Original Transmission
The opening of the episode is narrated by Owen Harper, who tells of his life and his death, which he is currently living through. Although everyone else believes he is fine, Owen knows that he is not. He is seen on top of an apartment building with a suicidal woman, asking her if she is ready to jump. After showing the woman his gunshoot wound and revealing he is already dead, Owen begins to tell her about the days since his death, shown as a series of flashbacks. Firstly, Captain Jack relieves Owen of his duties as a way of monitoring his condition and keeping him safe. Owen is angry that Martha Jones is taking his position as head medic, and further disheartened when Jack gives him Ianto's old job of making the coffee. He feels useless, conscious that he has always been alone while each one of the Torchwood team has or has had someone in their life (Ianto and Jack, Gwen and Rhys, Martha and her boyfriend, Tosh and Tommy). Ianto challanges him as to whether he is really going to let this problem beat him, after all that he’s been through.
After Martha concludes from her tests that Owen is 100% human yet will not age, the team meets to discuss a series of unusual energy spikes coming from the estate of a reclusive collector of alien artefacts, Henry Parker. Parker hasn’t been seen since 1986, leading the team to wonder what he has inside his house. They devise a plan to find out the origin of the energy spikes, excluding any involvement from Owen. Back on the roof, Owen recounts suicide statistics to the woman, who asks him who he actually is. Owen replies that he is a ‘bloody brilliant doctor’, which takes us back to the autopsy room, where he is conversing with Martha. As he carelessly toys with a scalpel, Martha tries to reassure him that she does not want his job. While talking, she realise that he has sliced his hand open with the scalpel - a wound he can't feel, and that won't heal. Owen takes over the stitching, realising he will need to get used to doing it himself.
As we come back to the roof, the woman chastises Owen for refusing help, and he asks her if her boyfriend dumped her because she was so annoying. In flashback, the effectively unemployed Owen heads home, where he sits around aimlessly and then clears out his fridge - he no longer needs food or drink. Tosh arrives and starts to tell him about her morning, as Owen zones out completely. On the roof, the woman states that Owen and Tosh sound like an old married couple. She tells him about how her husband died, also glimpsed in flashbacks, in a car accident an hour after they were married. She asks Owen if things get better when you die, and we come back to Owen’s apartment, where he is still zoned out. He asks Tosh why she is there, and becomes angry when she says she wants to help, since in reality she can’t. He directs his anger at Tosh, accusing her of wanting someone as screwed up as himself - which he has finally become. After breaking his finger to show Tosh how ‘broken’ he is, Owen tries to drown himself, but fails because despite his ability to talk, he no longer breathes. At the Hub, the team are discussing the security heat-sensors used at Parker’s estate, making it virtually impossible for them to gain access. When Owen points out that he has no body heat, Jack agrees to let him take on the mission. Tosh returns Owen's apartment keys and carries on with the task at hand.
The woman on the roof can’t get over why Tosh wasn’t angry at him and Owen explains that it was Tosh’s way: always professional. The woman becomes upset and Owen rushes her to the edge, where she pulls back from jumping. She asks him how he got from where he was to the roof... At the estate, Martha tells Owen not to engage in any physical combat as he will not recover. After breaking security both on the outside and inside the house, Owen reaches Parker who is an old man linked up to many ventilators and medical machines. The man reveals that he has suffered a failed bypass and three heart attacks, but is being kept alive by a glowing object he calls ‘the Pulse’. Owen tells him that the object isn’t doing anything to keep him alive; that it is actually hope that is doing the job. Owen promises to help Parker face his fear of death, but the man soon suffers another heart attack. Unable to draw breath himself, Owen is unable to perform the kiss of life, and Parker dies. Tosh tells Owen through the earpiece that ‘The Pulse’ is going to explode and there’s nothing they can do about it. Owen holds the object, telling the team he’s going to try to absorb it. They all protest, and Owen begins to say his goodbyes, praising Martha as an ideal replacement, and apologising to Tosh for his behaviour. Tosh says she loves him and as the object begins to glow ever so brightly, Owen hugs it. On the roof, the woman looks at Owen incredulously, asking what had happened next. Owen says that life is sometimes not as bad as we think, and retrieves ‘The Pulse’ from his backpack. The team had falsely identified it as a bomb, whereas in fact it was a reply to a message sent out years ago. The object produces a beautiful light and Owen answers the woman's earlier question: that it does get better.
In flashback, after the team say their goodbyes to the departing Martha, Tosh makes Owen promise to open up to her in future; to tell her when he’s feeling bad about anything. He agrees, admitting that he’s scared of the darkness, and of becoming trapped. We see him walking along a footpath and pick up a photo of the woman on the roof, which had fallen from a building above. This is what had brought him to her: not to jump himself, but to try and save her. In the present, Owen tells the woman that if she can really see that there is nothing for her, then she should jump; but that if she can see even a glimmer of hope then it must be worth taking a chance. She tells him that her name is Maggie, and Owen holds her hand as they watch the lightshow.
The opening scene here was very reminiscent of Eugene’s soliloquy in Random Shoes last season. There was obviously a deliberate attempt to draw a comparison between the two stories that dealt with the aftermath of death. There is a similarity, also, in the way flashbacks are used to tell the tale. The girl, Maggie, and her story as she contemplates suicide, is the anchor for this episode. Her reasons for being on the roof, and why Owen is there with her, slowly unfold as he goes back and talks about the day he has just gone through.
It was a tough day for him, emotionally and physically. He has had to come to terms with being dead and being suspended from duty as a Torchwood agent, with being reduced to making the coffee. He has rejected Toshiko’s affections. It couldn’t get any worse. The emotional issues for Owen were the backbone of the story, and they were the real point of the episode, mixed in with Maggie’s thoroughly tragic tale.
The story of Mr Parker and his alien artefact looked very much as if it was tacked on in order to make something of a mystery story to the episode. The viewers and critics expect action. As a text story it would have been fine to tell Owen and Maggie’s story and not have this bit in. The whole break in, with the alien technology, dead Owen, not setting off the heat sensors etc. was all what the Fourth Doctor used to call Bafflegab and what sets the man from AfterElton going ‘hop hop hop, la la la’ because he hates the technical stuff. The bit with the heat sensors makes sense. I’m not sure about the bit when Owen takes out the electrics. Even dead flesh scorches. That’s why murderers set fire to houses to hide the crime. He would not have been unscathed. And then there’s the whole thing with Owen not being able to save Mr Roberts because he had no breath!
Now, this isn’t the first time that has been an issue in science fiction or fantasy. In a Buffy episode Angel he undead vampire had to ask Xander to revive Buffy because he has no breath. But both Angel and Owen TALK. Talking happens when air passes through or over the vocal chords in the throat. Neither a vampire nor a zombie need air to circulate in their bloodstream, but it seems to be a science fiction error that they don’t breathe. I think both Buffy and Torchwood needed to think that one through. In any case, the idea that the old man was lying there, connected to all those machines, but didn’t have a nurse on standby to respond when the alarms went off is a real logical error.
And the ‘pulse’? Why on Earth was there all that fuss about the machine giving out all that energy if it was going to turn out to be just a recorded message from the aliens? Sadly that bit went completely awry. The idea of Owen wanting to save everyone else by absorbing the energy was very noble, but the whole thing just fizzled. An emotional, wonderful idea with Owen and Maggie on the roof, and the flashbacks through his day. But the necessity to have action and mystery to satisfy TV audiences made it into something that actually, in the end, did the opposite. This would have failed to satisfy those who only watch Torchwood because there isn’t much else on TV on a Wednesday night, and even fans would have trouble with the bafflegab.
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