Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (Torchwood)

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14 – "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang"
Torchwood episode
The hologram of Captain John's ex-lover tells him that the diamond he was searching for was a ruse to avenge her murder.
Cast
John Barrowman – Captain Jack Harkness Eve Myles – Gwen Cooper Burn Gorman – Owen Harper Naoko Mori – Toshiko Sato Gareth David-Lloyd – Ianto Jones
Guest stars
James Marsters – Captain John Hart Kai Owen – Rhys Williams Tom Price (uncredited) – PC Andy Davidson Menna Trussler – Elspeth Morgan[1] Paul Kasey – Blowfish Crispin Layfield – Mugger Nathan Ryan – Victim Inika Leigh Wright – Hologram Woman Sarah Whyte – Miss Styles[2]
Production
Writer	Chris Chibnall
Director	Ashley Way
Script editor	Brian Minchin
Producer	Richard Stokes Chris Chibnall (co-producer)
Executive producer(s)	Russell T. Davies Julie Gardner
Production code	2.1
Series	Series 2
Length	50 mins
Originally broadcast	16 January 2008
Chronology
← Preceded by	Followed by →
"End of Days"	"Sleeper"
IMDb profile

"Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" is the first episode of the second series of British science fiction television series Torchwood, which was broadcast by BBC Two on 16 January 2008.

The episode features a guest appearance from James Marsters as Captain John Hart, Captain Jack's former colleague and lover, who comes to the Torchwood team as part of a plan to steal a diamond from a woman who was murdered.

Contents 1 Plot 1.1 Synopsis 1.2 Continuity 2 Production 2.1 Writing and filming 2.2 Special effects and animatronics 3 Broadcast and reception 3.1 Ratings and later broadcast 3.2 Critical reception 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Plot

[edit] Synopsis

Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) returns to his team in spectacular fashion, walking into the middle of a hostage situation involving his team and an alien Blowfish, shooting the intoxicated Blowfish in the head. At the hub, his team question why he left them, and he simply responds that he belongs at Torchwood. They then are alerted to a death near a multi-storey car park, where the team detect energy from the Rift on the corpse. Jack, to even his surprise, gets a hologram message on his wrist device from a person he recognises, and leaves the team to talk to him.

The person is Captain John Hart (James Marsters), a fellow Time Agent and former lover of Jack. He is responsible for the death, and a public disturbance at a nightclub. After a brief fight at the nightclub, John tells Jack that the Time Agency was disbanded and he has since undergone several rehabilitation programmes, before the team catch up with Jack and are introduced to John. John accompanies the team back to the Hub, where he tells the team of three cylindrical devices scattered throughout Cardiff, which he explains are radioactive cluster bombs, and he requires help to defuse them. Thusly, they split into three pairs: Jack and administrator Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd) search an office block, doctor Owen Harper (Burn Gorman) and technical expert Toshiko Sato (Naoko Mori) search a warehouse, and police liaison Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) and John search the nearby docks.

It is clear that John has an ulterior motive; first, he paralyses Gwen and locks her in a crate. He then finds Owen and Tosh, shooting the former in the hip. Finally, he confronts Jack, who realises that the bombs are an elementary 51st century confidence trick. Jack throws the device over the building, and John pushes him off the roof in retaliation.

John returns to Torchwood, where he takes a pyramid-shaped object from the Blowfish in the morgue. The team, including Jack, who survived due to his immortality, hold John at gunpoint, where he admits that the "bombs" will simply triangulate the location of a diamond he stole off a former lover. However, by using the devices and the pyramid, he discovers there is no diamond; John's former lover anticipated dying, and thus set a trap to kill her murderer.

Unwilling to be murdered, John handcuffs himself to Gwen, swallows the key and flees towards the car park. Gwen formulates a plan to use the Rift to kill Hart, but at the penalty of her own life. The team catch John on the car park where he entered and inject him with the team's DNA, thus confusing the device set to kill John. John then agrees to free Gwen and leave, but before leaving, tells Jack that he "found Gray", visibly disturbing Jack, who just asks his team to get back to work.

[edit] Continuity

This episode features the first Time Agent to be seen since Jack's introduction in the Doctor Who episode "The Empty Child".^[3] Time Agents were first mentioned in the 1977 Doctor Who serial The Talons of Weng-Chiang.^[4]

The episode is set after the events of "Last of the Time Lords", when Jack elected to return to Torchwood instead of travel with the Doctor,^[5] which in turn was set after the events of "End of Days", where Jack left the team after hearing the TARDIS arrive in Cardiff Bay.^[6]

Captain John's lover, who appears in the puzzle-box hologram, is said to have owned an Arcadian diamond. The planet Arcadia was mentioned by the Tenth Doctor in the Doctor Who episode "Doomsday" as one of the venues for the Time War.^[7]

The issue of the identity of Gray is resolved in the episode "Adam" - Gray is Jack's younger brother, who went missing after Jack accidentally separated from him in a 51st century alien invasion of the Boeshane Peninsula. Both Gray and John appear at the end of the episode "Fragments",^[8] the former held prisoner by the latter, and play a pivotal role in the following episode "Exit Wounds".^[9]

[edit] Production

[edit] Writing and filming

The episode was filmed in Cardiff in July 2007. While a stunt double was used for the scene of Jack falling off of the tower block, Marsters and Barrowman were used for filming close to the roof's edge.^[10]

The fight scene was intended to be "sexy, rather than brutal", similar to the naked wrestling scene in the film Women in Love. While the scene only lasted one minute on screen, much more was filmed, so much that it took a whole day to shoot. 80% of the acting in the scene was done by Marsters and Barrowman themselves, instead of stuntmen.^[11]

Originally, Captain John was going to come through the Rift on a "pandimensional surfboard" similar to the one found in the Doctor Who episode "Boom Town", Chibnall changed it because the production team decided that "it would look cooler if John just calmly walked out of the Rift, as if it was the sort of thing he might do every day".^[12]

[edit] Special effects and animatronics

While the most noticeable special effect was John's entrance through the Rift, The Mill also made inconspicuous special effects, such as extending the number of crates at the docks. The special effect used for the Rift was redesigned for the second series, due to a decision among the special effects team at The Mill that separate manifestations of the Rift appear different - in this case, orange and gold was used to make the Rift appear "warmer and more magical". The Mill also made three different types of holograms. The projection from Jack's wriststrap device was coloured blue to match earlier appearances, John's wriststrap projected a flashier, full colour image due to specifications in the script, and the golden hue in the projection of John's ex-lover was based on the prop.^[12]

The blowfish in the opening scene was intended by executive producer Russell T Davies to be "like Finding Nemo, but evil" and the producer of the episode, Richard Stokes, wanted the designs to be as flamboyant as "the lionfish in The Spy Who Loved Me". The first designs of the costume were visibly different from the final design; the first designs were more fish-like than humanoid. After a humanoid design was approved by the production team, Millennium FX, who previously created the prosthetics for the Doctor Who and the first series of Torchwood, immediately sculpted the costume to Paul Kasey's dimensions. Two versions of the mask were created; one was animatronic, which included mechanical fins, and one was used for the stunt where the blowfish was shot in the head.^[13]

[edit] Broadcast and reception

[edit] Ratings and later broadcast

The episode was watched by 4.22 million viewers and its Appreciation Index figure was 84.^[14] After its original broadcast, an edited version was shown the following week on BBC Two.^[15] The episode was also aired ten days later on BBC America.^[10]

[edit] Critical reception

Metro picked "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" as their pick of the day on 16 January 2008, complimenting the "fast-paced plot" in contrast to the "puerile humour" and "[meandering] between soft porn and Scooby-Doo" of the first series.^[16] In the same newspaper, on the following day, Keith Watson commented that the episode "was like watching Carry On Up the Asteroids", but nevertheless stated that "as dramatic cocktails go, [its mix of gadgets, sci-fi gobbledegook and louche libidos] was out of this world", and gave the episode four stars out of five.^[16] The Times commented that the episode was "good, salacious, knockabout fun", the best thing about Torchwood that "everyday Cardiff hums alongside psychotic blowfish and time loops", and asked "when extraterrestrial push comes to intergalactic shove, how could anyone object to a series that begins with a blowfish driving a sports car?".^[17][18] The Guardian stated that parts were "very, very, funny" and the episode was largely "a hoot".^[19] However, The Daily Telegraph felt that the series fared better on BBC Three, but on BBC Two it was "both far too pleased with itself and surprisingly amateurish".^[20]

The episode also received positive reviews in the United States. The Chicago Sun-Times summarised it as "gay and playful sci-fi fun" and compared it with Buffy the Vampire Slayer's "good and efficient wit", and theorised that its rising quality made it "not hard to imagine it could be must-watch TV by season four",^[21] the Orlando Sentinel stated it was "a bracing mix of campy comedy, chilling twists and sexual surprises" and commented that it "enlivens Saturdays",^[22] and the Sci Fi Channel, who syndicate Doctor Who, called the script "excellent", commented that "Marsters and Barrowman's chemistry is just terrific", and lamented that the show only airs thirteen episodes per series, as opposed to the American standard of 24.^[23]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Torchwood at bbc.co.uk
• "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
• "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" at the Doctor Who Reference Guide

v • d • e Torchwood series 2 episodes "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" • "Sleeper" • "To the Last Man" • "Meat" • "Adam" • "Reset" • "Dead Man Walking" • "A Day in the Death" • "Something Borrowed" • "From Out of the Rain" • "Adrift" • "Fragments" • "Exit Wounds"