The Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood was mostly about the interpersonal drama of a team of dysfunctional investigators dealing with Cardiff’s ongoing intergalactic role as a dumping ground for space alien detritus. But the ninth episode of the first season, “Random Shoes,” is barely about the Torchwood team at all.It’s about a guy named Eugene Jones, who, having been hit by a car, is dead. There’s just one slight problem: Eugene swallowed some of that previously mentioned alien detritus right before his death. Now some non-corporeal part of him is hanging around, wanting to help the Torchwood team figure out the details of his demise. They just can’t see or hear him, and Eugene, meanwhile, has no actual idea how he died.There’s a few reasons I love this episode. The first is that you don’t need any Torchwood or Doctor Who knowledge whatsoever to appreciate it. But despite the way the episode is disconnected from the rest of the massive Whoniverse canon, it exemplifies one of the core story values of the Whoniverse, and that’s that the people who will save the world aren’t the glamorous, powerful, wealthy, or chosen. They’re shop clerks, waiters, and car mechanics: Ordinary people in the right place at the right time who step up because no one else will.Another reason “Random Shoes” is great, is that it reminds us that everyone is the star of their own story. For the Torchwood team, Eugene’s death is just another case file no one really wants to deal with. But for Eugene, it’s the science tournament he lost as a schoolboy, the father who left, the friends who mocked him for being a nerd, and the woman he just wanted to help by sending her on a trip to Australia so she could get a break from her toxic boyfriend.But what really makes “Random Shoes” shine is the structure and the language. The alien artifact we eventually learn Eugene swallowed is a Dogon sixth eye, and there’s an illicit trade in them because swallowing one allows a person to relive their life and gain perspective on it.The narrative device of the eye not only justifies Eugene telling his story as he effectively haunts one of the Torchwood investigators, it also allows his monologue of what seems at first a sad existence to shift in the course of the episode to a love letter on the wonder of an average life. The cadence of the episode is marvelous (as is its use of music). In fact, I want to quote it all at you right now, but that’ll take away some of the magic, when you do watch this episode (which is available on Netflix at the time of this writing).It can be hard for readers and writers to take a break from the center of a story. Certainly, “Random Shoes” polarized the Torchwood fandom when it aired. For everyone who loved the episode, others were frustrated that there was so little focus on the characters we tuned in for every week. But “Random Shoes” put us in the show. We were no longer just watching and longing; suddenly, the show was about us; and both we and the mythology ofTorchwood felt a little realer for it.Check it out:Torchwood, Season 1, Episode 9: “Random Shoes”
