'I torture people in happy relationships': Day One (S01E02)
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| Gas Attack |
I like this episode. Day One is utter nonsense and I loved every minute of it. In weeks to come when Torchwood dives into themes of alienation, suicide and the mundane horribleness of life: I will be longing for Day One with its Pink Alien Sex Gas antagonist. Please I am not joking, nor am I being sarcastic. There will be dark moments ahead when I too will be longing for the simpler times when to quote Dr. Owen Harper I could: “Torture people in happy relationships. Halcyon days.
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| Chris Chibnall 2018 |
This is the first episode written by Chris Chibnall who is one of the co-producers of Torchwood. Chibnall will later go on to be the showrunner of Doctor Who for the Jodie Whittaker era 2018-2022. To say that his era show running Doctor Who was controversial would be an understatement: in large part due to a ham-fisted alternation between: attempting to deal with contemporary political and social issues or an utter refusal to engage with them at all.
I will be blunt; I have not watched Chibnall’s era in its entirety. What little I have seen: The Woman Who Fell To Earth, Kerblam!, Resolutions, Spyfall, Revolution of the Daleks and Legend of The Sea Devils was either entertaining or incredibly boring. One thing I want to make crystal clear with these reviews is this: if you are coming here to see me bash Chris Chibnall, I suggest you go somewhere else. I am not happy with how much of the commentary about Chibnall’s era are personal attacks on him. As far as I am concerned that is bullying and I refuse to engage in it.
Criticisms of the programme’s lack of ideas, poorly executed ideas and characterisation are all fair game. But once it tips over into personal attacks or assumptions of the person's intent, that is a bridge too far.
My own opinion of Chibnall based on his work on Torchwood and the general themes that recur in discussions about his work, is that he wants to write Vera. Tea-time television that superficially introduces viewers to serious topics, but does not really want to engage too heavily with them as they will spoil the tea-time atmosphere.
For all that I find Vera boring and insufferable it’s clearly popular. People watch it to switch their brains off, a desire I sympathise with very strongly. For all that adult viewers justifiably complain about the lack of substance in Chibnall’s tenure on Doctor Who, I would be curious to see what the intended audience of seven to nine year children had to say. That said though perhaps they were as bored of it as the adults were.
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| Carys Fletcher Main | |
“........Camp is perky and self-conscious, self-aware and maybe naive. Camp is mercurial and difficult to pin down. Camp is polymorphous and perhaps even perverse. Camp sensibility, unlike the sensibility of the Romantic child, but like that of another kind of child-type, is artificial and unrefined……… Camp aesthetics disrupt or invert many Modernists' aesthetic attributes, such as beauty, value, and taste by inviting a different kind of apprehension and consumption. Words such as "kitsch," "bad taste," "mocking," and "nostalgia" emerge in discussions of camp aesthetics………. Beauty and value diminish in importance as audacity and energy come to the fore. A camp aesthetic delights in impertinence. It likes to challenge rather than satisfy. Its satisfactions derive from a sort of puissance of acceptance……. Parody and irony are, of course, intrinsic to a camp sensibility. Camp humour laughs at any form of essential thought” (Mallen and McGill, p.1,2 & 5).
As I discussed in the Everything Changes blog Torchwood is uncomfortable with being a Right Wing Horror series in which the horror is outside the tribe and it's coming to get us and the associated xenophobia with such tropes (Jones). So, their solution was to write something which honestly feels like a parody of such stories: the Pink Alien Sex Gas (hereafter referred to as the PASG) has come to Wales to eat our orgasmic energy and shags its victims into sparkly dust.
If you have gotten to the end of that sentence then I think you will agree that Day One is perky, audacious and irreverent. As always though please note that all of those adjectives can also be used as criticisms. I can certainly understand people who would find the premise of Day One gaudy, personally thought it think it is a romp. If we have to write alien invasion stories, make them so ridiculous that no one can possibly be offended.
With that all said; there is something substantial to Day One; namely: its discussion of sex. At the opening of the episode; the PASG possesses a young woman named Carys and uses her as a vehicle to harvest its fill of orgasmic energy.
Now Carys is a very interesting character as she does not fit the mold of a “Bad Companion.” As a reminder to readers: a “Bad Companion” is my term for a human villain in Torchwood who encounters alien weirdness and seeks to exploit it for their own ends. Carys neither seeks out the PASG nor consciously plans to exploit it, rather the Gas is drawn to her due to circumstances in her life.
Carys is used to explore a young woman’s view of sex and sexuality in the then contemporary year of 2006. In particular all double standards that permeate and continue to affect sexual relations.
About two-thirds of the way into the episode: there is a fascinating scene between Carys and her beau, the utterly scummy Eddie. The power of the scene arises from these two facts:
It is the only time that Cary and Eddie are in each other’s company on screen.
Their interaction demonstrates how layered their relationship is.
First, we learn that Carys has lost her virginity to Eddie. Now this is important because as Carys later puts it to Eddie “You were my first see. I never told you because I thought you’d laugh” (“Day One” 42.16-42.20). This is very relatable; Carys wanted her first sexual experience to be special. Therefore, in her mind the fact she and Eddie had sex must mean that he loves her. Carys even states this herself: "Do you love me Eddie?” (“Day One” 42.27).
To my mind: Eddie is a scumbag because he subscribes to the Madonna-Whore view of sexual relations: a “dichotomous set of stereotypes about women as either good, chaste, and pure Madonnas or as bad, promiscuous,and seductive whores (Bareket et al., 2018; Japko, 2023; Kahalon et al., 2019; Tanzer, 1985; Tavris & Wade, 1984) (Klein, Kosman and Kahalon p.68).
This view of sexual relations is bad for a number of reasons. Basically to quote the two papers I read: if a man endorses the Mandonna-Whore paradigm he is buying into: “two interrelated beliefs (a) polarised views that women fit into one of two mutually exclusive types, Madonna’s or Whores (e.g. women or either sexually attractive or suitable to being wives/mothers and (b) an implicit personality theory associating sexual women with negative traits (e.g. manipulativeness) and chaste women with positive traits (e.g. nurturance) (Bareket, and Shnabel p.520). Ergo, men will penalise sexually assertive women who they see as a threat (Bareket, and Shnabel p.520).
It is important to note at this point that women also subscribe to the Madonna-Whore paradigm. Men who believe in the Madonna-Whore: disregard the sexual pleasure of women, while women devalue the importance of their own sexual comfort resulting in a decrease in relational satisfaction for both (Klein, Kosman and Kahalon p.68).
All of these elements are on the screen during Carys’s and Eddie’s discussion. For example: there is a baby’s crib behind Eddie throughout the scene. From the presence of the crib it is easy to deduce that Eddie has a partner who he sees as the Madonna. Conversely, Eddie sees Carys as the Whore. Once he is sexually satisfied and realises that Carys is asserting herself and desiring a relationship he cuts her off, refuses to answer her calls or acknowledge her existence until she appears on her doorstep (“Day One” 07.15-07.39).
Throughout their confrontation he refuses to take her seriously and dismisses her criticism of him (“Day One” 42.33-42.35). Clearly, Eddie finds Carys sexually attractive while also despising and devaluing her (Klein, Kosman and Kahalon p.68). I think we can agree that these myriad of dysfunctions feed into a situation in which, neither Carys nor Eddie are satisfied with the status of their relationship.
Carys notes that she was not sexually satisfied by her encounter with Eddie; “And you’re crap, all you want is to cum and you don’t care what’s underneath” (“Day One” 42.27-42.33). Meanwhile, Eddie is clearly not satisfied with the relationship with his partner or he would not be playing the field. In short, this is a really interesting scene with a lot to unpack, now let's turn this conversation towards the existential.
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| Rats - Home Assistant |
Søren Kierkegaard, one of the fathers of Existentialism believed in three spheres of life: The Aesthetic, The Ethical, and The Religious (Flynn). Alright so what does this have to do with sex? Well, the people living in the aesthetic sphere only consider the past and the future in terms of “matter geared to enhancing the present” (Flynn).
Luckily for us Kierkegaard uses morality tales to illustrate what each sphere of life means in more concrete terms, with his story for the Aesthetic sphere being Johannes the seducer who lives only “momentary conquest followed by abandonment without regret” (Flynn) Joannes exists solely for his sensual pleasure and does not care if the actions he takes to achieve that pleasure harm other people Flynn).
What is fascinating is that Day One links this criticism in with its critique of the Madonna-Whore complex. Characters who live solely, in the aesthetic sexually pleasurable sphere are depicted as unhappy, predatory individuals.
In no particular order Eddie is a loser, the bouncer at the club where Carys is first possessed is a voyeur who masturbates while watching couples having sex in the bathroom through the CCTV couples.
Meanwhile, the PASG is defined solely by its sexual hunger and the physical pain it inflicts on Carys whenever she resists having sex. The crème de la crème of this is Torchwood’s own Dr. Owen Harper; who is both the winner and the creator of this week's Horny Exploding Rat (HER) Award for the following reasons:
Owen seems to enjoy killing animals as part of science experiments. To contextualise this, he is trying to investigate the effects of the PASG on an adorable white rat and the poor thing becomes so aroused it explodes.
His arousal by CCTV images of either his co-worker sexually assaulting a prisoner or vice-versa (Gwen falls under the influence of the PASG when Carvys is imprisoned in the Hub) rather than immediately raising the alarm) and taping the encounter for later.
Counteracting all of this nonsense is Gwen Cooper. Gwen is a real human being with a real life and therefore is not at all amused, aroused or dismissive of what the PASG is doing to Carys.
Throughout the episode Gwen makes the T3 Team focus on Carys as a person and a victim and always prioritizes her safety. Gwen is not operating in the Aesthetic sphere, but the Ethical Sphere which as the name suggests is all about Right and Wrong with “the past as repentance and the future as obligation.” (Flynn).
Part of Gwen’s motivation is guilt, she accidentally releases the PASG from its vessel because she tried acting as unprofessionally as the rest of the T3 Team. But I cannot give her a hard time for that, because she takes responsibility for her poor choice immediately and chooses to make up for her mistake.
As noted by Flynn a central tenet of the strains of existentialism is that “Choice is self constituting and liberating” (Flynn). Gwen is a good person because she chooses to be a good person. This is best exemplified at the conclusion of the episode when in order to save a dying Carys she offers herself as a host to the PASG. This is a great moment because Gwen makes the choice to save Carys despite knowing that it would probably result in her death.
This action is something that Kierkegaard would have defined as a leap of faith, one that is required if an individual is to transition from the hollowness of the aesthetic sphere and into the ethical sphere (Flynn).
Capping this off is the concluding scene of the episode which sees Gwen and Rhys showing genuine affection for one another and going to bed to express that affection. Make a note of this, I will be moaning loudly about the absence of any humanising elements in a few episodes time.
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| Doctors Hand |
Day One also plants an important theme that will pop up towards the end of the series; namely the mystery of who Captain Jack Harkness actually is, and his attachment to a mysterious hand in a jar. Unfortunately, we do not have time here to unpack what these mean, but we will in time.
Ultimately, Day One despite its flaws is a model of what I wish Torchwood settled on in terms of tone and execution. The story is fun, it does not take itself too seriously, it laughs along with you and the themes put some meat on its bones.
Both this episode and the next episode Ghost Machine lay out a much more appealing version of Torchwood than Everything Changes did, the T3 Team do get to be heroes, the focus on saving a victim and whenever characters act like sociopaths the narrative addresses it.
Sadly, this approach is going to mostly vanish after episode six and while the programme is still fun to watch it did a number on my mental health, but that is another time.
Bibliography
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Bareket, Orly, and Shnabel, Nurit. “The Madonna-Whore Dichotomy: Men Who Perceive Women's Nurturance and Sexuality as Mutually Exclusive Endorse Patriarchy and Show Lower Relationship Satisfaction.” Sex Roles, Volume 79, no, 9. 2018, pp. 519–532.
'Day One', Torchwood created by Russell T. Davies, series 1 episode 2, British Broadcasting Company Three, 2006.
Flynn, Thomas. Existentialism A Very Short Introduction. Tantor, 2021. Audible, https://www.audible.com/pd/Existentialism-Audiobook/1666114308?asin=1666114308&source_code=TANP0005WS071408&overrideBaseCountry=true&ipRedirectOverride=true&ref_pageloadid=not_applicable&pf_rd_p=3b01d5da-1bf0-4646-924a-440835f79703&pf_rd_r=S8Z8YMBJEPE0T9J7SKP2&pageLoadId=AYJiCHJriPdktjr9&creativeId=7e5ef24f-29c2-42b4-9ad7-cdff92184a00 . Accessed 26 January. 2024.
Jack "BtR" Saxon. “Carys Fletcher Main.” Tardis Wiki The Doctor Who Wiki, No Date, https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Carys_Fletcher?file=Carys_fletcher_main.jpg
Joker1138. “Doctors Hand” Tardis Wiki The Doctor Who Wiki, No Date, https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Tenth_Doctor%27s_hand?file=Doctors_hand.jpg
Klein, Verena, Kosman, Eden and Kahalon, Rotem. “Devaluation of Women’s Sexual Pleasure: Role of Relationship Context and Endorsement of the Madonna-Whore Dichotomy” Sex Roles, Volume 90, 2023, pp.67-81.
Mallan, Kerry M, and McGills, Roderick. “Between a Frock and a Hard Place: Camp Aesthetics and Children’s Culture” Canadian Review of American Studies Volume 35, no, 1. 2005, pp. 1–19.
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***Stardizzy***. “Gas Attack.” Tardis Wiki The Doctor Who Wiki, No Date, https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Sex_Gas?file=Gas_attack.jpg
