Torchwood: The Complete Second Series (blu-ray TV review).
The second season’s extras review will be brief compared to the first season’s. No audio commentaries and only 10-minute unclassifieds for each, which I covered when I watched the series originally. I know this is common with a lot of second seasons, but you do have to wonder at this lack of effort because it removes historical information.
An odd imperfection I did find. In The Pharm episode, ‘Reset,’, they have various alien species locked up, including the Weevils. The Pharm also calls them Weevils, but only Torchwood did before.
There is always something odd about actress Eve Myles’s eyes. You would think with studio lights, her irises would have shrunk down and not be so dilated as here. When Harper inspected her eyes with a medical torch, they didn’t change either. It probably applies to the rest of them as well but is more obvious with Eve because her eye colour is dark grey.
On the fourth disc, there are 48 minutes of extras. ‘The Life And Death Of Captain Jack Harkness’ spans 22 minutes and covers his early life and that of the Time Agency, although it doesn’t explain how he was recruited, let alone being the first. I mean, why would they want an obvious con man loose in time? Harkness being unable to die does not appear to stop his hair from growing, or he wouldn’t be able to have sideburns. It’s not like he’s stuck in a complete stasis on this, although considering he was buried for a few centuries, why didn’t his head hair grow longer? I do like the fact that David Tennant and John Barrowman are laughing at the revelation that Harkness would one day be the Face of Boe.
The 9 minutes of ‘Outtakes’ have the usual line fluffs and other guffs. John Barrowman loved the gift Eve Myles gave him of a toy dog humping his leg. The key cast sang the opening verse of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.
The 17 minutes of ‘Deleted Scenes’ is significant for the extended length given to Burn Gorman and Richard Briers scene from ‘A Day In The Death’. Editing to a smaller length must have been hard, but at least it’s preserved.
The stories hold up today as they did some 19 years ago. Watch out for the rift.
GF Willmetts
July 2025
Torchwood: The Complete Second Series. (pub: BBC. 4 blu-ray disks. Part of the boxset. ASIN: BBCBD0299).
