Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (TV story)

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Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang was the first episode of Series 2 of Torchwood. It was written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Ashley Way. It introduced Captain John Hart and the Blowfish species.

Synopsis

Captain John Hart, an old friend of Jack's, appears through the Rift and causes problems for the Torchwood team.

Plot

It is midnight on a lonely Cardiff street. As an old woman approaches a crossing with traffic lights, a red Chrysler Crossfire sports car races through Cardiff, driven by a Blowfish. The traffic lights go red. He stops and impatiently urges the old lady to cross the street. The Torchwood SUV stops, and asks the lady if she saw the Blowfish; she points them in the right direction. After they've gone, she mutters, "Bloody Torchwood!"

The team catch up with the Blowfish after a short chase. Owen shoots the tyres, forcing the Blowfish to leave the car. He flees into a house, where he shoots a resident and holds another hostage. The team hold him at gunpoint, and the Blowfish taunts them. He dares Ianto to shoot him, but Ianto hesitates. A shot is heard, killing the Blowfish. When Ianto turns around, he sees Jack, having just fired the shot. He greets the team with the words, "Hey kids, did ya miss me?"

At the Torchwood Hub, the team wants to know where Jack has been. He tells them he's been with "my Doctor". But he came back for Ianto and the rest. Tosh notices that there has been Rift activity.

Captain John Hart walks through the Rift at the top floor of a multi-storey car parking structure. He sees a man held at knife-point, and intervenes, grabbing the mugger's neck, and dropping him over the edge to his death. He threatens the victim, saying he wasn't there. The man agrees. John then goes to a nightclub called Bar Reunion, tells everyone whom he finds unattractive to leave, and pulls out two side-arms in front of the bouncers. Everyone panics and runs out.

Meanwhile, Torchwood Three inspects the body of the dead mugger on the street. Tosh notices traces of Rift energy on his neck. Jack then gets a message on his vortex manipulator; a hologram of John appears, telling him to come to the nightclub, alone. He does, but the others follow him in a taxi. When Jack arrives in the club, he and John approach each other and kiss, then fight. They break for a drink. John tells him that the Time Agency is gone, and that he has been to several rehabs for drink, drugs, sex and murder. John sees the others, and ridicules their team name — not Excalibur? Jack explains that John was his partner... in every sense of the word. John tells them that there are three deadly radiation cluster bombs scattered over Cardiff that could endanger everyone on Earth. They must be found and neutralised. With the help of Torchwood, it's an easy job.

Jack takes John to the Torchwood Hub.

They enter the Hub and John is checked for weapons. He has many, including several concealed knives and pistols. Jack takes Gwen to the side to tell her that he has seen the end of the world. He shows signs of having fallen for Gwen, and jealousy when he realises Gwen is going to marry Rhys because "nobody else would have her".

Tosh, meanwhile, finds the locations of the three bombs in the city. Gwen organises the team to go searching for the bombs in pairs: Jack and Ianto, Owen and Tosh, and Gwen and John. Jack has problems with this, and talks to Gwen alone. Gwen explains that she could get to know John better to gain his trust and learn what he is really up to. Jack relents, but gives Gwen three rules on how to handle John: keep him in front of her at all times, never trust him, and never let him kiss her.

The teams split up and Gwen and John are in the container docks. After some flirting, they find a cluster bomb in a container. Once Gwen has it, John kisses her, poisoning her with paralysing lip gloss. He throws away her mobile phone, and tells her that she has two hours before her major organs shut down and she dies. He shuts the doors to the container, trapping her inside, unmoving. Meanwhile, Owen and Tosh are in an abandoned building and find the bomb, but John arrives, knocks out Tosh, and shoots Owen in the hip.

Jack and Ianto are in an office building searching for the other bomb. Jack asks Ianto out on a date; Ianto accepts, but tries to change the topic. Jack explains that John Hart is a reminder of his past; "I want him gone." He goes to the roof, while Ianto searches downstairs. Ianto hears a noise and realises it is John, holding him at gunpoint. John tells him Owen and Gwen are in trouble.

Jack finds the last cluster bomb, and is confronted by John. John wants the cluster bomb, but Jack refuses. He wants Jack to join him in travelling and conquering the stars. Jack isn't tempted, and throws the bomb over the edge. "Oops!" John pushes Jack off the roof too. John retrieves the bomb and tells the dead Jack — splayed across the pavement — that murder rehab never worked. He returns to the Hub. Ianto goes to Owen, and helps Tosh dress his wound. They then go to the docks, and eventually find Gwen just in time to inject her with an anti-toxin.

John's prize turns out to be a bomb.

At dawn, John goes to the corpse of the Blowfish, who worked for him, and takes out a small pyramid-shaped object from his pocket. He is then surprised to find the rest of the team holding him at gunpoint, and even more surprised to see Jack, who then explains that he is immortal. John then tells the truth: there are no cluster bombs. He was looking for an Arcadian diamond that belonged to a lover of his once; it was only a "dying woman's wish" in that he killed her. The "bombs" actually comprise a device that would lead him to the location of the diamond. However, once John assembles the device, the woman's hologram says that there is no diamond either.

A device shoots into John's chest, and the hologram explains that the device is a bomb that locks into the DNA of whoever killed her; it cannot be removed without it prematurely exploding. There are ten minutes until the bomb goes off, but after the team refuse to help him, John punches Jack, grabs Gwen and takes her hostage by forcing her hand behind her head in surrender with her other arm behind her back and he then handcuffs himself to Gwen. She has a plan that would kill her and John, but would save the city. Tosh says that the Rift is still open from John's arrival. Gwen takes John there, but Jack and Owen stay behind and quickly work on a solution.

Jack is left shocked when he finds out that John has seen his brother Gray.

They arrive at the car park, quickly followed by Jack and Owen, who inject John Hart with the DNA of all the Torchwood members, which temporarily confuses the bomb. The bomb releases itself, and they throw it through the Rift, with just one second to spare. Just as it explodes, they are shifted back in time to the moment John first arrived. John, impressed, lets Gwen go, and reluctantly agrees to go back home. Before he disappears, though, he has one last thing to tell his old friend: "By the way, I found Gray". Jack, shocked, is asked who or what "Gray" is. He replies, "It's nothing, let's get back to work."

Cast

Uncredited Cast

Crew

General production staff

Script department

Camera and lighting department

Art department

Costume department

Make-up and prosthetics

Movement

Casting

General post-production staff

Special and visual effects

Sound



Not every person who worked on this adventure was credited. The absence of a credit for a position doesn't necessarily mean the job wasn't required. The information above is based solely on observations of the actual end credits of the episodes as broadcast, and does not relay information from IMDB or other sources.


Worldbuilding

Influences

  • The episode title is taken from a nickname applied to James Bond by the European and Asian press in the 1960s; "Mr. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" was also the name of a piece of music heard in Thunderball.
  • The fight scene was intended to be "sexy, rather than brutal", similar to the naked wrestling scene in Women in Love.
  • The blowfish in the opening scene was intended by Russell T Davies to be "like Finding Nemo, but evil" and Richard Stokes, wanted the designs to be as flamboyant as "the lionfish in The Spy Who Loved Me".

Story notes

  • A family friendly pre-watershed edit of this episode aired at 7:00pm on Wednesday 23 January 2008 on BBC Two.
  • According to his memoir, Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale, Russell T Davies was originally scheduled to write this episode, but the job was passed on to Chris Chibnall. Davies conceived the opening segment of the episode featuring the Blowfish and the sports car.
  • When Jack tells John that his team is called "Torchwood", John lists alternate names, including "Excalibur". This was the title of the original show that Russell T Davies created before turning it into a Doctor Who spin-off.
  • Due to the events of the television story Last of the Time Lords, this is the first episode of Torchwood which is set during the viewer's perspective of the present day. All televised stories set between Aliens of London and the last act of Last of the Time Lords were set one year ahead of the initial broadcast.
  • This story replaced the previous story idea of Checkout, for which Russell T Davies had only written the first scene.
  • This episode would later be part of a watch-along organised by Radio Times during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it was not part of the Doctor Who: Lockdown! events.
  • The development of the episode commenced when Russell T Davies received an email from his agent, telling him James Marsters was interested in appearing on the series. Chris Chibnall wrote the episode "absolutely" for Marsters, and wanted Hart to become a conflict for Jack Harkness. Marsters believed that Hart was somewhat of a doppelganger to Harkness. After scripting was complete, Marsters did not need to discuss with the directors because he felt the script was self-explanatory.
  • Originally, Captain John was going to come through the Rift on a "pandimensional surfboard" similar to the one found in Boom Town, Chris Chibnall changed it because the production team decided that "it would look cooler if John just calmly walked out of the Rift, as if it was the sort of thing he might do every day".
  • The first meeting between Jack and John at the nightclub was written to be akin to a Spaghetti Western. Instead of fighting, it was decided that they would kiss first, so that the audience "don't see it coming".
  • While the fight scene only lasted one minute on screen, much more was filmed, so much that it took a whole day to shoot. 80% of the acting in the scene was done by John Barrowman and James Marsters themselves, instead of stuntmen.
  • The style of fighting was similar to what James Marsters was used to, and was, according to stunt co-ordinator Tom Lucy, a cross between Western, martial arts, and Bourne.
  • The scene with Jack falling off the building was performed by Curtis Rivers, John Barrowman's stunt double. Though Rivers made the stunt to make Jack "look good", Barrowman had to lie on a box over green screen.
  • While the most noticeable visual effect was John's entrance through the Rift, The Mill also made inconspicuous visual effects, such as extending the number of crates at the docks.
  • The Mill made three different types of holograms. The projection from Jack's wriststrap device was coloured blue to match earlier appearances, John's wriststrap projected a flashier, full colour image due to specifications in the script, and the golden hue in the projection of John's ex-lover was based on the prop.
  • The first designs of the blowfish costume were visibly different from the final design; the first designs were more fish-like than humanoid. After a humanoid design was approved by the production team, Millennium FX immediately sculpted the costume to Paul Kasey's dimensions. Two versions of the mask were created; one was animatronic, which included mechanical fins, and one was used for the stunt where the blowfish was shot in the head.

Ratings

  • Overnight - 3.7 million viewers.
  • Official BARB ratings - 4.22 million viewers.[1]

Filming locations

to be added

Production errors

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.
  • In the scene where the rest of Torchwood arrive at the bar after Jack and John's fight, the slide on Gwen's gun is locked back, showing that it is empty.

Continuity

  • The team berates Jack for disappearing following the incident with Abaddon and his subsequent delayed resurrection during TV: End of Days [+]Loading...["End of Days (TV story)"].
  • Jack says that he left because he found "his doctor". He also says that he saw the "end of the world" as experienced in TV: Utopia [+]Loading...["Utopia (TV story)"] and The Sound of Drums [+]Loading...["The Sound of Drums (TV story)"] His comments to Gwen stating that he feels he belongs with Torchwood are consistent with his reason for not joining the Doctor in his travels despite his offer to join him in TV: Last of the Time Lords [+]Loading...["Last of the Time Lords (TV story)"].

Home video releases

  • Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, along with the rest of series 2, was released in a complete series box set in 2008.
  • It was also released in the Series 1-4 boxset (Region 2 release: 14 November 2011.)

External links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ BARB Ratings - April, 2008
v • e
Torchwood television stories
Series 1
Series 2
Series 3
Children of Earth: Day One • Day Two • Day Three • Day Four • Day Five
Series 4
Stories listed here are only those that have been officially licensed by the BBC.
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