Torchwood (TV Series) Countrycide (2006) User Reviews

An in-between viewpoint

[LaFeeChartreuse · 7/10 · 1 July 2008]

It seems like a lot of people either love this one or hate it - I'm sort of on the fence. I do think it was well done in many respects, but it was also incredibly disturbing and really a bit over-the-top in the amount of violence and gore, and had an overall un-Torchwood-like feel to it. It really felt more like a slasher movie than anything.

But on thinking about it more, once I recovered from the general horror of it, I realized that in a way it does fit in, and make a very important point - that the scariest and most repellent monsters they've had to deal with thus far, the hardest to understand, and the ones that have had the most traumatizing emotional effects, particularly on Gwen, are not aliens but human beings.

The Torchwood staff often seem jaded, like they've seen everything and nothing can shock them any more, but they all seem to assume right up until near the end that what's happening has to be the work of aliens or extradimensional creatures of some sort - the unspoken assumption is that human beings couldn't possibly do something like this. And yet they did...

I also thought the depiction of Gwen getting shot was extremely realistic, to an extent rarely seen in movies or TV. Too often it seems like getting non-fatally shot is almost shrugged off by fictional characters, or else glossed over so that you see them get hit, and then the next time you see them it's in the hospital. I don't think I've ever seen a depiction of the sort of raw pain that scene showed that hit that hard... It made me aware of just how sanitized even a lot of fairly violent shows are by contrast, in the way they don't really convey what the experience of getting shot would really be like.

I guess on the whole, I respect what they did with this episode, even though I don't think I would ever want to see it again.

Quite a change from the early going, but pretty powerful stuff

[Craig-9 · 8/10 · 25 January 2007]

I don't know what's more horrifying--the story's premise of cannibals in the countryside, or the thought of Gwen throwing caution to the wind with Owen at episode's end. I enjoyed the opening episodes of Torchwood, but this one is at a whole other level. Don't know what the reaction to this was in England (I can only imagine), but it's as good as anything The X-Files ever gave us and pretty darn scary for an hour of television. Torchwood is a great show and a welcome spin-off from the recent updating of Dr. Who. This is the adult-themed show that science fiction fans have been waiting for since we lost Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.

Android Invasion meets Wrong Turn.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 24 January 2023]

People are disappearing from a woodland area just outside Cardiff, The Torchwood team investigate.

When I think back to Series one, and seeing it for the first time, Countrycide is the first episode that comes to mind, I'm not sure I'd class it as one of the best, but certainly one of the most memorable, being a horror fan, this one perhaps ventured more into my kind of genre.

There are shades of Android Invasion here, with the creepy, deserted village, the empty pub, but this is an altogether darker affair, this whole episode, especially the opening sequences are definitely more on the horror side.

It's the suspense that works well here, it takes some time to learn and see the villains of the piece.

I liked the way Gwen fitted in here, this time her presence having an affect on both Owen and Tosh. Owen Teale steals it, but when doesn't he.

Complete with the usual wildlife noises, fox cries etc, so there are some of the stereotypical horror moments, but they are all in keeping with the vibe of the episode.

One of the better episodes from series one.

8/10.

Nobody knows what is going on!

[sinceverona · 29 August 2009]

In the darkness a young girl stops her car to help a man lying on the road.But as soon as she get's of her car and finds out that the body is a doll she is attacked while trying to escape. Captain Jack Harkness has a knew assignment for his team. In the village of Brecon Becons seventeen persons had disappeared without a trace. While pretending to be campers, Toshiko, Ianto, Gwen and Owen discuss who was their last snog. When Owen admits it was Gwen everybody is surprised, but Gwen want admit that she is attracted to him. In the beginning knowing that Torchwood mostly investigates supernatural or aliens I expected something like that. I was surprised with Owen and Gwen starting something specially since she has a boyfriend. When Jack separated the team and sent Ianto and Toshiko to investigate the other part of the farm it seemed foolish. The farm was a nice old building, something definitely good for Wuthering heights but to gloomy ,and I had a feeling that something was missing. There were very little scenes with Jack, and I immediately felt the difference. Sure Ianto and Toshiko where captured, put in the basement and you could see fear on their faces,but all I was thinking was where is Jack to save them? The revelation of what is really happening in the village every ten years was shocking, but the scene at the end when Gwen tryes to understand it all was unnecessary.

Behind the sofa and two pairs of underpants

[ahd132780 · 10/10 · 23 November 2006]

British Sci-Fi/Horror at its best.

The Torchwood team escape from the confines of Cardiff (but only 25 miles to the North in rural Wales). Outside their usual environment they find themselves in a very scary position not knowing what they are facing nor how to deal with it.

Some suspension of reality is required to make the story work in the wider world - how could this go on for so long without it being discovered - but as a stand alone story it is very effective and will get you behind the sofa in no time at all.

The characters are also beginning to relate with and to one another.

A must see.

Strong

[benth1984 · 9/10 · 27 February 2020]

Interesting reading the other opinions here but they all fail to see that the reason they're in this scenario is to get their equipment back and they get involved with what's happening. Just rather unsettling especially with the revelation as to why this is happening at the end.

Barely acceptable

[thomasgouldsbrough · 6/10 · 18 March 2022]

After the hideous episode that was Small Worlds, anything's an improvement. Countrycide is barely a 6, as the ending sort of justified it. It's nice to see a change of pace every so often, and the episode not just being about aliens, and instead about the human condition. Gwen's interrogation scene at the end was interesting, and sort of thought provoking. At least in this episode, Ianto gave some sort of indication that he was grieving over the death of Lisa.

However, there's a couple of flaws to this episode. The main flaw to this episode is that it felt like a B-movie slasher. The plot was quite trashy, and feels like a 70's grindhouse film, and the acting behind the villains wasn't particularly inspiring. One flaw which was annoying to witness, was the scene where Gwen encounters a locked door. Gwen's response to this, seems to be to develop superhuman powers, and destroy the locked door, without any problem. It's only a minor flaw, but it's notable as small flaws like these take you away from the immersion of the episode.

Torchwood seems to be struggling so far. It's created character arcs, but they don't seem to be developing particularly well. It's branded as a R rated Doctor Who, but it doesn't do anything interesting with this concept, and seems to be R rated for the sake of being R rated. Nevertheless, it's interesting to see what direction the series will go in. Countrycide just passes as an acceptable episode.

Completely Fantastic to Complete Rubbish!

[Phantasy_star_4 · 8/10 · 16 February 2013]

At the start this was a great story somewhat, The story of a village where people are completely missing,..on the other hand randomly in the series the writers decide that Gwen is confused about her sex life and her dedication to her boyfriend is put into question. There is really no call for that or build up to show for it as to why she would question her need for sex. That was the first screw up. We are taken to a small village where people are missing taking a bit to find a young guy that shoots gwen with a shotgun fearing that evil will come back. That was pretty interesting as the acting was good. Two others Ianto and Tosh are taken prisoner by they don't know what. Ill stop and say the build-up of characters in this series you have to take with a grain of salt as they are just put in at random for each cast member. Like in this as Tosh now is someone who likes to get out of danger? skipping ahead this was a great story as you find the villagers are eating people, and gets quite scary. Where does it get worse? When Tosh is running away from the meat hungry guy in the woods, isn't she supposed to be good at escaping? great writing... She trips over herself, looks back way to many times and yup falls on the floor for over 15 seconds face down unable to move, i thought she was caught in a bear trap but nope just laying for no reason not even trying to get up on the floor. so the guy catches up to her...yeah...

The Worst part. The tosh on ground, guy choking her, owen shows up with gun to meat guys head. the guy lets go of tosh and a random cop they found earlier now points a gun at owen , sooo gwen points a gun at the cop. Even though gwen should know she has the upper hand here, the baddies tell her to drop her gun aaaaanndd she does. what a cop instinct eh. so now they are all taken except for jack who stayed behind to question a random thing he shot, turns out to be a villager gone hungry. So everyone's in a room, all the villagers will eat them, nope jack smashes threw with a tractor rig jumps out and shoots all the villagers with a shotgun, not one of the 8 villagers with guns shoots him at all, wow he does all this with a shotgun?? not even a two second delay to cock it, nope. Apparently Jack is the king of fixing issues and the rest of the team is only needed to get caught in issues as meat bags so he can figure out the crime/phenomenon of every episode. wow. Not to mention none of them died he just makes them unable to move. what an expert..... Now he wants to kill the main meat guy but Gwen says stop and the others say stop, WHY? there's no reason to, at this point its life or death if they get up again but sure well risk it. gwen wants to question the guy..... why again... .just getting 10 times more bad before that last seconds of the show stop. So the guy tells her it made him happy to eat people. shes horrified oh no. Later shes talking about how she could have a baby with her boyfriend and get promoted before torchwood. Scene blacks out to Gwen and owen together, owen with his shirt off she starts making out with owen. what ....the ....hell...were the writers thinking. All this within one episode does a women with a good man at home throw everything away for a guy at work that just wants to get laid, so basically heres the Episode. 1. Villagers that eat people. good 2. Shotgun scene with gwen good. 3. Gwen questioning sexuality. Bad. 4. Tosh liking escaping dangerous areas then failing horribly. Bad. 5. Gwen giving up gun when she has advantage. Bad. 6. Jack as superhero with gun. Over the top Bad. 7. Gwen wanting to question meat guy. Bad. 8. Gwen becoming a complete slag for no reason. Bad.

Great plot. bad way to fit the actors into the story. Almost made me never want to watch another episode.

Never have I saw a show that was so good, and an episode so interesting go to total crap.

Human nature!

[zebedee-6 · 8/10 · 24 November 2006]

This was scary stuff - Im not a horror movie fan and this is about as scary as I can take which is good. Plus, we seem to have several love triangles going on now so Im losing track a bit, or is it a love hexagon? Anyway, the character development is getting there now so the strangeness of the interactions between the team members is easier to understand - as you get under their skin you realise that they don't form deep relationships easily for good reasons, which makes them disjointed and suspicious, and that is what keeps me watching - it gives a gritty edge to the way they interact. The location for this one was excellent - very "Hound of the Baskervilles" - I do think that Ianto needs some field training though - he is a bit inexperienced with a gun!

A very creepy, but still a good episode.

[mjr492 · 8/10 · 19 April 2021]

This episode of Torchwood is definitely different from the others and it shows that aliens are not the only scare things out there sometimes it can be us; humans. We and the team of Torchwood never saw what they were and we and Torchwood thought it was aliens like always, but they were totally wrong this time! When we found out, it was humans doing these horrible things to people, it was really creepy to see that. Sometimes we forget how messed humans can be and this episode is a great example of that. I would definitely watch it (I thought it was still good), but only if you have the stomach for it too.

Clearly the worst episode of the first series.

[paul-2268 · 3/10 · 20 January 2007]

Sorry, I can't let the glowing reviews of this episode that have been posted go without some balancing opinion. I'm all for suspenseful and shocking scenes, but this seemed more like a ripoff of Motel Hell than an episode of Torchwood. It made no sense why they were involved with something like this in the first place. It was just about enough to make me give up on Torchwood - Fortunately it got better in later episodes. I did like Owen's reaction to having to be in the countryside. There was some good character interplay at the beginning, but for me, it was all forgotten when the story went down the tubes later. It just seemed of all the places you could go with an episode of Torchwood, this one was a waste.

Countrycide-Torchwood does horror

[ScourgeOfImdb · 8/10 · 15 August 2023]

Very interesting episode here. This feels like a sort of low budget horror film and pretty much doesn't feel like torchwood at all. It pretty much serves no purpose within the show in terms of character development, apart from Ianto grieving slightly over lisa, characterwise this episode doesn't do much at all.

There are some poor moments here, such as the scene in the forest with Gwen and Owen, which I think is one of the weakest scenes in the whole season so far. It's trying so hard to be adult in the sense of just adding more sex and swearing. However, this episode also features some good moments, like the interrogation scene at the end.

A pretty decent horror episode that scares the life out of me. But in torchwood, the concept doesn't quite land and feels like it's from another show.

8.0/10.

I don't get it

[hcasale-68303 · 5/10 · 30 July 2021]

This episode made no sense at all. We were led to believe aliens are involved. For example the silent shadows that kept appearing and disappearing. Usually right before somebody was attacked. But it turned out to just be psycho, serial killer, cannibals. A whole town full of them, like that could ever happen. Right up until the end I expected them to reveal themselves as alien. I'm only six episodes in, and I haven't come to a final verdict on whether or not I like the show. It's been decent up until this episode. I do like Gwen a lot. But the jury is still out on whether I'll watch the whole series. I'll give it another episode or two at least.

Bor-Ring! Use-Less!

[abs_is_back · 1/10 · 13 October 2007]

Most disappointing one yet. OK, really, only totally disappointing one - the rest have been quite good. But where did this fit in the scheme of things? No where! Torchwood has been about aliens and alien technology and how it's been affecting the people working there and their interlocking relationships. And the point of good sci-fi like Torchwood has been has been the humanity of it. There was no humanity here. The good guys were horrified, the bad guys were inhuman. No in between. Cardboard characters and reactions. No explanation - Which was the only horror about it - they didn't have any good reason to do it.

The only thing this has in it to do with Torchwood was getting Gwen and Owen together as lovers. Which was sloppily done. It was a good set-up in previous episodes, but in this episode they just jammed it together. Pre-mature. We could have done with a couple of more episodes of watching this tension grow before giving in. Maybe they having a drink and Gwen admitting that yes, her relationship with Rhys has suffered since she got to Torchwood. Office affairs happen, especially under that kind of tension, but I had more respect for Gwen, if not for Owen, than to fall into the sack with him after one kiss and one "oh, I've had a horrid day." Guys (writers, directors, actors), this show is better than this. You know and I know it. Please let this be a one-time screw up.

A sign of things to come

[smitjef · 2/10 · 12 July 2019]

So I feel like this episode was actually a very future looking episode of the way the BBC has become. Its full of sappy stupid writing that is all the BBC these days.