Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (Torchwood)

This article is about the Torchwood episode. For Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (disambiguation), see Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (Torchwood) (disambiguation).

14 – "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang"
Torchwood episode
File:Torchwood Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.jpg The hologram of Captain John's ex girlfriend has a special message for him.
Production
Directed by	Ashley Way
Written by	Chris Chibnall
Script editor	Brian Minchin
Produced by	Richard Stokes Chris Chibnall (co-producer)
Executive producer(s)	Russell T. Davies Julie Gardner
Production code	2.1
Series	Series 2
Running time	50 mins
First broadcast	16 January 2008
Chronology
← Preceded by "End of Days" Followed by → "Sleeper"

"Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" is the first episode of the second series of British science fiction television series Torchwood, which was broadcast by BBC Two on 16 January 2008. It features a guest appearance by James Marsters.

Plot

At night, a red sports car races through Cardiff, driven by an alien Blowfish. At a crossing, he stops to let an old lady cross the street. The Torchwood SUV stops and asks the lady if she saw the Blowfish; she points them in the right direction. The team catch up with the blowfish and after a short chase, Owen shoots the tyres, forcing the Blowfish to leave the car. He flees into a home where he shoots a resident and holds another hostage. The team hold him at gunpoint and the Blowfish dares Ianto to shoot him, but Ianto hesitates. A shot is heard, killing the Blowfish. When Ianto turns around, he sees Jack, who fired the shot. He greets the team with the words, "Hey kids, did ya miss me?"

When they return to the Torchwood hub, the team want to know where Jack has been, but he once again keeps them in the dark. He only tells them that he has seen the right doctor. When asked by Ianto why he returned he says he "came back for you (Ianto)", but then widens this statement to include the whole team. Tosh notices that there has been Rift activity.

Meanwhile, a man, Captain John Hart, walks through the Rift at the top floor of a multi-storey car park. He notices a man is held at knife-point, and intervenes by grabbing the mugger's throat and holding him over the edge. The man pleads with Hart to stop, but he says "no" and drops him to his death. Hart then turns to the victim and tells him that he was never here, and to go. Hart then goes to a nightclub and tells everyone who he finds unnattractive to leave before pulling out two side-arms in front of the bouncers, causing everyone to panic and run out.

Torchwood Three sees the body of the dead mugger on the street and Tosh notices traces of Rift energy from his neck. Jack then gets a message on his wrist device, where a hologram appears of Hart telling him to come to the nightclub, alone. He does, but the rest of his team follow him in a taxi. When Jack arrives in the club, he and Hart approach each other and kiss, but then proceed to fight. They then stop for a drink. Hart tells him that the Time Agency is gone, and that he has been to several rehabs for drink, drugs, sex and murder. Hart sees the others and realises that Jack has a new team now, called Torchwood. Jack explains that Hart was his partner. Hart also tells the rest of the team more about Jack than Jack himself said. He then asks the question "What are you doing here?" He then says that it was about time he would ask the question. Hart says that there are three deadly radiation cluster bombs scattered over Cardiff that could endanger everyone on Earth.

They enter Torchwood Three station and John is checked for weapons. He has many, including several concealed knives and pistols, detected by Gwen. Jack takes Gwen to the side to tell her he has seen the end of the world. He then shows signs of having fallen for Gwen, and jealousy when he realises Gwen is going to marry Rhys because "nobody else would have her", but he covers this up by saying they should go "back to work". Tosh finds the locations of three bombs all over the city. Gwen organises the team to go searching for the bombs in teams of two; Jack and Ianto, Owen and Tosh, and Gwen and Hart. Jack has problems with this and talks to Gwen alone. Gwen explains that she could get to know Hart better and to learn what he is really up to. Jack agrees and gives Gwen three rules on how to handle Hart: she should keep him in front of her at all times, she should never trust him and she should not let him kiss her.

The teams splits up and Gwen and Hart are in the container docks. After some flirting from Hart, they find a cluster bomb in a container. However, once Gwen has it, Hart kisses her. Gwen realises that he has paralysed her with the kiss. Hart throws away her phone and tells Gwen she has two hours before her organs shut down and she dies. He then runs away.

Meanwhile, Owen and Tosh are in an abandoned building and find the bomb, but Hart arrives, knocks out Tosh and shoots Owen in the hip.

Jack and Ianto are in an office building searching for the other bomb, where Jack asks Ianto out on a date. He explains that John Hart is someone reminding him of his past and wants to be done with him. Ianto accepts. They then split up, while Jack goes to the roof. Ianto hears a noise and then realises it is Hart, holding him at gunpoint. Hart tells Ianto that Owen and Gwen are in trouble and he gets him to run to rescue them.

Jack finds the last cluster bomb and is confronted by Hart again. Hart wants the cluster bomb, but Jack refuses. Hart wants Jack to join him running the Galaxy. Jack admits he isn't tempted, and throws the bomb over the edge. Hart then pushes Jack off the roof to another of his "deaths". Hart gets the remaining bomb and tells the "dead" Jack that murder rehab never worked. He then goes back to the Hub.

Ianto goes to Owen and helps Tosh dress his wound. They then go to the docks and eventually find Gwen just in time and inject her with an anti-toxin, after running tests, on Tosh's laptop, and finding that Hart had poisoned her.

At dawn, Hart goes to the corpse of the Blowfish, who worked for him, and takes out a small pyramid shaped object. He is then suprised to see the rest of the team, holding him at gunpoint, and even more surprised to see Jack, who then explains that he is immortal. Hart then tells the truth; there are no cluster bombs. He was looking for a diamond that belonged to a lover of his once, but he killed her. The "bombs" are actually a device that would lead him to the location of the diamond. However, the woman's hologram says there is no diamond. A device shoots into Hart's chest, and the hologram explains that the device is a bomb that locks into the DNA of whoever killed her and it can't be removed. There are ten minutes until the bomb goes off, but Hart cuffs himself to Gwen. She has a plan that would kill her and Hart, but would save the city. Tosh says that the Rift is still open from Hart's arrival. Gwen takes Hart there, but Jack and Owen stay behind and quickly work on a solution.

They arrive at the car park, quickly followed by Jack and Owen, who inject Hart with the DNA of all Torchwood members, which will temporarily confuse the bomb. The bomb releases itself and they throw it through the Rift, with just one second to spare. Just as it explodes, they are shifted back in time to the same moment Hart arrived. Hart, impressed, agrees to let Gwen go and reluctantly agrees to go back home. Before he disappears, he says, "By the way, I found Gray". Jack, shocked, is asked who or what "Gray" is. He just says that it is nothing.

Cast

• Captain Jack Harkness — John Barrowman
• Gwen Cooper — Eve Myles
• Owen Harper — Burn Gorman
• Toshiko Sato — Naoko Mori
• Ianto Jones — Gareth David-Lloyd
• Captain John Hart — James Marsters
• Rhys Williams — Kai Owen
• PC Andy Davidson — Tom Price (uncredited)
• Elspeth Morgan — Menna Trussler
• Blowfish — Paul Kasey
• Mugger — Crispin Layfield
• Victim — Nathan Ryan
• Hologram Woman — Inika Leigh Wright
• Miss Styles — Sarah Whyte

Continuity

• This episode features the first Time Agent to be seen since Jack's introduction in the Doctor Who episode "The Empty Child". Time Agents were first mentioned in the 1977 Doctor Who serial The Talons of Weng-Chiang. The Time Agency is revealed to no longer exist by Captain John, who invites Jack to join him "back in the old routine" as they would "be emperors".
• Jack refers to his Doctor, to seeing the end of the world in "Utopia" and "The Sound of Drums" and to deciding to return to Torchwood as seen in "Last of the Time Lords".
• Captain John's "lover," who appears in the puzzle-box hologram, is said by John to have owned an Arcadian diamond. The planet Arcadia was last mentioned by the Tenth Doctor in the Doctor Who episode "Doomsday", and first appeared in the Virgin New Adventures novel Deceit.
• Ianto has his stopwatch claiming it is "always at the ready", referencing its usage in "They Keep Killing Suzie".
• A "Missing" poster on the Torchwood website suggests that Jack went missing in February, indicating Jack has been missing for some time before his return.
• When John handcuffs himself to Gwen, he refers to the cuffs being "deadlock sealed", a term used in Doctor Who to mean something cannot be unlocked by sonic screwdriver. (Torchwood Three possess a lockpick with a similar functionality to the screwdriver.)

Outside references

• At the end of his holographic voicemail, Captain John mirrors the line "Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope" followed by the signature head turn, and originally said by Leia Organa in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
• Captain John mentions Excalibur when asking about names. Excalibur was the working title of Russell T Davies' idea for a series that became Torchwood, albeit this was before it became a Doctor Who spinoff series.

Production

• The episode was seen by 3.7 million viewers, making it the highest rated episode of the series so far.
• The interior of Helmont House - the British Gas office in Cardiff - was used for the filming of the office scenes with Jack and Ianto, whilst the roof was used for the confrontation between Jack and John.

Music

• The songs "Mao Tse-Tung Said" by Alabama 3 and "Song 2" by Blur feature in this episode (when John first enters the bar and when Jack and John fight in the bar respectively).

Broadcast and reception

Metro picked "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" as their pick of the day, complimenting the "fast-paced plot" in contrast to the "puerile humour" and "[meandering] between soft porn and Scooby-Doo" of the first series. In the same newspaper, on the following day, Keith Watson commented that the episode "was like watching Carry On Up the Asteroids", but nevertheless stated that "as dramatic cocktails go, [its mix of gadgets, sci-fi gobbledegook and louche libidos] was out of this world", and gave the episode four stars out of five.

A cut down "pre-watershed" of the episode was broadcast a week later on BBC Two at 19:00. It was followed by Torchwood Declassified, however, this was not cut down and included bits of clips from parts that had been cut out in the prior broadcast.

External links

Torchwood at BBC Online