Review: 'Torchwood' - Something Borrowed

Wedding bells, alien pregnancies, a guy called Banana and men buying wedding dresses ... its just another day in the Torchwood hub.

In a stark contrast from the previous three episodes, “Something Borrowed” applies a lighter shade to the palette as after a night out on the town for her hen night Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) awakens to find herself pregnant with a weird alien creature. But pregnancy or no pregnancy, Gwen isn’t willing to postpone her wedding, even if it does mean building up the hopes of all her friends and family.

Drawing on the shows knack for taking strange aliens and placing them in the routine and mundane, the parent of the alien child slip into the wedding to ensure that its child comes to term. Unfortunately, that’s about all the episode has to offer as instead of a carefully plotted adventure the entire episode feels like a lot of ideas have been thrown into a pot and mixed up with all the “Torchwood” goodness.

By luck more than skill the story managed to hold together to the end and provided a lot of laughs and some wild fun … which all ends in a barn with a chainsaw.

What Worked

Despite being a more fun-filled episode, the very aptly named “Something Borrowed” features some sinister and scary looking shape shifters, not to mention some visual sexual activity of the likes that were once trademarked by “Torchwood.” It was a welcome change and helped bring an adult touch to the comedic episode.

The dialogue was running with its usual high standards for wit and humor, the highlight being Ianto’s response to Jack’s question on why he has been agreeing with Owen since his death: “I was brought up never to speak ill of the dead.” Coming in at a close second is Jack’s cry of “get back you ugly bitch!” to Rhys’ mother.

And the final moments also had a nice little epilogue for Jack that simply screams backstory.

What Didn’t Work

The parents were underplayed terribly and Gwen’s revelation to her father about the rift and aliens could have had a larger significance. In the end, they were relegated to a B-class story that was quickly cast aside through a mass-retcon.

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