Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to 500 year diary.
The only Doctor Who podcast that's separate from the government
outside the police and beyond the United Nations, because we're
just nerds on a couch.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Brendan.
I'm James and I'm Todd.
It's the 22nd of October 2006.
Tonight on BBC 3, a milestone in Doctor Who history, the 1st
broadcast ever of the 2nd episode of a Doctor Who spinoff.
But immediately before that, the 1st episode in which Gwen Cooper
meets that mysterious traveller in time and space known only as
Captain Jack Harkness, and begins to learn about the horrors of
the universe.
It's the 21st century, so it's time for Torchwood, series one
episode one, everything changes.
So, 18 months ago, we had the first episode of New Who, and now we
have Russell T. Davis introducing a second show in that period of
time.
How much do you think he learns from or relies on road?
as he's launching this new show?
I think he has learned a lot from Rose, or at least knows what
works from Rose, the modern day setting, making it a relatable
real world setting with alien stuff sort of thrown into it.
I guess it's it's the yeti on the Tooting Beck kind of approach
that worked really well with Rose, bringing strange alien things
into a normal world.
The difference, I think, is how dark and gritty and urban he makes
this world.
It's kind of that early to mid 2000s kind of, ooh, let's have it
all set in the rain.
Let's have it in car parks.
Let's make it real by making it dirty and dark and that's
something that the rose definitely doesn't have.
It's very true, James.
I think he's taking that, but he's also, he's got this really
strong female character investigating, right?
And you've got that in rows, like Rose being the central figure
and here you've got Gwen, and you've also got the same thing, like
back in an unearthly child with Barbara, also heading on the
investigation as well.
So those things are very, very similar.
But there's also unravelling certain beats throughout the
episode.
Like, I mean, Yanto's not introduced until about 19 minutes in.
So there's certain things that have to happen.
And I think he's actually learnt to space that out.
So just when you're perhaps, oh, where are we going with this
suddenly there's a new element and that's what I see in this in
particular.
But also it's also sort of a bit, well, we're going to be the anti
Doctor Who, so we're going to put the F-bomb in in the 1st 2
minutes and then and then later on, you know, it's back again
although the main characters don't necessarily say that word, it's
all supporting cast.
And then you've got the huge blood, right, of with the weevil and
the death of that particular orderly.
So there are certain things there where he's sort of saying, well
we're not Doctor Who, you know?
It's the same pattern, isn't it?
It's our female lead who is investigating someone trying to find
out something about them.
Yeah, yeah.
And on the topic of death, which is a big theme in torchwood.
Something a lot of fans commented on with, particularly Russell's
1st year on Doctor Who, is that whenever a character died, we
would usually cut away just at the last moment and the rest would
be left up to the audience imagination.
Torchwood starts with a corpse, who then dies again.
And also, as you say, Todd, the violent attack on the hospital
worker.
And then later on in the episode, we are explicitly told, yes, he's
died, yes, we've covered it up and thrown the body in the bay.
Yeah, I mean, original Doctor Who is about death, and I remember
interviews with Russell saying how important death was to the show
and it is very important to Rose, isn't it?
We get that visit to Clive, where Clive explains that wherever the
doctor goes, death and destruction kind of follow.
And of course, Clive is killed at the climax of the episode.
And so death is important to Doctor Who.
And it is a massive theme in this episode of tortured and in
tortured generally, obviously climaxing in series 4, which is all
about death or not death, as the case may be.
But essentially, I think what we get is sort of very similar beats
don't we?
We get an initial encounter with Jack.
So like an initial counter with the doctor.
Exactly.
So we get to see him enough that then she wants to investigate
further, then she actually ends up being allowed into the sort of
bass, and she gets to meet everyone, and then she gets to kind of
well, she doesn't really get to resolve the plot in quite the same
way as Rose does.
But it has that same shape, doesn't it?
It's got the initial encounter, searching for the main guy
eventually kind of meeting him properly and getting to know the
premise of the show and then being invited into the show at the
very end of the episode after the thing's resolved.
It also gives that character a chance to show its chops.
Like, it basically shows how good an investigator Gwen is.
You know, she finds a lead, she follows it, she goes to the pizza
parlour, she tracks down that lead, she inveigles her way into the
base.
So it actually allows you to show this is a strong, interesting
character who has agency and can motivate a plot.
And what's especially interesting about that?
To me, as I was watching, is that in terms of Rose, Rose, as she
sums up at the end of the episode, she's got nothing going on for
you know, she's in a dead end job.
She's not happy in her life.
She's not particularly happy in her relationship.
So going off with the doctor at the end is a given.
Gwen is respected in her work.
You know, there is that scene early on where she's bringing
everyone around the tees, but later on when she comes in, she can
just get one of her colleagues in the office to go look someone up
on a whim without having to go through regular processes.
And then when she comes in on the scene where they've determined
the murder weapon, she's speaking to a more senior member of staff
who just talks to her as if they're equals.
So she clearly has the respect there.
She has a brilliant partner in Reese, you know, who when he's
cooked her a nice dinner and she blows him off to go investigate
tortured and says she's working and then apparently comes home and
falls asleep hung over.
His only concern is, are you okay?
Here, have a cup of tea.
You really shouldn't be drinking that much.
There's no recrimination.
So he, you know, he's not Mickey, who's more interested in going
to see the football when, you know, Rose has had a traumatic
night.
So Gwen actually has a really brilliant life and still at the end
chooses the possibility of it being upended for this life of
weirdness.
And I think that's a very adult choice because I think all
children at some point have a fantasy of having a more exciting
life, but that's less encouraged in adults.
Yeah, we've given up on it really.
Yes, thanks for that, Nathan.
Looking at me.
One, 3 weeks into my marriage.
Congratulations.
It's interesting you talk about race because I think this is
something that Russell's probably learned from the rose episode
where Mickey is just so, like, just not well received at all.
And you just really don't like that character, whereas here you do
like Reese and you do see a strength in him and a relationship
there, which is actually, you get an inkling.
Well.
He's good for her, but is she good for him kind of thing?
Like there's that thing like with Rose where they're a little bit
taken boyfriend for granted or I'm not, yeah, that's probably
where I'm heading with that a bit.
And can I just say, this is off topic.
She looks so young.
Yeah, everyone's young.
I actually did check because we were commenting on this on the
thread.
So John Barriman is 39, Eve Miles is 28.
I think she's learning about his age.
Okay. turned 40 on the season finale of series one.
Oh, wow, didn't he?
Didn't have his 40th birthday cake?
don't know.
Or maybe it was his 38 that happened.
I'm just going with tbdb.com.
And everyone else is sort of Yanto's only 25, but everyone else is
in their sort of early 30s.
You think they look young, watch Torchwood declassified and see
the production team?
I think the director is incredibly young.
I did see a photo of him.
So it's not just Reese, of course.
It's Andy as well.
And so what Russell does here is exactly what he does in Rose
which is he gives Gwen a couple of ancillary characters, so Reese
and Andy, who are kind of from more recognisable TV shows, I think
who just get to talk normally about stuff.
I love that weird conversation where she comes home late and his
friend banana boat has been over and they've been drinking tea
because banana boat's not drinking anymore and he's sort of
settling down as we get older and more responsible. worried about
diabetes.
Yeah, all of that stuff is sort of terribly cute.
And that is very, very rustly.
And later on when she's obsessing about the knife after she's been
retconned and she's trying to, she's sort of vaguely remembering
having seen the knife before.
There's 2 conversations 1st with Andy and then with Reese that
she's just not listening to.
And they're just sort of burbling on quite happily talking about
absolutely normal things.
And so both of them are going to serve as a sort of grounding for
her for the rest of the show.
And I think the fact that she lies to Reese in order to go and
investigate Torchwood.
That's the 1st of a whole series of lies, like that becomes a kind
of thing in the show, doesn't it?
The fact that she is freezing him out, that she's, she doesn't
tell him about the torture job or anything like that, and it's
only revealed a bit later.
That's right, Nathan.
One of the things I'd have to say about Torchwood is that in my
memory anyway, that everybody's very unlikeable.
And she becomes very unlikeable very quickly, right, at certain
points in this season.
And I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing.
But we're not going to talk about the rest of the season here.
But everyone is not a likeable character.
In fact, when Tortured comes in, like the crime scene
investigators in their sort of, you know, the white suits and
stuff are super annoyed, the police are annoyed.
They stride in in that sort of stupid black SUV and their long
coats and stuff, you know, like with the word torchwood written
down the fact that shot of them walking in.
And it's sort of like they've been doing this forever, but Gwen's
never encountered them before.
I just get the feeling they've only been together for a very short
time.
That's my feeling.
Well, we do find out at the end of series 2 a little bit more
about their backstory, but here they all just think they're neo
from the Matrix.
It is a very kind of period.
Look, and perhaps a slightly dated period, look, to be honest.
It does date itself because the genes that they wearing have those
slight flares and all the male haircuts are like those degrade boy
bands at the time, where the hairs down rather than up, you know
what I mean?
So I, watching this, I did kind of go, yeah, this is of 2006 or
whenever, five, six, whenever it is, um, very much so.
I just got the feeling that they hadn't been together a long
time.
Can you remember, like, this is after the season 2 finale of
Doctor Who, isn't it?
Yes.
And so Torch would have been mentioned like quite a lot in Doctor
Who and there was a buildup and then Tortured one under Yvonne had
all been destroyed at Canary Wharf.
So did we have an expectation of what this was going to be like?
Did we think it was going to be like that?
I can't even remember.
Like, I'm just there going, like, was this a big shock, like, as
to how with the swearing and with all the sexual stuff, at least
with Owen and that sort of thing was.
Can you remember like what you?
I think it was pitched as being adult.
And so I think that's what we were expecting.
I think, you know, it was Doctor Who but post-watershed.
And so it was very, very much kind of advertised like that and
publicised like that.
I think, like, for me, I'm sure I've said this and bored people
with it before.
This is very much like a new adventure.
Yeah, there's early new adventures where it was Doctor Who, but
adults.
So we had to have lots of swearing and sex every 5 minutes and
just to show how adult we were, but it's actually not that adult.
It's kind of Doctor Who with some swearing, thrown in and some
blood, splattering everywhere.
It's basically the same universe, but we have to try and show that
we're different by being naughty.
Well, I think, let's get onto that a little bit later because I do
think that there is something really importantly different between
Doctor Who and Torchwood, that this episode does address.
But what I want to do now is to go into hard mode and travel back
in time to 1963 and say, what has Russell learned from an
unearthly child about introducing a new show in the Doctor Who
universe?
to an adoring public.
I thought you were going to say, what if Barbara came along and
she was swearing like nothing else in the junkyard about where
they were?
I thought you were referring to a different type of hardness.
So what has Russell learned from an unearthly child?
Yeah.
I'm gonna say that both stories introduce the phrase dimensionally
transcendental at roughly the same point.
Yep, that's true.
Write the 1st episode yourself rather than giving it to freelance
writer whose son will eventually go mad and try to sue you.
Do does Gwen enter the Torchwood hub, like inna Barbara, enter the
TARDIS, like at about the same point in time?
And maybe the same point in time that Rose enters the TARDIS as
well.
Because remember she enters it towards the end, but not sort of
completely towards the end.
I mean, there's something just incredibly similar about this.
We've got a time traveller who doesn't really die.
We've got a base that's bigger on the inside than the ants.
All right, it's underground, but it's bigger than the water tower
is in Roldal Plas.
I think also, I mean, you could argue that either Torchwood, or at
least Captain Jack are analogous with Susan in the plot, like
Susan is a mysterious kind of character who we're not sure who
they are and they're just odd. so we follow them into the plot and
they introduce us into the story.
Yeah, what prompts Barbara and Ian to go and investigate is that
Susan behaves in an unearthly way, and she has knowledge that she
can't possibly have, and here we have Gwen.
I think in one of the best scenes, like it's almost a jump scare
isn't it, where Gwen is watching them from the top floor of the
car park as they revive the dead body, not revive, not resuscitate
bring back to life the dead body, and Jack just shouts up to her
and says, what do you think?
And then she realises she's been spotted.
And it's like actually quite a shock to have her involved in that
scene, given how kind of physically distant they are in it.
But it's the same thing.
Isn't it the same weird otherworldly knowledge that the Torchwood
team have that prompts Gwen to investigate as well?
Yeah, and of course, she follows them down to the wharf and then
ultimately goes into the junkyard or into torchwood through the
door, offering pizza, and then she meets a whole bunch of
characters who are basically, I want to say arseholes because they
are like just toying with her every single one of them.
In fact, when Tosh and Owen burst out laughing because they can't
keep it up any longer.
They actually disrupt the incidental music.
Like the incidental music, which is creating all this foreboding
atmosphere, immediately goes away because they both lose it and
kind of spoil the whole ruse.
It's kind of interesting because the doctor, both in an unearthly
child and Rose doesn't have to try to be mysterious, you know, but
here, the torchwood crew, including Jack, acknowledge that they're
trying to be mysterious. and failing.
And Jack's response to that failure is to turn it into like a
setup for a porn film of, well, she's going to give me the pizza
and I'm going to say I don't have any money and what are we going
to do about this?
And thankfully something else then happens to distract us from
that.
I don't think it was porn.
Didn't he say you had a punchline coming?
I don't know about porn.
That is a porn setup, but I think maybe halfway through the scene
Russell realised what he was doing. he was going to like, oh, he's
going to have a whole punchline because I just realised I was
doing a porn setup.
Which, of course, then carries on with Owen later on with that
couple outside.
Jack is mysterious in the way that the doctor's mysterious
though.
I mean, he has a title, the way that the doctor does.
And he does have a mysterious past.
And I think we're supposed to understand that when Jack doesn't
report for duty in January 1941, I think we're supposed to
understand that that's because he goes off with the doctor in the
empty child, but it's possible that it's the 2nd time round in
1941 that he disappears as well.
Or that it's the original Captain Jack.
Oh, yes, there's... like, I mean, like, yeah, it's repeated. like
that's still a mystery, which Jack is it?
Yeah.
And that is setting it up because that is later this season.
Yes, isn't it?
So that's clearly planned.
And you know, that, I think, is Russell setting this series up to
be, yes, a Doctor Who spinoff, but also its own thing.
So if you've watched Doctor Who, you have an explanation for that
but then by the end of this season, as you say, James, we're given
an internal explanation so that you don't have to watch Doctor
Who.
It's funny, isn't it?
Because the world that they exist in is very much that world of
2005, 2006, when Doctor Who was just the most massive thing on
television.
And so in the bar when Jack drugs Gwen's drink, they're having a
conversation not only about the Christmas invasion, but also army
of ghosts and doomsday.
And so they've seen all of the Doctor Who that we've seen as
well.
They exist in the same world as us.
There's a great character moment, which is just perfectly rustly
too, where Gwen says, oh, you know, my husband thinks it's LSD and
the water supply and Jack says your husband's an idiot and her
reply is, oh, so you've met him then, which I just think is
absolutely adorable.
And not that mean spirited, you know, because I think that we
love...
I think we already know that Reese is a kind of loveable oaf.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, he's very sweet and likeable and a bit like uncomplicated.
It's also the way she delivers the line with his kind of smile
like I'm just, you know, playing.
I don't hate my boyfriend.
I just, you know, I'm just joshing.
There is a bit of flirting in that scene, though.
There's a lot of her looking at his mouth and all of that sort of
thing.
Like they are definitely kind of flirting at that point.
Well, I guess there's subtle setups for what is to come, but you
need her to be a likeable character in order to want to continue
on watching.
But also, you know, as Doctor Who fans, you've got all those links
back to the show and you've already seen the doctor's hand and all
that sort of stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think that scene is also really important too because, like
it's setting up this crew too, because, I mean, he talks about no
one is allowed to take out alien tech and then we get cutaways too
well.
Yeah, we're all we're all subtly lying to each other.
Something I find as an interesting parallel in that scene in the
bar is in Rose, when Rose is following the doctor back to the
TARDIS after the hand attacks him in her flat, he says to her
forget me, go home.
Yeah, okay.
Now here's the thing.
The doctor, at this stage, doesn't enforce it.
Jack, on the other hand, is enforcing it.
Jack is not only saying forget me.
He's saying, I'm going to make you forget me, but in such a way
it's this morally gray thing of, you know, he's drugging Gwen, but
at the same time, he is doing it to protect her because when she
says, I will tell someone else.
He's like, do you want to involve someone you care about?
And I like that it's morally gray.
At least it's morally gray, unlike the other drugging that happens
around this time in the episode.
Well, let's get to that in a second.
I think what's interesting is that both Rose and Gwen are actually
initially rejected.
So what we used to, you know, that sort of Joseph Campbell
Monomith thing, where someone is special or chosen or something
and they end up assuming the mantle of a hero at the end of the
episode, and both rose and everything changes are a bit like
that.
But instead of Rose and Gwen being reluctant, like initially
rejecting the idea, but being forced to nevertheless adopt the
role, they're actually rejected.
They're actually told no, and they persist, nevertheless, and then
they kind of show their value to, you know, the doctor and Jack
respectively and end up being invited on board.
So I think that that's, you know, that's another beat that the 2
shows have in common.
All right, well, let's talk about what distinguishes.
Torchwood from Doctor Who.
And I think that in addition to the fact that we open on a corpse
and that there's a lot of blood and so on, there is what we've
started to talk about, which is the problematic behaviour of the
characters.
So I want to talk about Tosh.
She seems to steal a scanner and she, why?
And she just scans a book in like you do?
And a book that's in the public domain.
She is a massive nerd and she doesn't know at the public domain. is
true.
So it's a tale of 2 cities.
I think she's reading it.
Like, I think that she's reading the book.
So she scans the book, but as she sees the pages flick past.
Yeah, yeah, I think we're getting sort of reactions from her as if
she's reading the book.
But it is the nerdiest possible thing to take home.
So Susie's taking home the resurrection glove to resurrect a fly.
Yeah, she kills a flying resurrector fly.
We learn that she is doing other things with the respect.
But at this point in the episode, it's like, oh, wow, resurrecting
a flight, oh, reading a book.
What's the Anto doing?
Oh, just cleaning up after them.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, he doesn't do it because he's a good boy.
He doesn't...
But, Owen, I think, I think, well, so the Owen thing, like, there's
a problem with the Owen thing, and it's a shame because it's
nearly funny.
Like the idea that Owen is bisexual and is clearly excited to have
both of the members of the couple lusting after him, although...
Sorry, I'm laughing because I'm, I'm just thinking of that guy's
words in the episode, like they both want poems so bad.
I'm gonna have you or whatever it is.
I'm going to have him first.
Burn actually doesn't play it as if he's into being kissed by the
guy.
He goes rigid and stuff like that, but definitely the script has
him go, quick, let's get a taxi.
And so clearly he's going to go home with both of them and have
sex with both of them.
And the issue is that there aren't really sprays that you can
spray on yourself that make you irresistible to other people and
make them definitely want you to have sex.
And if there were, we don't know whether that would be right or
wrong, because the whole thing really depends on, they're going to
regret it afterwards or not, they're both enthusiastically giving
consent, but in what circumstances it isn't like drugging people.
I mean, it's very deliberately a thing he sprays on himself and
not something that he gives them.
But I think it's it doesn't work and you could never, ever do it
in a 1000000 years now.
Yeah, still, it's still space roofing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think that's it.
I think Russell has sort of considered, okay, oh, what if there
was pretty much an alien roofie.
Oh, but no, I can't have him roofie someone, but what if he
roofies himself and sort of writes that down and then it gets
filmed and then it gets editing?
And I like to think at some point during screening, someone went
oh dear, no, this still hasn't quite, this hasn't quite hit what
we wanted, but it's too late now.
We still have to give bird a scene.
Because you're still having those other characters be influenced
by it.
And after that effect wears off, are they going to feel like
they're being violated?
Yeah, that's exactly.
And what but what if they went, wow, that was absolutely
incredibly hot, darling, let's pick up some rando again.
You know, like because it never happens.
Like, you know, what if Owen's consequence was during the course
of the season, we find out he is now dating this couple, but
actually really doesn't want to, but they're both into him, even
without that stuff.
You know, that that's a consequence that gives those minor
characters power in the situation.
But I kind of get the impression that it's a bit like the burping
bin in Rose in that. okay, we have to include this now because
it's part of the plot that let's never speak of this again.
No, the burping bin is brilliant.
I didn't say it wasn't a great thing.
I said the production team were embarrassed by it.
Actually, sorry.
Probably not the burping bin.
The highly plastic Mickey.
Yeah, he is a bit too plastic at that point.
So, I mean, it works in the sense that we're trying to show that
they're kind of horrible people and they're doing the wrong
thing.
And remember that the objection that Gwen has just raised a
torchwood is that how do we know they're not going to use the
alien tech they get for their own benefit and then we see them
doing exactly that?
And so at the end of the episode, you know, we not only lock up
the knife and the resurrection glove and declare that it's never
to be used again, but they shamefacedly hand in the scanner and
the sex spray.
That's all very true.
And I think it's also setting the show apart from Doctor Who in
the fact that we are going to have alien technology that we can
use, like because it has to come to us.
And also the fact that we are going to be in adult situations, in
bars, et cetera, with bar brawls and like an earlier in the
episode, but also, you know, prepared to go out to get dates or
whatever we need to do, you know?
Whereas that doesn't really happen in Doctor Who.
Don't you think that bar brawl?
So that bar brawl happens and there's sort of some comedy chats
between Andy and Gwen about what CSI Cardiff would look like.
But in that, in that scene, she gets hit and she falls and hits
her head and it's then after that that all of the stuff happens in
the hospital as if she's now in a kind of slightly odd state where
her experiences can't be relied on, you know, she's had a blow to
the head and then all of this weird magical stuff starts
happening.
Don't you like how magical it is?
Like she has to go into the sealed off section a bit like Paul
McGann in the telly movie, right?
where nobody else is supposed to be around, but, you know, still
the orderly comes up and, and, and that whole sequence with the
Star Trek alien masking.
I'm there going, really, just run.
Just run away.
So this is another thing that actually it shares with Rose.
Remember that the autons are in rows because they look like
students wearing masks.
You know, they're students, they're being silly.
That's rose's theory that she comes up with in the lift with the
doctor.
And that's the reason why Russell had humanoid aliens so that they
wouldn't necessarily, definitely be aliens until it was sort of
revealed later.
Here you've got the weevil.
It turns out this weevil is called Janet. we know that?
that. later.
Oh, we did fight it out later after Janet Fielding.
And it's we do have that thing where it's a mask you're wearing a
mask and stuff.
So it looks like a person because it's sort of distant.
It's wearing coveralls as we come closer to it, then we start to
rationalise it by saying it's sort of a fabulous animatronic
mask.
In fact, it's merely an adequate animatronic mask.
But, you know.
I think it actually holds up better than some of the CGI, like
Jack standing in front of the fountain towards the end, like, you
know, when he's come up in the lift, like I kind of looked at that
and I went, it's a bit ropey.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, this was Doctor Who's 1st production in HD.
But some of the CG looks like it's been done in standard death.
Right.
I think you're right there, Brendan.
As well as agreeing with you, Todd.
Jack coming up in the lift at the end, to flash forward for a
moment, actually really breaks the tension for me because it looks
hilarious.
Like, it just looks like he's been slapped on there, like Anthony
Ainley, behind Tom Baker in the Pharos project in Magopolis.
But there's a, there's another bit where Jack and Gwen are 1st
taking the lift up.
And it's just this, it's this minor thing and it's just that
Indira Varma's eye line does not at all match where the lift is
when she's looking up and waving.
And again, she looks like she's waving at their asses.
Yeah, exactly.
In terms of the barber all and then the hospital.
Something I found so interesting about that, and again, in
comparison with Rose.
So in Rose, Rose works in a shop and she and Mickey go out to a
restaurant and later Clive and his family go out shopping.
So these are all sort of spaces for recreation, right?
And family recreation in particular.
Whereas here we get a pub brawl, which is not appropriate for
families.
And indeed, most pubs, you know, children generally aren't there.
And we also get a hospital and no one goes to a hospital for
recreation.
You know, you only go for a hospital if something's wrong.
Even in the outdoor scenes, it's constantly raining.
That does give us some comedy when Andy turns up and he's like, I
have walked.
I have bloody walked.
But even the environments of this are much harsher than the real
world environments of Doctor Who.
In fact, they're kind of police procedural environments, aren't
they?
We go from the pub brawl to the police station, to a crime scene
to a hospital, like all of those places are just places where
police procedurals happen.
Whereas Rose is set in the sort of environments that a soap opera
might be set in.
So it's a different type of TV that's sort of being riffed on and
a kind of more adult.
Uh, you know, something targeted in adults more than a soap opera
is, I guess.
But I guess it's a real world environment in a sense up until the
point they get into the to the tortured hub, which is like, you
know, leading up to when we get into the TARDIS, either in an
earthly child or in rows itself.
The parallels between the hub and the TARDIS are really, really
strong.
And I think that when Russell kind of takes control over the show
again in series three, His immediate instinct is to get rid of the
giant science fiction superbase that he's put in the show because
it's a little bit crappy.
It's a little bit kind of unrealistic and a bit crab and it fights
against the show kind of being gritty and serious because it adds
that level of fantasy. fake tube station.
Yeah.
I mean, I think the design is great.
I have to say the design, you know, with all the tiles and all of
the um, circular corridors and all of that stuff looks, it just
looks terrific.
That scene where Jack walks away after putting Susie's body in the
drawer and walks away and that seems to be computer generated
something.
It is because I was watching it going, yeah, that's not real.
But it is very beautifully designed, I think.
It's a good look.
I think everything above and around him is, but the drawers are
real.
The drawers were practical and the floor is practical, but
everything else was a map painting. right It's always interesting
seeing, I think, in television series like the pilot episode or
the 1st episode compared to what they actually do.
Yeah.
Because Ianto's little desk and his corridor to come in and the
lift going up are things that we don't we never see again.
It's like in DS9 with the runabouts going to Bajor.
Like, in the 1st couple of series, you spend 500 hours going to
Bajor, and then by the time you get to the last 2 seasons of that
show, it's like we're getting the runabout cut to, oh, we've
already arrived on Bajor. like it's like shortcut.
In Diravama, I really like.
Didn't she do Rome?
Yeah, wasn't she killed off in that?
Yeah, she seems to be the guest actress of choice to have a
substantial part in shows and then bite the bullet.
Is she also in Game of Thrones?
Yes, and she also met an unfortunate fate there eventually.
I don't remember if she got killed or was shipped off to
somewhere.
She's locked up in a dungeon to basically die.
Yes, that's right.
I think Susie Costello's death also is an example of a Doctor Who
program doing something that someone else did first.
So just a few years before this spook started.
And early on in Spooks, you have Lisa Faulkner, who was a big
household name, you know, she'd had a leading role in Brookside
and Holby City.
She was one of the leads in the 1st 2 episodes, and then in the
2nd episode, she is suddenly killed, her character.
Shall we say how?
That's brutal.
Has her face dunked in boiling oil and then shot through the
head.
Oh, by Space Captain Hugo Lang, by the way.
Oh my god.
He sounds like a bad person.
Oh, I must be awful because I'm laughing about it now.
This isn't a deep fryer incident, isn't it?
Yes, the deep fryer.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, well, Matthew McFadgeon looks on.
I've sort of noticed since then it's not uncommon for a show to
introduce a character early on who is then expected to be part of
the main cast and then killed off.
Yeah.
And so, you know, we have um, Helen in Spooks, we have Susie
here.
We have Grace when Chris Chipnell takes over Doctor Who.
Yeah.
And it seems to sort of be a shorthand for saying, we're not
screwing around here and anyone is fair game.
It really means everyone else is safe though, really, at that
point, doesn't it?
Yes.
It's like, well, we have the other one.
Yeah, it has the opposite effect, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like, we're telling you we're very adult
but we're very sorry and we're not going to do it again.
Well, not until the end of the 2nd year. that's right.
This is the thing that, obviously, Joss Whedon wanted to do in
episode one of Buffy, which was have the character in the opening
credits and then kill him off, the best friend character whose
name I can't even remember, but they couldn't afford to do it in
the credits.
Here, she's in the radio times and everything, and she is in the
opening credits to episode one in Dear Obama, and she's a big
name.
I mean, we're advertising having Indira Vama.
So we don't expect that at all.
I think.
Was it Jesse?
Jesse, that's right.
It was Jesse.
No one gets mentioned again.
No, but she's in the opening credits, and you just think that
she's going to be a part of the team.
Yeah, she's in all the publicity photos for the season.
Like, it's a 6 shot with Eve as well.
And of course, she will come back later in the season, and I think
part of the reason for that as well is that being a very good
episode, they keep killing Susie, was that that meant she was
around for late production blocks.
Right, right.
The thing that's here, the thing that makes this show more adult
than Doctor Who, I think, is the question of death.
You have that scene which is wonderfully awkward, where they run
out of things to say to the revivified corpse to poor John
Tucker.
They run out of things to say like a minute into the 2 minutes
that he's got and they're trying to kill time and work out what to
do and what to say next.
And the question is, what did you experience?
What was death like?
And he suddenly realises there was nothing and those are his last
words.
Oh my god, there's nothing.
And so when Susie comes back, there's that amazingly memorable
scene where she also talks about the subjective experience of
death and there isn't one.
There's nothing.
And so death is absolutely final.
And this is not something that you can look at in Doctor Who in a
lot of detail, but it is something that's really, really important
to Russell, and it is that episode 6 of cucumber thing, where we
actually get to see one of the characters die and we get to
experience what he experiences.
We see it from his point of view as his brain is so sort of
damaged and starved of oxygen that sort of random images start to
come up and then eventually it just blacks out and there's
nothing.
So there's nothing after death.
And so this show absolutely faces that head on and is essentially
about that.
And so when you have, you know, you're in this show where there's
a magical glove that can raise people from the dead, but there's
no magical afterlife or anything like that when people die, they
just die.
And that bleakness underlies it in a way that never underlies
Doctor Who.
But also the fact that she chooses to commit suicide.
And you see that happening and that doesn't happen in Doctor Who
unless the character is really sacrificing themselves to save
everybody else from a menace, you know?
like, I don't know.
Yeah, like self-sacrificed, right?
Like, highly in, uh, voyage of the dad.
Or PEX in Paradise Towers.
Why?
Why am I thinking of that?
From the ridiculous to the sublime?
But here, she's deciding that she doesn't want to have her memory
wiped and just go back to mandana's existence, she's just, she's
choosing to shoot herself, which I just found really disturbing
and I don't know if it's the right decision.
Like I kind of was sitting there going, oh, do I actually buy it?
She did also kill a bunch of people.
So even though she was like she had planned to just go and
disappear somewhere so she would never be caught, there's Jack, she
killed people, you know.
It does sort of then bring up, you know, the vetting process of
the employees of Torchwood by Jack, you know?
Has he done any sort of psychiatric testing on them?
Psychometric testing. psychometric testing to see if they're prone
to doing murders.
Yes, but that's the effect of the glove.
Isn't it?
Like it's the effect of the resurrection glove.
She has the glove on and she gets off on the power of bringing
people back to life.
And she has that whole speech about how being able to resurrect
people from the dead would be a game changer, it would be hugely
important and stuff.
But even when she revives the fly, There's a really weird look on
her face as if she is in some way being affected by that power.
Okay, I see what you're saying.
The more she uses, the more it amplifies, the more it wants you to
kill like something bigger and that sort of thing, which I don't
actually quite get from the episode.
Like, you've brought that up, but I just didn't get that at all.
It's, to me, it sort of just went from a fly to, yeah, we can talk
about killing all these other people, but I just didn't quite
buy.
The dialogue tries to reach for it.
She says something about every time I use it, it grants me more
access.
I gain more sort of ability.
Like, it's like it's allowing me in, but I don't think they
necessarily land that. think it's pretty incredible.
She gets a couple of quite long speeches in that final scene and
she absolutely nails them.
She's really really good.
Oh, I'm thinking absolute terror from Gwen.
I think that's too much, actually.
It's hard to watch.
Yeah, that thing where she thinks she's going to be short.
I think is awful.
Yeah, it's really, I mean, that's, and again, something that's set
set apart from Doctor Who, you would never linger on that much
torment of a character.
You know, they are your identification character in the episode.
Yeah, absolutely.
Like, something you don't see in Doctor Who, for instance, is the
sort of stereotypical idea of someone's holding a gun on you.
Well, you give them a karate shop and they drop the gun.
Like Doctor Who is against imitable violence, but it's also
against sort of imitable self-endangerment.
You know, it doesn't, Let the heroes do things that, um, if a
child tried them in a dangerous situation, could lead to something
worse.
So I agree with you there, James, in that that scene between Susie
and Gwen is one of the more adult scenes of the episode because of
not only Gwen's reaction, but actually Susie's awkwardness, which
is rummaging in her bag for the gun.
Yeah, I'm so sorry.
Just a second.
I've just got to, I've just, I've just got to get my gun handbags
am I right?
It kind of goes a long way to saying these characters are flawed
and that Susie is not evil in the sense that, you know, when
they're talking about serial killers earlier and this really nasty
knife and what have you, we're not encouraged to have any sympathy
for whoever's doing this.
And then all of a sudden, Susie is scared and awkward and um
pleading with Gwen to understand why she did what she did.
And Gwen can't remember what she did.
You know, it's it's this incredibly tense and well-acted scene.
And I do remember at the time, just going, I'm really going to
miss Susie.
Yeah, yeah.
She gets the big speech as well.
So the thing that Doctor Who keeps doing in this period is talking
about the wondrous things that the doctor in Rose C when they go
out into the universe in the Christmas invasion last week.
There's a hilarious scene where Mickey goes on about how much he
enjoys hearing these stories about how wonderful and great it is
in the TARDIS.
And we've seen that all the way back, you know, to boomtown when
we hear about woman wept and all of that sort of stuff.
The world, the universe is a magical and wondrous place.
And she alludes to that doesn't she?
She actually says, maybe there's better stuff out there, brilliant
stuff, beautiful stuff.
Just they don't come here.
And so that, and Doctor Who at the time doesn't show us that stuff
necessarily, partly because we don't have the budget.
And also because Doctor Who is an adventure show where we're
always being threatened by monsters and stuff.
So most of the time, they're not just revelling and how beautiful
everything is.
But it's something that Russell has taken from the original show
with all of its Florana speeches and stuff and has made that a
motivator for Rose to travel with the doctor.
Here, we don't get any of that.
That's not the motivator, and in fact, it's the opposite.
Everything that comes from outside of earth is terrible.
You know, she just says it's shit.
It's weevils and stuff, you know, that's what we get.
And I don't know whether that long term is such a great premise.
It really sounds kind of miserable to me.
Does this work, you think, in the long term?
No.
No, no, you're going to have to change things.
I guess it's all the other hooks in the episode, including the
secret that Jack can come back to life.
Yeah, yeah.
Which is kind of like the secret that, I mean, I don't know if
Rose really keeps the secret, but you know, suddenly she's
travelling with this amazing man, but that's a secret there and
it's a secret that he's not telling other people.
So when is that going to be all revealed?
I don't know.
I kind of think for it more as a case of, yes, all these horrible
things are coming and that's the peril of the show.
Like with Doctor Who, you go to all these amazing places and face
horrible monsters every week.
So, well, what's the difference, really, this time they're just
coming to us and we're going to just stop them.
Yeah, I guess I guess it's just the sort of underlying kind of
just negativity and cynicism.
The, you know, Russell, for all of his sort of big personality, the
way that he constantly talks about how marvellous and wonderful
everything is.
We've said before, there's like a deep kind of thread of cynicism
in there as well.
But you see in things like midnight and turn left, for instance.
No, Nathan, I see what you're saying.
Like, I mean, in Doctor Who, it's always a positive outcome
because we're going to survive and we're going to have people
surviving as much as we can and things are going to be made
right.
Whereas here you are left with more of a, oh, this is a bit more
dower foreboding or just, you know, it's, well, to use your word
from earlier, bleak, you know?
Yeah.
And all we can afford is Paul Casey in a Halloween mask.
I think the other problem is with that sort of bleakness is the
obvious response is, oh, well, you have to have moments of
humour.
But the problem that constantly arises in torchwood is that the
moments of humour are also bleak because their reactions to death
and horrible things happening.
Like, the one that immediately springs to Bid is in the next
episode with the sex gas, where the torchwood crew are constantly
joking about people being killed.
He came and went.
You know, and then in the sperm bank scene.
I don't think so, love.
I'm gay.
And, you know, we know then he's dead.
Further on.
I think part of the problem with cyberwoman is cyberwoman is so
bleak. that you start laughing at things that aren't intended to
be funny because your brain is looking for relief, basically.
And I think some of the more successful tortured episodes, I'm
thinking things like from out of the rain, random shoes, have
humour built in because there's more of a focus on people outside
the team and regular life, you know?
And then once you get to children of Earth, because there's more
of a focus on Gwen and Reese and children of Earth, there's just
more humour built in that's not at the expense of the situation.
It's not at the expense of tragedy.
It takes us a while to get there.
I think it's possible, but I think with the structure we have in
this season.
They unfortunately miss the mark just because we have to move
between 2 extremes very quickly a lot of the time.
Well, that's all the time we have for this week.
We'll be back again next week, or in just over two months' time, to
experience the start of another Doctor Who spinoff, the Sarah Jane
Adventures, episode one, Invasion of the Bane.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us on our website, 500yearDiary.com, where
you'll find our social media links as well as links to all of our
other podcasts, including our other Doctor Who podcasts, flights
through entirety, and the 2nd great and bountiful Human Empire.
Until next time, always remember that there's nothing to be gained
by having a distinctive murder weapon.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Ta-ta.
See you soon.
Could someone get me down off the big Merino?
I've had enough of a look.
That was 500 Year Diary, starring Todd Bealby, Nathan Bottomley
Brendan Jones and James Selwood.
The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, Paul Casey, and a Halloween mask, was recorded on
the 14th of April, 2024, and released on the 12th of May.
Well, now that this episode of 500 Year Diary has been edited and
released, it's time for us to turn our attention to the Doctor Who
episodes released yesterday.
Space Babies and the Devil's Cord.
To hear our hot takes on those, search for the 2nd great and
bountiful human empire on your podcatcher of choice, or visit us
at greatandbountiful.com.
There's a point I think that Russell makes in the making of this
episode, which is that as you keep watching this show, you'll come
to realise that the most dangerous thing about tortured is
tortured.
They are, yeah, they're playing... job interview picture. isn't
it?
It's like, so she's still dead.
And he says, he says, oh, we got a vacancy.
She looks down, perhaps, and don't look at the next time trailer.
Okay. doesn't it just cut to the next time trailer and she's part
of the that CSI walking.
She's already part of the team.
That's called day one, isn't it?
It's the 1st episode of Torture to be called day one.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
It's like Star Trek.
So Star Trek has Muse and the Muse.
It has emissary and the emissary.
Obviously...
The conspiracy?
don't know.
No, there's an episode called Nemesis in a film called Nemesis.
There's an episode called First Contact and a film called First
Contact.
There's an episode called Dax and an episode called Chanal.
Yeah.
Actually, 2 episodes called Anomaly.
One in Enterprise Series 3.
And then the DMA is so vegan, so world shakingly important that it
actually allows them to break the don't repeat episode titles
rule.
Two Vics?
Yeah, well...
This helped differently.
I know.
So good.
I'm so sad about that They're killing that off after 5 years.
I just kind of think, I just kind of thought, well, maybe that
because it's audio, they don't cost as much as a cast and
animation doesn't cost as much as...
It actually might be the sort of thing that they bring back in 5
years time or something like that.
Well, Futurama.
Yeah, look at future.
Do you know what I mean?
It's the sort of thing they could do.
It's not like they struck the sets at the end of series 3 of the
original series and couldn't bring the show back.
It's such a shame. had in my head that I thought they were too.
Yeah.
I mean, this is the thing that most modern shows don't, unless
they're police procedurals, don't last more than about 5 seasons
these days.
All right.
Yeah.
Okay, well, that was fun.
That was fun.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Thank you for that.
I'm glad that you are able to sit in a chair and talk.
It's the main requirement.
Rod's bringing you things and all of that sort of stuff.
Yeah.
I'm going to go do some stretches now and put some ice on it.
That sounds awesome.
All right, sweetheart.
Bye.
All right.
Thank you all.
There'll be a big publicity thing this afternoon.
Brilliant.
One more to go.
Bye.
Bye, everyone.