Torchwood: A Day in the Death (Episode 208)

Warning: Before you read any further, there will be no resolution to the Zombie!Owen predicatment any time in the near future. Please do not take out your frustration over these events by throwing things at your computers screen. It’s not good for the computer screen. Also, I’m just the messenger. If I were in charge, the zombifictation of Owen Harper would be retconned out of existence and not Team Torchwood’s version of Retcon either.

My name is Doctor Owen Harper and this is my life. A life that was full of action and violence and work, wonder, secrets, sex and love and heartbreak and death, my death, the death I survived, the death I am now living through except, this isn’t living. Everyday is the same. I get up; get ready for work, same as everyone else. The thing is, I’m not the same. I get to work and everyone’s doing the same old thing, babbling away about aliens, weddings. I’m not real. Three days ago, I died and they think I’m fine. But they’re wrong.

Well, after a montage reminding us that Owen used alien pheromones for sex, fell in love with Diane, had a really big gun and died two episodes ago, interspersed with shots of Zombie!Owen standing in some random spot in Cardiff then taking a dip in Cardiff Bay and screaming underwater, there’s only one way to describe his opening monologue.

I realize it’s not a monologue; he’s actually talking to some chick on a rooftop. He asks her if she’s ready to jump. I have another question in mind.

Techno-Title Credits. Yet again, I cheer when Freema Agyeman’s name appears. If there is any redeeming quality of this whole Zombie!Owen arc, it’s Martha Jones.

Even in death, Zombie!Owen has difficulty with women as the chick tells him to get off her roof. I note that she doesn’t say which way he’s to leave, either via the stairwell, or the short route straight down. I don’t think she cares as she’s planning to take the short way down herself.

Zombie!Owen makes a crack about her getting dumped and then shows him the bullet hole in her chest. Oh Zombie!Owen, this is not the way to pick up women in Cardiff when you’re dead, although, she is rather intrigued when she sticks her finger in the hole. There are even squishy sound effects. I wish that were a euphemism, but if I showed you a screencap, you’d vomit like Zombie!Owen did last week.

The chick has difficulty believing he’s dead and I wonder if it’s because of the whole walking around thing, or because he compared himself to Jesus. She also wonders why he’s on the roof, as “You can’t die twice.” Well, I guess she’s never met Captain Jack who has probably died 100 times at this point.

“Are you an expert?” Zombie!Owen asks.

“Are you and idiot?” She replies. Okay, she’s either met him before or completely awesome.

She asks him what it’s like after death, and all we get is the standard answer prevalent in this atheistic Whoniverse, nothing.

We flashback to the Hub where Jack is relieving Zombie!Owen of duty. Apparently, no one in Torchwood has read my recaps, as they need to find out what exactly he is. Hello? He’s the walking dead? Isn’t he a textbook case of Zombie?

To add insult to death, Martha’s replacing him as the medical officer until he’s fit for duty. I don’t know, are zombies ever really fit for duty? As for Zombie!Owen, Jack suggests he keep himself busy making coffee. I’m not sure who looks more horrified.

Thus Ianto tries to teach Zombie!Owen how to make proper hot beverages for the team. Just to show you how sensitive my fictional Welsh boyfriend is, he doesn’t get mad when Zombie!Owen practically kills the espresso machine in frustration.

Zombie!Owen strikes back, accusing Ianto of “winning” because Ianto has more of a life than Torchwood’s resident zombie. Yeah well, the heartbeat certainly clenches that victory for him. If it didn’t, the breathing / drinking coffee thing would certain do it but that isn’t what Zombie!Owen chooses to focus on. Zombie!Owen snarks about Janto. So not cool there, Zombie!Owen. Snarking on my ship isn’t going to earn you any sympathy.

Ianto takes it far better than I do, as he insists Janto isn’t what Zombie!Owen thinks it is. Oh really? Would Ianto please explain why, in explicit detail?

As much as it pains me, Ianto says something totally worth mocking. He asks Zombie!Owen if he’s going to let death beat him. The places I could go with that line. One: last week he didn’t. Two: Death eventually wins against everyone, even Jack, in 5 Billion years. Three: This is one of those cases where the philosophical ideal and the line as written, doesn’t quite gel. Four: Well, at least death explains the amount of pancake makeup used on Burn Gorman this season.

So Martha performs medical tests and finds that as long as Zombie!Owen keeps working out, he won’t lose muscle tone, or age but unfortunately, rigueur mortis won’t happen in convenient places.

Martha gets called up to her first official meeting as a member of tem Torchwood and Zombie!Owen promises to bring her cappuccino with chocolate sprinkles. Which he does, and watching him fumble about with a tray makes me smirk inside as it’s karma for all the times he mocked the tea boy last series.

They’re discussing Henry John Parker, who is notable for two things. The first is that he collects alien artifacts, and was filed under “Mostly Harmless” and hooray for the gratuitous Douglas Adams reference. The second is that he’s now even too old for Jack to look at. Who knew there was anything in the universe that Jack wouldn’t consider.

Henry Parker is a little nutty like Howard Hughes and hasn’t been seen in public since 1986. Amongst his alien collection is Dogon eye, like the one Eugene swallowed, and there are weird energy spikes coming from his house.

In the midst of the all the serious case discussion, Zombie!Owen goes off into a tangent about his hatred for Tintin. It’s a set up for something later, and a seriously passive aggressive swipe at Whoniverse writer Stephen Moffat's new job.

Gwen gives everybody orders, leaving me wondering who died and made her boss. Although, I shouldn’t giver her too much trouble as the oft-mentioned best friend of Rhys, Banana Boat (and, sadly, I’m not making that up) was arrested. Hopefully, it wasn’t after a Dispantia support group.

We’re back on the rooftop where Zombie!Owen spouts the stats about suicide, which I think are a little underinflated, but I really don’t want to do the research to find out as it’s too depressing a concept. He also espouses on how brilliant a doctor he is.

He may be a brilliant doctor, but he hasn’t got any feelings. I mean that literally even though pre-zombified Owen tried to prove that was true, repeatedly. While he and Martha have a spat about Martha wanting his job (which, she doesn’t), he slices his hand open with a scalpel, without even knowing it. Since he’s dead, he’ll never heal. I don’t understand why this is a problem because it’s not like anyone needs to worry about infection.

More insult to death, Martha calls him “fragile.” Well, he always was emotionally fragile, no matter what image he tried to project. Now his body matches his psyche.

Chicky’s upset Zombie!Owen pushed Martha away, and for the second time, he snarks back about Chicky being dumped. Well, he gets his comeuppance as Chicky’s man died. Probably she’d give anything to have her own Zombie!man right now.

Begging for something to do because Zombie!Owen finds the tea boy routine humiliating, Jack says no. Sure, kick a zombie when he’s dead. Either that or send him home to watch TV and “chill.” Oh the death double entendres are everywhere, aren’t they?

Zombie!Owen makes the same realization I made last week about Jack living forever and Jack dying forever. As much as I’m not a fan of this storyline, I can tolerate it as long as they don’t pull a switch on the Face of Boe really is.

At Zombie!Owen’s new and snazzier flat than last year, Owen watches To Buy or Not to Buy. Personally, of all the British real estate shows, my favourite is Location, Location, Location as if I ever move overseas, I’m so getting Phil and Kirstie to find me a home.

He must really be bored, as he cleans out his kitchen of all food, and his bathroom of all products. Um, so the dead don’t need to style their hair? Next we get a montage of Zombie!Owen looking bored. It’s as exciting as it sounds. His head sort of wobbles throughout the entire montage, making me think that turning into a zombie, also results into you turning into a bubblehead.

Tosh comes over, with food and beverage (for her) to check on Owen. It’s ironic that considering he just tossed all the food, she brings it over. This poor woman can’t do anything right in the dating department.

She prattles on about how bad her day has been, and is clearly pissed about not being a bridesmaid at Gwen’s wedding. Well, it may be a slight for Tosh, but Gwen isn’t an idiot and probably doesn’t want Tosh’s black widow-luck anywhere near the altar.

Owen isn’t paying any attention, as we’re now back on the rooftop. Chicky is there to celebrate her wedding anniversary by jumping as her husband was killed in a car accident less than an hour after they were married.

She waited for things to get better, like everybody promised. Since they didn’t, she’s going to take a flying leap off a building. I have to say, Chicky’s being really practical about death here. She gave everyone a year and when it didn’t get better, she’s on to plan b. There isn’t a plan c, unless “plan c” is some sort of funeral prearrangement coverage.

All right, you know it isn’t good when the guest star is totally stealing the episode out from underneath the regulars, yet, that’s exactly what Chicky is doing. How do I know this? I’m actually pissed when we switch off her and go back to Zombie!Owen’s flat.

Turning on Tosh, Zombie!Owen mocks her that finally, after he’s dead, she gets too go on a date with him. There’s food and alcohol, except he can’t have any of it without gross circumstances. He mocks her long standing crush on him and to demonstrate how broken he is, he breaks his own finger. Great, so now he’s sliced and broken his hand. Um, yeah, this has been done already, and been done by a pretty crappy movie at that.

Zombie!Owen, do you not realize, you’re already dead! It’s not like she can wind up killing you like she did with her last two relationships. Plus, who as the one that wound up running out of your apartment? You! If she sticks around after that, you’ve got it made!

So Zombie!Owen goes and jumps in the harbour. Considering the number of times I’ve wanted to tell him to go jump in a lake, it’s not particularly satisfying since it can’t really hurt him.

36 minutes later, he finally crawls out of the harbour. How do we know the exact time? Jack’s been watching because, “Any guy in tight jeans runs into water, I was taking pictures.” Umm, as much offence as my Janto loving self takes at that comment, there are a couple of flaws in that statement:

Most importantly, I’m glad Jack didn’t use Ianto’s stopwatch to time Zombie!Owen.

Back in the meeting room, Gwen’s still strangely in charge but nothing said here is overly relevant, except to move us along to the whole point of this episode.

The only way they can get past all of Parker’s heat sensors, is to use a corpse. It’s a good thing they don’t have to go down to the morgue to get one, as, Zombie!Owen is readily available.

Oh yeah, and there’s a whole symbolic thing about Zombie!Owen getting his gun back and Tosh arriving having taken care of his flat. Great, armed Zombie!Owen and subservient Tosh, everything’s back to normal.

Chicky on the roof doesn’t understand that Tosh doing things like nicely returning Zombie!Owen’s keys and turning off her TV, is just the way Tosh is. It’s sad, but even I don’t cringe anymore when Tosh does this sort of thing. It’s like I’ve grown immune.

Well, Chicky’s keen on dying so Zombie!Owen rushes her to the edge.

She’s too scared to jump and asks Zombie!Owen to finish his story. Really, she doesn’t care, she’s just buying time and I love that she doesn’t play it any other way.

At Parker’s, Martha’s telling Zombie!Owen that he can’t go running around injuring himself, and punching people, and all sorts of other heroics, otherwise he’ll have 360 degree vision, except his eyes won’t need to move.

To make sure he’s protected, Jack tosses Zombie!Owen a t-shirt to wrap around his hand for protection. Great, not only is Martha barely being used to any of her awesome potential, but also Jack’s now directly contradicting her orders. Did we establish that, technically, Martha could be his boss?

Of course, now that Zombie!Owen has permission, he punches out a guard, electrocutes himself, and doesn’t worry about being shot by another guy. He’s acting more like a true zombie every day, not caring that he probably has half a dozen bruises from his misadventures. Luckily for the makeup department, the idea of shooting a corpse creeps out the other guy too much to actually do it. In fact the best part about the whole thing, because it isn’t as if we didn’t know Zombie!Owen was going to make it to Parker’s room, is that the t-shirt Jack gave him, was clearly Ianto’s idea, as it’s a Tintin shirt.

Oh yeah, while I’m at it, can we stop with every distracting noise in Torchwood being a variation of the dying animal sound from “Countrycide?” Kthnxbai.

Okay, so we get a little bit of philosophy, as Zombie!Owen muses about what a bullet does to a person, and that he’s “wrong” and “broken” but do I have news for him: he was already mostly wrong and pretty broken before he was shot. As for the line “I’m Doctor Owen Harper and I’m having one hell of a day,” it doesn’t matter how well it’s delivered, and it is delivered with skill, it’s still some extra stinky gouda.

What Zombie!Owen finds in Parker’s room is someone possibly more dead than he is, and Parker still has a heartbeat. Parker has all the money anyone could ever need, is surrounded by alien artifacts but is essentially trapped in his failing body.

Zombie!Owen’s surprised as Parker rattles off all he knows about Torchwood. In fact, the old guy has enough life in him to do something Owen never has, in life or death, appreciate Tosh’s legs. Again, I have to wonder why the team even pretends to have something resembling secrecy. Didn’t we establish, once and for all, that everyone in Cardiff knows something about Torchwood at the start of this series?

Parker believes he’s staying alive, after several heart attacks and a failed bypass, because of this alien seashell thing he’s holding, called “the pulse.” Personally, it looks more like a radioactive conch shell to me.

Zombie!Owen scans it, and with all the tact he had when he was alive, which was none, he tells the frail old man that “the pulse” isn’t doing anything for him. Ouch.

In truth, “the pulse” is just representative on one man’s fear of dying. He knows there’s nothing on the other side, because he’s been steeped in the mythology of the Whoniverse. I can’t mock the old man’s fear and even what I think is supposed to be comic relief, she Parker tells Zombie!Owen that he doesn’t know what it’s like to die, I can’t laugh.

Really, it’s just a bunch of philosophy which was interesting the first time we heard it. Now it’s getting repetitive. Yeah, people die and we decompose and there’s darkness and then it’s done. It’s part of the circle of life, yada, yada, yada. Tell that to fricking Simba and let’s move on to something else now, please?

Not that Zombie!Owen, or even pre-Zombie!Owen would be the person with whom I would want to spend the last few minutes of my life. Considering all Zombie!Owen does, at first, is remind Parker how much his life sucks right now, it just reaffirms my feelings.

Evenutally, Zombie!Owen tells poor Parker that hope is the only thing he still has going for him. As for Parker, he’s offended that he accomplished so much, and the universe has reduced him to an invalid who needs to be fed through a tube. Oh my God, if this doesn’t end soon, I’m going to be throwing myself off a roof.

Well, after realizing his true state, Parker hands over his hope, in the form of the alien seashell, to Zombie!Owen. In return, Zombie!Owen promises to come back and tell Parker all about Torchwood, because really, it’s not much of a secret. Immediately this promise is given, Parker dies. If hope was the one thing keeping him tied to the planet, then dying immediately after Zombie!Owen promises to visit, is probably some seriously unintentionally humourous irony.

We switch back onto the rooftop, and Owen’s going on about how he couldn’t save Parker. Well, sust moments before the old guy died, Owen was trying to make real death sound more appealing than his half-life, which is when I realize what my problem is with this episode. I love the philosophy I get every week in the Whoniverse. Hell, I even loved “Last of the Time Lords” for all it’s silly effects and Dobby-Doctor, because it said human thought was the most powerful thing in history. That, and Martha was extremely awesome. This episode though, is really uneven in what it’s telling me.

Even the alien conch is disappointing. All it does is wail like those whale songs you hear on the Discovery Channel. So while we have everyone freaking out and Zombie!Owen elicits a promise form Martha to take over as the medical officer and saying goodbye to everyone (and another “I love you” from Tosh), nothing happens.

They all think it’s going to blow taking both Parker and Zombie!Owen’s bodies with it but the energy released is just some pretty lights and an ethereal sound. Damn! I was so hoping “the pulse” would become just that, so I could stop typing Zombie!Owen. So, essentially, this entire episode led up to a big moment of overhyped expectations. Yeah, well, it’s symbolic of this whole episode, isn’t it?

In a slightly redeeming philosophical moment, Zombie!Owne tries to explain what happens with the alien conch. It was a representation of those times when you’re sure everything must suck, and then you find one thing that doesn’t. Again, it’s sort of like this episode, except it is Chicky on the roof who is making it for me. In fact, I’d like to see what becomes of her, and I think that is right up there on my wish list directly below more PC Andy.

Thus, Zombie!Owen tells us what “the pulse” is for. It’s an answer to those messages sent out by NASA in the 1970s. Since I can’t decide if Zombie!Owen’s talking about the Pioneer of Voyager programs, I’m going to ask if anyone out there knows which one.

We flashback to Roald Dahl Plass one last time and Zombie!Owen assures Martha Jones that his job is not vacant. I don’t think I’m going to offend anyone by saying I wasn’t a little disappointed as I would’ve like Martha to hang around for a bit longer. The two doctors hug and Martha’s goodbyes to the team are bittersweet but that isn’t what’s memorable. Do you remember two weeks ago when Gwen and Martha were sure they were the only two people in the universe who hadn’t really had Captain Jack Harkness?

And Martha leaves with one big massive PWN! It’s the most satisfying moment of the whole episode, even though it’s clear the entire time she’s kissing him that Jack’s thinking about how much trouble he’ll be in with the Doctor.

By the way, if I were leaving Torchwood, I would so do the same thing.

“You can so come back any time,” Jack tells her. Form your lips to Russell T. Davies’ ears, Captain Jack!

Inside, the only member of the team who didn’t say goodbye to Martha, Tosh, is reasserting herself as the dominant female in Zombie!Owen’s life. She gets him to promise to talk to her whenever things are bad.

Finally, Zombie!Owen admits that he’s terrified by his zombieness. So am I, particularly if I have to keep typing it.

Thus, we’re back at where we started, as it was on his ay home that night that he spotted Chicky on the roof. Before she originally intended to jump, she tossed a picture of herself and her husband onto the sidewalk. It’s very symbolic, but serves no purpose practically. What was she going to do, use it as a landing reference?

Giving back the picture, Zombie!Owen tells Chicky that if there is anything worth living for, even if it’s an alien seashell or finally getting a name (Maggie), then she has to stay.

Thus we end with Zombie!Owen and Maggie, on the rooftop, watching an alien lightshow, musing on the meaning of life.

And I’m musing on when they're finally going to fix the whole age dilemma issue from last week.