Torchwood 'Countrycide' Review

The Torchwood team swaps the city for the country.

The Torchwood team leave Cardiff and head to the Brecon Beacons to investigate into the disappearances of seventeen people inside a twenty mile area.  Whilst setting up camp the team see a pair of hooded figures in the woods, and after making chase find a body.  As the team investigate the body to try and find a cause of death they hear their range rover start and drive off without the team.

Tracking the range rover to a nearby village the team search the houses and find another two corpses.  Other than that they are deserted, apart from one lone survivor who accidentally shoots Gwen with a shotgun, thinking that ‘they’ had come back for him.  Barricading themselves in the pub the team tend to Gwen’s wounds as they come under attack. 

Can the team avoid a grizzly fate?

‘Countrycide’ is one of the few episodes of Torchwood not to have an alien threat and to be se outside of Cardiff.  

Set up very quickly as the ‘horror’ episode of the series it takes its time to set up the threat, keeping the villains in the shadows as long as possible to maintain the mystery of exactly what is hunting our heroes. 

Unfortunately the episode is a part of the first series of the show where they seemed to be hung up on the ‘adult’ content of the show, which they seem to used anger and sex to create.  As such there is not a great deal of character development beyond some arguments and nasty comments. 

The team have to fight to survive.

One for the greater disappointments of Torchwood is that it took them a while to figure out the tone and feel of the show and this episode does suffer a little for it.  If this episode had taken place during series two you  might have had a greater connection and empathy with the Torchwood team and felt the tension more, as it is it’s just like any old horror film with a cast of characters that don’t mean a great deal to you.

Despite these flaws the episode is still very engaging and at the end where the villain gives his reasons for doing what he does it’s one of the most chilling moments in the show.

A good horror episode that’s only let down by the fact that the show’s still finding its footing at this early stage. 7/10

Amy.
xx

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