DAY ONE

I can't promise I'm going to keep this up for a whole week, but here's my expanded version of my "list of notes" I made during the episode.

I'll start by telling you why I had a piece of paper. I invited all my friends to see the episode together, but for this to work I promised to keep my mouth shut for the whole episode, no matter how daft, because most of them really like it. As it turned out, the episode was disappointingly brilliant, and there is barely a bitchy comment on the list. Maybe because its the equivalent of the first five minutes of a regular episode, which normally even Torchwood can't screw up (on the other hand, there was Dead Man Walking...).

You have to wonder whether they can keep up this momentum for another four days. I do hope so, though, because last night's episode was a very exciting piece of television. It was brilliantly cinematic. It was well written, well acted. It was funny. In short, it wasn't rubbish. What a shame - I was so looking forward to taking the rip out of it for an entire week.

Nevermind, they've another four hours to screw up. For now, however, I'm just going to gush.

Well, it was rather good. Standout scenes included the hilariously deadpan double-act as Ianto and Jack went in to see their poor "neighbour". I loved the way they did the first stop, wonderfully edited and subtly creepy. The second one was probably better done, but suffered because of the wearing it had been given in the trailer.

The new characters were a mixed bag. If it was going in for a reality TV vibe - who's gonna be the new Torchwood recruit? - Team Traken would have have voted Rupesh. The twist-reveal was brilliantly done, as was his ensuing death, and we instantly forgave the slightly ham-fisted way he was set up as "the new member". We found Lois very irritating - or as we've been calling her, Jo Grant. She makes tea, she's pretty, she's going to be an appalling member of a government organisation. She bumbles in on Frobisher with all the finesse of the world's all time cutest-but-worst secret agent. It's also nice to see that the Home Office has a handy wikipedia file on Torchwood. ("You want information on extra-terrestrial threat? We have an app for that.")

I have the hugest soft spot for Peter Capaldi, and Frobisher was expectedly fantastic. I'm really looking forward to the inevitable crunch. I'm also still holding out for him to be a shape-shifting penguin. It's amusing to think the Doctor is also responsible for this new PM's appointment. I wonder how Harriet Jones would have handled this? Maybe this, and Journey's End was what he meant by "golden age" - only in her absence, things got screwed up.

As for the regulars, again all disappointingly good, disappointingly convincing in subtle scenes.
Jack wasn't bad once. The reveal of Alice's true identity, with that casual "dad", rival's the Master's bomb in Ultimate Foe. It's telling he described Martha's honeymoon as "on holiday"
I like the couple ribbing, particularly because it's only Ianto who seems to have a problem with it. No one else is being judgemental. Ianto always deserves hugs. And oh! The moment Gwen realises she's pregnant? It should have been mawkish - instead, it was beliveably adorable, and after three years with these mugs, I felt like a glowing relation.


Finally, they seem to be doing adult properly. It's the same world as Doctor Who - RTD claims he cut a Daleks reference, and I agree it would have been oddly inappropriate. It's the same world that has been repeatedly invaded, yet only here we can have the story of the suicide rates going up. It's good dark, instead of "lets have an exploding-orgasm-alien".

Other thoughts:

"I was talking like an alien! It was brilliant!"

I'm a sucker for building coherent continuities where there isn't one. Was the laser device seen twice in this episode the same thing as used by the Master in Mark of the Rani?

On similar lines, Aly tells me the "gizmo" is a perfectly normal piece of kit held by normal secret agents. Which is a pity, because I was kinda hoping it'd turn out to be Miss Foster's lost sonic pen.

UNIT is back as the United Nations, at least semi-officially. They drop it into some background dialogue.

Triple deadlocked! That's excessive!

The time difference in America! Brilliant observation. Reminds me of Goth Opera, when there's the 24 hour night in Britain. People are slightly less worried in Australia, where they experienced 24 hours of sunlight.

And I'm very, very excited to note that virtually every trailer scene came from this first episode. We're going off the roadmap, folks. 15 minutes until DAY TWO...