Ianto is hiding a terrible secret below the Hub. Join TV Club as we discuss one of Torchwood’s most notorious episodes.
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I tried to go into this story with an open mind last week. But I am sorry, I think that it is really bad…
This is my review:
review
First, we cannot talk about this episode without discussing the design of the Cyberwoman. What the hell! Why does she have a cyber bikini and why do the scientist have to tuch her that crepy. And why does she have heals! It is probebly the worst costume in all of the Whoniverse.
The story have some potential, if I try to ignore the costume (and that is a big if). But unfortnaly it do not rice above that. Ianto acts like an teenager that just have found out what love is and that is more important then anything. I dont think that this feels trustworty from a character that have seen what he has seen. Like he knows how bad the cybermen are and he saw what Lisa was able to do, when she killed the scientist and tried to convert Gwen. Offcourse that is a line that he would not accept her crossing. I dont care how much he cared about her before it just dont feel like realistic choices he makes in this.
I hate when love is protarted like this in media. It would have made a bit more sense if Lisa where Iiantos kid. But then they would not have been able to put her in that creepy costume…
Oooh, and why do Gwen en Owen kiss. That makes no sence at all. Who gets horny when ther life is on the line. Of course ashole number 1, Owen… This also starts Gwens jurney from being the only likeble character in the main cast to another unlikeble character.
Link to review: https://tardis.guide/reviews/story-cyberwoman/Tian/
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This might be the Club that has been most talked up beforehand. I don’t think that we will ever see something like this again (maybe for Kerblam). Just waiting for @JayPea and @uss-genderprise to come here 
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Well, it’s time. My review is 2,771 words long (more of an essay, really), and took me about six hours to compile. I’d really appreciate it if you take the time to read it.
Full review for ease of quoting:
I don’t care what people say; Cyberwoman is a masterpiece of modern storytelling, start to finish.
It begins before the episode even starts, with three previous episodes showing exactly how well Ianto can blend into the background. On first watch I liked him, but never knew he was going to be important. On every subsequent watch I’ve noticed moments with him I missed the first time. It’s the combined power of writing, directing, and editing in the first three episodes that set this one up to be the masterpiece that it is.
The episode starts with a focus on Ianto. It’s an immediate double subversion: we expect more of the rest of the team, we get the teaboy; we expect a sort of day in the life/secret life of… style episode, and we get, well, Cyberwoman. There’s intrigue right off the bat.
And then we get our first view of how Ianto feels, all with a few expertly framed shots: the rest of the team playing while Ianto watches, unnoticed, behind bars. He’s both closed off and fenced off from the rest of the team, very obviously separate. When they leave the Hub, Jack doesn’t even look at him when he tosses him the ball. Absolutely perfect.
Then we get a glimpse of his expression, so unlike everything we’ve seen from him before. Up to this point, Ianto has either been completely blank-faced, or smiling politely. Here, for just a moment, we see him scared.
We are one minute into the episode.
The intrigue builds as someone we’ve never seen before enters the Hub, clearly for the first time, continues as Ianto leads him deeper into the Hub, and eventually comes to a head as the titular Cyberwoman is revealed (with really good music overtop, I might add). And then Ianto kisses her. Wow!
Alright, I can’t keep putting this off, so as the opening theme plays, I’ll address the elephant in the room: the Cyberwoman costume.
I care about costuming. A good costume can make a story for me; my first review on this site was for Pyramids of Mars, simply because I had to commend the beautiful dress Sarah Jane wore in that. I went to fashion school, learned how to design clothes and costumes. I know what I’m talking about.
Originally, I wasn’t going to even try and defend the costume. It’s a bad costume. It was designed to fit a straight man’s definition of “sci-fi sexy”, with no care towards anything else. My original line of reasoning went something like this:
I don’t think that matters. If we can look past bad CGI or bad dinosaur models, why can’t we look past a bad costume? People love The Arc in Space for the bubble wrap monsters, but hate Cyberwoman for her cyber-heels, and that’s a double standard I simply will not stand for. This story is good, and there’s absolutely no reason why a single poorly thought-out costume should get in the way of that.
However, the more I think about it, the more I believe it serves a purpose. You see, this story grapples a lot with objectification, brutality, and loss of humanity: all things a Cyberman story should focus on. The costume only helps to convey that. I’ve seen plenty of people complain that the modern Cybermen costumes aren’t human enough, aren’t a constant reminder of what is hiding under all that metal. Well, here we have one that not only exposes the human, but puts it on display: naked yet covered, sexualised yet horrifying, human yet not. This is the be-all end-all of Cybermen.
The episode itself continues those themes: Tanizaki says “anything”, and Ianto immediately corrects him to “anyone”. Then Tanizaki proceeds to touch her inappropriately, completely disregarding the fact that she is still, for the most part and until proven otherwise, human. Ianto is clearly made uncomfortable by it, something that will reoccur throughout the episode; he’s the only one who seems to remember she’s human, underneath it all.
The second thing this story is about is Ianto. I find it interesting that we get an episode centred on him before one centred on Tosh or Jack. Ianto is, on some level, more of a connection to Doctor Who than Jack is. He was at the battle of Canary Wharf, where the last episode of Doctor Who was set, and we get to see the aftermath of it through his eyes. More than that, he embodies the essence of Doctor Who, where he’s unwilling to leave someone to die if there’s a chance they can be saved. More on that later.
Something I find really interesting in this episode is the dichotomy between Ianto and the rest of the team at the beginning of the episode. Of course, they’re on opposite sides for most of it, but the contrast is set up really well, with the team going out and cracking jokes, basically smiling the entire time until things start going wrong, while Ianto is constantly scared, running, hiding. Even when Lisa manages to breathe and walk on her own Ianto’s smile is tense.
The episode picks up speed with the first death: the failed cyber-conversion of Dr. Tanizaki. I would like to point out one of my absolute favourite moments in the entire whoniverse:
LISA: His conversion failed.
IANTO: Was it an accident? Tell me you didn’t do this.
Ianto is completely unable to accept that Lisa might have hurt someone. He continuously makes excuses: the real Lisa couldn’t have done this, is was an accident, a mistake, something went wrong but she’s in control again.
And the thing is, Lisa goes with it. When he pushes her back in anger, you can see in her micro-expressions that Ianto has suddenly become her next target. But a moment later, when he switches back from anger to sorrow and fear, she calms down as well.
Despite it all, Lisa loves him just as much as he loves her. No other love saves the day or Cyberman story is doing it like them.
As the heart of Torchwood, Gwen is the only person other than Ianto to consider Lisa a person from the start, but unlike Ianto, she doesn’t stick with that mindset for long.
Jack obviously becomes suspicious of Ianto very quickly, but I find it interesting that it takes Ianto apologising to Gwen rather than stoping Jack from shooting Lisa to get him there. Then he spends the walk out of the room watching Ianto very carefully, trying to suss him out, which finally culminates in the face-off in the main room of the Hub.
In fact, this scene is a culmination of every episode that has led up to it. Gwen questioned Jack once, got an answer, and now she just watches on in horror, until she has the opportunity to question Ianto’s motivation. Tosh, who has been as sidelined as Ianto (and will soon receive her own episode in which she is ostracised from the team), is seemingly the one who has the biggest problem with Jack pointing a guy at Ianto, but she’s nothing if not loyal to Jack. And Owen’s a twat.
This is where the setup of the previous three episodes pays off. None of the other team members really knew Ianto. He was always sort of invisible, so none of them bothered to interact with him. None of them noticed anything was wrong. And none of them have ever given him reason to trust them.
And we’re back to Doctor Who parallels. On some level, Ianto is the quintessential companion, while Jack is the Doctor, older and wiser and full of experience. He knows these aliens, he knows the evils of the universe, and he knows that sometimes you can’t save everyone, while Ianto still believes that with hard work and the power of love, anyone can be saved. But unlike the common companion, Ianto doesn’t yet trust or follow his Doctor figure. He won’t stop just because Jack made a big speech.
I would like to posit an argument: at its core, once you look past the hypersexualisation and gore, Cyberwoman is the most Doctor Who episode of Torchwood. It’s a story about love persevering against all odds, about the lengths people will go to to save the ones they love; it’s also a story about the fallibility of leaders and Doctor figures. We’ve gotten stories like this with the Seventh Doctor, with the Eighth in the EDAs, and will again with almost every modern Doctor. It’s a big part of revival Who. Torchwood simply allows such a story to be stretched to a much more horrifying conclusion than a family show like Doctor Who can allow.
Ianto loves the way Jack forgot to. He loves like only a young person who has had everything important to them taken away can. Lisa is the only thing he has left of his previous life, and he will do anything to keep her.
IANTO: Can’t you understand that, Jack? Haven’t you ever loved anyone?
It’s very telling that Jack doesn’t answer. He doesn’t remember what it’s like to feel like that, or worse, he does remember and is aware that it doesn’t happen to him anymore. In The Parting of the Ways Jack was willing to die for the Doctor and Rose, and take down many other human volunteers with him. This Jack is not that Jack. He left him a hundred years in the past, and a million in the future.
(Owen’s eye roll is also quite telling, but his arc isn’t the point of this episode.)
Lisa’s cyberised understanding of love being what eventually causes Ianto to fail at saving her is really gutting. She still loves him, still wants to be with him, but after so long trying to save her, Ianto is unwilling to accept this version of her. It doesn’t help that for every sentence he says trying to pull her back, Jack says one to goad her. I genuinely think that if Jack had not been so set in his beliefs, they would have been able to save her. It’s the ultimate tragedy.
This episode marks the beginning of Gwen’s affair with Owen. While it’s no secret that I’m not a fan of this arc (very few people are), I think it’s handled as well as it reasonably could be in this episode. Neither one of them is thinking clearly; they fear for their life, huddled in a tight space with someone they’ve gotten to know pretty well. It’s a high tension situation, they’re both sexually active, and, as Owen says:
OWEN: Last kiss for a condemned man.
At the same time, it parallels the other relationship that will bud over the course of the series: Jack and Ianto. While this kiss lacks the glow of Jack and Carys’s kiss in Day One, this is likely a similar case of Jack quite literally giving the “kiss of life” to someone, rather than traditional CPR. It has interesting implications, which I have seen explored extensively in fic.
The sound design of the Cyberwoman’s scream is fantastic. Absolutely blood chilling. Despite Ianto’s near death experience, he immediately runs to her side when he hears it. Nothing that has happened so far has made him stop loving her. He might take a step back when she wakes up, but Gwen still has to be the one to pull him away.
The barbeque sauce for the pterodactyl might be a bit silly, but this wouldn’t be Doctor Who without some camp. It’s toned down by the sheer devastation in Ianto’s voice as he watches the person he loves fight for her life. Against a pteronodon. Where else could you get quality content like this?
Next comes one of the most iconic scenes in the entire show: Ianto punching Jack in the face. The first time I watched this episode, I was rooting for Ianto from the start, and as the story progressed I became angrier and angrier at Jack. I am not exaggerating when I say that when Ianto punched him, I cheered. It’s such a fantastic moment, a great release of catharsis to help the viewer make it to the end. This episode would be a 5/5 for this moment alone, but of course, it’s all the build-up that makes it as good as it is.
IANTO: You’re worse than anything locked up down there. One day, I’ll have the chance to save you, and I’ll watch you suffer and die.
God, what a powerful line. Watch you suffer and die is the name of my Jack/Ianto playlist that I can’t listen to without crying.
The pizza delivery girl is unnamed in the episode but is listed as “Annie” in the credits. She calls Ianto by name, and you get the feeling that they’re somewhat familiar with each other, perhaps more close than Ianto is with any of his team members. It gives an added weight to what happens to her. Lisa appearing behind her covered in blood is a genuinely good jumpscare.
This episode really exemplifies just how different Torchwood’s Jack is from the Jack we knew in series 1 of Doctor Who. He acts like he’s giving Ianto a chance to redeem himself, but what he’s really doing is sending him off on a suicide mission to kill the only person he has left, the woman he loves. Both Tosh and Gwen voice their distaste, but Jack made up his mind. From this point onwards, it’s an uphill battle for Jack to redeem himself in my eyes. It’s an interesting choice for the co-protagonist of this show, but one that works with the themes of Torchwood.
Ianto comes into the hub, sees the pizza boxes, and immediately realises what happened (they forgot his coleslaw). The music builds and builds, and suddenly cuts out as Lisa’s body is revealed. He takes her head into his lap like he will eventually do with Jack the many times he dies, and beholds the blood on his own hands. This is the end, and finally, Ianto has to grieve and let her go, come to terms with everything he did in his efforts to save her. Right?
WRONG! Lisa, in an effort to pay back Ianto for trying so hard to save her, has gone and made herself human for him. This, right here, is the emotional core of the episode. It makes me cry more than anything else. Despite everything, it is still Lisa in Annie’s body. The Lisa who loves him and remembers their dates, the mundane little things. The same Lisa he would do anything for. We can talk about what it is that makes us human and what exactly makes us who we are forever, but I will always stand by my opinion that it is Lisa. And Ianto knows that too, and that is why he hugs her, and that is why he won’t shoot, no matter how much he knows he should.
His ten minutes are up, and Gwen is the only one who can’t look him in the eye.
But in the end, Ianto goes right back to it, “suited and smiling”, to become the invisible person cleaning up after everyone else once again. With Lisa gone, it’s the only thing he has left.
And that’s it. The most unnecessarily hated episode of Torchwood. I could spend another thousand words going over the minutiae of every little detail, but we’ve been here long enough. A few more notes, and then I’m done.
The acting is absolutely phenomenal. From Ianto’s mask slipping into place whenever he’s around literally anyone other than Lisa, to Lisa’s micro-expressions and body language, to Jack’s full-body tension once he realises what’s going on. Even Annie, who’s in the episode for all of five minutes, does a spectacular job.
The music is great as usual, especially the piece playing over the initial reveal of the Cyberwoman and the hauntingly beautiful one playing over her death.
The sound design is clever, making Lisa’s voice increasingly mechanical until she ditches her cyberised body, only wavering for a few short moments of humanity.
I hope that all this has at least helped some people reconsider the merits of this episode, if not completely change some minds. I’ve watched this episode more times than I can count (five in just the first week if finishing the show), and it means a lot to me.
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Time to tear apart Tian’s review (nothing personal, I just have a lot to say).
I think it’s important to remember that Ianto is 23 in this episode (potentially as young as 22, depending on the timeline). As someone who is 23 and in love, well, I wouldn’t put something like this past me. Have you never been so in love that you would do anything for that person?
Let’s take a hypothetical. Say your spouse developed Alzheimer’s. During a particularly bad day, when they don’t remember anyone around them, they lash out and hurt your friend. Would you have them put down? Or would you do everything you can to make life easier for them, potentially even looking for a cure yourself?
I know it isn’t exactly the same thing, but you have to remember that up until this episode, Lisa has been completely bedridden. She has never hurt anyone before.
I completely disagree. Maybe it’s a difference in life experiences, but I find it a lot easier to believe that someone will go to these lengths to save someone they had chosen to be with, rather than a child they may or may no have had if it weren’t for societal pressures. It’s one of the things that make this episode work a lot better for me than, say, Closing Time.
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Saving this for later!
I was surprised to discover Cyber woman isn’t exactly a popular episode.
When I watched it, I thought it was a good episode.
Yes, the design of the titular Cyberwoman is a bit silly, but if people can’t look past that, I’m surprised they watch Classic Who with a straight face.
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Great review. I still dont agree with you but I love to read what other people love about stuff that I don’t. It is interesting to see other’s perspective.
I still think that his behaviours don’t match a person with his life experience and knowledge about the Cybermen.
I might try to answer some of your other points later if you want to. But I am glad that you liked the episode.
As I wrote in my review I really don’t think that the costume is its only problem.
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I know that, but there are some people who hate the episode simply because of the design.
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The costume design is the only good thing about it… 
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Right, I might give this story a whirl as well 
Very much this, I can’t see any realism in this kind of portrayal of love.
Totally. 
agree with this.
Honestly my biggest issue with this story is the acting. Gareth David Lloyd’s acting is much more at home in “K9” than in “Torchwood”. This is Hippias from The Time Monster acting level for me.
@uss-genderprise I would love to see the episode you reviewed, sadly that is apparently not the same episode that appears on my screen 
I’m glad that you find such enjoyment in it though.
In Classic Who I often find it is a case of “this is what we can with this budget so just go with in alright?”, in this story they actively lean into the terrible costume and make it an integral part of the story. Had the design leaned more into a style of body horror like Ashad the Lone Cyberman from Jodie Whittaker’s era instead of “over sexualisation of Frankenstein’s monster” I think it would be greatly improved.
Myfanwy the Pterodactyl fighting a Barbeque marinated Cyberwoman is funny though 
Plus the title of the story is ridiculous.
1/5 
from me
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This IS Torchwood!
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Appropriate choice of words there…
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Thank you for your very thoughtful in-depth review!
I agree with a lot of your points. I rewatched this recently, with you in mind, because all I’ve heard about this episode before was people taking the piss out of it and I’d never even considered to look at it in a positive light.
Rewatching Series 1 in order I was this time very aware that Ianto is just in the background, waiting for his moment to shine. I think it is very cleverly done. Equally as clever as putting Susie in the posters, only for her to be killed in the first episode. Such great bait & switch in this show!
This is a clever way of thinking about the costume. I just don’t think it was that deep. I honestly just think it was made sexy because this is Torchwood - the same show that just episodes before had alien sex gas. But I like the way it can be looked at from different angles, even if that wasn’t the original intent.
Yes I like this, I do see Ianto : Jack as similar to Rose : The Doctor. He even falls in love with him.
Yeah that really came out of nowhere for me and I don’t like it. Especially now after listening to loads of the EU, Gwen and Rhys are so sweet, I just hate how she could do that to him.
Loved that!
I’d actually forgotten about this twist since I last watched it, and seeing it again I see that it absolutely made the ending all the more special. It was a great twist.
This is where I have to agree with @BillFiler - unfortunately, I found Ianto a bit too over the top with his acting here, and it did take me away from it a bit.
Now to respond to some of the criticism:
I agree with this, he does act a bit too erratically. It depends on how much he knows about Cybermen I suppose - he seems to think she can be fixed, although Jack says she can’t. I’m just not sure that risking the whole world is worth it for someone, even someone you love.
I agree with this. I know that some people feel much more strongly about their child than their partner - especially if you consider they couldn’t have been together for that long. Girlfriend for a few years, or daughter of 18 years? It would have been more impactful if it were his teenage daughter.
Ultimately I think it is a much better story than it is given credit for, but it does have faults.
I give it 3.5/5
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After discussing the topic with a friend and giving it some more thought, I guess I just don’t really understand your points of view in regards to love. I see Ianto as autistic, and as an autistic person myself, I experience love in a way that is very similar to a hyperfixation. A person I’m in love with is all I think about, I want to spend all my time with them (sometimes to the detriment of my health, staying up late to talk to them), and I will do anything to make them happy, whether that’s buying them flowers or watching the whole world burn. From all the media I’ve seen and hearing other people talk about love, I assumed this is just how it is. I suppose that on some level I just don’t understand loving a person less than that. This is why Cyberwoman works for me, and wouldn’t work if they replaced Lisa with a child of Ianto; I have just never seen parents love children like that.
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This is actually something that Torchwood do well. They introduce the cast at a great pace making it easy to get to know a character at a time.
As @BillFiler wrote those bad CGI has been because of budget limitations, not bad choices. I think that there is a big difference there. But yeah this is not the only thing that I think is bad with the episode.
I don’t think that this is the case. But okay let’s have that as a headcanon and ignore the design after this.
This is actually one of my biggest problems with Ianto’s actions. He knows how bad they are. Even if he is young he should know better!
This is something I think that they do a good job with. He feels like an outsider.
I think that something that you don’t touch on (or if I missed it) is that Lisa tries to convert Gwen. To me that should have been the turning point for Ianto. When he does not seam to care about this is when I lose all faith in him and stop seeing him as a real character. This was when the episode lost me the last time because he should have known by then that there was no turning back. That is a murder and an attempt of murder. This is when Ianto with his training and his experience of the cybermen should have turned on Lisa.
I am sorry, but to me, this is just bad. It has a bad plot, and this marks a terrible start to it. I see this as a teenager’s fantasy, not a grown-up show…
I have no problem with this part. I even think that it is kind of fun.
I did not even register this line as being powerful…
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I disagree. Ianto doesn’t really know Gwen, they basically never had a proper conversation. On the other hand, Lisa is his girlfriend, and the only thing he still cares about. I also don’t think he knows that much about the Cybermen; no one has ever been left half-converted, no one knows that a half-converted Cyberman can’t be fixed. She’s still his Lisa. She was perfectly lucid up to this point, and someone who is grieving and traumatised like Ianto is isn’t necessarily making the most rational decisions.
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He was at Canary Wharf and saw what they could do. That is all the knowledge that you need.
No, but Gwen is someone that he knows, even if not that well, and I do think that Lisa passes the point of no return there. That is why I think it would have worked a bit better if Lisa was his kid, since that kind of love is more unconditional. It is more common for parents to keep in contact with bad criminals than partners. Especially since Ianto and Lisa can’t have been a couple for that long. But I don’t think that we will agree on this.
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I must say I don’t think that Lisa being Ianto’s kid would have saved the story. It would just have made it a little bit better…
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