Torchwood: Series 2, Episode 3 – “To the Last Man” (2008)

*Episode premise spoilers.*

I really like this episode. I tend to like the Tosh-centric stories anyway—and there’s not nearly enough of those—but the timey-wimey romance of this one is delicious! It’s an episode that really flexes the range of possibilities within the show’s premise.

One of the bodies in Torchwood’s cold storage is a WWI soldier named Tommy. He was put there in 1918, and ever since, Torchwood has been reviving him from cryogenic sleep once a year for safekeeping, knowing that one day he’ll be critical to saving the future. In recent years, he’s taken a liking to Tosh, and she to him. She tries to make the most of his annual unthawed day, but Tommy’s time of reckoning is coming due.

For starters, I love any and all glimpses we get of old-timey Torchwood, so it’s great to have Gerald and Harriet pop up in a flashback here. I find the premise very interesting, that these two witnessed narrowly-avoided destruction from overlapping timelines in 1918 and understood that, while Tommy was the key to stopping it, he needed to do that from the other side of the time anomaly, in the future. So he’s been on ice ever since, with a locked instruction box that will open for the present-day head of Torchwood when that future day arises.

I’m also intrigued by falling for a time-displaced man who’s only unfrozen once a year, and vice versa. We don’t see when Tosh and Tommy first met, or how they became so close, but I can buy that cryogenics lend intensity to a whirlwind romance. At most, they’ve only known each other for a handful of days, but that’s been spread out over years for Tosh. Whereas from Tommy’s perspective, he wakes up “every day” and sees her, and she’s always been waiting to see him. It makes sense that, when the world has shifted a little every time Tommy is unfrozen, he’d be drawn to Tosh’s steady, reassuring presence. And for Tosh, who’s definitely struggled where dating is concerned, there’s probably a sort of safety in condensing so much romantic feeling into a single memorable day every year.

I really like seeing Tommy’s perspective of the world. Things change at such a rapid rate for him, and he’s in the world so little that he can’t really adjust to his time displacement the way someone like Steve Rogers can. Fashions change every few days or every week—he reminisces cheekily about the miniskirt era. And it was dizzying to hear that the War to End All Wars was over the first time he was revived in 1919, but then only a few “weeks” later from his perspective, to learn that the world was at war again.

I think the episode does a great job with the emotional content here. The scenes feel earned, and the performances are excellent. No surprise that Naoki Mori delivers wonderfully as Tosh, and Anthony Lewis (brother of Matthew Lewis!) gives a strong performance as Tommy. The two of them are splendid together.