February 2: "Random Shoes" (TW)

And finally, just like that, the clouds open and we get an episode of Torchwood that's worthwhile.  In some ways it's like "Love & Monsters" from series 2 of Doctor Who¹⁸⁰, in that the majority of the episode is told from the perspective of an outsider -- in this case Eugene Jones.  The difference here is that the episode opens with Eugene dead, while his ghost (for lack of a better term) follows Gwen around, trying to piece together the circumstances of his death.

It's not an overly saccharine story: Eugene's life isn't shown to be anything special.  In fact, he appears to have wasted most of it, waiting for an alien that never arrived.  His friends don't seem terribly close with him (in fact, the owner of the video store, Josh, is something of an asshole when it comes to Eugene -- but then it's not immediately clear if he's actually Eugene's friend, or just Gary's), and no one beyond his mother and Linda at the call center seems to really miss him that much.  In other hands this could be really depressing and sad -- but because Eugene's narrating it for us, and because he seems accepting of it all (even if he's not thrilled by it), it's OK.

Eugene saves Gwen's life. ("Random Shoes") ©BBC

The fact that Eugene doesn't remember what happened until Gwen finds out about it is a nice touch -- that means there's no excessive foreshadowing or brooding about what's coming; instead, Eugene is just as curious as the rest of us to learn what happened.  This gives the episode a fresh quality, as we all learn together.  And it certainly helps that Eugene, despite being something of a loser (as he himself admits), is so likeable.  You just wish that he'd been happier while he was alive, instead of constantly waiting -- either for an alien or for his father, who his mother said was working in America but had actually simply left and was working as a clerk nearby.  But Eugene's death does seem to have caused one good thing: his father has come back.  It may not be permanent and it may not be "happily ever after", but as the handshake at the end between Eugene's father and younger brother shows, it might still be the start of something.

And that's the point, ultimately, of "Random Shoes".  It's not necessarily that you made a huge impact while you were alive, but even the small effects you have on others, both while you're here and after, can lead to different things.  It's a bittersweet episode, but a lovely one -- it's not cynical or stupid.  Jacquetta May is probably better known as an actress than a writer, but if she writes other things as lovely and honest as this then she's got a good career to fall back on.  It's a shame they didn't bring her back to write for the show again, because this is easily the best episode we've gotten yet, and possibly the best episode of the entire series.







¹⁸⁰ For the same reason, it turns out -- this, like "Love & Monsters", is a "double-banked" episode, where filming occurs on this at the same time as another episode.  That's why this episode focuses primarily on Gwen and a new character.