My Torchwood rewatch has stalled a little, and I’ve neglected to keep the log up to date. I re-watched They Keep Killing Suzie ages ago, and never got around to writing it up! It’s time for Suzie Costello to take centre stage, and that despite being killed already! I was impressed with this episode at the time, and it’s lost none of its impact. I’ll explain…

Ms Costello, I presume

Indira Varma barely had a chance to explain who Suzie Costello was when Gwen’s arrival became part of the trigger for her eventual demise. Looking back across the series so far, it’s now possible to see some of how the show was constructed, with the seeds of this episode tucked away in the opener.

Suzie Costello was clever. She planned. She left a failsafe, making sure the resurrection glove would be used on her and had pre-planned her escape. What makes this story work is how she latches on to Gwen (Eve Myles) and this lets us understand how different the two are in many, many ways. Of course there’s more to it, as we learn Suzie is leeching Gwen’s life to truly come back from the dead.

The story just about manages to lock the main team away to let Suzie and Gwen play the bulk of the story, but it’s dark Jack Harkness who tidies up the mess at the end, an edge he doesn’t always show in other stories.

It’s a powerful, clever story, fitting the series well. It’s also the only episode by either of the writers Paul Tomalin and Dan McCullloch (who has worked on Endeavour and His Dark Materials).

It really does mark the start of the strongest in series 1 and possibly Torchwood as a whole.