Torchwood S2 02 Sleeper Review
James Moran's freshman TV script is an outstanding piece of work.
Sleeper starts with an opening out of a better X-Files episode that sent shivers down my spine. A couple wake to find their apartment being robbed, the robbers turn on them, there's nothing they can do, no time for help to arrive, and -- something happens. I had the exact same reaction to the opening scene of Sleeper that I had to seeing Lisa in the opening scene of Cyberwoman. "Oh shit. If this was Doctor Who this story would have a happy ending. But it's not Doctor Who. It's not going to have a happy ending. Oh shit."
The woman of the house is named Beth, and this is her story. It doesn't belong to any of the Torchwood people, although Gwen is closest to her by the nature of Gwen's job. It's rather like a much better done version of Random Shoes.
It's also a story about fate.
Something tosses the robbers out the window, ironically landing them on top of the police car called to deal with them. The police look at the scene and call Torchwood. Whether this was experienced beat cops picking up subliminal cues that something was wrong, or simply a lazy excuse to pass the paperwork to someone else, it turns out to be the right call. A growing string of circumstantial evidence and a deathbed confession point to Beth as both the killer and something nonhuman.
But Beth vigorously and honestly denies this claim. Nikki Amuka-Bird is outstanding as the frightened and confused woman whose life has been turned upside down. Far more so than James Marsters did last week, she carries the weight of the entire episode on her shoulders and carries it off perfectly.
In a bid to outweigh the mounting evidence against her, Beth rashly states that she'll do "anything" to prove her innocence. Taking her word at face value, Jack tries a painful and potentially lethal experiment that forces the alien consciousness inside her out into the open. While the scene does feel a bit like torture and more than a bit like the medieval witch-hunter's "trial by water", it's important to remember that Jack doesn't bring it out until all other options are exhausted and until Beth volunteers for it.
The alien consciousness is grim and smart. While clearly showing enough awareness to nearly fall for Jack's attempt to trick it into talking, it refuses to do more than repeat the same phrase. When the experiment is concluded it scampers back into it's shell and Beth is left with no knowledge of what happened.
Beth is shown the footage. While she doesn't fully understand what she sees, Beth is strong enough to stop denying that there is something nonhuman living inside her. Jack tells her this creature is an alien Sleeper agent, planted on earth with false memories to gather information and prepare for an invasion. Someday, without warner, the Sleeper will activate, destroy the consciousness of the woman known as "Beth", and then set out to destroy the human race.
Beth's dreams of a normal life come crashing into the reality of her condition. She is an alien. Worse, she has a monster within her that will someday totally subsume her personality and use her body to destroy her people, her planet, and everything she holds dear. NAB is stunning in this performance as Beth processes this information.
At this moment Beth knows her fate. She is going to die, either at the hands of Torchwood or though becoming a monster and losing all trace of her human memories. She knows how she will die, but she does not accept it. Ironically at this moment Beth obeys the most human impulse of all. She tries to fight her fate.
In a bid to save her life, Torchwood tries to cryogenically freeze Beth to delay her activation. They knock out her defensive force shield and communication system. Predictably, this action sends an S.O.S. signal which activates the other Sleepers. When they activate they completely lose all trace of their humanity. One casually kills his wife, another leaves a man he is giving CPR to, a third abandons her (I assume adopted) infant on a busy street corner where it rolls into the intersection and causes a crash. These scenes are brutal, but they are necessary to highlight both the inhumanity of the Sleepers and the complete and utter loss of humanity that is Beth's fate. (Speaking as a mother of three children, one of them dead, I thought the baby scene was the perfect way to get the message across.)
But now that Beth is aware that she is a super-powered alien and Torchwood has temporarily taken her "off the grid", she can use her body for her own, very human purpose. She wakes up and sneaks out of the base to see her husband for one last time. Predictably, he doesn't want her to go and swears to keep her with him. She panics, loses control of her alien body, and accidentally kills him.
Fighting one's fate is the most human impulse, but it is not always the wisest.
While Jack and Gwen are bringing her back the other Sleepers begin their plan, complete with the murder of key officials and explosions that take out a key motorway and the telephone office. Beth uses her improving control over her alien body to help Jack and Gwen stop the last Sleeper from blowing up the Earth.
Fighting one's fate may not be the wisest impulse, but sometimes it can be the most magnificent.
Back at the Hub, Beth finally accepts her fate. She owns her death. But even now she can't bear to take her own life. Or perhaps she wonders if some on-board system will stop her from killing herself. Instead she takes Gwen hostage and tries to (unconvincingly) act like a psycho alien to force Torchwood to kill her. Convinced or not, Torchwood has no choice but to use lethal force.
Ironically, Beth shows more concern and compassion for humanity-at-large in this scene than Gwen does. Beth gets the big picture.
"Suicide by Cop" is not the most honorable way to die, but it does the job. And I think Jack at least understood.
An excellent episode. I don't think we could have had an episode that focused so heavily on the guest star until we had all the ones that fleshed out the main characters first, though. There was no character development for our Team, but we did get to see more of how they operate now that they have gotten over Jack sudden disappearance and reappearance. Jack was firm and in control, Tosh was quite competent, both Gwen and Owen were as compassionate as the confines of their assignments allowed without going into overkill, and Ianto was starting to emerge from his shell to reveal a very funny young man.
Some people felt his jokes inappropriate, but I consider Torchwood to be Emergency Services Personnel. I think ESPs and EMPs (Emergency Medical Personnel) should be allowed their stress-relieving jokes as long as they don't say them in front of their clients. Besides, my 43 year-old, 185 IQ husband was laughing his head off because he would have done and said exactly the same thing.
The one exception was the "manners in bed" scene, which Gwen brought up and is exactly the sort of foot-in-mouth thing Gwen would say. Jack is astonished that she knows, and Ianto explains. Jack hurriedly cuts him off. I didn't get the impression that Ianto was talking about anything recent, rather that he and Gwen had talked while Jack was gone and that was the source of Gwen and Ianto's new-found ease with each other. Interestingly, there is no direct evidence in this story that Jack and Ianto have gotten back in bed with each other, although plenty of evidence they have been there before and are headed back in that direction. (I'm not saying they haven't, just pointing out the ambiguity.)
If the caliber of writing and acting stays this high, this series of Torchwood is going to rock!