‘Aliens & Sex & Chips & Gravy’ is an episode that brings Torchwood back to its roots, as season five continues.
After establishing Torchwood: Aliens Among Us with Changes Everything, we get Aliens & Sex & Chips & Gravy. In some ways, this almost feels like a “back to basics” episode. It pushes the arc in a lot of ways, don’t get me wrong. But it feels a lot closer to what Torchwood originally was back in its first two seasons than what we got in Children of Earth and Miracle Day.
The episode focuses on Gwen and Mr. Colchester crashing a hen night in Cardiff. We learn a lot more about the aliens introduced in the last episode. Having said that, the episode is more focused on exploring the new working relationship between Gwen and Mr. Colchester.
I mentioned in my review for the first episode that I’m already a big fan of Mr. Colchester. The more I learn about him, the truer that is. He has some very strong, prejudiced ideas against aliens. But he’s still far from the stuffy civil servant that you might’ve expected. His banter with Gwen is a delight to listen to, especially when they get thrown into typically Torchwood shenanigans.
A return to roots
And that’s something I really appreciated about the episode. As you can probably tell from the title, there’s definitely a sense of lightness to it. Don’t get me wrong, there are also moments of sheer horror, too. There’s some rather nasty and spectacularly gory scenes that make even a horror fan like me glad that this is only audio.
But compared to the non-stop grimness and darkness that we’ve had since Torchwood’s third season, an episode with plenty of humour is definitely refreshing. Big Finish have given us a few lighter Torchwood stories before, but they were usually set during or even before the first two seasons. It’s nice that the official continuation is more than happy to have an episode that feels fun.
Changes Everything established a new arc, new characters and a new era for Torchwood. Aliens & Sex & Chips & Gravy established that, even with a new direction, this new season was bringing Torchwood back to its much loved roots.
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