It takes a real numb nuts to plonk the programme on Friday without telling anyone. I didn’t know and was out (yes, BBC, Torchwood viewers go out on Fridays too); iPlayer wasn’t working at the weekend, so I hadn’t seen it until yesterday. And what’s more, it was a really very good episode. After going to investigate some “strange energy signatures” (read as bombs; always, always read as bombs) the team get stuck under rubble and have a trip down a rather deep, dark memory lane to when they joined the famous five. Jack was recruited by two near-vampires – kudos to Torchwood for resisting the urge to make two women working together lesbians; they evidently can manage to have two characters work together without making them shag each other senseless. Over the years he works for the institute, so we get nice flashbacks over its history (although no explanation as to why he didn’t know the Torchwood folk from the 1940s earlier this series). The nineties bunch in particular look like a fun crowd. A Friends for Cardiff. Of course, she wasn’t alone in the misery stakes, because Owen’s beloved fiancée appeared to be dying of early on-set Alzheimers. But at least his story perked up; she’s not dying of Alzheimers at all! Everything’s fine, she hasn’t got a…ah. Oh. She’s got an alien in the head instead. At least Ianto had a bit more cheery fun, stalking Jack for a job and then trying to capture a pterodactyl, which I’ve incredibly managed to spell right first time. He wrestles with dinosaurs, Jack, and then his own feelings for him (lucky Jack didn’t keep his 19th century sideburns for Ianto, really). In the absence of anyone dying, or being held as some sort of ‘combatant without charge’ kind of thing, this is an absolute rainbow. Hurray for Ianto.
