torchwood Shop: Now Open for Business
The preprinted Rift Spike cards (see Fuck Ups) all have natty logos on them.
Cymru am Byth
Andy’s car has Helddu written on it.
To Live and Die in Cardiff
No one dies, but there are many people that were returned by the rift who are in varying states of health and injury, such as 15-year old Jonah Bevan, who disappeared seven months ago, someone called Earl, someone with the surname Trawley, a Bahri Aqgui, Geraldine Dallymore, a Caroline Hall, an Alice Devlin and a Saeed Taufeeq – there were two when Jack took over Torchwood, and a further fifteen since, many over the last year.
Quotables
Nikki: “D’you think I’m mad?”
Gwen: “No, I think you’d make a great Policewoman.”
Gwen: “He still fancies me.”
(Rhys laughs)
Gwen: “Don’t laugh, Rhys. That’s why he didn’t come to the wedding”
Rhys: “Bloody Hell, poor sod.”
Gwen: “Oi! I’m a very sexy lady. And you are a very lucky man.”
Gwen: “We’re the only ones who know the truth. We CAN help them. We don’t have to be this hard.”
Jack: “We could have used you an hour ago for naked Hide and Seek.”
Ianto: “Cheats, he always cheats.”
Weren’t You In?
Ruth Jones is an accomplished writer, actor and producer – although best known for her part as Mwfanwy in Little Britain (2003-5) she can also be seen in Nighty Night (2004-5), I’m With Stupid (2005-6), Saxondale (2006-7) and Gavin & Stacey (2007-8). Robert Pugh has been seen in over 70 productions on screen since Angels in 1976, including Survivors (1977), Casualty (1986-7), Murder Most Horrid (1996), Dangerfield (1997), Clocking Off (2000), Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), Hustle (2004) and The Time of your Life (2007).
Unanswered Questions
Can the police really remotely tap into the CCTV network or does Andy have a copy of that particular CCTV footage with him? How long could it take for Nikki to check all those tapes? Does she have a job? Why is Andy so shocked about the amount of missing persons? Wouldn’t the police have some idea as to the amount missing in the city at one time? Why does Jack have to react with such anger when he wants to keep the rift disappearances under wraps? How did Ianto find out the truth about the disappearances? Why is Gwen dismissive of Andy’s desire to help? How has no one accidentally discovered the base where Jack keeps the refugees from the rift? Why does Gwen give the facility her access code? How is she sure that it will mean anything to them? Although it may have been hard to secure funding to keep the refugees, how can Jack allow them to be kept in such filth and gloom? If they are capable of asking, what are the refugees told about their families? How many have died from their injuries? Who rescued them, and why? Since Jonah appears to have travelled through time, and references “a man” who rescued him in his “craft”, could it be..? How could Jonah conceivably have any time awake that he’d be coherent if his scream lasted 20 hours every day? Does he sleep ever? Why didn’t Gwen give Nikki Retcon if she preferred not to know the truth? (Is it possible Retcon is only safe in the very short-term? Say within 24hrs?)
Fuck Ups
The slips of paper that Tosh and Gwen use to mark as to whether there was a rift spike are obviously professionally printed. It’s doubtful that they’d have the time or the resources to have them printed up so quickly – they also all seem to have the same barcode number: 1010 198323 780150 TW07ASSQ5209. Lying about the nature of the injuries to the refugees doesn’t seem as though it could work, especially when Jonah is coherent enough to talk about what happened to him. Sure he looks like an “experiment gone wrong” but his story would say otherwise. If all the people were deemed psychotic, the staff should assume that they would be in a normal mental hospital. How could there only be seventeen patients in the facility? Given the amount of people established missing, that number seems very low. Jonah’s scream isn’t human. He couldn’t scream in that way without breathing. As far as we know, his DNA wasn’t altered on his trip.
Torchwood: Declassified Episode 2.11
Broadcast BBC Two, Tuesday 25th March, 7:50pm, immediately after the edited version of the main episode.
(writeup to follow)
Site Review by Arthur Penn
What a pleasant surprise – after the train crash that was From Out of the Rain (I really think I’ll just pretend this was a twelve-episode season, thankyou very much), I was uncertain what to expect from this episode. I prayed for it to be an improvement, but to be that it also had to be an improvement over Chibnall’s previous, tepid, efforts. Fortunately, it was.
We’re back to dealing with the heart of Torchwood: the lives of the characters. As usual, everyone except Tosh gets their moments – as it’s been a few weeks since Jack’s had anything of substance this is a welcome relief. Its a little unusual, and somewhat contrived, that Jack would be hiding all these people away from the team, but it does get John Barrowman to reply the dark broody role he had last year – one he seemed quite natural in, and an aspect that’s sadly missing this season. Rhys and Gwen have another classic argument (it could almost get repetitive, if not for Owen and Myles’ tremendous watchability), and Ruth Jones is so engaging as Nikki that she effortlessly distances herself from her well known Mwfanwy character (memories of which could easily have spoilt this episode).
This provides a very promising start to the Chibnall trilogy, and after cringing at the thought of three episodes in a row written by the lead writer, I’m now looking forward to Fragments and Exit Wounds immensly.
