Team Torchwood face a monster as Rhys becomes involved in harvesting alien meat in Russell T. Davies' spin-off from BBC television, but it's unclear who the monsters are.
Meat by Catherine Tregenna is the fourth episode of Torchwood, series two and brings Rhys into conflict with the team in general, and Gwen in particular.
Rhys
In the first episode, Gwen's work was interrupted by a triumphant phone-call from Rhys, Gwen's live-in partner, who has a new job. Unlike the rest of the team, Gwen has a life outside work, but it seemed a trivial intrusion. With this episode, an innocent Rhys is dragged into the strange world of Torchwood, when he witnesses an accident to one of his new employer's vehicles.
He also see Gwen and the rest of the Torchwood team arrive at the scene and take samples of the lorry's load, a cargo of unusual meat. Suspicious, he follows her to the abbatoir that was the lorry's destination, and is caught by the people using the premises. He bluffs his way into working as a delivery-driver for the next load, much to Gwen's consternation. She has an idea how desperate these men are, and Rhys still has no idea just how strange the cargo is....
Monsters
Throughout the history of science-fiction, humanity has often been threatened by monsters. In Meat, humanity are the monsters, abusing an innocent castaway. For this alien is invader, but has simply fallen through the Rift. The early scenes are the best ones, in which only portions of the creature are seen; once the whole alien hoves into view, it's actually an anti-climax, a poorly constructed piece of whale-shaped CGI, constrained by BBC budgets.
Team Torchwood
Much has been made by the BBC of the greater warmth and humanity of Team Torchwood, but in this episode many of the issues that bedevilled series one have re-surfaced; having established their new, warmer characters in the previous episode, Owen then reverts to his snide first series persona, while Toshiko is once again the needy wall-flower whom he delights in belittling. It's not so much that their characters are less sympathetic than a week earlier, it's the lack of continuity that is so frustrating.
The other major irritation is that the moment Gwen faces pressure from Rhys, she abandons all semblence of professionalism. Not just in confessing the truth to Rhys, but in her subsequent behaviour; this is plot-logic crumbling in the face of coziness.
Yet again, the only consistent feature of Torchwood is it's inconsistency.
