Torchwood/Cyberwoman

Cyberwoman
Season 1, Episode 4
Airdate	November 5, 2006
Written by	Chris Chibnall
Directed by	James Strong
← 1x03 Ghost Machine	1x05 → Small Worlds
Torchwood — Season One

Cyberwoman is the fourth episode of the first season of Torchwood. Ianto hides a terrible secret in Torchwood's basement: a half-Cybernised woman. When he invites a Japanese scientist to try and save her, he unleashes a threat to all humanity and must choose between the woman he loves and the Torchwood team.

Cast: John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper), Burn Gorman (Owen Harper), Naoko Mori (Toshiko Sato), Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones), Kai Owen (Rhys Williams)

Co-Stars: Caroline Chikezie (Lisa Hallett), Togo Igawa (Dr Tanizaki), Bethan Walker (Annie)

Plot Overview

After a game of basketball, the Torchwood crew all head out for drinks—except Ianto, who has just arrived in the main room of the Hub. As soon as they others are gone, he orders pizza and greets an expected visitor: Dr Tanizaki, an expert cyberneticist from Japan. He takes the doctor down to the basement where a half-Cyberman, Lisa, is strapped into a cyber-conversion unit which has been modified to act as life support. Dr Tanazaki is amazed that a Cyberman survived, and at Ianto's urging—Lisa was his girlfriend, who worked at Torchwood One—moves her upstairs to operate and restores Lisa's respiratory function.

Just as the operation is completed, however, Ianto notices on a monitor that the rest of Torchwood crew are coming back to base, having been notified of a UFO sighting. Ianto and Tanizaki helps Lisa into the basement, but once Ianto has left to greet the team Lisa turns on the doctor, putting him into the cyber-conversion unit.

While the team tries to track the UFO, Jack notices a severe power drain which Toshiko tracks down to the basement; Ianto covers, claiming it has been happening all night and that he will go and check it out by himself. He rushes downstairs to find Dr Tanizaki dead, parts of his head cyber-converted; Lisa claims she was trying to upgrade him as thanks for repairing her. Ianto deactivates the machinery and rationalises that Lisa didn't mean to kill Tanizaki, telling her to stay in the basement and hiding the doctor's body in one of the cells, but as soon as he leaves Lisa reactivates the machine.

Jack determines the UFO is harmless, but when the power is drained again by Lisa's machine, and Jack decides the base is under attack. Gwen and Owen head to the basement to find Ianto, while Toshiko finds entries missing from Hub security camera footage—and images of Dr Tanizaki's entrance earlier that night. Owen and Gwen make it into the basement, and Owen recognises and shuts off the cyber-conversion unit, informing Jack what he has found. Lisa appears and knocks Owen unconscious, then puts Gwen into the converter; Jack arrives but is prevented from shooting Lisa by Ianto, who tackles him from behind, and Lisa escapes into another part of the base. Unable to shut down the converter, Jack orders Toshiko to shut down all power in the Hub, which save Gwen but traps them all inside with Lisa.

Ianto, Gwen and Jack, carrying Owen, return to the main control room, where Jack interrogates Ianto at gunpoint. Ianto believes Lisa can be cured, that she is owed by Torchwood since she worked for them, but Jack is convinced there can be no cure and tells Ianto he has to choose a side. Jack gives Toshiko an alien device she can use to unlock the doors and a couple of power rods which he instructs her to hook up to a specific circuit. Since they cannot get into the weapon store without power, Owen and Gwen are to head to the autopsy room to try and find some weaponry. Before they can leave, Lisa enters the control room; Ianto tries to appeal to her, and she admits she is incomplete and offers to use the cyber-converter to transplant her brain into his body so they can be together. When he refuses she throws him aside and Jack distracts her so the others can carry out the plan. Lisa electrocutes him, seemingly fatally, but he gets up and keeps talking, getting electrocuted again and buying Toshiko enough time to get through the main door.

Lisa follows Owen and Gwen to the autopsy room, who hide from her in a cramped drawer. Jack revives again and wakes Ianto by kissing him, while a panicked Owen and Gwen kiss in the drawer. Gwen's mobile goes off, alerting Lisa to their location, but they manage to escape when Owen stabs Lisa with a chisel. The team regroups in the main room, and Jack holds Lisa at bay with a blowtorch long enough to spray her with a special source which causes the pterodactyl that lives in Torchwood to attack her. Toshiko finishes her rewiring and the four escape on the invisible lift, Jack and Owen restraining Ianto.

Above the base, Toshiko reveals the power is back on and Ianto runs off to try and save Lisa, despite Jack's ealier order that he must execute her if she's still alive. Unknown to the team, however, Annie the pizza girl has arrived with Ianto's order from earlier, and when he arrives in the basement he finds Lisa's dead body—she has transplanted her brain into Annie's body. Lisa tries to talk Ianto into staying with her, claiming she killed Annie so they could be together, and despite knowing what he must do, Ianto is unable to shoot her; the rest of the team take away his choice when they arrive, gunning Lisa down.

The next day, as Gwen and Jack talk over the events, Ianto resumes work at Torchwood, resigned to cleaning up their messes—starting with his own.

Notes

• According to Jack, the UFO is an "Arkan leisure cruiser". He considers Arkans extremely boring and clearly no threat; he gets Toshiko to send them a message telling them to leave his airspace as they're "spooking the locals".

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• Owen witnesses Jack's electrocution and can't believe he survived; he may have worked out that Jack is immortal.

Characters

• Owen and Gwen, lying on top of each other in a drawer in the autopsy room to hide from Lisa, kiss. Owen claims it was a last kiss for a condemned man, as he believed he was to die, but Gwen counters that she could feel his hard-on. He notes she didn't resist.

• Ianto assaults Jack and refuses to kill Lisa, even after she has killed Annie. He claims Jack never asked about him, and complains that he always has to clean up Torchwood's shit without asking any questions. He also challenges Jack over whether he knows what it's like to love someone. Despite all this, he continues to work at Torchwood without so much as a reprimand.

• Jack does not answer either Ianto or Gwen when asked if he has ever loved someone. He confesses to Gwen that, like her, he thought he might die when he was electrocuted by Lisa, and claims that made him feel "so alive".

Referbacks

• Doctor Who - 28x13 - Doomsday: In a flashback we see Ianto pulling Lisa from the flaming remains of Torchwood One, a sequence presumably set during the Doctor Who episode.
• 1x01 - Everything Changes: Torchwood's pet pterodactyl was introduced in the first episode. Here we learn that Jack uses a "kind of barbecue sauce" to let it know what it is allowed to eat, and it attacks Lisa viciously when she is covered in the sauce.

Trivia

Allusions and References

• Frankenstein: Lisa's brain transplant into Annie and the fresh circular scar around her head evoke the long series of British Frankenstein movies by Hammer films (1957–74), usually starring Peter Cushing as the mad scientist.

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