"Torchwood" From Out of the Rain (2008)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Jonathan Fox Bassett

Writers:

Russell T. Davies (creator)
Peter Hammond (written by)

TV Series:

"Torchwood" (2006)

Original Air Date:

12 March 2008 (Season 2, Episode 10)

Genre:

Drama | Sci-Fi

Plot:

An old movie theatre, The Electro, has been restored and is opening as a museum. Ianto used to go there...

Plot Keywords:

Renegade | Cardiff | Investigation | Bisexual Male | Coworker Relationship

Cast

John Barrowman	...	Captain Jack Harkness
Eve Myles	...	Gwen Cooper
Burn Gorman	...	Owen Harper
Naoko Mori	...	Toshiko Sato
Gareth David-Lloyd	...	Ianto Jones
Julian Bleach	...	The Ghostmaker
Camilla Power	...	Pearl
Craig Gallivan	...	Jonathan Penn
Ger Carey	...	Greg (credit only) (as Gerard Carey)
Stephen Marzella	...	Dave Penn (as Steven Marzella)
Hazel Wyn Williams	...	Faith Penn
Lowri Sian Jones	...	Nettie
Eileen Essell	...	Christina
Anwen Carlisle	...	Restaurant Owner
Yasmin Wilde	...	Senior Nurse

Runtime:

50 min (approx.)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

UK:12

Company:

BBC Wales

Goofs:

Continuity: This show involves a vintage newsreel film, correctly identified in the show as 35mm nitrate film. While the film shown being viewed and edited is clearly NOT vintage but recent manufacture complete with soundtrack, it is, at least, black and white film. This film is correctly shown being loaded into a real 35mm theater projector where it is screened in the presence of the Torchwood people. However, when Jack impounds the print, an amazing thing happens! As he and his friends screen the film in their headquarters we see the film has been transformed into a 16mm print! It also has gotten a lot longer. The original was a "one reel" subject, approximately 1000 feet of 35mm film. It has become 1200 feet of 16mm film, an increase in running time of 300%!

Quotes:

Pearl: [to Ghostmaker] Make her cry.
Restaurant owner: Huh?
Pearl: I want to drink her tears.

Not exactly their best work...

I didn't think this episode was as bad as a lot of other people seem to have thought, but it certainly wasn't one of the better ones.

It had its moments -- I found the whole evil circus idea kind of evocative (and reminiscent of the stories behind Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's Carnival Diabolique perfume series), and some scenes were nicely creepy, but on the whole it just seemed a bit rushed, and haphazardly put together.

I'm not one of those people who demands a detailed, perfectly logical explanation for everything -- one of the things I really liked about Small Worlds was that it *didn't* attempt to rationalize everything away. But I do like to have things make at least *some* semblance of sense. This episode, on the whole, comes of looking like the writer either had the seed of a good idea but then had to turn it into a script in half an hour with no time to really think it through, or else maybe had a script for a three-hour movie and had to cut it down to 45 minutes by chopping out every bit of explanation or even the process by which the characters arrive at any of their conclusions.

It felt like had the potential to have been good if it had been differently handled, but as it was, I suspect most viewers are more likely to spend most of it going "Wait... what? Where the hell did *that* come from?" than actually enjoying it.