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Torchwood Adrift |
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| Story No. | 24 | 
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| Production Code | Series Two Episode Eleven | |
| Dates | March 19, 2008 |
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With John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Burn Gorman, Naoko Mori and Gareth
David-Lloyd.
Written by Chris Chibnall Directed by Mark Everest Executive Producers: Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner. |
| Synopsis: Gwen tries to help a woman's son who was taken through the rift. |
The Lost by Noe Geric 13/10/23
As it was the case for the First Series, Torchwood doesn't becomes really good until the far end of the series. With the worst of Series Two (Sleeper) gone, it's time for another masterpiece of the most underated spin-off. Hi, wait! It's written by Chris Chibnall, the guy who penned Day One, Cyberwoman, End of Days... The worst of Series one. Doesn't that means it'll be crap again? Can Chris really write a good script? Well... Yes! Adrift is incredible. There are still some of the Chibbs-factor problems but the episode itself is incredibly rewarding. You've gone through the atrocious Cyberwoman in the cellar, the incredibly stupid Masterplan of Suzie and the boring Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang... Adrift is the light at the end of the tunnel. It's the first mark of Torchwood trying to do its best storyline in the best way.
As a sci-fi show, Torchwood wasn't really good at SF. The only episodes in which it worked was when the SF stuff was all about the characters. The Ghost Machine was just a pretext to explore Owen and Gwen. The Alien Eye in Random Shoes was just a means for Eugene to be in the story while still being dead. The rift in Captain Jack Harkness or the aliens yet to come in Children of Earth are all just a means to explore our society and human reactions.
Forget the aliens trying to invade Earth with sex or blood-thirsty sleepers, that's not your flood of hemoglobin, and the word "fuck" means you're doing adult stuff. It's complex character exploration that makes the show more adult. And Torchwood completely understood it only at the far end of Series Two. Here's a summary of Adrift: a boy goes missing, so Gwen join Andy to investigate. It's simple, it looks cliched, but it's incredible. The sci-fi elements are used to create an original situation, and the investigation is really gripping, as you want to know why Jack is mixed in all this. But it's also a bit of a let down as, even after twenty episodes, the characters are still wondering if Jack is worth trusting...
Another Chibnall signature is his obsession with sex. He can't write an episode without having two guys naked snogging each other. I don't get why no one edited that out of the script in the first place. It doesn't add anything, and it isn't really funny. But no one can say Chibbs doesn't know how to write characters. If you try to forget 42 or The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood that were more about an unoriginal plot than anything else, his character-driven stories like The Power of Three work very well (except for the ending). This is why this man should stick to writing pure historicals. Drama between characters is what he can do, and Adrift is the achievement of all this.
Putting the episode at the end of the second series wasn't a wise move. Perhaps it would've been more coherent in Series 1... But even there, some plot points wouldn't have worked. And this ending is tearful. I can't help myself but cry each time I'm watching it. It's terribly sad. The episode was entirely written to lead towards this scene between Nikki and Jonah, and that's when it hits the roof.
Adrift is a basic missing-boy-mystery but written to incorporate SF stuff. It turns a basic investigation story into a true character exploration, and that's what this show is good at. The next two episodes will try to follow the same path and succeed, not exactly like here but they will. It's one of my favorite of the show, it was the one that showed Torchwood's hidden potential. This show never stopped to amaze me between its stupidity and its genius. Children of Earth is yet to come; this is just the beginning. 10/10