Torchwood

[avevale_intelligencer]

Hands up who watched it. Comments? Anyone? No-one? Oh well, I don't mind being the first...(correction: ffutures gave it half a dozen words. The first to comment in depth, then...)

Well, let's get rid of the elephant in the room right away. James Marsters, for the TW target audience, is about the most blatant piece of stunt casting since, er well, Christmas actually. He's also very good, and still quite pretty despite the *ahem* laugh lines, and slipped easily into the Spike role to Jack's Angel. It was like the boy had never been away. That it *is*, so obviously, the Angel/Spike dynamic lifted wholesale and without shame, is an issue we may have to return to.

The plot. Well, there was one. It rested on pure coincidence, of course, unless there really is something about Earth in our time that attracts ever' dang McGuffin in the multiverse, in which case that ought to be something for Torchwood to explore and possibly fix. The paralysing lip gloss is a steal from Firefly (hmm), and let's face it, he could have just knocked Gwen on the head (although "Don't let him knock you on the head and lock you in a cargo container" would have been a rather footling third rule). One tasted kapok a bit towards the middle, with all that running around, and Tosh and Owen's incapacitating injuries from which they recover completely as soon as Ianto appears (ah, the healing power of a well-dressed Welshman). But, on the whole, it worked.

Two things, in reverse order: the arc plot hook. "I found Grey (or possibly Gray)." And Jack has a flash of a small hand slipping out of a larger one, against a background of flames. The Countess thinks Gray (or as it might be Grey) is Jack's baby, the one he mentioned being pregnant with in the first episode of series one. Maybe, or maybe it's a child of Jack's more orthodoxly conceived. As long as he or she doesn't come back as a sullen complex teen who's spent his or her life in some kind of hell and wants to kill Daddy.

And the teaser, in which a blowfish-headed humanoid driving a sports car startles an old lady, who mutters "Bloody Torchwood" as she goes about her business. They really need to sort out which world they are operating in: ours, where the existence of aliens and rifts and so on is a more or less successfully kept secret, or some other one where everyone knows what's going on and isn't too bothered. it feels as though they're trying to have their cake and eat it, and that's an uneasy feeling.

Still, I will be watching.

Wittier and more trenchant analyses than mine will doubtless follow...

Comments

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I've seen reviews on torque_control, and by swisstone, parrot_knight, louisedennis and ladyofastolat plus squeeing on neodods and carbonel.

Just saying.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Clearly my flist is too small.

*checks comment meme post*

Or, maybe not...

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

I am sadly out of the loop. I'd love to be able to watch this stuff - good, bad or indifferent.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

It should be available on torrents, try http://mininova.com (just looked, it is; I'll wait until the Mad Martha one gets there, hers seem to be the best quality).

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

Wow - who knew that existed? Well, apparently everybody but me! Thanks!

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I only found out about MiniNova when the Sarah Jane Adventures started, someone recommended it as a site where such things can be found. The Mad Martha ([MM]) ones seem the best, she usually gets them up within a couple of days.

[armb.livejournal.com]

I missed it. But:

> something about Earth in our time that attracts ever' dang McGuffin in the multiverse

Why do you think the Doctor spent so long banished there (for some values of "our time"), and so much time there even when he was free to travel throughout time and space? :-)


> sort out which world they are operating in

That's annoyed me too, in the past.

There's the intermediate world where everyone knows there are aliens, and can find out about UNIT with a quick web search (http://www.unit.org.uk/), but Torchwood is secret. Or at least sort of secret - you could have a setup where lots of police know that if someone turns up and uses the Torchwood codename and some appropriate identification, then you hand it over and address any questions to your superior officer who will pass them on up and pass the "sorry, that's need to know" fob off back to you, but relatively few people know exactly what Torchwood is.

But they aren't consistently there either.

We could invoke a handwaving explanation that the rifts actually allow massive shifts across parallel universes where the background setup is different from day to day (or even minute to minute), but no-one notices because their memories shift to fit the current background, but I think that's cheating to excuse lazy scriptwriting.

[paradisacorbasi.livejournal.com]

*sleepily raises hand*

[soren-nyrond.livejournal.com]

*hand*

Yes, It was Spike (with the added "Bored now" homage).

Whatever they were, they obviously weren't the bombs they were meant to be. So maybe Glittery-HoloGirl sent them knowing Jack was there and hoping that he'd get to them before Spike did.

Would like to have seen/Would like to see more of PC-Gwen In Command. She can certainly talk the talk, issuing assignments with all the panache of Alexander W of years' past.

Ianto seems to have grown up -- no longer just the butler.
The paralysing lipstick -- 4/10 for intelligent pastiche/theft.
Still not convinced that Jack has done one half of the things he says he has. He can't die, but that doesn't mean he can't lie.

Roll on ep.#2 and we can see if they can keep up the quality.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I'm waiting for the Freema/Martha episodes. I'm not really interested in any of the other T characters, they don't turn me on either physically or as characters, Freema on the other hand is I CAN HAS PLZ??!1! (/me is Freema fanboi if you can't tell.)

Enjoyed it

[(Anonymous)]

I was on EZTV.NL to download the Family Guy, Simpsons that I didnt tape and saw that Torchwood was back.

Enjoyed it even with the show's obssesive need to push the homosexual agenda. Some might find it exciting but some might find it disgusting.

Ianto actually brings good delivery for jokes in his stoic persona.
But dont they then need someone else to do his old job?

I give the show a 8/10. Maybe its only a 7.5 in reality but missed the show enough to give it an extra .5

The preview that was on the file I DL looked amaazing? Was that just for the next episode or was that the arc for a couple of them?
Looked very compelling.

Im happy Martha Jones will be in further shows.

The casting of the short Time Agent didnt affect me since I have no idea who he is. I didnt know who the new Who companion was either so I search some to find out why she was a polarizing choice (not that Im too impressed by having a Girl Band bimbo either). She annoys the hell out of me.

Im gonna keep watching but always afraid that this show turns into a Men In Black spoof.


Rob Enderle

Re: Enjoyed it

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

"Enjoyed it even with the show's obssesive need to push the homosexual agenda."
More like omni-sexual agenda, actually.

Some might find it exciting but some might find it disgusting."
...Which of course cuts both ways. And you can't please all the people all the time (at least not without a much bigger jacuzzi). =:o}

Re: Enjoyed it

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I'm always up for an omnisexual agenda (in fiction, at least) and if they ever get comfortable with it and stop with the "HEY, Everyone! Lookit our Omnisexual Agenda! Ain't we cool?" then it might actually start to work. At the moment they're all trying much too hard, even Jack.

So, yes, the obsessive need to push is what puts me off. Not the thing itself.

[(Anonymous)]

You can also get it from the BBC iPlayer site (go to the BBC Home page and you'll find a route to it there).

I thought the final plot bits were hastily written and hastily played to cover up their extreme unlikelihood. (When did one of those Kill-My-Murderer MacGuffins ever work? And why the totally superflous jump back in time?) Personally I would have amputated his arm to solve the handcuff problem and chucked the bleeding unconscious body back into the rift.

I really am fed up already with the bonking and personal relationships. I like action adventure series to have the action and adventure at the core and the personal relationships as the decoration. This (and NuWho) get it the wrong way round for my tastes.

Yes, yes... I'll keep on watching. If only for something to bitch at...

Michael Cule
Aging Geek.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

"I like action adventure series to have the action and adventure at the core and the personal relationships as the decoration. This (and NuWho) get it the wrong way round for my tastes."

Amen!

[ci5rod.livejournal.com]

I was entertained, but a lot of your grumbles occurred to me too, particularly the healing power of the well-dressed Welshman. Then again, at least we got a teeny-tiny bit of character development for Ianto as he very nearly grew a spine dealing with Jack.

The inconsistency that annoyed me most was Jack announcing to Sp-- er, John that he couldn't die. That just seemed like a dumb thing to do, particularly when Jack's reappearance had John so rattled.

[vaurien.livejournal.com]

Well, it's just a bit of fun. I've stopped thinking in terms of art and just enjoy the romp. Of course, who could even out-Barrowman Barrowman? Well, James Marsters has to be one of the very few contenders.

Sudden Thoughts R Us

[lexin.livejournal.com]

unless there really is something about Earth in our time that attracts ever' dang McGuffin in the multiverse

Aren't there two things which meet this criterion, though? Firstly there's the Rift, which we know in canon is centred on Cardiff - we found that out in the "Unquiet Dead" 9th Doctor adventure.

The Rift brings all sorts of things from everywhere and deposits them on Cardiff, as if it's a particularly dangerous beach. That attracts the time equivalent of beachcombers - and wreckers, and it led directly to Torchwood being established there.

And I seem to recall some mention previously in canon of the Earth being home to a 'temporal nexus point', but I have no idea where I read about it. That could be the same thing as the Rift...or could be something different.

My feeling is that they have set this up reasonably acceptably - it's not that these McGuffins are coming to Cardiff without any explanation of why. The thing is whether the explanation is sufficient.

[valydiarosada.livejournal.com]

I just can't get over Cardiff being "cool". When I was at university there, it was the least cool place in the universe.

OK. I don't remember the poisoned lipgloss/lipstick bit in Firefly. But why doesn't it poison Spike/I mean John too?

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

In Firefly it was drugged rather than poisoned--"Our Mrs Reynolds" was the episode. Apparently they put a barrier cream of some sort on first.

[cadhla.livejournal.com]

As Firefly stole it from Poison Ivy, who stole it from half a dozen folklore sources, not overly bothered.

[valydiarosada.livejournal.com]

A marvellous excuse to watch that episode again. :D Thanks!

(And probably all the others as well... :D)

[contrarywise]

I'm dating myself here, but I remember it being used in an episode of Get Smart that aired when I was a kid. In that case, it was poisoned lipstick applied over a thin layer of something latex-like on the lips.

FYI, here via telynor. We seem to have some interests and perspectives in common. :)