TARDISMonkey's Torchwood Diary - watching Torchwood an episode a week from the start...
2.10: From Out Of The Rain
From Out Of The Rain feels like a true Torchwood episode once again. This time around, we’ve left behind the very heavily character driven stories which we’ve had recently. It was nice for the series to step into the weird and wonderful themes of horror once again. With this episode written by Peter Hammond who wrote the amazing Small Worlds, it was no surprise that it was very reminiscent to series one.
The start of the episode builds up the creepily dramatic flare with the Ghostmaker, a stereotypical showman with his top hat and big moustache, welcoming all people into his circus. It’s a true classic horror in the way it is filmed, feeling as if you’re someone wondering around the circus, as everyone looks towards the camera. The Ghostmaker hands a girl a ticket to the circus when all of a sudden, the whole circus disappears, leaving only the girls mother behind. This story feels like it could be straight out of a Sarah Jane Adventure series.
In true Torchwood style, they are already on the case, as Ianto finds some rift disturbance at an old cinema he used to go to as a kid. As they watch the film believed to be old footage of Cardiff, the Ghostmaker mysteriously appears, gesturing to the audience to come up to the screen. The themes of the circus living within the film is a truly horrifying concept, as it suggests the possibility of the circus performers eternal life. In a shocking twist, it turns out that Jack went undercover to find out what these circus performers were up to 80 years ago, when many people went missing when the circus came to town. This would have been an amazing path to take to delve into Jack’s history once more as he tries to cover up who originally sent him. That would have been the moment to develop Jack’s character just a little more, but unfortunately was missed.
What’s nice about this story, is it’s very heavily lead by Ianto as he seeks to find out who these people are and why they’re taking the souls and the very essence of their being. It really gives Ianto a leadership side which we haven’t seen previously in stories. If we wanted to go down the more character driven route as with Owen previously, this would have been Ianto’s time to shine.
Another missed opportunity was with the Ghostmaker and Pearl. The idea of these two going around capturing life essences from people is great, but the threat of the whole situation seemed incredibly mild in comparison to other events the Torchwood team have endured. What would have been amazing, was if the circus had already re established itself travelling around the country and everyone started to disappear again; it would have created more of a deadly impact for the team to sort out. However, the resolution to this episode is a quick finale as if they were running out of time for the episode.
The Torchwood team quickly work out the only way they can stop the night travellers from taking the life of any more people, is to destroy the film they were living in. It’s a great concept, but it would have been more amazing if the team had to work this out in a last minute escapade. It’s never really explained why the circus people are doing what they are doing - they just seem to appear and not do all that much. What would have been amazing is if they turned out to be some kind of alien water vampire, or was that the plot of “Waters of Mars” I’m thinking about? Instead, we get a very speedy, Jack saves the day again ending, which has become a repetitive problem throughout Torchwood as a series.
Overall From Out of the Rain had a great concept that could have been helped with maybe this being a two part story. There are so many opportunities to establish character and plot, however it was all very rushed to fill the 40 minute time frame. There is a great little twist at the end of the episode. Just as Jack is about the put the flask away that captured the souls for the circus performers, a boy and his dad find another film canister with the same logo as the flask has on it. Has Jack really defeated the night travellers?
Ellie (TARDISMonkey)
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[Source: DWO]
