User Reviews

Weevil attacks are on the rise, defence mechanisms are failing, someone is using them for their own ends, Owen goes undercover.

Call me a cynic, but I've always regarded this very good episode as a study of toxic masculinity, from the action with The Weevils to Gwen's treatment of Rhys. You ask yourself who's the biggest villain here, The Weevils, Mark or Gwen, the say she treats Rhys, I'd argue she's a contender, not her finest moment.

There is a lot of pent-up anger in the writing, Noel Clarke actually wrote a very strong script, it's one of the better episodes from the first series, and it's good to see The Weevils back, and perhaps being better used than earlier on in the series.

Alex Hassell is the standout here as Mark Lynch, but Burn Gorman isn't too far behind, Owen had a big part to play in the previous episode, his romance with Diane, and he gets another here, dealing with the fallout.

The visuals are great, it's slick and sexy, it moves by at a great pace, sadly it reminds us all of The Crazy frog, but nobody's perfect.

8/10.

Torchwood is finally becoming watchable. It's developing interesting character arcs, and it's writing watchable stories, with it's 15 rating. Combat, despite being one of the lowest rated Torchwood episodes, is probably one of the best so far. Something finally happens to the characters, which actually have a lasting impact on them.

The theme of Combat, is directly comparable to the theme of Fight Club. Men need to find some escape from their meaningless lives, and unleash their aggression within them. The antagonist is no Tyler Durden, but his speech about achieving success, for the sake of achieving success, is still thought provoking and philosophical nevertheless.

In Torchwood fashion, it's still held back from being a 9/10. It suffers from Ianto being forgotten about, as per usual, and in Torchwood fashion, it just lacks. It seems to fall flat. Nevertheless, it's still excellent that Torchwood is getting better, and is actually becoming watchable now.

I enjoyed this episode, it was the best one for a couple of weeks. I notice it was written by Noel Clarke a.k.a. Mickey Smith from Doctor Who, and what a great job he did! This was one of the better episodes of the series, I hope Noel Clarke will be writing again for series two. Great work as always from the regular cast, it was nice to see more of Tosh and Ianto too, they often seem underused, and are two good actors. Great work also from guest actor Alex Hassell as Mark, he played the dark undercurrents particularly well. In my household we have really enjoyed Torchwood and look forward to series two. I hope we have more character back stories and history in the next series, as it can be hard to warm to characters without it, and even harder for the actors when all they have is action sequences and the events of that weeks story. People cared more about Ianto for example after Cybergirl.

While trying to catch a weevil, a savage creature that fell through rift, Jack and Toshiko lose their pray when guys with mask get him first and drive away in a wan. When next morning they find abandon warehouse where weevil was transported to, they also discover a body of a man. He was killed by a weevil, but it appears that he had other injures before he died. In the meantime Owen gets into a fight while drinking himself into oblivion. After Diane left with her plane through a rift, he couldn't ease his sorrow in any other way because he loved her. Strangely enough Gwen finds out about Owen and Diane when Toshiko accidentally mentions it. Then Jack set his plan into motion. Owen goes undercover as a rich businessmen. This episode had more violence than any other. Yes the alien creatures were wild and they killed their victims by pulling their hearts with teeth, but that does not justify their bad treatment by humans. On that I agree with Toshiko. Owen looked stupid while intoxicated and his disguise in my opinion was not successful one. Finally his confrontation with bad guys and the grin on his face was awful. He looks better when he smiles. Jack was more cleaver in this episode and he actually had a plan how to solve situation. Usually he just goes from one moment to another. And of course once more we saw his great capacity for compassion.