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Your starter for ten: How do you concoct an antidote for arsenic poisoning using materials only found on an aeroplane? Come on, I’ll have to hurry you…
You don’t know?
Pay attention, then, to this week’s Torchwood: while the first episode may have been a slow starter, the pace soon quickens as Gwen and Jack are dragged kicking and screaming – quite literally – to the States by the CIA. Unfortunately, Gwen’s despair at being forcibly separated from her husband and child is overshadowed by some cracking lines from Rex, who is rapidly becoming my favourite character: “Go do… spousy stuff,” he sniffs at Rhys, waving him away irritably as the poor bloke is bundled into a car headed for Wales. Aw, Rhys, please come back soon. Maybe with that bazooka your wife had in the previous episode?
If you thought our alien-busting duo might be safe with the Americans though, you’d be wrong, and this being Torchwood, the team haven’t even landed before Jack’s been poisoned (he’s now the only mortal human on Earth) by double-crossing agent Lyn (Dichen Lachman). Cue Gwen, Rex, and the air stewards ripping up the plane, frantically searching for antidote ingredients. A bit of cyanide here, a bit of ammonia there, seasoned with a touch of silver necklace to use as a catalyst… sci-fi doesn’t get tougher than this. “Mind the coat!” Gwen squeals, as they prepare to inject the finished antidote into Jack’s arm, ensuring that some loyal fans at least are kept happy.
During all this kerfuffle, Oswald Danes, having survived his death penalty, is becoming somewhat of a celebrity. He’s an enthralling personality, and even the other characters can’t drag their eyes away from his TV interview as he breaks down on air. Maybe this is some kind of new pulling technique because the girls are soon simpering over him and his crocodile tears. All except one, that is, in the form of PR woman Jilly Kitzinger (Lauren Ambrose), who is brandishing her business cards left, right and centre. We don’t really know who she is, but that alarmingly red coat and matching lipstick just scream evil. Kitzinger is difficult to shake off too, as she’s also been talking to…
… Dr Vera Juarez, who is still narrating the moral and practical consequences of the major plot bunny that nobody is dying. She wanders in and out of hospitals and lectures, but it takes the boffins a shockingly long time to realise that, if infected people don’t die, the diseases will grow stronger and infect the world. Uh, duh?
By the time our Torchwood chums land, Esther is on the run from her own employers (in a plot twist I’ve seen more times than Jack has ‘died’) and Rex is in the same position, now officially marking him as one of the good guys (ooh, I spot a team forming…). Once in the airport, he frees Jack and Gwen, and in an effort to escape from Lyn, he manages to twist her head back to front. It’s really not her day. She even follows them to their getaway car (Esther’s blue Mini Cooper), stumbling grotesquely across the car park backwards. The boundary pushing is grotesque, but it’s the funniest scene in the entire episode.
I don’t know where those fifty minutes went, and if I think about it too much, my head hurts. No sign of any daft aliens or sex monsters yet – and you need to suspend your disbelief higher than five Empire State Buildings stacked on top of one another – but Torchwood still hugely entertaining.
Torchwood: Miracle Day continues on BBC1, Thursday 9pm.
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