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“COMBAT - OWEN VS. THE WEEVIL WITHIN”

Combat sees Torchwood return to one of its recurring alien threats—the Weevils—in a bleak, testosterone-fuelled exploration of rage, repression, and emotional breakdown. Written by Noel Clarke (best known as Mickey Smith from Doctor Who), the episode continues the fallout from Out of Time, as Owen Harper spirals after losing Diane Holmes and seeks out pain as both punishment and distraction. His descent leads him into the blood-soaked underworld of illegal Weevil fights—yes, it’s Fight Club meets Torchwood, and no one is left unbruised.

The concept of Weevils being kidnapped and used in underground cage matches by emotionally stunted, rage-filled men is grimly fascinating, and while the execution is patchy, it certainly captures the mood of late-stage Owen: disillusioned, emotionally stunted, and more self-destructive than ever. This is the darkest we’ve seen him, and though he’s never been the team’s warmest figure, his cold, antagonistic behaviour here pushes him close to irredeemable.

GWEN AND RHYS: THE CRACKS WIDEN

After several episodes on the back burner, Gwen and Rhys’s relationship gets a long-overdue return to focus—though it might have been better left alone, given how ugly things get. Gwen's guilt over her affair with Owen finally bubbles up, and she attempts to have an honest conversation with Rhys… before undercutting it by drugging him with Retcon so he won’t remember it. That moment is jaw-droppingly unethical, even by Torchwood’s moral grey zone standards, and while it’s good to see the show finally addressing the emotional damage of Gwen’s choices, this twist makes it harder than ever to root for her.

Rhys himself doesn’t exactly shine either—his pushback feels more like petulance than justified anger. The relationship is clearly unsalvageable by this point, and the episode presents it with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

A BATTLE OF BROKEN MEN

The centrepiece of Combat is Owen’s face-off—both literal and emotional—with a group of emotionally volatile men who treat alien brawls as primal therapy. Alex Hassell is chilling as the smug, hollow-faced Mark Lynch, a slick, privileged alpha who lives for the thrill of dominance and violence. He’s not just Owen’s adversary; he’s a mirror held up to Owen’s own unresolved trauma and anger. That this character manages to make Owen seem relatively sympathetic is an achievement in itself.

The final act, where Owen willingly enters the cage to fight a Weevil, serves as a twisted culmination of his arc—he’s given up on healing and seeks out oblivion. That the Weevil doesn’t attack him, seemingly recognising a kindred spirit, adds a strange, almost mythic quality to the moment. But it’s also emblematic of the episode’s vague message: is Owen meant to be redeemed? Pitied? Condemned? It’s not always clear.

TEAM TORCHWOOD: PRESENT BUT UNINVOLVED

While the whole team is technically involved in the investigation into the Weevil murders, the script rarely gives them anything meaningful to do. Tosh, Ianto, and Jack all get a few scenes, but they’re mostly reduced to background functions. Their investigation is barely shown on screen, leaving the central plot feeling oddly shallow despite its emotional weight.

Still, it's refreshing to see them using their particular skills effectively, and their camaraderie contrasts with Owen’s increasing isolation. Jack’s disapproval of Owen’s choices is palpable, and Ianto continues to provide dry wit in the margins, but the focus is clearly elsewhere.

A MOODY ATMOSPHERIC DIVE WITH FEW ANSWERS

Combat is not a particularly exciting episode. Its pacing is uneven, and the action is limited to a few grungy fight scenes. But it does succeed in tone. The whole episode is drenched in urban grit and emotional bleakness, from the grey Cardiff streets to the bloody cages lit with flickering fluorescent lights. There’s a strong atmosphere of decay, not just physical but emotional—everyone in this story is either angry, broken, or both.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite come together. The moral questions—about masculinity, violence, and grief—are raised but never explored deeply. The show wants us to feel something profound, but doesn’t always give us the tools to do so. Owen's pain is real, but the surrounding story lacks the finesse to make that pain fully resonate.

📝 VERDICT: 63/100

Combat is a raw, bitter, and morally murky character piece that attempts to dissect Owen Harper’s breakdown through the lens of underground violence and toxic masculinity. The ideas are there, and the atmosphere is strong, but the execution stumbles. Gwen and Rhys’s storyline goes to disturbing extremes, the supporting team gets short-changed, and the central metaphor of the Weevil cage fights never quite lands with the impact it wants. Still, it’s a bold, uncomfortable hour that gives Burn Gorman plenty to chew on—and leaves Owen with more emotional bruises than physical ones. Not a knockout, but a dark and memorable punch to the gut.

Combat is like someone read Fight Club and went Wait... I can do that with my characters! It wasn't necessarily badly done, but I couldn't help making comparisons to Fight Club the whole way through, and Combat just isn't as good. Also, I really don't care about the Weevils

Another great episode. It sets up the intriguing mystery well, of who is kidnapping the Weevils and for what purpose and has some strong character drama (particularly with Gwen and Rhys). The espionage stuff is quite clever. I don't buy Owen deciding to go in the cage with the Weevil though, after acknowledging how morally grey an idea the Weevil death matches are. It all feels a bit too quick for my liking.

Yet another episode of Torchwood TV I feel largely lacks any sort of value. After all the interesting stuff Torchwood had been doing for a few episodes, and even showing a side of Owen I finally found a bit of empathy around in Out of Time, we get this ridiculous monster fight club story that I found to be a real slog to get through.

It isn't just that the story is sloppy, or that Owen reverts back to a boring edge lord. Nor that the entire episode gets bogged down relationship melodrama stuff with him, as well as Gwen and Rhys on the side. I also think this episode looks pretty awful and doesn't have a lot of heart in the production of the cage arena or monsters. It all just looks so cheap to me and the Weevils are so boring - both in looks and behaviours. That they became a bit of a recurring thing in Torchwood mythology is not positive in my eyes.

On the whole, while I respect that this episode might have its fans, I am not one of them, and this is yet another example of early Torchwood largely causing me to check out. There's a certainly meanness to Combat that Torchwood too often hit upon with characters like Owen - it feels a lot more cynical and out of sorts with the tone of the larger Doctor Who franchise and it is something I always struggle with. This is especially relevant with a character like Owen who was implied to be a sex pest right from the beginning, and it leaves me really struggling to connect with these characters in content that offers little else in terms of writing or other strengths (which is something they did eventually start to compensate for with stuff like Series 3).

The only positive I can say about reviewing this series is that is has left me appreciating that Big Finish did a great job at getting me to care about this franchise. It is pretty cool that they were able to better develop things and leave us with more than the handful of TV stories that worked, and a graveyard of content like Combat that largely amounts to a whole bunch of nonsense I am not terribly interested in revisiting again in the future.

I’m very glad I kept watching this show I’m really starting to enjoy it.