This could for the first time be an episode which only "Torchwood" could really pull off - a former team member is brought back to life by an alien gauntlet, but in doing so is draining the life force from poor Gwen!

A number of things, both good and bad, leap out about this episode. Firstly, the device of the "Resurrection Gauntlet" (as it's mockingly christened in a funny sequence where the team conspire to come up with a "cool name" for the device) is a good one, fascinatingly dipping into that unknown area of science we are all secretly fascinated by - what happens when we die. However, it's rather clumsily introduced - I never liked the plot device of Suzie dying in the very first episode. It always felt like a good idea on paper that didn't translate well to screen. Why should we actually care when a character we don't know is killed? Here it's brought back by a plot which is unbelievably convoluted.

Basically, we are expected to believe that Suze laid a complicated trail, including a buried psychological signal in the mind of the forgettable Max, a coded shutdown in the Hub (including a release code that bizarrely involves reading out the barcode from a book) and a series of grissly murders, all to get the team to resurrect her using the glove! It's never explained why the connection is permanent when she is resurrected, and it's hard to see that she'd go to all this effort to rebirth herself when she was the one who shot herself originally. At one point, someone asks how they can feed the release code into the computers in the Hub when there is no power.
"The membranes beneath the keyboard might still function!" says Tosh. WHAT!

The "nothing" that Suzie reveals lays beyond death, when Gwen finally asks the question that we all would, is tantalising, and also highly anti-religious. I'm surprised they were this unambiguous, as the episode would certainly have disturbed me if I had a strong religious faith.

This aside, the episode unfolds in irresistible dramatic style, and the concept of Gwen being "shot in the head... slowly" is horrible. There's something highly unnerving about someone having death literally taking them over, and also in the ghoulish Suzie returning to life at the same time, not to mention the end, where in true Zombie style she struggles to her feet time and time again after Jack repeatedly shoots her dead.

One thing does mar the episode, and again it's the misplaced need to have something controversially sexual shoehorned into the episode for no reason. There's no reason why Ianto, previously smitten only with the love of his life Lisa, should suddenly suggest a quick bunk-up with Jack at the end of this, via the childish 'stopclock' suggestion. It undermines the rest of the episode, and is frankly a little tedious. It's like an episode can't be allowed to go by without two of the team having sex with each other, which doesn't strike much of a blow against sexual promiscuity, which "Torchwood" seems to love to encourage.

But before that, this is good fun. Leaving aside some very obvious plot holes (including how Tosh conveniently 'shoots' the glove to bits in the last few minutes!) this is a tense, inventive episode with enough twists to keep you glued.

John Barrowman Sit-On-My-Face-O-Meter:

Plenty of Jack action to keep the heart pumping, albeit no sexual stuff this time around (apart from the end, which is silly anyway).

Torchwood Tally:

A great episode you'll want to re-live over and over again.