Torchwood 2x12 "Fragments"

[kerravonsen]

So, now the penultimate episode...

This one's just a prologue to the next episode, really. But a good prologue anyway; the flashbacks were interesting. Good to know all those backstories.

I was very annoyed that they made UNIT evil, though. Or was it that they were jittery because it was close to 9/11? Still no excuse. Boo, hiss!
But Martha wouldn't have worked for them if they were still evil. Unless the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

Those women who recruited Jack, they were creepy. But it fits with what we already knew of Torchwood's history.

And the whole capturing Myphanwy was funny. Though we know that Ianto had an ulterior motive for wanting to join Torchwood Cardiff: looking after Lisa. But he was still an impressive worker.

Interesting how Jack inherited the leadership of Torchwood Cardiff; that's also fitting with what we saw of Torchwood in Season 1 -- that they had a tendency to mess with what they didn't understand. But it also gave Jack the opportunity to try to mold Torchwood into something good. Not that he did a terribly good job with it, looking at Season 1. I actually think Gwen was the most instrumental in that. Also, this season Jack seems to be a bit more compassionate, and I think that's also due to him resolving his issues with the Doctor. And being refined by suffering in the Year That Wasn't, that it made him realize how much his team meant to him.

So... it looks like the Big Bad of the last episode is going to be John Hart on a personal vendetta. Geeze, he really is psycho. Mind you, that doesn't preclude him awakening other alien problems, but...

Okay, so I expect that either it isn't really Grey that Hart has, or that, yes, he's going to die. No way we could actually have Jack's brother alive and well by the end. Nope.

Comments

[tptigger.livejournal.com]

No comments on the predictions, but I'm firmly of the opinion that the Doctor sent Martha in there to clean it up, after Sarah tipped him off they were Up To No Good.

Alternately, Jack tipped off Sarah after rescuing Tosh and now they're all cleaned up and ready for Martha. :)

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I thought, if there was someone dodgy in charge, they might have died in the Downing Street massacre (which was just after Tosh joined Torchwood), and someone from the good old days (eg Benton - no, maybe Bambera is more plausible) might have been brought in to clean it up.

Talking of Bambera, UNIT seemed to be doing fine in Battlefield; I thought we were given a date for that story, but the synopses I've found online just say "the near future" or "several years in Ace's future". It was broadcast in 1989, which suggests the events took place in the 1990s. So Something Happened around the turn of the century while the Doctor was distracted, and the good guys like Bambera were sent off somewhere else?

[kerravonsen]

I thought, if there was someone dodgy in charge, they might have died in the Downing Street massacre (which was just after Tosh joined Torchwood), and someone from the good old days (eg Benton - no, maybe Bambera is more plausible) might have been brought in to clean it up.

That makes sense. It is certainly implied that the "alien experts" were from UNIT, and the Doctor wouldn't have any clue that they'd gone bad.

UNIT seemed to be doing fine in Battlefield

Also the UNIT people we see in "The Christmas Invasion" don't seem to be bad either.

So Something Happened around the turn of the century while the Doctor was distracted

9/11 happened?

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

If the storyline is happening in our universe, and I'm not quite sure whether it is or isn't.

julesjones pointed out a small change of detail in tonight's episode of Doctor Who which was apparently forced on them by real life, but which might be possible to work up into a story about how and why UNIT changed.

But the really sneaky thing would have been if the Doctor had come back, found UNIT had gone bad, and finally discovered the Master had taken it over in a very satisfying act of revenge. But I don't think that's possible in the current timeline, as Saxon arrived too late to be responsible for the UNIT that imprisoned Toshiko.