I should probably get this out of the way to begin with: despite the opinion of several people I know and I’m sure thousands I do not, I do not want to bang Captain Jack. Yes, I think he is awesome, and yes, if I met him in person I would give him a big hug, but bang? no.
In any case, the first episode is called “Everything Changes,” so let’s go to the video and see if I’m really as good as I hope I am.
Yay! seizure-inducing title sequence! I love those. This one is fairly boring, as seizure-inducing title sequences go. Also, short. We swoop in over a body of water that I’m sure I could identify if I was actually from England. And we zoom in on…. Seth Green. Or a young John Constantine, perhaps. Or Seth Green and John Constantine’s bleached-blond, denim-bejacketed offspring. He appears to be dead. Folks in plastic lab gloves and lab coats swarm around the body, which is apparently on the roof of a building, getting rained on. And by “roof,” I clearly mean “alleyway,” as we zoom out. Clearly I suck at this. We follow some policemen (sorry, “officers”) in neon jackets around, and I know it’s completely normal and commonplace in England, but the female police officer is wearing this hat that is so hilarious I can’t take her seriously. It’s like an oversized bowler with that checkerboard trim all around it. Also, I have paused on her making a completely ridiculous face, so there goes any respect I could ever have for the person who is probably, according to the blurb on the netflix package, the main character, Gwen Cooper. We learn that the identity of the body is currently unknown, and suddenly all the evidence-collector guys and police officers start rushing off the scene – not in a panic, but like they just got informed by a higher-up that they should be shoving off, like, now please. Gwen has no idea what’s going on. She demands some information from one of the guys in HAZMAT suits, who replies that they were told to clear the area for “special access.” What special access, asks Gwen. “Torchwood.” dundundunnnn.

Sure enough, some mysterious-looking vehicle is roaring onto the scene. They gave Captain Jack a drivers’ license? What an awful idea. Anyway, the big black SUV stops just short of completely running over the body and all the evidence and four mysterious-looking figures all dressed in black hop out. It’s all very X-files teaser scene. Jack was riding in the back, it turns out, and HOLY SHIT do I want that coat he’s wearing. Good SciFi Series Rule #1: give the hero a long, billowy trenchcoat. It’s the modern-day equivalent of a superhero cape, only more badass. Jack is buttoning it up as he walks, like maybe he wasn’t fully dressed when they picked him up for this gig, which from what I know of Captain Jack is very very likely. Moving on! Gwen demands to know who these Torchwood blokes are with their fancy car and complete lack of rain protection, and the evidence guy jacks her coffee before answering, again, that they’re “some kinda special ops.” I’ll say. The Torchies gather around the body in a rather creepy fashion. (I’ve been reading too many Lost recaps lately, so I’m dubbing them Torchies.) Evidence guy takes off with his ill-gotten coffee and Captain Jack scans the area, passing over Gwen without so much as a request for a phone number or inappropriate suggestion. Dude, Jack, what happened to you? Rain-soaked lady, nine-o-clock. Get in there, man. I just rewound to try and read what the back of Gwen’s jacket says (it’s the name of the town they’re in) but my pause is crappy. Also, I think evidence guy dropped an f-bomb I missed the first time around – what the hell? Also, I really need to rein in the writing because I’m only two and a half minutes into the damn episode and I’ve written nearly a page. Okay, Heddlu! Heddlu police. Must be in Wales, I guess. Everything spooky happens in Wales. Gwen opts to run up to the top of a nearby parking garage to get a better view. She looks down on the scene as Captain Jack says (presumably into either the Bluetooth headset on his ear or some kind of recording device) “I can /taste/ it. Estrogen, Definitely Estrogen.” Only he pronounces it “ee-strow-jin.” Once I stop laughing enough to start watching again, I see a sign in the paused screen just behind Jack that says “WARNING: unauthorized vehicles will be CLAMPED” which sets me off all over again. Crap, I can’t take Gwen seriously in that hat (which she has thankfully taken off) and Jack will forever for me be a catalyzing force who turns everything around him into a sexual innuendo. Somehow I don’t think this show will be as scary to me as BBC was planning.

Jack continues his weird little rant: “it goes all the way up into the sky and falls all the way back down on me. Contraceptives in the rain.” Incidentally, “contraceptive rain” is the name of my new album. Please, Jack, continue. “At least I won’t get pregnant!” This show is so weird. Oh, and on review it seems this little rant has something to do with ladies taking the pill and then peeing and thereby releasing the aforementioned contraceptive rain. Not that this makes any more sense. Jack snaps out of his weird little reverie and watches his assistants, who are pointing all kinds of futuristic gizmos at the body, including a weird metal gauntlet (glowing blue, of course) that she says “grants her access.” Suddenly she starts gasping and one of the other Torchies mutters “here we go..” The rain stops. The lights around the scene suddenly flare up, and dead bloke comes back to life. Apparently. At least he’s babbling away like an idiot. Another Torchie says “Trust me – you’re dead.”
“How am I dead?”
“You were stabbed.”
Well, if they already knew that, why drag the guy back from the other side? Maybe to give a description of the killer? I still don’t see why any of this is anything to do with Torchwood. The Torchie with the glove demands a description of what happened and who did it, but the guy keeps yelling, “but why am I dead? I don’t wanna be dead!” The man makes some good points. On a side note, police tape in Britain is blue and white. One of the Torchies says they have only sixty seconds left, and presumably the guy will go back to being dead. Around this point Gwen starts clearly wishing she’d buggered off when evidence guy did. All that’s left is for her to drop her silly hat down right in front of Jack. Anyway, it turns out the guy was stabbed in the back and didn’t see anything useful, so this has been kind of a spectacular waste of time and futuristic glowy resources. There’s still time on the clock before the guy has to go back to the great beyond, so the Torchies look at each other in confusion. “What happens now?” Jack slaps on a kindly smile and squats down to ask the dead guy his name. Jack. You aren’t seriously hitting on the corpse, are you? No, Jack just wants to know what it’s like being dead, what the guy saw on the other side. Dead guy (whose name is John) says he saw “nothing … I saw nothing. Oh my God, there’s nothing-” And he dies. Again. Jack looks pretty upset by this.

The Torchies all start arguing (ie, bickering like children) with each other, mostly about whether they should tell dead guys that they’re dead, which I imagine is upsetting, with Captain Jack chiming in that “We told the last guy he was injured and he spent the entire two minutes screaming for an ambulance!” Bangup job these guys are doing so far, then. “Hey,” Jack yells up at Gwen, “what do you think?” Clangy music plays as Gwen grabs her hat (aw, I was wrong) and runs. And runs and runs.

Gwen has run all the way home and somehow acquired dry hair and new dry civvie clothes. AND AN UMBRELLA. What the hell, British Police, do you require your officers to be tough and sit out the rain with nothing but saran-wrap on their hats? Just every movie and TV show I’ve seen British cops in they get rained on at some point (it is England, after all) and they never have umbrellas. Okay, moving on. Gwen’s husband/boyfriend/significant other is sitting on the couch and oh, crap, he has a crazy accent. I can not understand what this guy is saying. And he mumbles. He’s practically whispering. He chats about a friend of his and insists he only had a cup of tea today (no booze) and I hope none of this is important because, like I said, I have no idea what he’s saying. The only full sentence I manage is “there’s some cold Chinese in the fridge,” and as weird as this show is, I don’t see that being too significant to the plot. Cut to 2 in the morning. Gwen can’t sleep. Cut to the magnificent city of Heddlu. Cut to me looking up Heddlu on wikipedia. Heddlu means “police” in Welsh. Oops. Cut to Gwen in a smart-looking suit (I think it’s her uniform but without the jacket). Despite the lack of sleep, she looks much better today. Maybe it’s because she’s not doing an imitation of a half-drowned rat. Plus she ditched the goofy hat. Also, holy crap that is a swank police station – it’s all marble floors and curvy staircases. Gwen asks another officer to look up “Captain Harkness” in the database and she agrees. The other officer, of course, has a thick Welsh accent. I’m seriously considering turning on the closed-captioning.

In a briefing room, a bunch of officers and being told that newly-dead John seems to be linked somehow to the death of some other people. Gwen serves them all coffee. How progressive! My inner Gloria Steinem is foaming at the mouth. The officer in charge says that the killer is a coward, because he (they’re saying “he” so I’ll go with it) stabbed the female victims in the front, but John from behind. These are very professional-type police officers, seeing as none of them so much as giggles at that sentence. I am not so mature. It’s all Captain Jack’s fault, I swear! Gwen and her partner are out on the street, and she’s asking him if he knows what Torchwood is. He, like evidence guy, replies “special ops.” When Gwen presses further, he claims they’re probably in charge of DNA testing, etc. “All that CSI bollocks. I’d like to see that. CSI: Cardiff. Can you measure the velocity of a kipper?” So we are in Cardiff. Thanks, show. You couldn’t’ve given me, I dunno, a chyron or something ten minutes ago? They head into a pub to break up a pretty involved bar fight. In the middle of the morning? Wow, the football hooligans get started early in Cardiff, I guess. Gwen gets hurled back into the wall, because she is wee, and smacks her head. Cut to the police doctor, who apparently removes something from the back of her head (ow) and puts it down with a clink. Eww. Gwen leaves his office without so much as a thanks and sees a blurred figure tearing up the staircase. American loose in the station! Gwen runs up after him, although he seems to be running like a normal human now, so maybe that was my DVD player. Running running running. You’re no Doctor Who, Torchwood, so quit with all the running. At the top of the stairs is a set of sealed-off doors, this time with normal yellow-and-black tape. Gwen asks a janitor what’s going on and he says that floor was sealed of that morning because of “chemicals or something.” Yes, those deadly Harkness pheromones. No seal will contain them!

Gwen, of course, squeezes through the tape anyway, and sees a long beige hallway, “Hello?” And then an alien walks out. Gwen apologizes for barging in and says she’s looking for someone. She keeps walking toward the alien all casual (I should mention that said alien is pretty humanoid-looking, but still obviously an alien) and chatting away until she gets close up to see its face. Even then she’s not all that fazed and keeps talking calmly to it, saying it’s “official business.” The alien is wearing shiny pyjamas with “torchwood” embroidered on the front. Gwen apparently thinks it’s just some guy in a mask, and keeps asking where the “man in the big grey coat” went, but she’s starting to get nervous. I see scream-and-run time in her future. At this point the janitor busts in, saying that he asked about the sealing-off and it turns out it was all a misunderstanding, no chemicals, sorry, ooh, lookit the face on that one, have you ever thought about plastic surgery? Hee. I love the janitor. Are all Brits this calm in face of weirdo aliens? Is it some English thing? The janitor keeps jabbering away and happily tries to touch the aliens teeth, at which point it finally gets fed up with this crap and rips his throat out! Awww, bye janitor! Captain Jack chooses this moment to come busting out of one of the doors in the hall, takes one look at the blood spewing out of the janitor, and turns and runs the other way. Ha! I love Captain Jack too. He does slow down enough to grab Gwen along the way, yelling GOGOGOGOGOGO! The other Torchies (including a chick in glasses I haven’t seen before) mace the alien and put a bag over its head as Jack shoves Gwen out through the seal again and goes back to help (or maybe just take all the credit).

Gwen is running again, running running and outside! Also, wearing a bulletproof vest! How does she acquire clothes like that? Out in the parking lot, she is clearly in shock, which isn’t helped when the Torchies nearly run her down with their black SUV. Clearly, Torchwood hates Gwen. She hops in her own police cruiser and takes off after them, just as her partner comes out with a sandwich and sees her peeling out. He kind of raises his hand and goes “…..oi.” in a hilariously confused sort of way, like what did I do to piss her off? Another shot of Hedd- er, Cardiff. That is one nasty-looking highway system they’ve got. Gwen reports on the radio about chasing this car down and reads off the license plate, which is apparently CF-06FDU, so make of that what you will. Her officer friend calls in to tell her there’s no Jack Harkness who is also a captain anywhere in the registry, which is just shocking. Gwen remembers that he had an American accent and her friend is pissed she didn’t tell her that because there is actually an American Jack Harkness, captain, but he died in 1941 in the Blitz. Well, presumably died. Which is not the same thing at all. dun dun dun!

Gwen tails the SUV (which has some weird circular depression on top as well as some other weird doohickies) to a streetcorner where it drops off the same away team we saw before. She takes off after them but is interrupted by a rent-a-cop who tells her to move her car. Gwen is all, “Heddlu, bitch!” and ignores him, but has lost sight of the Torchies. She’s back in her (parked) car later and it’s raining again. The station is telling her there’s no such registration as the one she called in. Gwen is totally pissed off now. Incidentally, I kind of like Gwen. She’s pissy and cranky without whining like some female characters in her position would do, and not a single scream so far. Of course, there’s still a lot of show to go. Gwen’s partner hops in the passenger seat and bitches at her for forcing him to follow her on foot. Outside, by this big mirrored statue thingy, Gwen is giving him the old “they were here they really were and then they vanished NO I AM NOT CRAZY” talk. Her partner (whose stupid name I still haven’t gotten) leads her back to car out of the rain. A security camera watches them go.

Back at her apartment, Gwen’s boyfriend (hubby?) is all proud of himself because he’s cooked dinner. Then I think he tries to speak French. I don’t know, I really don’t. Mushmouth is concerned about her massive head wound, but she insists that she’s fine and the station is shorthanded anyway so she’ll just keep working her shifts. Another shot of Cardiff. That night, Gwen is back at the plaza where she saw the Torchies, looking nervous and sad. She watches a guy on a red scooter (pizza guy?) go by. A security camera watches her. She heads into a pizza place on the corner (I was right, the scooter guy was a pizza delivery boy) and asks if they ever deliver to a Jack Harkness. She also acquires a slight Welsh accent, which has been coming and going all episode. Well, she always has an accent, but that loopy up-and-down croony thing that Welsh people do, she only does sometimes. There’s no Harkness on the delivery list, but there is a Torchwood. Apparently they order out all the time. Hee. Cut to Gwen walking down a dark and mysterious dock, carrying some pizzas. Hee again. That looks so weird. She’s in her civvies, but it would’ve been weirder if she was in uniform. She heads into a small, cluttered office with travel brochures and those damn glass fisherman’s floats all around. A rather hot young guy in a suit comes out from the back office. When she mentions “Mr Harkness,” hot guy obligingly hits a button under the desk that opens a suitably mysterious secret passage in the wall, all stone and damp and cobwebs like a dungeon. He gives her a creepy (and hot) smile and the door slams shut behind her. She goes down the passage through another door that opens and shuts itself, into an elevator that goes up, revealing a big room with a big huge rusty gear in it. Oh, the gear is actually the door. Inside is all kinds of weird BBC scifi type shit, all tubes and wires and bubbling tanks. In the middle of it sits the chick with glasses from before, at a computer. There’s a case of huge guns in the corner, and industrial-looking cages and chains and spinning siren lights. Gwen is getting creeped out. The gear-door rolls shut behind her. One of the bubbling tanks contains a hand. Hi, Doctor!

After a pan around the big, cluttered, multifloor room, Captain jack himself strolls out in blue suspenders and shirtsleeves and heads down all casual to get his pizzas. Or not. He blows right past her and down another hallway. In fact, every single person in the room is completely ignoring Gwen. According to the clocks in here, it’s been half an hour since Gwen left the outer office. That was a long elevator ride. As Gwen cautiously approaches Jack, who has flopped down at a desk and is pretending to do some paperwork, one of the Torchies snorts loudly and yelps, “I can’t do this! I’m sorry, I can’t-“ he cracks up and flails around. One of the other agents snorts that he barely lasted a second and Jack smacks his forehead into his palm. Jack points out that she’s actually carrying pizza, and if his dopey interns hadn’t fucked it up, he was going to do this whole bit of asking how much, and then saying he had no money, and then … he hadn’t come up with the punchline yet but thanks for fucking up the whole joke, man. I’d like to point out that Garret, the Torchie who messed it up, is wearing a lab coat with all kinds of little buttons on the lapels, like the pieces of flair from Office Space. The Torchies make fun of her for taking so long to get in, saying they could see her the whole time on their cameras. So this ultra-secret mysterious society is actually a bunch of goons who sit around in their subterranean dungeon playing jokes on unsuspecting passersby and eating lots of pizza. So basically, Torchwood is a fraternity.

Gwen gets right to the point, asking about the janitor who got his head bit off by the alien. The Torchies cheerfully answer that he’s dead, but they covered for him and are going to plant the body in the river or something so no-one will suspect anything. Gwen asks, horrified, is they covered it up, and the one I’m forced to describe as the female Asian Torchie answers perkily that that’s her job. Gwen asks after the dead guy in the alley, and Harkness comes forward to ask her “what did you see?”
“you revived him.”
“noooooo,” he answers, “what did you see?”
“you .. resuscitated him.”
“nooooo,” again, “what. did. you. see?”
“you brought him back to life!”
“yep.”
Introductions are made (not of any of the other Torchies, unfortunately) and Harkness invites her to come see the murderer. Gwen ditches the pizzas on a couch and follows, demanding some answers, but is interrupted by the huge thing flying over head. She squeaks (still no actual screaming out of her) and goes “what was that??”
“Pterodactyl.” answers one of the Torchies in a deadpan, which I would normally find pretty funny, but I’m currently thinking all the Torchies are sort of dorks.

Harkness takes her down to a bunch of plastic-walled cells and flicks on a light. In one of the cells is the alien from before, still in his official Torchwood-issue pyjamas. Gwen gasps a little. Harkness assures her that it’s sedated and tells her it’s called a “weevil.” This is what the Torchies call them, since they can’t communicate with humans. The weevil bares its teeth at them. Harkness explains that the weevils are subterranean and usually peaceful, but occasionally one will go nuts and start killing people. He gives Gwen a chair and tells her to look into the weevil’s eyes.

TBC!