Torchwood: Greeks Bearing Gifts (S1,E7)

"After a while it gets . . . You hear too much. It changes how you see people."

Greeks Bearing Gifts, Season One, Episode Seven

("Toshiko is given an alien pendant which enables her to hear other people's thoughts.")

What I Liked

* A lot of nice quips, mostly about Owen's capabilities as a forensic investigator.

* Tosh and Mary's flirting--very sexy and well-written.

* The CGI for Mary's alien form--ethereal and beautiful.

* Gwen & Owen's playful banter--they really do seem like young lovers.

* Tosh's experience reading minds: Owen really is that sarcastic, Ianto is torn up over everything that's happened to him, Jack is unreadable, and Gwen is mostly thinking about Owen.

What I Didn't

* Having Mary turn out to be a completely evil alien who rips out human hearts is pretty cliched--you can have interesting character conflict without making things so black and white.

What I Stole From Wikipedia

* Mary's alien race are apparently called "Arcateenians" and appear again in an episode of the Sarah Jane Adventures and the novel Something in the Water.

Commentary

By: Richard Stokes (Producer), Colin Teague (Director), Toby Whithouse (Writer)

Tone: Interesting, straight-forward explanation of creating the episode.

* The crew apparently stopped shooting one day to watch the end of the England game in the World Cup.

* The alien transportation device was apparently based on props used on Baywatch

Torchwood Declassified: "There's Something About Mary"

* Interviews with cast and crew about Tosh's personality and the desirability of mind-reading

* A brief review of how every lead character on the show had at least one same-sex kiss during Season One.

* A standard feature on the process of making the CGI alien.

Deleted Scenes

* Jack shows Tosh a Weevil and names it Janet (I've seen that name in other places, and could never figure out where it came from). He says that Janet was found burying the body of one of her dead children, but that he doesn't know if it was because of learned behavior or affection. "The first rule of aliens: always assume they bite."