Torchwood One – Machines

#2.02. Blind Summit ~ 10/10

◆ An Introduction

Gareth David-Lloyd is an absolute diamond. Not only are his acting skills exquisite, but he happens to be a damn good writer too. Ianto Jones has been a faithful member of the Torchwood family for quite some time… but have you ever wondered where it all began?

◆ Publisher’s Summary

Ianto Jones has just moved to London. He's broke, has no friends, no future. One day he loses the one thing he's been holding on to, and suddenly people around him are dying. Could a mysterious woman really offer him salvation?

◆ DISCLAIMER

It was only after pre-ordering ‘I Hate Mondays’ that I was made aware of the Islamophobic and transphobic rhetoric that Tracy-Ann Oberman continues to share on social media.

For this reason, I will not be purchasing any further releases featuring Oberman. I refuse to support someone with such despicable views.

I previously covered the first four sets for TimeScales, so will be porting those reviews over to this site: each of them will carry this disclaimer. They were all written prior to May 2023. Please remember not to take any of my comments in this review about Oberman’s performance – positive or negative – as condoning her frankly awful views.

◆ Yvonne Hartman

Gareth David-Lloyd is one of the greatest writers for Torchwood, which will become apparent when you read my review of ‘Retirement Plan’. He gives Yvonne some excellent material in this episode.

‘Blind Summit’ features a phenomenal performance from Tracy-Ann Oberman.

Yvonne has a rare attack of conscience in this episode, feeling genuinely sorry for Ianto’s situation: the dire state of his flat, and his father. She’s drugged him, slipping a pill of retcon into his gin. Her reasoning? Well, she just told him secrets that could threaten national security, and because no one sees her cry. To save us all a lot of time, Yvonne implanted a psychic trigger in Ianto’s mind: whenever he hears her name, he immediately trusts and protects her.

◆ Ianto Jones

Nobody understands Ianto Jones better than the man who portrays him. ‘Blind Summit’ was clearly a labour of love for Gareth David-Lloyd, and he gives himself the best material.

Unsurprisingly, David-Lloyd delivers an immaculate performance in this episode.

Ianto cannot imagine a time when he didn’t work for Torchwood. He’s not happy with his flat, because it’s not exactly clean, and there is a rat living in his bath tub. If that wasn’t bad enough, his waste-of-space dad keeps getting mortal drunk and urinating on the floor! Ianto’s excuse for not turning up for work was that he had a twenty-four hour bug, but he looks so awful that it’s a believable excuse. It’s wonderful hearing Miriam teach him how to make the perfect cup of coffee, something which he’d become so famous for making once he relocated to Torchwood Three. Ianto takes the Torchwood job offer to go undercover at Blind Summit, and is convinced that wearing a suit makes him look like a spy: he’s clearly living his James Bond fantasy! One thing his father taught him was how to break locks.

◆ Story Recap

A local bio-tech company – Blind Summit – have recently been recruiting people to take part in trials for a new flu vaccine, but they’ve been weirdly selective with their candidates; the homeless, the friendless, illegal immigrants, those desperate for cash in hand. Yvonne Hartman believes they’re involved in a conspiracy, and is dead set on uncovering it.

It soon transpires that the flu vaccine was a cover story, and Blind Summit have actually been trialling a new drug named Excellium. It has the ability to create super-soldiers; increased IQ, increased physical strength, healing and anger. The drug has a 65% rejection rate, hence why a spate of dead bodies have turned up in the Thames.

Excellium was originally part of the Brett Archive, securely contained by Torchwood One. Unfortunately, there’s a mole within the Institute. Yvonne can only rule out two people; her charming personal assistant, Matthew; and herself.

When Ianto Jones turns up for his low-paying job at the local coffee shop, the last thing he expected was for an Excellium super soldier to gun down all of his colleagues and all the punters. That’s when he met Yvonne: that’s when he discovered Torchwood!

◆ Office Boy Origins

Gareth David-Lloyd scripts are usually comedy focused, but his first contribution to this range was anything but. ‘Blind Summit’ acts as an origin story for Ianto, and you realise quite how awful his life was before joining the Institute: having to constantly deal with his drunken father urinating all over his flat, a vile landlord, and his room-mate Steve… the rat who lives in his bath tub!

◆ Sound Design

‘Blind Summit’ features some incredibly horrific scenes – making it an outlier when it comes to Gareth David-Lloyd scripts – but Iain Meadows did a fantastic job, nonetheless.

Tommy and Ianto hammer away at hard drives, following the Law Machine massacre. The fizzing of a soluble aspirin. An aggravating little alarm clock in Ianto’s depressing flat, and the squeaking of Steve the Rat in his bath tub. A crackling announcement on the radio. Ianto’s dad urinating onto the floor of the flat. The sound of a bustling London coffee shop with punters enjoying their day… moments before a man walks in and massacres everyone in sight! A car rams straight through the coffee shop and into the gunman, who just gets up and resumes shooting like he’s the Terminator! The Arachmed administers anaesthetic to Ianto. Ducks quacking in the canal. After being injected with the Excellium, Ianto’s head begins to flood with all the different times he’s actually met Yvonne; all the hundreds of times she retconned him. A Blind Summit engineered Arachmed drills into the point where Yvonne’s brain stem meets the top of her spine, swizzling around all the grey matter and sinew as she screams in pain… good God, this story is horrific! Tommy – accompanied by Kieran and some Torchwood security heavies – comes to the rescue with a whole host of alien machine guns. Tommy decapitates Pascal, and his head drips blood all over the ground. Did I mention this episode is horrifically dark?

◆ Music

I rarely discuss the music in my Torchwood reviews, because Blair Mowat usually recycles the same old melodies in every episode. ‘Blind Summit’ is different.

I adore the jazz score used in the scenes where Ianto goes undercover at Blind Summit, and there’s a great suspenseful piece during the coffee shop scenes with him, Yvonne and the gunman.

Whoever had the idea to play ‘The Ballad of Ianto Jones’ towards the end of this episode owes me money for tissues. That track has me in tears every single time!

◆ Conclusion

“Leap of faith, Ianto.”

Ianto Jones lives a miserable life; his father is constantly getting hammered and urinating on his floor, there’s a rat living in his bath tub, and everyone in his workplace was recently massacred by a psychotic gunman! But that’s when he met Yvonne…

‘Blind Summit’ was clearly a labour of love for Gareth David-Lloyd, because it’s an origin story for our favourite coffee boy! Most of his scripts have been comedic masterpieces – we’ll get to ‘Retirement Plan’ very soon – but this was unusually dark and quite horrific. An outstanding script!