Another secret-history episode of the Sci-Fi series has a First World War soldier wounded on the Western Front kept in suspended animation
To The Last Man is the third episode of Torchwood series two, the spin-off television series from the BBC's massively successful Doctor Who revival. Torchwood was created by Russell T. Davies, the man credited with much of the success of the new Doctor Who. US viewers will be able to pick it up later in the year, while the DVD of the series is to be released in 2008.
To The Last Man
The episode opens in a hospital in the first world war. A bright young man and woman stride through the hospital, and approach one of the patients. "Tommy," the man says, "we think you'd better come with us. We're Torchwood."
Cut to the present day, and an unusual shot of domesticity; Toshiko dressing and eating toast. This is a special day. One day a year Private Thomas Reginald Brockwith--'Tommy'-- is awoken from suspended animation and given a thorough medical examination. The Torchwood team don't know why, except that one day they are going to need him.
"St Thomas Hospital, 1918," Jack tells Gwen. "There was a time-shift. Chunks of the past will start to appear. When enough of it appears, it'll start a chain reaction."
The revival is difficult, and highlights the sympathy that Toshiko feels for the young man on the gurney. Perhaps there is more, for Tosh is lonely and vulnerable. And any attraction is clearly recripocated on Tommy's part. The pair spend a day together in Cardiff, but as the day progresses, the rift begins to open, and it becomes clear that the day that Tommy has waited almost ninety years for is coming.
He must face a terrible fate, and worse, Tosh must persuade him to do his duty, even though she knows it will cost him his life.
Toshiko Sato -- Naoko Mori
Played by Naoko Mori, Toshiko Sato is, in line with most of the team, allowed one episode a series to showcase her talents. There is no doubt that Mori is a fine actress, but there is a danger that in typecasting her as prone to falling for the guest stars, and it risks shortchanging her character, of locking her into the role of the team's 'carer.' The show's creators would no doubt argue that they have made her reaction to this crisis less passive than in the first series.
Helen Raynor
One of the new writers brought through by Russell T. Davies on Doctor Who, Raynor seems to be making a speciality of historical based episodes. She wrote the two-part episode Daleks in Manhattan, set in the 1930s, and has now brought a little of the history of Torchwood into full view.
If the viewer can accept that according to this particular secret history the Victorians developed cryogenic stasis and kept it quiet, then To The Last Man is one of the better episodes. While there's an element of magic-wand-waving with the talk of a chain reaction, and the drama veers toward the shrill, the characterization is as acute as ever, and Raynor offers judgement on one of the less savoury aspects of the First World War -- the sending of traumatised soldiers back to the Western Front.
