Odd opening notwithstanding (the whole "this is the story of how I died" thing, which is a nice hook à la The Lovely Bones but turns out to be something of a cheat -- but we're getting ahead of ourselves), "Army of Ghosts" is a solid, entertaining episode. It's the start of series 2's season finale, which means we finally see the Doctor meet up with Torchwood, after dropping hints since "Bad Wolf". This might be slightly more interesting if they hadn't announced the upcoming Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood between series 1 and 2 of Doctor Who, but since they did, it's hard not to be a bit cynical about the whole thing. (Of course, Torchwood would end up being rather different from what we see under Yvonne Hartman's leadership, but we didn't know that at the time, and that cynical feeling remains.)
But it's interesting to see what "Army of Ghosts" does right. Somewhat remarkably, we don't waste much time introducing the Doctor and Rose into the main events: once the Doctor's established that the "ghosts" that everyone sees everywhere aren't ghosts at all, but something pushing its way into our world, it's off to Torchwood itself so that the plot can keep moving forward. And, in a good move, we get a look at a Cyberman quite early on (as it menaces soon-to-be companion actress Freema Agyeman, albeit in a different role here) -- no sudden revelations that it's the Cybermen pushing through. This does mean that the audience is slightly ahead of the Doctor, but the misdirection regarding the Void Ship ensures that we don't spend a large portion of time just waiting for the Doctor to catch up. And since Graeme Harper is at the helm again, it's all shot very effectively, so even when it's a lot of exposition (as when Yvonne is explaining things), it never feels like it.
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| Yvonne Hartman, the Doctor, and Jackie watch as the Cybermen invade. ("Army of Ghosts") ©BBC |