Doctor Who Club of Australia

[Dougy]

I didn't really enjoy this. I felt it was all a bit messy, all over the place. I could have smacked Yano (is that his name?) with all his carrying on. I can't really put my finger on it but this ep really didn't do it for me.

[Sulp Niar]

Well... ‘Cyberwoman’ was as good as ‘Ghost Machine’, technically, but for entirely different reasons. I wouldn’t call ‘Cyberwoman’ a classic, but it still managed to maintain the consistent level of, well, goodness that Torchwood seems to have found. Whereas ‘Ghost Machine’ was great because of beautiful plotting and writing, however, ‘Cyberwoman’ flaunts us with a largely dull script that relies purely on the acting and direction to succeed, which is lucky for us because both are top notch.

The script isn’t poor or anything; in fact, to be honest, there’s nothing wrong with the script at all. Gone are the supposedly “adult” sex scenes of ‘Day One’, even though this was written by the same man, Chris Chibnall. However, after watching a Youtube clip of a deleted scene from ‘Day One’, I’m forced to think that Chibnall is actually trying his hardest – the scene is a rather good one that pokes fun – and meaning – at our society’s obsession with sex and actually turns the central conceit into perhaps a post-modern story (which doesn’t absolve it, but goes some way to excusing it). This scene was cut. I can imagine executive producer Russell T Davies – who seems to love the idea of a sex alien in Torchwood Declassified, whilst Chibnall doesn’t actually make it clear and seems embarrassed about it – saying, “Hooray! Sex! Let’s just have lots of sex and kissing and forget all about attempting to portray love in an adult way! Hooray!” I’m increasingly starting to suspect that this is Russell’s fault and not Chibnall’s, to be honest – after all, whilst ‘42’ had Martha over time develop subtle feelings for a guy and kiss him at the end, ‘Smith and Jones’, in the same series, had the Doctor kiss Martha for the hell of it (and whilst it’s explained away, ‘New Earth’ last year did the same thing and had the Doctor proud of it). Guess who wrote each episode? Like Doctor Who, it seems to me that the people on Torchwood bow to Russell’s judgement at every step of the way, and whilst again this doesn’t absolve Chibnall, it largely excuses him.

For ‘Cyberwoman’, the problem is the realisation of the monster. From listening to the dialogue (yes, that’s what Torchwood is for, Russell, adult dialogue, not sexiness!) and watching the acting, the whole concept smacks somewhat of a scene from the Doctor Who audio ‘Spare Parts’ extended for an entire episode. We only have one Cyberman (I’m calling it that for ease of reference; gender shouldn’t be an issue with them) here, but the loss of individuality works extremely well and is brought home far better than in ‘Doomsday’, or possibly in ‘Rise of the Cybermen’ (and, so as to not just bash the New Series, it’s used better in ‘Cyberwoman’ than in ‘The Gathering’, ‘The Invasion’ and ‘The Tomb of the Cyberman’ is well... whereas other stories such as ‘Revenge of the Cybermen’ don’t even acknowledge it). We get classic scenes of a Cyberman walking around threatening people, and the “smash hand through the window panel” may be old hat but it’s something Doctor Who has done before with the Cybermen (see ‘The Five Doctors’), but the true power of what a Cyberman is – or was – is brought home powerfully here, through the simple power of love (and yes, it is love, not lust) shared between Lisa and Ianto. The scene where Lisa sees herself in the mirror and says, “I look disgusting”, is fascinating, because both human and Cyberman are sickened at what they see (of course, the Cyberman can be because emotion is still there).

Unfortunately, on screen, the phrase “I look disgusting” doesn’t apply; if anything, “I look sexy” would be more appropriate, followed no doubt by an excited “Hooray!” from the back. I’m not saying I’m turned on by head handles and cybernetics; what I’m saying is that the human’s naked skin is so obviously geared to generate a “sexy” feel to the show that it completely turns me off. If anything, they achieve the opposite of what they set out to do, and they also shoot themselves in the foot. I find it incredibly hard to believe that the Cyberman conversion process would completely convert bits of the body and leave other bits intact – surely an entire encapsulating shell to protect the weak flesh would make more sense. Furthermore, I’m more inclined to believe that removing emotion would be a priority to simply encasing the body in steel, but since both ‘Spare Parts’ and ‘Doomsday’ contradict me as well I can’t exactly hold on to this theory. And finally, and this is for once a fault of the script, I cannot believe that a Cyberman would have its laser gun fitted so early on in the process; it’s simply illogical to not bother with protecting the entire body and simply attach a gun. This is a trivial moment, thankfully, but it still bothers me. Overall the Cyberwoman was rather poorly realised, and the only reason it honestly works is because the episode is pitched into darkness for basically the entire story, making it – like all classic series Doctor Who monsters – work much better without the design flaws being so blatantly apparent. I can see Chibnall sitting down at his desk, right after being shown the design, and deciding suddenly that he should make Torchwood lose its power...

The characterisation and acting make this story really work. Ianto, who in previous episodes has had a grand total of no more than ten lines (if it’s more, I’ll be hugely surprised), here gets an entire episode which gives a damn good reason for his sidelining before. That said, since this plot is now over, I can’t help but dread he’ll return to “one line a week” man over the next few stories. Anyway, the actor (don’t know the name) is excellent here, bawling his eyes out at every opportunity. Actually, the acting all round is first rate, whether from the Japanese businessman, the innocent then creepy pizza girl who becomes a host body for Lisa, and of course the regulars. Tosh gets the least to do, but she’s great support as always. Gwen doesn’t noticeably get more to do than Tosh – except a quick snog in a cupboard with Owen – but her character is sold in the end scene with Jack where she asks him about love and death (now there’s a Doctor Who New Series title! ‘Love & Death’. The Doctor and Tate go to see Jane Austen... what am I thinking? That’s two annoying women in the one episode), and also I noticed that, whilst the others stared at Ianto after shooting Lisa mkII, she was the only one to look away, suggesting that not only is she still not exactly used to this life, but she hasn’t gotten over the events of ‘Ghost Machine’ completely yet. And despite Ianto’s fantastic run here, Owen is still my favourite character here, stealing a snog, complaining about women drivers (a joke that Jack laughs at – you’d think after all those years stuck on Earth he’d be sick of sexist comments, wouldn’t you?) and sounding deadly serious and scared when he sees the conversion machine (coming after his suppressed, murderous rage in ‘Ghost Machine’, it really just proves that Owen is a great actor).

Something else interested me about this episode, and that was Captain Jack. Barrowman’s acting carried the scenes where he threatened Ianto – which I was expecting but were still quite potent – but what interested me was the end speech with Gwen, because it raises a couple of points. If you think about it, Jack is a Cyberman; he’s barely human, he is willing to sacrifice human life at the drop of a hat, and crucially, he can’t actually die (alright, so Cybermen can, but they’re supposedly virtually indestructible). Therefore, “I felt alive!” is a great line to end the episode on, but more than that I started to wonder how else Jack maintained the feeling that he was human. Apart from going out with the Torchwood gang as witnessed here, I suddenly thought of sex, and I started to wonder is Jack’s sexuality in Torchwood (I don’t mean the fact that he’s bi, I mean the fact that he’s so horny) is due to needing that to feel alive more than anything else. As interesting as this is, it really should have been brought up in ‘Day One’ to work properly, but hey, Torchwood made me think – something I’d never expected. After all, life and sex are very much intertwined – but at what stages do each become irrelevant or tools, and what stage of human or creature do we become then? Rapists quite obviously use their victims as tools (whether it be for sex or to get at someone else), but Jack is theoretically doing the same thing, even if it’s not rape. Come to think of it, Owen does too. Are they all such social misfits and freaks that this is the only way that they know sex works? Is that why Owen just randomly snogs Gwen in this episode?

Other good things about this story; the heavy metal score was a treat, though I obviously wouldn’t want this kind of thing every week. The direction and effects were great, very polished, and as I said before the lighting was excellent. One final point – I have to admit that I didn’t quite see the pterodactyl being used in such a way in the series. It was rather surprising and excellent. Still, considering the “base under siege” plot and a dinosaur, it inevitably made me think of Jurassic Park. So what is this episode then? ‘Spare Parts’ meets Jurassic Park. ‘Jurassic Parts’. ‘Spare Park’. I prefer ‘Spare Park’, actually, because it seems like the kind of reject thing an obviously crap organisation like Torchwood would get. “Welcome to the presidential speech, Torchwood, and your spare park is just beyond those trees, over that quicksand and into that pool of piranhas. Thank you.”

Come to think of it, next week’s episode looks like it’s been filmed in a spare park. ‘Countrycide’, eh? I’m hoping that, as happened with ‘Cyberwoman’, my expectations that it will be pretty bad will be wrong again. Although that’s a paradox, isn’t it? Hmm.

[Sulp Niar]

Oops! I'd been assuming that the next episode was 'Countrycide'. It's 'Small Worlds'. Ah well, there goes my poor "spare park" joke (hey, that's an improvement).

[kangamac]

Good.

I can't help it. The Cybermen have always been my favourite "species" - no matter how badly they were handled - so that always adds a bit to a story for me.

However, you have a member of Torchwood hide and maintain a Cyberwoman, who then kills some people and threatens the lives of several others and exactly what happens to him at the end of the story...?

Nothing?!

Okay...

[Sulp Niar]