My Favourite Episodes - Torchwood: The One Where A Cyberwoman Fights A Pterodactyl

Torchwood is a spin-off off off off Doctor Who and thus contains a small piece of Doctor Who's infinite amount of awesomeness, thus making Torchwood also infinitely awesome. You can find my thoughts on Torchwood under the Torchwood tag on this blog. Imagine that.

This particular episode of Torchwood comes from the faultless and amazing first season. Back when swear words and crude sex references were inserted into the dialogue at random moments for EXTREME effect. My favourite piece of dialogue in this episode is when Gwen utters the phrase 'hard on'. Not because I am a pervert or anything, but because using words like that is edgy, modern, and hip.

In this episode Ianto forgets to make the tea for the Torchwood team after they have had a nice game of basketball, so they all go to the pub and leave him behind. Ianto does not care though, as he is entertaining a Japanese man who is trying to fix Ianto's secret cyberwoman girlfriend that he keeps in the secret underground room that no-one else in Torchwood ever goes in. Hilarity and mirth ensues when the cyberwoman escapes from her confines and tries to teach everyone in Torchwood the true meaning of Christmas.

This episode is my favourite because:



A CYBERWOMAN FIGHTS A PTERODACTYL

The pterodactyl (Myfanwy) is considered an awesome secret weapon against the threat of cyberisation - presumably because cybermen really don't like things that flap in their faces or make CAW CAW SCRREEEEECCCHHHH sounds. The fight is so amazing and budget shattering that we are not allowed to see it in its entirety. We have to assume that this mighty battle between metal person of the future and the dinosaur of the past was decided when the pterodactyl flew off to eat something not made of inedible steel.

Ianto cries a lot in this episode. Episodes where Ianto cries about things are the best ones. Especially when he's crying over a girlfriend that will soon be forgotten after this episode. Here are some nice shots of Ianto crying:





I think the last image is the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

In the end the cyberwoman tries to find a new home in the body of a pizza delivery girl but Ianto decides that he doesn't like girls anymore so Jack shoots her.

So there you are, conclusive proof that Torchwood: The One Where A Cyberwoman Fights A Pterodactyl is the greatest episode of TV ever.

My Favourite Episodes Part Three – The Tick: The Tick vs. The Tick

The Tick was a strange show, a children’s animation series based on an independent comic by Ben Edlund, it contained surreal humour, comic book parodies and odd dialogue. The show ran for three seasons comprising 36 episodes in total and was a moderate Saturday morning hit in America during the mid 90s.

I discovered the show via a recommendation from my mum, who shouted up the stairs to my teenage self one day that there was something on BBC Two that I might like. Intrigued by what she could be talking about I flicked on the channel to discover The Tick being shown during the weekday 6pm slot on BBC Two (this was during the 90s when BBC Two would show some kind of cult TV show in this early evening slot, it had played host to Star Trek [all flavours of], Buck Rogers, Buffy, and others. This was before satellite and cable TV snapped up the rights to play cult shows on a perpetual loop.) I watched the last ten minutes of an episode of The Tick (unfortunately I can’t remember which episode it was) and was intrigued and amused by the superhero parodies and the surreal humour.

I watched the next few episodes of The Tick and was hooked, here was a show that seemed to aim directly at my nerdy obsession with superheroes, comics, and Monty Python. I later caught the entire run of the first season of The Tick on BBC Two when it was moved to a summer holiday early morning schedule. I remember waking up at the crack of 10am to race down stairs and watch and record the show with my little brother. I kept my VHS tape of the show until I moved away from home to university and then it eventually disappeared somewhere between moves. I was shocked to discover that other students at university had seen The Tick, I only managed to convince a couple of other people to watch it back home so to discover other like minded nerds who had watched the show independently was amazing to me. The Tick was soon passed around my social circle via dodgy VHS copy to indoctrinate the uninitiated and my joy was unbound when I found that satellite channel Fox Kids was showing the second and third seasons of The Tick on a daily basis. Another tape was created and then lost somewhere between lending to friends and friends of friends. It didn’t matter; I’d seen my favourite episodes enough times to remember them almost verbatim.

So that long preamble leads me to my favourite The Tick episodes, The Tick vs. The Tick. Why is this episode my favourite? Because this was the show’s first detailed journey into the colourful supporting cast on the show. The Tick and his nervous sidekick Arthur take a couple of friends (Die Fledermaus and Sewer Urchin) on a night out to an exclusive superheroes club – The Comet Club. Once the friends manage to get past the super powered Doorman they discover that a big angry jerk called Barry already uses The Tick as a superhero name and he’s not happy to share it. There’s also a lunatic called The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight who is intent on destroying the venue with all the superheroes inside. Die Fledermaus tries to chat up various superheroines with little success and Arthur is forced to spend the evening with a talking dog and orangutan in a shed titled, The Sidekicks’ Lounge.



What I love about this episode is the interplay between the superheroes and the obvious hierarchy between them. The Tick is highly regarded as he has a set of useful powers (he’s nigh-invulnerable and super strong) and he’s saved The City (yes, the name of The Tick’s city of operations is The City) whereas heroes like Sewer Urchin are looked down upon and ridiculed by others because of lack of powers and recognition. The sidekick/hero divide is explored by the scenes in the Sidekick Lounge where Arthur receives career advice from a talking dog; the feeling is that the heroes take the credit while the sidekicks do all the hard thinking. Barry is interesting as he’s not a hero, he just dresses up as one so he can hang around The Comet Club and bully weak heroes and feel important but meets his match when he takes on the super strong and stubborn Tick. It’s fun stuff that really breaks down the superhero and presents them as neurotic creatures with idiosyncrasies. The episode also has fun coming up with heroes with ridiculous names and powers; a woman armed with a Poodle Gun that fires yapping poodles, Agrippa (Roman god of the aqueduct), Fish Boy – Lost Prince of Atlantis (he wears water wings), and Bigshot (the gun wielding vigilante currently going through therapy).

The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight is quite possibly the best villain in the entire series, he’s a small, mentally unhinged man who drives a VW Beetle while alternatively shouting and muttering to himself. The utterances are largely nonsensical but some seem to detail his villainous origins, here are some of my favourites:



“Surfs up space ponies! I’m making gravy without the lumps!”

“I don’t like the cut of your jib he said, so I said ‘It’s the only jib I’ve got baby!’”

“You'll never prove a thing copper, I'm just a part time electrician. I... I... I... Bad is good, baby. Down with government!”


The episode ends with one of The Tick’s morals or lessons learned; in each episode he almost inevitably gets the issue confused and gives a rousing speech about something entirely unrelated. This time he gets it pretty much right when he asks “what’s in a name?” and comes to the conclusion that Barry would still be a jerk no matter what his name is.

The voice acting in The Tick was always superb, Townsend Coleman did a fantastic job as the titular character; his voice maintained a combination of supreme confidence, naivety and righteousness. I also love Cam Clarke's performance as Die Fledermaus, a cowardly womanising version of Batman.

The Tick was in the right place at the right time, an incredibly funny show aimed at adults as well as children, it was at home with other cartoon classics of the 90s such as Animaniacs, Batman The Animated Series, Freakazoid, Dexter’s Laboratory, Powerpuff Girls, and Sam and Max. It really was a rich vein of cartoon entertainment and I’m not ashamed to own some of those DVDs as the quality holds up today. The Tick was one of my favourites and showed my teenage self that there were others out there who shared my eclectic tastes and joy in cartoons.

My Favourite TV Episodes - Part Two - Spaced: Art

Welcome to the second of my favourite episodes, this time I’ve gone for a sitcom that every self respecting nerd loves – Spaced. Watching Spaced is a blast of nostalgia for me, originally broadcast in 1999 the first series arrived shortly after I’d finished university, I was skint and terrified at the prospect of being thrust into the world of work and having to become a responsible adult with a career. Tim and Daisy’s adventures as mid 20s slackers tapped into my fears and lackadaisical outlook on life but reassured me that plenty of other people felt the same way. Tim and Daisy never had successful careers but they always had fun as they hung out with friends and did all the things that the audience did (visit the pub, go paintballing, create a killer robot in a shed) whilst making the same references to games and movies too. The Spaced gang were a surrogate circle of friends, moreso than the American phonies in Friends (although I did enjoy that show, their life experiences may as well have taken place on the Moon) the characters in Spaced were a collection of misfits and losers each with their own self doubts and crippling character flaws (in broad terms - Daisy is lazy, Tim is angry, Brian lacks self confidence, Marsha is lonely, Mike is… well Mike.)

I watched the show again over the course of a couple of days last month, it had been a few years since I’d last watched it. I was the same age as the characters at that point (25) and found the show to be a pretty accurate portrayal of life as a 20 something loser living with friends and generally having a good time despite other concerns like a crap job and lack of cash. Watching it now as someone in their thirties (31) it makes me a little melancholy, it makes me appreciate and long for those simpler times when everyone I hung out with was struggling to find their way in life but enjoying copious amounts of booze, games and free time. Those rose-tinted days have faded away as friends eventually got married, landed proper jobs or moved away to pursue marriages and proper jobs. The cosy slacker community days are long gone but Spaced serves as a perfectly preserved example of slacker behaviour at the turn of the century.

It was genuinely tough to make the decision as to which single episode was my favourite; ‘ Battle ’ is the paintball episode, the introduction of Colin the dog to the cast, and we also get to meet the infamous Duane Benzie, played by Peter Serafinowicz. ‘Epiphanies’ is the clubbing episode where Tyres unites the group through a remix of the A-Team theme. ‘Gone’ features a climactic imaginary gun fight, a stoned and drunk night out, and the return of Duane Benzie. Every episode is precious to me, so to pick just one was extremely difficult but in the end ‘Art’ won out.

‘Art’ features a great zombie sequence (inspiration for Shaun of the Dead), a hilarious interview scene where Daisy fails to land an important job, a surreal, over the top guest performance from David Walliams, and some cracking interplay between Daisy and Tim concerning jobs and Resident Evil.



Daisy’s job interview is a marvelous scene of misguided confidence as Daisy expects to walk into the interview without any preparation or ideas and get a writing job at Flaps magazine. The interview itself is ridiculous and the use of The Magic Roundabout theme to symbolize Daisy’s lack of attention and disorientation is brilliant. Then the interview ends with a peace sign and “Girl Power!” Fantastic.



Brian and Vulva’s ‘art’ performances poke fun at surreal, modern art installations and pretty much represent what the non-art fan thinks of such projects. Vulva in particular is a completely ridiculous character and almost seems to be a living nightmare with his frightening facial expressions, makeup and outfits. It’s not surprising that Tim reacts to Vulva in fear and punches him out.

The episode combines everything that’s great about Spaced into one episode; film references, gaming, absurdity, the main characters’ inability to cope in the real world, and very clever and funny dialogue. The climax to the episode is completely out of left field and bizarre, almost as if Pegg and Stevenson didn’t quite know how to end the bar scene and just decided to throw in a hallucinatory zombie attack to move things along. I find it all the more enjoyable for its surreal nature.

If you asked me again in a month’s time which Spaced episode was my favourite, I would probably give a different answer. I love the series as a whole, it’s a wodge of nostalgia wrapped up in a big ball of comedy fudge. It doesn’t get much better than that.

My Favourite TV Episodes - Part One - Doctor Who: The Caves of Androzani

This is the first in a series of posts chronicling my favourite episodes of my favourite shows. Rev posted up a list of 20 in a single post but my memory doesn’t work so well these days so I’m going to post my favourites at the rate that I rewatch them. It’s going to be erratic but hopefully entertaining.

WARNING: I am going to be positive here, there will only be small traces of snark and no fury in these posts. Read on at your peril.

Doctor Who: The Caves of Androzani



Okay, I’m cheating with my first choice because The Caves of Androzani is a four part story and I’m not going to choose just one of the episodes. So there. This is Peter Davison’s swan song as the fifth Doctor and is, in my mind, the best regeneration story so far. The story was written by Robert Holmes and the episodes were directed by Graeme Harper; a Doctor Who creative dream team. Robert Holmes had penned many of the series’ finest stories, such as The Ark in Space, Pyramids of Mars, and The Talons of Weng-Chiang. Graeme Harper was just starting out as a director but his direction was dynamic and creative from the first episode.

I first viewed The Caves of Androzani when I was six years old (it was first broadcast in March 1984) and it’s the earliest Doctor Who story that I can clearly remember watching at the time. I think I saw episodes before then but I don’t have childhood memories of them; only The Caves Of Androzani stuck in my mind and left an indelible impression. Throughout the rest of my childhood my enduring image of the Doctor was of a doomed hero, his outfit stained and torn, lying on the TARDIS floor and giving up his life in order to save his friend.

Later stories wouldn’t form such strong impressions and in fact I lost interest in the show during the Colin Baker era (forgive me Colin but your period was too scary for me at the age of six.) I still maintained my interest in Doctor Who but I read the Target novelisations of the older Doctors instead of watching the show. I didn’t return as a regular viewer until the Sylvester McCoy era; I remember awaiting Time and The Rani with great anticipation – what a fool I was, but I was still hooked on the McCoy era after that.

I was lucky though, my first episode could’ve been The Twin Dilemma and that would’ve scarred me for life.

The plot of Caves begins with the Doctor and Peri arriving on Androzani Minor, a barren planet that seemingly contains nothing of interest. Peri has the misfortune of falling into a cave system where she and the Doctor come into contact with raw spectrox (it’s alien bat poo that can be refined to make an immortality drug!) and they both contract a fatal case of spectrox toxemia. From this point on the Doctor and Peri become embroiled in a plot involving gun runners, miners, an evil corporation, androids, bat milk and bat poo, and an extremely unconvincing magma monster. The Doctor struggles to find a cure whilst avoiding the many factions vying for control of Androzani Minor. The Doctor is not central to the story at all, he’s an innocent victim in the schemes of the main players on Androzani Minor and for once he doesn’t care about the big picture, he just wants to save his friend Peri from a painful death.



There are so many players and concepts in The Caves of Androzani that it’s amazing everything holds together so well. There is an android army led by a Phantom of the Opera style villain (Sharez Jek) who are in opposition to an evil corporate CEO (Morgus) who will do anything to maximize his profits, a group of gun runners working for both Sharaz Jek and Morgus, a magma monster that eats anyone who wanders too far into the caves, and a society that uses spectrox (remember it’s processed bat guano) to delay the aging process. This story features the finest example of world building in Doctor Who as the audience learns snippets of information on Androzani society and its political situation. It’s also a Doctor Who story that combines a political thriller with gung ho action scenes. It’s a very special and rare story.

Peter Davison’s performance is brilliant; the fifth Doctor starts off at his most sarcastic and humorous as he spars with the local authority figures, but becomes more desperate and determined as the story progresses. It’s a very powerful display and throws off the fifth incarnation’s nice guy act as such behaviour becomes useless in the cut throat world of Androzani. The finale of episode three with the Doctor defiantly daring a group of mercenaries to kill him as he pilots a spacecraft on a collision course is full of wild eyed intensity from Davison, which is shocking because this Doctor never seems to get angry, just exasperated. To see him launch into a rant is shocking and powerful. Davison’s final scene at the end of episode four is fantastic (if slightly overshadowed by Nicola Bryant’s cleavage) as you really do wonder if the Doctor will survive his regeneration, “I might regenerate, I don’t know... feels different this time...”

Graeme Harper’s direction is superb; he manages to give the show a real sense of pace which was in direct contrast to many of the episodes of this era. The sequences where the Doctor is fleeing from machine gun wielding mercenaries looks fantastic, even though it’s just Peter Davison and some hairy blokes running around a sandy quarry. Harper also manages to hide the awful magma monster in shadows and use it very sparingly as it’s clear that it undermines a very good story. Harper would return to the show when Doctor Who was relaunched and he seems to now be the director of choice for the episodes with lots of action or powerful moments.

The most wonderful thing about Caves of Androzani is that it’s a tragedy. SPOILER (for a twenty-five year old story) – practically everyone dies. Few survive the conflict on Androzani Minor, not even the Doctor. Peri survives due only to the heroism of her friend. The important thing is that the characters aren’t just names on a list to be killed (like previous story Resurrection of the Daleks, which seems to introduce characters in order to kill them in the next scene), the characters in this tale are developed and given personalities before being killed off in the final episode and not one of them suffers a lackluster death. It’s grim and gritty done in the right way, the deaths matter and they serve the story.



The Caves of Androzani is my favourite Doctor Who story for many reasons but I’ll never forget that it taught a six year old me a simple lesson of determination and triumph in the face of adversity and overwhelming odds. It defined heroism for me and placed the Doctor in my heart forever.