N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!
Day One or, to give it its Friends-style title, The One with the Sex Alien (even if it’s actually Day Zero for Gwen Cooper as she’s called in the night before her first day).
“Put your trousers on and get out!”
Captain Jack Harkness, Day One
As the investigation thickens, Jack channels his inner Boyd, pontificating over the evidence board with his coffee, and later threatens for a moment to turn into Regan. Although it’s not quite a “git your trousers on, yer nicked!” moment, it’s close.
Fatally, I’m still finding it all a bit silly in places — Torchwood swanning around like they own the town, the inconsistent tone (are we meant to laugh as the sperm donors die?) — at times it feels like the show is trying a bit too hard. As I said in my post for Everything Changes, there is potential, and I know I’m being harsher on it than I would its parent show, for which I’ve consistently forgiven a multitude of sins, including, in RTD’s era for certain, the occasionally erratic tone.
At the same time, I know I’ve given up on shows for less, and if it weren’t a part of the greater Doctor Who universe, I wonder how long I would have given Torchwood back in 2006. Possibly more than these two episodes, and probably fewer now than in 2006. although back in 2017 I gave Star Trek: Discovery four episodes before bailing — and even that was more than I’d given Enterprise or Voyager!
As for Day One, it’s not all doom and gloom and silliness. And if I didn’t mention it in Everything Changes, Eve Myles as Gwen remains an engaging lead.
One thing I really liked is the revelation that the rest of the team knows nothing about Jack. The scene where they turn to newbie Gwen because she’s a cop, for info, might have been my favourite thing about the episode.
Of course, we know a little bit more about him than the Torchwood team, so the air of mystery about him can seem a little forced, but like Rose to the Doctor, Gwen is our way in to Jack’s world. We knew a hell of a lot more about the Doctor in Rose than we do about Jack at this point in Doctor Who‘s history.
If I’m prepared to allow Doctor Who to be mysterious about a Time Lord for whom we’d previously had forty years of adventures, I should perhaps cut Torchwood some slack on Captain Jack Harkness, about whom, at this point, we do genuinely know very little.
