Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

That was a lot of fun. Loved Captain John Hart as the antagonist - he's basically Torchwood's answer to the Master - and the humour (especially the Blowfish driving a sports car at the beginning). It's a shame Gwen is practically reduced to damsel in distress though, and Owen saves the rest of the team sans Gwen after they were betrayed by Captain John a bit too easily for my liking.

I feel this episode is steeped enough in Jack Harkness lore this should be considered a prerequisite required story to fully appreciate.

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is pretty solid, on the whole, which is great by the standards of the first two seasons of Torchwood. It is well known that RTD and others involved in the early reboot of Doctor Who were inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer, while James Marsters apparently saw a New Who episode and became interested in joining the series, eventually winding up with him taking on the memorable role of Captain John here. He is the best part of this episode by a wide mile and really helps to elevate the material a little bit.

Sure, the writing and execution of all this is a little clunky, but on the whole it does a good job at introducing a new character from Jack's past, creating conflict around it, and then setting up some stuff for Series Two, even if it is only really paid off at the end of the season. You could ask for a lot worse, especially given all the atrocities of Series One. This left me optimistic for the future of Torchwood after suffering through the first series on my first watch. It holds up pretty well in hindsight, even if the results of Series Two on the whole are a lot more consistent with Series One then I would prefer.

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang makes 42 look like it was written by an entirely different person. The alien blowfish is perhaps the show’s first truly iconic alien design. The mysterious Captain John (played by James Masters) gets the balance right, delivering the right kind of camp, gritty, sexy nonsense the audience is looking for. He matches John Barrowman’s energy and enriches the lore around our main character.