Torchwood: Golden Age...

[fajrdrako]

I loved Torchwood: Golden Age. Best of the radio plays so far. Amusing, exciting, a great ironic sense of time and place, and bits of Jack's past coming back to bite him. Also a nice commentary on the changes that have taken place in the world since 1924.

Things I liked:

1. That Jack seems to have genuinely liked the Duchess, and wanted to save her even after what she'd done, even after he'd called her a "monster". I love it when, like the Doctor, Jack believes in the redeemability of people.
   
   
2. I liked the Jack/Ianto relationship here, even though we got no more (and possibly less) than we did in "Asylum", where I complained about too little. But it seemed clear to me here that Jack and Ianto are simply not making their relationship publicly known; Gwen knows about it and, I would assume, Rhys, and Martha, and the Doctor, but quite possibly no one else. So I really liked it when the Duchess was fishing for info about Jack's relationship with Ianto, and Jack simply introduced him as 'my assistant'. I think Ianto is happiest that way.
   
   And, further to the theme of Jack's relationships, I liked the way it was unclear (at least to me!) whether Jack and the Duchess had ever been lovers. I assumed not; that they'd known each other briefly, he'd been charming and they had some fun together, but that no real romance had blossomed before he left, and no sex occurred. Though they probably both wanted it.
   
   
3. Nice setting; I was a little confused at first as to whether they were all in Delhi, or just Ianto. I like the notion that they travel, that everything relating to aliens doesn't happen in Cardiff or near the Rift, and that they have to travel sometimes. We don't get much sense of this. We know they've been to the Himalayas on the Master's wild goose chase, and to Switzerland in "Lost Souls" - not much else, though!
   
   
4. Gwen did some nice works of deduction. I do love it when Gwen isn't being an idiot.
   
   
5. I really had a sense of excitement here. Loved the scene where the shadows sucked Ianto and Gwen into the device.