Having covered Darker and Edgier and Bloodier and Gorier with the first episode, Torchwood completes the trifecta, putting Hotter and Sexier in their second episode.
Or to put it simply, Alien Sex Gas!
Gwen's date with her boyfriend Rhys is interrupted by a fiery meteor falling to Earth. She joins her new team as they begin their routine investigation into the weird glowing rock. She tries to get into the swing of the routine and the team's casual attitude, but mistakenly throws a tool, which embeds itself in the meteor, releasing a pink gas which floats away on the wind.
We now join a young lady named Carys outside a club, leaving an angry voicemail for her boyfriend. She finds herself at the mercy of the pink gas as it enters her and makes her suddenly seem much more confident. After kissing her way back into the club, she picks the nearest unlucky berk and drags him to the women's toilet. Skipping the formalities, they get right to it and have sex on camera in the public ladies' room, firmly establishing that this is not Doctor Who. He turns into a small pile of dust when he orgasms, leaving her quite satisfied.
Torchwood is called in on the unusual death and they discover CCTV footage of the event as well as Carys being possessed. Cross-referencing faces, they identify Carys and find the girl at her house, fortunately before she's able to make it with the postman.
They bring her in to the Hub and discover through testing that she's being possessed by an alien sex gas, which can entice just about anyone. Also, the alien isn't interested in any kind of conquest. It just wants to live off the energy produced by orgasm. Gwen finds the "enticing" part out a bit too late, but is saved mid-makeout-session by the fact that the alien realises she can only use male orgasms. This leads to Sex Gas!Carys enticing Owen, stripping him and running off with his swipe card.
A further check into Carys' background finds that she worked at a fertility clinic. They eventually find her there (along with several small piles of dust). With Carys about to die from having the Sex Gas in her for too long, Gwen offers herself as a host, taking responsibility for setting this whole chain of sex dusting into events. Before the sex gas can reach her, though, Jack temporarily sedates the alien by kissing it and traps the gas in a portable cell, where it dies. Gwen kisses Jack for good measure in front of everyone to thank him.
Tropes
- All There in the Script: The alien is never given a name in the episode, although in Torchwood Declassified, Russell T Davies refers to it as the "sex monster" or the "sex gas orgasm-eating monster".
- Artistic License – Physics: There's no such thing as "sexual energy". Heat energy generated during sex is just heat energy; how it's generated doesn't affect its nature. Same for the electrical energy going through the nervous system during sex.
- Continuity Nod: Gwen gets a good scare down in the holding chambers when she obliviously leans against the cell of the Weevil from "Everything Changes".
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Tosh and Gwen have a simultaneous bit of this when talking about Carys' effect on people:Tosh: This is the normal chemical composition of the air in that cell. And these are the readings from the last hour. The alien's secreting an ultra powerful blend of airborne pheromones. Sex pheromones. A thousand times more potent than anything we'd normally experience.Jack: She's a walking aphrodisiac.Gwen: I did wonder why I.... actually, I sort of snogged her.Jack/Tosh: We know.Jack: Now, still wanna put her
father in the cell?Gwen/Tosh: Owen![They both rush off to Carys' cell to find that Carys has bailed and Owen is standing in her place, nude and handcuffed.] - Foreshadowing:
- Owen jokingly states he would have sex with Gwen. They later go on to form a sexual relationship.
- When Carys smashes the case holding the severed hand, the viewer may note the Leitmotif of a certain character from the parent show, cluing them in as to just Who's hand it is.
- Girl on Girl Is Hot: Owen just happens to notice Gwen and the Sex-Gas-crazed Carys making out. The rest of the crew joins in on the show soon before realizing, hey, maybe Gwen's in some kind of danger?Tosh: We should really get her out of there.Jack: [barely listening] Yeah... [realizing what's going on] I mean, yeah, let's go!
- Hope Spot: For the Sex Gas; he really wanted Jack's energy after just one kiss. That is until Gwen captured him.
- Hotter and Sexier: This episode sets Torchwood apart from its parent series by featuring on-screen knobbing for the very first time.
- Incompatible Orientation: After making out with Gwen a little, Carys pulls away and says it'll only work with a man. In another scene, she says that "he needs more", indicating that the Sex Gas is male and gay.
- Kiss of Life: Jack uses this on the Sex-Gas-crazed Carys to give her a bit longer to live being hosted by the gas.
- Living Aphrodisiac: The Sex-Gas-crazed Carys gets Gwen so worked up she starts making out with the woman she's supposed to be interrogating.
- Musical Spoiler: The Doctor's leitmotif from his native series plays as Jack holds the Doctor's severed hand after Carys breaks the jar.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Quite literally, as the Sex Gas is released when Gwen breaks its vessel by trying to throw a tool to Owen.
- No Body Left Behind: The end result of anyone whom the Sex Gas-obsessed Carys has sex with is their death and disintegration into a small pile of dust.
- Out with a Bang: Upon being possessed by the sex gas, the end result of those whom Carys has just had sex with is to disintegrate into a pile of dead dust.Gwen: He just...Jack: Came and went.Owen: Now, that's how I'd like to go!
- Reckless Gun Usage: Owen points a gun at the Sex Gas, with Gwen standing on the other side.
- Woman Scorned: The Sex-Gas-crazed Carys's first target once she escapes the Hub is the man who recently stood her up. Tosh points out that's what she herself would do when they try to figure where Carys will go. A deleted scene shows that she continued working her way through exes, all the way back to a boy she kissed when she was eight.
