'Just lie back and think of Torchwood' : Countrycide (S01E06)
 Evan Sherman The title alone justifies this episodes existence. Ten out
of ten wordplay, I have no complaints. Countrycide is also an
interesting episode, because it is the only story in the Doctor Who universe
with no real science fiction or fantasy elements. The story is set in then
contemporary 2006, the villains are humans, the T3 team do not use any
futuristic gadgets or science and Jack's immortality is non-factor.
Surprisingly, Countrycide is also a fun horror- action story.
My friend commented while we were viewing it that the story is Hot Fuzz without
the jokes, which is a perceptive comment. Ultimately, the greatest strength and
greatest weakness of this story is that it is all surface level, but as I
am sure you will agree; the real cannibals are the friends we made along the
way. Without further ado, lets just lie back and think of Torchwood. |
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WwFace
Countrycide is also a homecoming of sorts
for Torchwood. This episode marks the second and final story
of the Russell T. Davis era to take place in a rural area. The first was
the Doctor Who episode Tooth and Claw which
introduced the Torchwood Institute
Both stories concern themselves with the questions of geography and states of
monstrosity. As noted in his book Darryl Jones describes a monster as being
"simultaneously a spectacle, an atrocity or violation and an omen, a
warning or a punishment" (Jones). Crucially through, monsters "were
encountered in far-flung lands by travelers or military campaigners.
Classically monstrosity never inhabits the home When it arrives at home it
comes as a dread warning, or portent or as punishment for sins" (Jones).
This is an important point to keep in mind. The Russell T.
Davis era of Doctor Who is extremely London-centric. An
argument could be made that capital is the Home that Jones was referring
to when discussing monstrosity. Both Doctor Who and a
later spin off The Sarah Jane Adventures are set in London and
most of the characters in both of the programmes are naturally enough
Londoners, Torchwood alone is set outside of England.
On the two occasion when the Russell T. Davis era ventures
outside London to another area in the British Isles, it is treated as venturing
into a colonial space occupied by monsters traditionally associated with ideas
of savagery. The plot of Tooth and Claw depicts the Doctor and
his companion Rose meeting Queen Victoria who is traveling to Balmoral Castle.
Due to the machinations of merciless monastics the characters are forced to
seek shelter in Torchwood House and survive an assault by the alien Werewolf
the monks have been secretly worshiping. Don't worry about it.
Werewolves get their start in Classical Mythology with the
story of King Lycaon killing his son and served him as dinner to a visiting
Zeus. In response Zeus turns Lycaon into a wolf because; "In serving up
flesh, the flesh of a baby, the flesh of his own son to Zeus, Lycaon violates
numerous taboos against blasphemy, unclean eating, familial ties and the
obligations of a host" (Jones). Transgressions which to the Ancient Greeks
were marks of Lycoan's savagery.
The geography of Tooth and Claw is also
fascinating because it is set in Scottish Highlands. At least I assume that it
is, Victoria is described as being on her way to Balmoral Castle which
according to its official website is located in the Scottish
Highlands. Now this is important because the Highlands were a separate
cultural and religious sphere to low-land Scotland and by extension England.
Traditionally, the low-land Scots tended to be settled, more Anglo-centric and
Calvinist, while the Highlands tended to be Gaelic speaking and Catholic
(Duncan).
The Highlands's were the area which suffered heavily for
Highland Clearances which occurred between 1750 and 1860, and were the sites of
Jacobite rebellions (attempts to restore the Catholic King James II to the
throne) and resultant repression from London aimed at erasing Highland culture.
Basically, Tooth and Claw is a story about good Protestant
Queen Victoria venturing out of the safety of London into an area which her
government has abused for over century and is menaced by monster a monster
heavily associated with savagery. Yikes.
I find it more palatable to view the story as the Werewolf
and by extension the monks attempting to take revenge on Victoria for the
historical crimes inflicted on the Highlands. In their discussion
of Tooth and Claw the Flight Through Entirety Team wonder
where the Werewolf worshiping Monks come from. In my made up version of events
they were an ordinary Catholic Monastery which suffered throughout the
18th and 19th centuries and encountered an alien being which the monastic
community came to view as an avenging God. None of that is ever stated
in the episode but it is my interpretation.
Brynblaidd
Countrycide plays with similar ideas but the
story is much shallower. Although as mentioned previously the
stories vapidity is its greatest strength. The story focuses on the T3 Team investigating a series of disappearances in the Brecon
Beacons, a mountainous area in South-Western Wales and located within the Welsh
Marches. The Welsh Marches were a historical area denoting the militaried
borderlands between Wales and England.
During their investigating the Team discover that the
disappearances were caused by a village of Welsh Cannibals. Now,
Cannibalism like Lycanthropy (turning into a Werewolf) has been used in
horror stories as a political category, that is to say; "a means of
sub-humanising aliens and others by rendering them bestial" (Jones).
Like, Tooth and Claw Countrycide takes place in an
geographical area far away from urban areas. To paraphrase Jones the
further away you travel from Imperial Metropolises like London or Cardiff the
closer you get to the monstrous. Yikes.
Unlike Tooth and Claw, Countrycide does not
have a political message either in the text or one you can make up, other than
rural Wales is a terrible place to go Caravanning. Well no, that's not
strictly true, As she notes in her review of the episode El Sanfider
argues that Countrycide could have been about: “how
did this society break down to where it was run by crazed cannibals?” rather
than "what made this man do these twisted things?” (Sandifer).
Even Hot Fuzz has a message namely
how a quaint English village maintaining its parochial charm by murdering anyone
the community deemed to be "undesirable" or not fitting the villagers
definition of "Englishness"
In it's defense through Countrycide is
instead trying to do something interesting with its genre, that is to say
Torture Porn. What does that mean? Well we must return to Jones who
provides the following features of Torture Porn as a genre:
- Torture
Porn is a sub genre which emerged in the Post-Millennia era.
- Torture
Porn "seems to dispense with body horror's ideological
agenda and go straight for its spectacle the human body in pain"
- Torture
Porn is a reaction to and participation in Post-Millennial culture's
reckoning with the War On Terror and the normalisation of Torture (Jones).
The point of the story of Countrycide is to
torture the Torchwood 3 team until they break. Especially Gwen. Honestly, this
is a clever usage of the genre. Torture Porn films are pointless as by
definition films are complete stories. If your story is solely about horrible
things being done to people then there is not a lot of room for character or
drama or indeed a story.
I would argue that the only satisfying utilisiation of
Torture Porn is its use as a nasty adventure in a Serial Television
Narrative. Think about it; its a dangerous situation in which all the
characters are pushed to their limits resulting in is plenty of good old
fashioned action sequences, and plenty of gore to satisfy the audiences morbid
curiosity
Illustrating my point is the abundance of lovely scenes
between all of the characters in the story. My personal favourite and the
one which reminded me why Tosh is my best woman of the main five is when she is
reassuring a panicking Ianto, countering his terror with the assertion that the team put themselves in danger to protect people.
Someone in Torchwood actually giving actually giving a shit about people?
What programme an I watching?
To cap this all off yet you can further character
development by having the following episode explore the consequences of the
torture. Everyone wins. Here is the rub through, I am firmly of the
opinion that is the only satisfying way you can interperate Countrycide. There
is just not enough depth to the story for it to stand up to the scrutiny
multiple interpretations.
Here is a nit picky example, while I was watching the
episode I honestly wondered how these cannibals were still alive, given
how poor their food hygiene is. Seriously, the human flesh they consume is
strewn randomly throughout the village, or hanging from meat hooks
in living room, or my personal favourite wrapped in dirty plastic while stored
in barely functioning fridges. The whole community should be dead from
gastrointestinal issues.
Speaking of shitting and vomiting to death lets get to
the ugly part of the episode and why overall it does not work. Countrycide marks
the is point in Series 1 where Gwen stops being the light of the series and is
instead corrupted by the Torchwood Institute. This is one of the ongoing
plot-lines of the first series, throughout the previous five episodes she has
been challenged in various way but this is the adventure that sends her over
the edge and has her entering a sexual relationship with Owen.
There is a kernel of a good idea in changing Gwen's
character this way. Unfortunately, its let down by the way that Torchwood as
a series is structured. The series really wants us to agree with Gwen's
assertion that:
GWEN: "All these things, they're changing
me. Changing how I see the world. And I can't share them with anyone."
("Countrycide" 45.07- 45.12)
But I want you to stop reading here and think about every episode of Torchwood we have seen up to this point, and lets see if you can spot the same issue have......................................
The majority of the villains thus far in Torchwood's run
thus far have been human. Humans trying to fulfill a shitty but entirely
human need with Science Fiction tropes such as a Quantum Transducer, or a
Glove which raises the dead. Strip the fantastical away and the situations
are no different to the ones which Gwen would have encountered in her previous job
with the Cardiff Police.
As a point of compensation in Buffy The Vampire
Slayer Buffy has sex for the first time with her beau the vampire Angel. As a
result of experiencing true happiness Angel loses his soul due to a curse and
spends ten plus episodes stalking and psychologically torturing Buffy and
friends.
This story-line was written as an allegory for abusive
relationships with a partner revealing their abusive side after getting what
they wanted i.e. sex. One of Angel's acts of abuse is to reveal to Buffy's
mother Joyce (who knows nothing about the supernatural or her daughter being
the Vampire Slayer) that they slept together. However, Buffy is able to broadly
explain the dynamics of the situation to Joyce i.e. they had sex and he turned
abusive without having to go into the supernatural nonsense behind. More importantly in this example Joyce understands and even offers advice to her
daughter.
As a consequence of this story Buffy later has to attend
therapy with her school counselor (who also knows nothing about the
supernatural). Based solely on Buffy's description of the situation between
herself and Angel the counselor is able to ascertain the gist of what occurred between them and offer good advice and reassurance.
All of this is to say; Why can't Gwen tell
anyone? With the exception of Everything Changes and Cyberwoman (as
they both involve her co-workers) there is no reason why Gwen cannot honestly
(if broadly) discuss her work experiences with Rhys. Now I am aware I am
in danger of sounding like Gwen has to the perfect, as I have mentioned by her
presence alone has improved storylines. Gwen is a flawed character, I am
jumping ahead of bit, but it becomes clear that Gwen is an adrenaline addict,
she gets off on being in danger and the sense that her survival validates both her skills and her sense of self importance. That is interesting flaw.
What bothers me about Countrycide is that
the story calls in question the credibility of Gwen ever being a Police
Office. I am going to use a quote from Ben Aaronovitch's novel Broken
Homes about the nature of police work to illustrate my issue:
"When me and Lesley were doing our probation at
Charing Cross nick our duty inspector was Francis Neblett. He was a proper
old-fashioned copper, not like what the public thinks is old-fashioned, which
is all TV bollocks, but so upright and steeped in the Peelian Principles that
if you sliced him in half you’d have found BOBBY running all the way
through him like a stick of rock. He once told me that the problem was not that
criminals were evil but that most of them were pathetic – in the proper sense
of the word. Arousing pity, especially through vulnerability or sadness.
Recently I’d learnt the Greek root: pathetos – liable to suffer. ‘You’ve got to
feel sorry for them,’ he said. And you didn’t have to be in the job long to see
what he meant. The addicts, the runaways, the men who were fine unless they had
a couple of drinks. The ex-squaddies who’d seen too much. The sad fuckers who
just didn’t have a clue how to make the world work for them, or had started so
beaten down they barely learnt to walk upright. The people who shoplifted
toilet paper or food or treats for their kids. ‘This is a trap,’ he’d said.
‘You’re not a social worker or a doctor. If people really wanted these problems
solved there’d be more social workers and doctors.’ I’d asked what we were
supposed to do. ‘You can’t fix their problems, Peter,’ he’d said. ‘Most of the
time you can’t even steer them in the right direction. But you can do the job
without making things worse.’" (Aaronovitch)
What is the alien bollocks of Torchwood compared
to the waves of misery and mundane horribleness that Gwen would have
encountered as a Police Constable? Cannibal Villagers would be a
Godsend for the police force, its an easy win. The evidence is scattered
about the locality and because everyone was involved they can all be locked up, For God's sake the very nature of the crime makes labelling the perpetrators a monsters and
dismissing whatever may have occurred to them simple, Killing a monster is a problem vanquished. The same cannot be said for someone shoplifting because they were
hungry, or that behind the veneer of a bully is an empty wretched
individual. Ghost Machine gets this right for Christ's
sake. I do not believe that discovering that "man is the real
monster" is something that would tip Gwen over the edge, not unless she spent
all of her time as WPC making the tea.
In the interests of fairness this development does not come
out of no-where. Ever since Day One Gwen has been put
under all manner of pressure. In particular I am thinking of a scene in Small
Worlds which demonstrates her fear at the fact that the Fairies
broke into her home and vandalised it. That all being said, I am not convinced
by either the execution or the form in which Gwen's trauma manifests itself.
Really though what I am complaining about is a lack of
introspection. For all its thematic richness Torchwood and by
extension its characters are not thoughtful. Very often both the characters
and the story will try to argue that: "The Fault Lies not in Themselves
but in their Stars" and that they would all have been fine had they never
joined the Torchwood Institute. Complaint's aside I had a lot of fun
with Countrycide but the themes it wants to explore and the
character dynamics it tries to set up are not properly explored in future
episodes.
Oh an Owen wins the Horny Exploding Rat Award, in case
anyone was wondering. He follows Gwen into the woods pins her against a tree
and asks how long it’s been since she and Rhys fucked all night. Truly a tryst
that will stand the test of time.
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