Doctor Who Club of Australia

[Sulp Niar]

Ironically, better than most of the stuff Series 3 of Doctor Who is currently putting out. Mainly because stories like 'The Family of Blood', 'Gridlock' and 'Blink' may be fantastic, but there's always one little niggle or bit that makes me think, "Why did they do that?"

None of 'Ghost Machine' struck me as pointless. The firing scene was excellent - it showed Gwen enjoying using a gun, before accidentally killing someone at the end. Plus it continued, rather well I thought, her introduction into the Torchwood crew. Owen, meanwhile, continues to be the best character of the series - and in this episode, not only is he enjoyable, he's also interesting, nearly going off the rails and killing someone. There's something about the treatment of the regulars here which almost echoes Cracker and Wire in the Blood; the same goes for the villains, where motives (to an extent) are the order of the day rather than gratuitous and pointless killing. This felt far, far more adult than the first two episodes' notions of what being adult meant - blood, swearing, sex. No, I feel what they did in this story is more adult, and it's also the kind of thing that you can't really do in Doctor Who (the New Series anyway) - imagine a story where you felt sorry for a killer or a paedophile in Doctor Who. Never going to happen. Torchwood, I feel, after seeing 'Ghost Machine', has the potential to do this, to push those boundaries, to strive for what an adult show really is.

'Course, it may turn out to be utter crap next week, but hey, you know, it's a step in the right direction, and it knocked the socks off most of Doctor Who's current output. Certainly stood head and shoulders above Series 2.

By the way, Ianto is still pointless. I'm assuming this changes in the next episode. Hopefully.

[kangamac]

Average.

Not too bad. Certainly an improvement over the first two episodes. I actually got the impression that some thought was put into this episode, besides the obvious one of "who can we watch having sex this week?".

Good to see - keep it up.

[Theta Sigma]

The DVD commentary consisted of Burn Gorman (Owen), writer Helen Raynor and director Colin Teague.

The fact that Gareth Thomas was Blake was mentioned by the commentators with Helen Raynor saying it took a lot of effort for production contributors not to call him Blake!