Torchwood: Meat

The Singing Stone Horizon Guide to Touchwood
written without any permission (or consent) by anyone who would sue me
by Ewen Campion Clarke

DISCLAIMER: This is an unauthorized program guide to the stupendously awful Doctor Who cash-in Angel-rip-off. Neither the guide nor the series is to be taken seriously. Or orally. And if rash occurs – and it probably will – consult the Doctor immediately.



"TOUCHWOOD... Say a prayer for the other ones when you’re having fun! Thank God tonight it’s THEM instead of US!! Feed the wooooorld! LET THEM KNOW IT’S CHRISTMASTIME!! Here’s to you, raise a glass for everyone! Doo-do-doo, doo-do-doodoo! Doo-do-doodoo, do-do-doo-dooodoo!"


Episode 4: Touchwood Versus The Magic Kebab!

Gwen’s boyfriend/fiancé/comic relief sidekick Rhys Williams is out driving when he is sees Touchwood investigating a crashed lorry and confiscates the meat that the lorry was transporting. Gwen explains that they suspect it of being alien, but really they just can’t be arsed going down to the butcher’s shop and have decided to abuse their position and privilege to get free food.

Irritated at what a hypocrite he’s getting married to, Rhys investigates the source of the meat and discovers a factory containing a strange whale-like creature that has been captors by some non-functional retards who find nothing suspicious about a giant inhuman monster that can regrow its flesh, providing a never-ending supply of meat – not so much the Magic Pudding, but the Magic Kebab! Rhys realizes this is quite a neat racket and decides to use his comparatively frightening intelligence to seize control of the racket.

Just then, Touchwood arrive – having realized the meat IS alien, they have decided to steal the Magic Kebab for their own perverted food-related purposes. However, Jack has followed them and stupidly shoots the Kebab and it goes absolutely apeshit crazy – odd, since it was quite happy having huge chunks of its body cut away with chainsaws, but ONE little bullet and that’s just pushing it! Owen can see no other option but to kill it when it poses a threat to them by struggling, and then chainsaw it up and sell it to Burger King for a profit.

Gwen admits to the nature of her work for Touchwood and Rhys is disbelieving that she thinks him SO stupid he hadn’t already worked it all out by now. Gwen’s sanity starts to crumble and after a big teenage rant she runs away. Tosh, Owen and Ianto realize that maybe they might need Jack involved after all since their leader is clearly insane.

Jack is so moved by this gesture, he sings the Prayer of Saint Francis in the style of Sarah McLachlan and weeps openly.

Trivia Questions
1. In which scenes is David Tennant covering for Burn Gorman? 2. There is no I in either TEAM or MEAT. True or false?

Great Moments - The ending was a lot better as the season finale to the sixth series of Buffy, whereas here it feels like they rather stupidly left the cameras running while John Barrowman began a drunken karioke.

Fashion Crimes
The pudding bowl hat the Magic Kebab wears.

Missing Adventures –
It appears Season One was nothing more than a hallucination in Gwen Cooper’s damaged brain, since she is under the delusion that she has slept with Owen, ridden a pterodactyl, fought cannibals and that Rhys isn’t a real person.


Technobabble - "The Magic Kebab must function on the free luncheon exponential mass expansion principle! The gift meal that keeps on feeding! WOW!"

Great Lines - Ianto: Pizza’s arrived – thought it would be another late night.
Owen: What did you get?
Ianto: The usual. Meat feast.
Owen: Lovely. I much prefer raw alien flesh, though, don’t you?
Ianto: Oh yes. The OTHER-other-other white meat.

Rhys: What do I exactly need protecting FROM?
Gwen: I...catch ALIENS!
Rhys: ...yes. I’m aware of that, thanks, but you’re not answering the question, are you?
Gwen: Aren’t you listening? I CATCH ALIENS!
Rhys: I know!
Gwen: ALIENS... are REAL!
Rhys: You think news like that isn’t going to leak out? Bloody hell, Gwen, didn’t you see Alan Bastard assassinating McCain with alien floating Terrahawk things? The way Cardiff had to be rebuilt after the Cybermen smashed it apart?
Gwen: ...I catch REAL ALIENS! ALIENS that are REAL! I catch THEM!
Rhys: Fuck this, I’m off for a pint.

Tosh: Maybe the answer is for us to ask advice from someone who knows what to do?
Owen: Look around you Tosh. Only WE know what to do.
Tosh: What a revolting thought.

Jack: Do you really think you could go back to your life before Touchwood?
Gwen: I wouldn’t know any different.
Jack: You know what? I believe you. Psycho.

Crap Lines – Jack: Lord make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. O divine master grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, and it’s in pardoning that we are pardoned and it’s in dying that we are born... to eternal life. Amen.
(long pause)
Jack: OK, the moment has passed. Who’s up for an orgy? HIGH FIVE!!!

Rhys: You lot can hide in the back of the van.
Gwen: What is this, Scooby Doo? Yay! I love Scooby Doo!
Rhys: Please don’t tell me you lot let her near SUGAR?!

Jack, watching Rhys slowly eat a kebab:
"This is quite homoerotic."

Ianto: Pray they don’t give us botulism.


Plot Oversights
- Gwen, a trained policewoman, doesn’t recognize Rhys he’s right in front of her and has been talking for five minutes.
- Why are the plant workers armed? How many people could really attempt to break in to their operation? Are they THAT stupid? Do they think their tasers are guns or water pistols?
- Since when do Touchwood use stun guns? They LOVE carnage!
- What in the name of God’s buttocks is an alarm deactivator? Is that alien as well?
- How did the scientist know that BBQ sauce would no longer be enough? Did the alien taste badly with HB sauce once before??


Viewers’ Quotes

"My dog hated it."
- David Blunkett (2008)

"I suspect the kebab was that poor whale from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It probably wasn’t, but that thought is the only thing keeping me going through this arrant garbage."
- Dario Fo (2009)

"It didn’t all end in tears! HOW CAN YOU CALL THIS DRAMA AND LIVE WITH YOURSELF?!?!"
- Lady Pope Perplexity IV (2009)

"I think Rhys is the Face of Bond."
- I.M. Amoron (2010)

"You know that bit where Tosh realizes they can use the Magic Kebab to feed the whole population of the Earth – or, in her words, feed the world – and Ianto goes, 'We could release a single!', do you think he was taking the piss?"
- Band Aide (2009)

"There TOTALLY needs to be a sequel to this! Touchwood Versus The Magic Kebab... AGAIN! The wife of the original kebab arrives in Cardiff and goes on a Godzilla rampage, and Gwen finally goes psycho and forces Rhys’ head into a blender in a particularly anatomically detailed, descriptive, vivid and colourful scene, spraying pureed brains, eyeballs and blood everywhere. Gwen then kidnaps Jack, swearing and screaming in Welsh, buries Jack up to his neck in tar and then runs over his head repeatedly with a steam-roller, and then runs over Ianto as well. Tosh and Owen take on the second kebab, explaining to the authorities it is a perfectly normal radioactive sperm whale attacking Cardiff for its involvement with the whaling industry, when the kebab craps all over Owen, drowning him in kebab-dung until he suffocates! Then, in the middle of this chaos, the TARDIS lands, the Doctor peers out the door, laughs evilly, and takes off again, letting them all suffer and die! What a brilliant season finale that would be! They should ask Quentin Tarrantino in to guest-direct it as well!"
- President of The Vengeance of Moby Appreciation Society (2009)

The Author Speaks
"Oh go away and stop assuming I give a shit about this crummy show."

Trivia Answers
1. The ones where he’s not a complete ugly bastard, presumably. 2. True. But, you know, there IS a "ME" in both of them. Rumors and Facts -
Having written arguably the least crap episodes of the first season, everyone would assume that Catherine Tregenna would be able to do something even halfway decent for the second, but no. Not only does she insist on making all the characters arrogant, self-serving, free-loading scum and crams in as many references as possible to 2006 season, she actually RIPS OFF Chris Chin-Balls’ Touchwood Versus The Sawney Beane Family! episode in every detail!

Bitch. No wonder they never asked her back... OR DID THEY?!

Ruminations -
Fancy a bacon sandwich? No, thought not.

Eat some sprouts instead. That’s my advice.