grassangel | Can we get to the interesting stuff already?

So, this week’s episode of Torchwood. My prediction of an hour of Owen-arsery was NOT met, much to my delighted surprise.

However, it was only after the first half hour. Before that, we get to see him blow off at everyone in Torchwood and it turns out the entire episode is a recount of his day to some lady who’s about to jump off the top of a building.
Seeing him shout at Ianto wasn’t nice. Wasn’t nice at all. Neither was him shouting at Toshiko. The whole breaking his little finger was kind of gross too and so was Martha sewing up the cut in his hand.
Highlights were after he’d jumped off a pier and crawled back out and Jack was waiting there and replied to Owen’s “I bet you saw that” with something along the lines of “A young man in tight jean diving into the water? I recorded it”. I love the snark but at the same time, slightly disturbed by it. Another was him tossing the scalpel in the air rather nonchalantly.
His shirt was a nice purply-red too. Until of course he jumped into the sea. Not so prettily coloured then.

While Owen was going about how he’s dead (he does this quite a bit, when I get the DVDs I may have to count how many times he says that in this episode) I was thinking about how the usual method of getting rid of the undead is to chop their heads off and burn them.
Imagining that happening to Owen isn’t the freaky bit, it’s the HE’D STILL BE ALIVE bit.

Of course, he’d get along marvellously with Orpheus, being a talking head which can’t die.

Also… isn’t having a lady whose husband was killed on her wedding day appearing in the episode RIGHT BEFORE Gwen’s a bit… foreboding? Not that it really is, it just struck me as possibly alarming.

Anyway… Owen gets to do something at the half hour mark aside from trying to make coffee. He got to break into a house that had solar-powered heat sensors! Being dead, he’s at an ambient temperature so HE WINS! (Although… someone could’ve walked around in a suit resembling Big Bird like they did on Mythbusters.)
There’s an old man there, who’s dying and thinks some alien thing is keeping him alive and Owen is, miraculously less arsey when he’s speaking to him. Of course, there’s some going on about life and death but Owen’s LESS ARSEY. (The old guy also knew Jack and thought Toshiko had nice legs. I thought that was rather cute, especially since he kept calling her the ‘Japanese girl’.)
Although, when he tried to do CPR, I got a bit annoyed when he realised he didn’t have any breath. To speak, he would need breath. Your muscles are working, therefore your diaphragm can create low pressure in your lungs allowing you to draw air in. Your diaphragm can contract, thus expelling the air in your lungs. The bonus of being dead is that you aren’t using any of the oxygen in it.
Mmmm… not happy with that oversight.

The rest of the episode was a bit boring. Mission accomplished, big whale noise thing is actually harmless, Owen doesn’t whine.

Oh! And they said goodbye to Martha. Owen’s goodbye was terribly sweet. Gwen’s made me think I actually might not be unhappy with Martha appearing in season 4 because it was so friendly and happy.
Ianto’s goodbye was terribly polite. Yeah, yeah, kiss on the cheek, but it was so stiff and… formal. Or formal seeming anyway. Maybe it was because he knew what Martha was going to do. *grins*

And the final mystery of the episode. WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LADY BEING CALLED MAGGIE HARPER?
Or do the writers really have no imagination when it comes to last names? (Because Russell T Davies has said that he uses plain last names like “Smith” and “Jones” so that the character can have more of a character. Or something like that.)
Wasn’t too happy either with how the writers structured the episode. I don’t mind it, it just wasn’t particularly well done in my opinion and the end was a bit too ambiguous. Although the light show was pretty.

The preview was… decidedly more gory than I thought it would. THERE ARE ZOMBIES. That aren’t Owen!

We should've recorded it for my mum... but I can just tell her that Owen was being whiny about being dead and then he wasn't. However, if she does get to see it when we get the DVDs, I am fleeing as soon as she sees the suicidal lady.