February 8: "End of Days" (TW)

Sigh.  I suppose it was too much to hope for a decent ending to the season.

This deals with the fallout of opening the Rift last episode, and they give us a potentially interesting set-up of people from various times all showing up in modern Cardiff, bringing various diseases and things with them.  We even get some good drama coming out of it -- the Roman soldier is whatever (and why isn't he pronouncing all his /v/'s as [w]'s?), but the stuff with the Black Death is really nice.  Owen's worries about smallpox or future diseases is also worth exploring.  And at the heart of everything is Bilis, the caretaker from last time who makes a living bringing timepieces from their original eras into the 21st century and selling them as antiques (yes, just like Edward Waterfield back in "The Evil of the Daleks").  They could have gone in a lot of intriguing directions with this, and a show that was freely mixing and matching time periods could be fun.

But alas, that's not what we get.  Instead we get various people having visions of dead/missing loved ones telling them to open the Rift, but rather than attempt to work out what it all means or tell anyone about them, they just spend their time yelling at each other and not listening at all -- and apparently they're all more willing to listen to inexplicable visions than their leader.  So much for loyalty.  The way Owen shoots Jack is a bit shocking (and he gets a good line: "I'm sick of people doubting me"), but as we know he can't die it ultimately feels more convenient than anything else.

Jack prepares to confront Abaddon. ("End of Days") ©BBC

Look, all of this is just about OK.  The interpersonal dynamics among the team take significant steps backwards (all the yelling, remember -- and then there's Gwen's decision to tase Rhys and lock him in a filthy Torchwood cell), but at least there's some semblance of drama, even if some of it feels oddly manufactured -- in particular, Bilis's murder of Rhys (who's still the best character on the show) looks designed to make Gwen act than anything else.  But then, once they decide to open the Rift (which sends all the anachronisms back, apparently), things take a left turn into Stupidland.  Apparently, there's a giant crap CGI beast called Abaddon living under the Rift since "before time" who is the son of the "Great Beast" (so they're clearly trying to tie this in with "The Impossible Planet"/"The Satan Pit" for no obviously good reason), whose very shadow kills anyone it touches, and opening the Rift unleashed it.  How to stop it?  Make Captain Jack keep dying until Abaddon can't take it anymore.  "If Abaddon is the bringer of death, let's see how he does with me," Jack says. "If he feeds on life, then I'm an all-you-can-eat buffet."  Even though no one's mentioned that Abaddon feeds on life, or that he uses his shadow to feed, or that too much life will kill him, or that Jack's "can't die" ability will actually have any effect whatsoever.  Yeeeaaahhh...  There comes a point where you just have to accept that this isn't going to make any sense at all and to just go with it.  (Although, if we're going to discuss things that make no sense... why is Rhys back alive at the end of this?  He wasn't killed by an anachronism, he was stabbed in the gut by Bilis.  Why was that sufficiently Rift-y to be undone?)

But yeah, Jack saves the day (incredibly quickly, actually -- they brought up Abaddon just to take care of him in the next scene) and eventually comes back to life -- Tosh actually only says it's been "days" since he died and not actually "three days", but you get the idea -- just in time for an end-of-season cliffhanger: that severed hand starts beeping and bubbling, and then we hear the TARDIS materializing.  Next thing we know, Jack has disappeared.  Guess we'll have to wait for Doctor Who to find out what happens there.

This episode isn't very good, sad to say.  It could have been a lot more interesting than what it was, but instead a lot of potential was squandered in favor of a resolution with a terrible effect.  (Seriously, Abaddon is really poor-looking -- usually visual effects company The Mill is much better at this sort of thing.)  But while "End of Days" is really dumb, bordering on nonsensical, at least it's not offensively dumb.  That might make it Chris Chibnall's best script yet.

That brings an end to Torchwood's first series, and to be brutally honest, it hasn't been a very good run.  The scripts started out really really bad, and while things got a lot better by the end of the series, it wasn't enough to make this show really worthwhile.  Part of the problem lies in the characterization of the main characters.  I'm not sure why they thought it was a good idea to try and systematically make every member of Torchwood an unlikeable sod, but they did.  Gwen suffers particularly because of this, and while Owen's character improves greatly over the course of this first year, he's still kind of a dick.  But the biggest problem might be Captain Jack.  This isn't to cast aspersions on John Barrowman, who plays the character he's been given (and who gives the lines a twinkle here and there that they sorely need), but rather on Torchwood's conception of the character.  The reason Jack was so popular on Doctor Who was that he was a charming rogue who nevertheless was totally loyal to the Doctor.  Here they've turned him into a brooding, tragic character for some reason -- as if what we really wanted was John Barrowman doing his version of Buffy's Angel.

The ratings were good enough that Torchwood was renewed for a second series (and a shift from BBC Three to BBC Two), but it's hard to shake the feeling that they shouldn't have bothered.  The saving grace is that it does start to look as if they know what they're doing by the end of this series; if they stay on this trajectory Torchwood might become worthwhile.  But as is, it's sadly not really worth your time.

(Still, if you want to be cheered up after this, you can pull out your Ultimate Foe DVD and watch a young Chris Chibnall complain about The Trial of a Time Lord being too formulaic and clichéd on the "Open Air" special feature.  It's oddly satisfying, knowing he'd later be in charge of this.)

February 7: "Captain Jack Harkness" (TW)

After a couple days away it's back to Torchwood to finish up the rest of series 1.  This episode is written by Catherine Tregenna, who also wrote "Out of Time", and fortunately it's also a decent episode.  Seriously, it seems if you want Torchwood to come out all right, have a woman write it.

Jack and Tosh meet the real Captain Jack Harkness. ("Captain Jack
Harkness") ©BBC

Tregenna's script does two interesting things: first, it causes Captain Jack and Tosh to become victims of the Rift themselves, as they suddenly find themselves transported back to 20 January 1941 (hey, 44 years, to the day, before my brother's birthday!) and unsure of how to get back; and second, it brings Jack face-to-face with his namesake -- after all, the identity we've known since "The Empty Child" was an assumed one, a way for the con man to make his con easier.  It's an interesting move, and much of the episode focuses on the relationship between these two men, which starts out as almost fraternal but then changes into something more romantic.

This is the first concern with this episode; there doesn't really seem to be a good dramatic motivation for this burgeoning romance.  The fraternal aspect is fine, even laudable; Jack knows the real Captain's future, and he wants to ensure that he makes the right choices before he dies.  It's just not clear why this would cause the Captain (as the credits call him) to suddenly want to start kissing Jack.  If he thinks he's going to die (which might be the case, but if so it's very subtle), then fine, maybe, but it still seems both weird and superfluous -- the story doesn't gain anything from Jack sharing a kiss with his namesake.¹⁸³  And what did the Captain's men think of this?  (Or the Rift suddenly opening up, for that matter.)

The other storyline involves Toshiko's attempts to provide the present-day Torchwood team with the mathematical formulas they'll need to safely open the Rift and bring Tosh and Jack home.  So while Tosh is trying to hide papers with numbers on them, Gwen and Owen are looking for ways to bring them back.  Owen seems hell-bent on getting them both back, to the point that he doesn't question any of the increasingly strange coincidences going on.  The 21st-century team realizes that the current caretaker of the building, Bilis Manger, is the same person as the one in 1941, which leads Owen to realize that Bilis can travel back and forth through the Rift.  (Or maybe he's incredibly long lived, like Jack, but that doesn't seem to have occurred to him.)  But does he interrogate Bilis, or grab and throw him into a holding cell?  No, Owen looks through Bilis's office, finds the missing piece of the Rift Manipulator (without stopping to consider why on Earth Bilis would have this in the first place -- and in fact this point isn't touched on at all), and decides he's going to use it to open the Rift.  There's loyalty and then there's blind loyalty, and Owen seems to be falling into the second category.

That stuff seems to be setting up the series 1 finale next episode, though; the primary focus of the episode is in 1941, in that relationship between Jack and the Captain.  And up until the point where it starts to turn romantic, it works really well.  There's an interesting exploration of what you do if you know someone's going to die but can't tell them, and there's also a nice discussion of what it means to be a leader, and does that mean you have to be brave in front of your squadron all the time?  Are you allowed to be scared, and is it OK to be scared?  It's a question deftly handled by the script.

Really, except for the strange resolution of the 1941 storyline and Owen's unquestioning use of specifically Rift equipment found in unlikely places (so, SOP for Torchwood members, then), "Captain Jack Harkness" does a good job of balancing its points of view in a way that doesn't make you hate everyone on screen.  It even takes a bit of time to indulge in some racism against Tosh, just to demonstrate that we really are in 1941 (compare with reactions to Martha in, say, "The Shakespeare Code").  It's not a knockout success, but it is another in a line of decent stories that you can watch without too much difficulty.







¹⁸³ We later find out in "Fragments" that our Jack has super-charged pheromones, and so the Captain's response to Jack might just be because of that.  But obviously that explanation isn't anywhere to be found in this.

February 6: "Invasion of the Bane" (SJA)

1 January 2007 was an exciting day for Doctor Who spinoff fans; not only did we get the last two episodes of series 1 of Torchwood, but we also got the first episode of the latest Doctor Who spinoff, The Sarah Jane Adventures, earlier in the day.  Note that "Invasion of the Bane" isn't a pilot though, even though it aired separately from the rest of the first series' episodes; the whole series was commissioned at once and it was planned at the outset that this would be a holiday special.

Now, when Russell T Davies first wanted to revive Doctor Who (long before they actually let him do it), his first pitch was reportedly for a low-budget version about a retired time-traveller who dealt with alien threats from a house on an ordinary street (rather than travelling through the universe and having to create a new alien world every week).  Knowing that, it's not hard to see how The Sarah Jane Adventures reuses that idea, with Sarah Jane in place of the Doctor.

The first thing that's obvious about "Invasion of the Bane" is how much less xenophobic it is than Torchwood.  Sarah Jane may initially be more cautious about getting other people involved in her life, but the first thing we see her doing is helping an alien head back home -- and not just any alien, but one from the same species as from the Torchwood episode "Greeks Bearing Gifts".  Sarah Jane seems to be a lot more open-minded than Captain Jack and his team.

The second thing that's obvious is that this is pitched more towards children than adults, with the other lead characters being teenagers.  Maria Jackson is shown to be a bit of loner by virtue of having just moved into the neighborhood, and while her dad is shown to be all right her mom is clearly pitched to be obnoxious and a bit oblivious.  (It's an odd divorce, though, that sees Chrissie constantly over at her ex-husband's place.)  Yet despite the emphasis on younger viewers, it's not talking down to them -- and the overall effect is one that adults can find entertaining as well.  It also helps that the script does a good job of slowly introducing the weirdness into things, as Maria sees Sarah Jane with the alien, and then heads to the Bubble Shock (a form of pop) factory to find more weirdness -- including a teenaged boy who doesn't seem to know anything.  Like I said, they do a good job of ramping everything up while introducing the main characters, rather than just thrusting the weirdness upon the audience and hoping they'll keep up.

Maria, Luke, Sarah Jane, and Kelsey in Sarah Jane's attic.
("Invasion of the Bane") ©BBC

One of the best moments, in fact, is after the Bane attacks Sarah Jane and the others in her home, at which point they find themselves in the attic.  It's a piece of exposition, plain and simple, but it's delivered really well by Elisabeth Sladen:

SARAH JANE: Aliens are falling to Earth all the time.  It's not just those stories you hear on the news.  All sorts of creatures.  Some have got lost, like the one you saw me sending home last night.  Some of them crash-land, and some of them want to invade. ...
MARIA: But how'd you get started?
SARAH JANE: I met this man.  A very special man, called the Doctor.  And years ago, we travelled together.
MARIA: In space?
SARAH JANE: Space, and time.  And then it came to an end, and suddenly I was back to a normal life.  Electric bills, burst pipes, bus tickets and rain. ... For years I tried to forget, and then I met him again, the Doctor.  We'd both changed, but it's funny because we were still both the same.  And I learnt I could carry on here on Earth, doing what we always did.  That's when I started this.  I began my life again.

(from The Sarah Jane Adventures Transcripts - Invasion of the Bane)

It's lovely and sweet and a far cry from "the 21st century is when it all changes and you've got to be ready."  Torchwood plays on fears; The Sarah Jane Adventures, it seems, play on hope.

Of course, this is a Doctor Who spin-off, so we do get an alien invasion from a species called the Bane, who are putting a part of themselves into Bubble Shock so that they can take over the world (for some reason -- it's not actually quite clear what they want).  And yes, it's really hard not to think of the episode of Futurama where Fry learns what's really in his favorite drink Slurm -- I wonder if Russell T Davies and/or Gareth Roberts were aware of that when they were writing this.  But it's still nicely done (and I love the design of the Bane -- bizarre without being laughable).

In fact, if you wanted a spin-off of Doctor Who that was actually somewhat like its parent show, you could do a lot worse than "Invasion of the Bane", which shows that there's actually quite a bit of life even in a more limited format like this.  It's certainly a lot closer to the spirit of Doctor Who, and none of the main characters are particularly irritating.  (Well, except Kelsey, but she appears to be designed to be annoying -- and this is her only appearance anyway.)  There's a sense of affection in the writing and the direction, and it's absolutely wonderful to see Sarah Jane Smith out on her own, standing up for the right causes and not under anyone's shadow.  If the rest of the series is like this, The Sarah Jane Adventures will be quality entertainment.

February 5: "The Runaway Bride"

We interrupt our journey through the first series of Torchwood to bring you the 2006 Doctor Who Christmas Special, "The Runaway Bride"...¹⁸¹

If we go by the DVD, "The Runaway Bride" kicks off series 3 of the show.  But if we go by what we actually see, we're in a transitional state.  We don't get introduced to new companion Martha Jones at all.  Instead this episode picks up immediately where "Doomsday" left off, with Catherine Tate standing in the TARDIS wearing a wedding gown and yelling at the Doctor.  This meant a lot more to British audiences, who were more used to her hugely successful sketch show (hey, it's not every show that gets a word in the Oxford English Dictionary -- although Doctor Who is a show that can also make that claim) than overseas audiences.  Fair enough, it's a British show for British viewers; I'm just pointing out that the impact of this stunt casting is largely lost on those of us in the former colonies and beyond.

It's not an entirely successful opening to the show, though; after the initial shock value wears off, there's little to really keep you entertained.  "The Runaway Bride" really wants to be a screwball comedy, but in these initial TARDIS scenes Tennant and Tate exhibit little chemistry together.  That's partly because all Donna is doing is shouting unpleasantly, not listening to anything the Doctor is saying, and partly because we don't see any real interaction between the two: Donna is shouting and the Doctor is flying the TARDIS, and while they might be doing these actions at each other, it's more that each is going past the other.  This is also the first time that Murray Gold's music really gets in the way of the scene -- it's practically screaming at you to find this stuff funny, which makes you even less inclined to do so.

It gets a bit better when they're actually out on the streets of London -- there's a sense that they're actually listening to each other a bit more, and consequently the jokes land a little better.  I'm not too sure about that TARDIS/car chase down the motorway; I don't mind the idea, but there are some weird moments, like Donna asking the Doctor if Rose had trusted him -- that seems like a strange question to ask in the situation.  And the two kids in the car, shouting "Jump!" and cheering when Donna does, is really over-egging the pudding -- it's supposed to be triumphant but it feels crass instead.  (And the rest of the motorists -- including the parents of the kids screaming in the car -- seem awfully unconcerned about a police box flying down the road at high speed; almost as if they just filmed the drivers and then inserted the TARDIS afterwards...)

The Doctor and Donna watch the Earth form. ("The Runaway
Bride") ©BBC

Once the Doctor and Donna stop and have their conversation on the roof, that's when the two leads start to actually click; it's clear they've started paying attention to what the other is saying, and the result is noticeably better.  Of course, this is the scene that also introduces this episode's technobabble -- a type of subatomic particle that the Time Lords got rid of (what?) but nevertheless are contained inside Donna (WHAT?) and which caused Donna to be transported into the TARDIS in the first place (WHAT?).  Fine, we can just about accept this -- but when we later learn that you can extract Huon particles from water, you just have to shake your head in despair that they can't even keep their technobabble consistent.  Similarly, what possible reason does Lance have to sneak up on the Empress of the Racnoss?  Is he simply trying to be a jerk and give Donna false hope?

The Empress herself is hopelessly overacted by Sarah Parish -- I understand that it's hard to act through all that make-up, but she looks like she isn't taking any of this seriously.  And if she's not bothering, why should we?  The plan to drill into the center of the Earth and release her 4.5 billion-year-old babies with Huon particles is risible, as is the solution of draining the Thames into the hole.¹⁸²

I'm being hard on this story, but it's not completely without merit.  David Tennant is generally good in his scenes, and once Donna stops yelling, Catherine Tate isn't bad.  The scene at the non-wedding reception is rather charming (and I like the special song, "Love Don't Roam", as sung by Neil Hannon of the Divine Comedy).  The whole production is nice and slick (even if they are reusing the robots from last year's special), and Euros Lyn does a good job with the direction.  If you were watching this on Christmas, full of turkey and wine, and just letting it flow past, you'd probably be reasonably entertained.

But if you're watching this as part of the ongoing Doctor Who narrative (which should be just about everyone after the initial broadcast), then its flaws are harder to overlook.  There's just too much technobabble and not enough time to make the relationship between the Doctor and Donna work.  There's also a sense that Doctor Who now knows it's a hit show and should thus do all the predictable, crowd-pleasing things that's expected of them.  The change can be summed up by the snow: last year it was a subversion of the cliché, being the Sycorax ship breaking up in the atmosphere; this time it's actually snow.  This isn't a step forward.







¹⁸¹ Owing to the fact that I'm trying to go as chronologically as possible (though it's gonna get tricky when we get to the Australian K-9 spinoff), and "Combat" was broadcast on 24 December 2006 -- aka the day before "The Runaway Bride".
¹⁸² Two points for old-school fans: when Torchwood (or whoever) dug into the center of the earth, did a bunch of them turn into Primords after touching a weird green slime?  And why didn't the Earth blow up anyway?  (And quickly pouring a lot of water into the center of the earth is a lot like Professor Zaroff's plan to blow up the world in The Underwater Menace -- so that's two ways the world should have been destroyed.)

February 4: "Combat" (TW)

"Combat" is a bit of an odd episode.  It doesn't actually do too much wrong, but let's face it -- the episode boils down to Alien Fight Club.  But if you can look past the derivative-yet-loony premise, there are some good moments in this.

Owen in the cage with a Weevil. ("Combat") ©BBC

Although the episode starts with involving most of the team, this turns into Owen's episode.  He's still hurting from Diane's departure and is apparently "even more erratic than usual" as a result -- which translates to refusing to answer his phone and getting in fights in bars (though, to be fair, that guy was clearly asking for it).  However, he ends up being the person trying to infiltrate the Weevil-stealing operation and find out where the Weevils are being held.  What's interesting is how friendly Owen is with Mark Lynch (the guy helping run the fights).  Mark (played very well by Alex Hassell) is every inch the bored rich guy looking for thrills -- the way he fights in the bar and demands that the one guy get up is quite compelling to watch.  It's a world that Owen seems quite tempted by -- and, interestingly, one that Mark is willing to show him, even after Owen's cover is blown.  And it's interesting to see how much Owen seems to be drawn into this world -- even though he insists that this is wrong and needs to be stopped, he's seduced by the idea of "stripping things back to the core".  It's a neat idea well-realized, and it makes sense for Owen to be the one drawn in.

Where this episode doesn't succeed is with Gwen.  I'm not sure how they managed it, but they've transferred the label of "least likeable character" from Owen to Gwen.  She's pissy and self-absorbed when talking with Owen about their relationship, and the way she tells Rhys about her infidelity but then drugs him so he'll forget she told him is pure cowardice -- and the way in which she tries desperately to get Rhys to say he forgives her before he slips into unconsciousness is truly unpleasant.  One scene of her crying while feeling bad about the whole situation doesn't redeem her at all.

It's not a stand-out episode and unlikely to be fondly remembered, but given how easily this could have been yet another incredibly stupid episode, we should be thankful that things didn't spiral out of control.  Writer Noel Clarke (who you might remember as Mickey Smith) does a good job with keeping things realistic and more or less grounded.  If it weren't for the Gwen moments, this would be a much better episode; as it is it's merely OK.

So that's three reasonable episodes in a row; has Torchwood finally turned the corner?

February 3: "Out of Time" (TW)

Wow, another decent episode!  That's a Torchwood record!  Maybe they should be getting more women writing for the show -- they seem to be the ones writing the better installments.

Emma, Diane, and John find themselves in the 21st century. ("Out
of Time") ©BBC

The premise for "Out of Time" is very simple: what would happen if three people were suddenly transported fifty years forward in time?  It's not a new concept by any means (Captain America is only one of the more famous examples), but author Catherine Tregenna makes the most of it, by thoughtfully examining some of the effects this sudden wrench would have on those affected.  As such, this is more of a character study than an action tale, and it's all the better for it.

We're given three different people -- a headstrong, independent woman pilot, a successful businessman, and a young woman off to visit relatives -- and we're shown how they attempt to adjust to this new life.  John quickly makes friends with Captain Jack -- another man out of his own time, who also gets a chance to shine and become a more nuanced and interesting character in John's company -- but seems ultimately unable to cope; less with the changing times and more with the fact that everyone he knew and loved is gone -- except for his son, who has Alzheimer's and thus doesn't recognize his father or almost anything else around him.  He seemed like the most likely to survive, but he ends up being the one who commits suicide, as he has nothing to live for in the 21st century.  Emma, the young woman, seems to cope best -- she's surprisingly comfortable hanging out and fitting in with two modern young black women, and while she's a bit naïve, on account of being used to the 1950s, she adapts very well.  Meanwhile, Diane is less distressed by finding herself in a new time and more feeling a wanderlust, unwilling to be tied down to one place and time.

It's actually Diane who is in some ways the most interesting character here.  She's shown as incredibly independent, and her frustrations in being unable to fly without a current licence are palpable.  (Although, given that Torchwood faked up three passports for them, why couldn't they forge a flying licence for Diane?)  But the change she brings in Owen is the most surprising.  She somehow transforms Owen -- that's Owen, the womanizing bastard who's never less than an asshole in just about every scene he's in -- into a more complex and nuanced character.  It gets to the point where you genuinely feel for him at the end, and he ends up defined by his relationship with Diane, much how Diane isn't defined by her relationship with Owen.  It's really well done.

In all honesty, the only duff note in the whole piece is Rhys getting mad at Gwen for lying to him; this feels more like setting up events in the next couple episodes than a natural extension of what we see here.  It's not a flashy or thrilling episode, but "Out of Time" provides us three interesting contemplations on the question of what would happen to time-displaced people.

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.