What's it called?
"Fragments"
Who's it credited to?
Chris Chibnall, writer ("Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang", "Adrift") and Jonathan Fox Bassett, director ("From Out of the Rain")
What do we know?
An accident causes the team to 'flashback' and remember the events that lead them to join Torchwood...
Major guest stars?
Kai Owen is back playing "Rhys", Amy Manson is "Alice Guppy", and Noriko Aida appears as "Toshiko's mother".
Rest of the best
Heather Craney ("Emily Holroyd"); Julian Lewis Jones ("Alex"); Simon Shackleton ("Bob"); Claire Clifford ("Milton"); Andrea Lowe ("Katie"); Skye Bennett ("Little girl"); Gareth Jones ("Security guard"); Richard Lloyd-King ("Doctor"); Catherine Morris ("Nurse"); Selva Rasalingam (Psychiatrist") and Paul Kasey ("Blowfish" / "Weevil")
Surprise me, spoiler boy
Apparently Captain John Hart (James Marsters) returns during the dying moments of this episode, which leads into the events of the season finale, "Exit Wounds".
Reviewing the reviews
I've only seen the one review, inside the Radio Times, and it's hardly informative. After reading it a couple of times, I'm still not entirely sure if the reviewer, Mark Braxton, likes/dislikes the episode!
When's it on?
Tonight on BBC Two, from 9pm. It's repeated next Tuesday, at 7 o'clock.
What about America?
"Fragments" is expected to air on the BBC America network Saturday 12th April, from 9pm. The BBC America schedule can be found here. The episode will also be available in glorious High Definition - on HD-Net - from April 28th.
Look to the future...
The second season finale - "Exit Wounds". Captain John Hart is back, and he's brought somebody with him! Danger is around every corner, especially for Jack Harkness. Can his team rally together in time to save his life, and everybody else's in Cardiff city? And most importantly, will all the team survive?
Excitement level?
***1/2 - An intriguing concept, but it'd have been nice to see something like this earlier in the series run - maybe during the enigmatic first season? Still, the preview at the end of the previous episode looks very exciting and action packed; and Myfanwy the flying dinosaur is back, so what's not to love?
BBC Three Preview
The final episode, "Exit Wounds", won't show on BBC Three. It'll premiere on BBC Two exclusively on Friday April 4th.
5 comments:
I didn't quite know what to make of this episode. I liked the idea of it all but as said in the episode preview perhaps would have been better elsewhere in the series.
Next weeks episode Exit Wounds looks awesome though. Looking forward to that one and some more from Captain John!!!
I loved this episode. All season long I've been looking forward to this, and yet dreading it as well, as I was unsure that the writers could make sense of a lot of things we've heard that seemed to contradict each other - I thought they might make it worse. But they didn't. They explained so much, with some amazing character work, and some really amazing continuity. The only flub that I noticed (and it might not be one), is that in the last flashback of Owen at the Hub, you can see the container that in Season One held the Doctor's hand. I couldn't see the hand, but it seemed to suggest that the hand was there. I went back, and I really can't see a hand in it - which is good - because the flashbacks are in 2004, and Jack didn't get the hand until at least Christmas 2007. Nice. :-0)
And the finale looks fantastic! 2 weeks of Hell. Argh.
Oops. I posted the above comment. And the Doctor's hand was severed Christmas 2006. And you can see the hand in the 1999/2000 flashback. But we've never been told (just assumed) exactly how Torchwood came to carry the hand that there's enough wriggle room for it to be minor flaw. It could be time travel, in which case Torchwood may have had the hand for a very long time before it was actually severed. Or it's possible that this isn't even the Doctor's hand, but some other odd piece of Torchwood's library - which is replaced with the Doctor's hand once Jack finds it in 2006/2007? To me, it's a minor mystery in an episode that answered more questions than I hoped it would. So it doesn't really detract from the episode in my opinion. Just leaves me slighly hungry for an explanation down the line. :-0)
It strengthens the 'thinning cast' rumours, an episode like this, at this point in the show.
It was an interesting episode, but might have benefitted from being a two-parter - all of the stories could have done with fleshing out, or at the very least just... well, more screen time. Ianto's was particularly deserving, but then it might just be that I want more Ianto.
Oh, and Myfanwy's not *technically* a dinosaur; that title's reserved for wholly land-dwelling saurian reptiles. Bet you were all thinkin' the same, huh?
From a review I read, it seems Fragments and Exit Wounds together are considered a two-parter. The first rachets up the emotional history of the team, and the second delivers the coup de grace. I think the backstories could almost be used to decode the characters' actions and motiviation in the past two series, and so the show has gained some depth. Captain Jack's team is not just some motley crew but the companions he chose and bonded with. We saw some bits of their emotional ties in the conference room scene in "Adam" and "Fragments" brought it all home. I think the finale will be all the more moving because of this.
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