Countrycide (19 Nov. 2006)

In the countryside north of Cardiff, the Torchwood team investigates the disappearance of 17 people in the last few months. No bodies have been found and the police haven't a clue as to ... See full summary »

Director:

Andy Goddard

Writers:

Russell T. Davies (creator), Chris Chibnall (by)

Stars:

John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Burn Gorman

Cast

Episode complete credited 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
Owen Teale	...	Ewan Sherman
Maxine Evans	...	Helen Sherman
Calum Callaghan	...	Kieran
Rhys ap Trefor	...	Huw
Emily Bowker	...	Ellie
Robert Barton	...	Martin

Storyline

In the countryside north of Cardiff, the Torchwood team investigates the disappearance of 17 people in the last few months. No bodies have been found and the police haven't a clue as to what may have happened to them. They set up camp in a field but when their SUV is stolen and then parked in a small village just a few miles away, they realize they're being lured into a trap. In the village, they find the remains of several inhabitants - stripped of flesh and organs - and one terrified survivor who promptly shoots Gwen with a shotgun. With Ianto and Tosh taken prisoner, they all soon come to realize that people are being hunted for food by some of the locals for whom it is now harvest time.

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Genres:

Drama | Sci-Fi

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Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

19 November 2006 (UK)

Company Credits

Production Co:

BBC Wales, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

47 min 47 min

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

This is the first time we see Owen use his skills from his previous career as a medical doctor.

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Goofs

The police cars shown in this episode only say police on them in English. However, as Wales is a dual language country, emergency services use both English and Welsh on their vehicles. Therefore, they should read Police/Heddlu.

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Quotes

Owen Harper: [Owen has just been slammed against a tree by Gwen for commenting on her sex life] See old Rhys makes the Earth rumble, but he don't make it move, does he?
Gwen Cooper: You better shut up before I lump you up!
Owen Harper: [spinning Gwen around and slamming her against the tree, speaking as she struggles] When was the last time you screwed all night? When was the last time you came so hard and so long you forgot where you are?
[Gwen begins to struggle less]
Owen Harper: Don't you ever think you're too familiar? Whereas you and me... ...
[...]

User Reviews

An in-between viewpoint

It seems like a lot of people either love this one or hate it - I'm sort of on the fence. I do think it was well done in many respects, but it was also incredibly disturbing and really a bit over-the-top in the amount of violence and gore, and had an overall un-Torchwood-like feel to it. It really felt more like a slasher movie than anything.

But on thinking about it more, once I recovered from the general horror of it, I realized that in a way it does fit in, and make a very important point - that the scariest and most repellent monsters they've had to deal with thus far, the hardest to understand, and the ones that have had the most traumatizing emotional effects, particularly on Gwen, are not aliens but human beings.

The Torchwood staff often seem jaded, like they've seen everything and nothing can shock them any more, but they all seem to assume right up until near the end that what's happening has to be the work of aliens or extradimensional creatures of some sort - the unspoken assumption is that human beings couldn't possibly do something like this. And yet they did...

I also thought the depiction of Gwen getting shot was extremely realistic, to an extent rarely seen in movies or TV. Too often it seems like getting non-fatally shot is almost shrugged off by fictional characters, or else glossed over so that you see them get hit, and then the next time you see them it's in the hospital. I don't think I've ever seen a depiction of the sort of raw pain that scene showed that hit that hard... It made me aware of just how sanitized even a lot of fairly violent shows are by contrast, in the way they don't really convey what the experience of getting shot would really be like.

I guess on the whole, I respect what they did with this episode, even though I don't think I would ever want to see it again.