Torchwood 1.01 and 1.02
Oct. 25th, 2006 10:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakThe Ruhr area of Germany: home of black coal but alas not of many hotels sporting online access. At least not those I end up in. So it’s back to writing entries, burning same, and looking up the local internet café.
Anyway, before I started this week’s work, I got the Torchwood debut. All in all? Start of a promising show, and not just because of all the great Welsh accents.
Someone on lj made the comparison to Angel, and the second episode, Day One, had some parallels to the second AtS episode Lonely Hearts (which actually work out to Torchwood’s favour, all in all, but I’m getting there). Which makes me suddenly afraid that Gwen will be a great character for about two seasons and then will have a phase of Sainthood and Championness during which she’ll have an unbelievable not quite love affair with Jack and be utterly obsessed with him to the detriment of all her other relationships, followed by a retcon that reveals she was possessed by an alien determined to give birth to itself, which will actually make more sense than the Sainthood phase.
*end of Cordelia-related snark*
Okay, seriously now. Gwen is our point of view character so far, and I think, given that the show presumably wants to attract non-Who-viewers as well as Whovians, it was a wise decision not to start with Jack instead but letting him be something of a man of mystery. The comparison to Rose in Rose and the way RTD reintroduced the Doctor is obvious, though I find one difference in the set up fascinating. Faced with her death at the end of Everything Changes, Gwen is frightened, scared and not able to save herself or defy the villain of the hour. In other words, she behaves like Mickey in Rose, not like Rose. Mickey’s initial fear, much like Wesley’s initial fear on BTVS, hung over many viewer’s perception for a while. To me, it made their later people-and-world-saving activities more poignant and courageous, but you have to consider one thing: they’re both male characters. For a female character to show fear when faced with certain death means the danger of her being dismissed, unfair as it is, as “the girl” instead of The Plucky Heroine, and it’s a risky decision. So far, I think it pays off: Gwen’s decision to join Torchwood and her later way to solve the situation in Day One gain depth because we know she can be scared out of her wits.
The rest of the team is still a bit sketchy, but I expect we’ll get more on them in future episodes. The continuity nods to Who - save for the existence of Jack – are just the right dosis – they assure you you’re in the same universe when you’ve been watching, and if you’re a new viewer, you shouldn’t be more puzzled than Gwen is. Regarding Jack, John Barrowman is charming as ever – and on one occasion slapworthy, with the narrative saying he is, as he puts the amnesia on Gwen, which is realistic, because no conman is successful without being able to be a bastard – and of course you have two elements showing Gwen, and the viewers, there is something darker and more desperate going on beneath the suave survace: the revelation that he can’t die anymore – and though I was unspoiled, I guessed something of the sort in the teaser of Everything Changes because of the way he posed his “what did you see when you died?” question, which was neat – and the way he reacts when Carys/the Alien picks up that severed hand to blackmail him with. BTW, this is the one situation where Who viewers really have the advantage. Fits that Torchwood would keep the Doctor’s hand from The Christmas Invasion, but why does it mean so much to Jack? Because it’s a symbol of his lost past, because he means to use it to track down the Doctor or because he means to use it in another way? Hmmm. Anyway, showing him actually letting the Alien go in order to keep it instead of doing the hero thing and saying “no way” was an unexpected and gratifying twist.
As mentioned before, the concept of the Alien (well, demon in the other case) killing via sex is used in Lonely Hearts as well, but here the emphasis is on Carys and her plight as the unwilling host, and Gwen’s determination to save her. The Torchwood team’s approach – they’re interested in stopping the Alien – is juxtaposed to this, and though I’m a bit wary of the idea of a female character bringing in the compassion and plight of the individual, the fact the Torchwoodians already had female team members – with one of the original ones being revealed as the villain of the first ep – prevents this from looking a bit gender-clichéd.
Irreverent side note: will we get same-sex snoggings every episode? This isn’t a complaint, mind. In Everything Changes, Owen’s way of getting out of the angry boyfriend situation by making the angry boyfriend go for him as well was a neat twist, and in Day One, the Gwen/Carys make-out contributed to the storyline. (Oh, and dealt with what was a complaint in an Enterprise episode I recall: to wit, if Orion slave girls have pheremones inducing instead sexual attraction, how come all the female crew members are immune? Clearly, RTD does not believe in default straightness.)
Sidenote two: I do hope Gwen’s boyfriend isn’t either a redshirt or suffering the fate of Mickey in the sense that he’ll be dumped for the exciting life of adventure and/or used as a safety cushion from same.
So, a good start, and I’m looking forward to more!
Anyway, before I started this week’s work, I got the Torchwood debut. All in all? Start of a promising show, and not just because of all the great Welsh accents.
Someone on lj made the comparison to Angel, and the second episode, Day One, had some parallels to the second AtS episode Lonely Hearts (which actually work out to Torchwood’s favour, all in all, but I’m getting there). Which makes me suddenly afraid that Gwen will be a great character for about two seasons and then will have a phase of Sainthood and Championness during which she’ll have an unbelievable not quite love affair with Jack and be utterly obsessed with him to the detriment of all her other relationships, followed by a retcon that reveals she was possessed by an alien determined to give birth to itself, which will actually make more sense than the Sainthood phase.
*end of Cordelia-related snark*
Okay, seriously now. Gwen is our point of view character so far, and I think, given that the show presumably wants to attract non-Who-viewers as well as Whovians, it was a wise decision not to start with Jack instead but letting him be something of a man of mystery. The comparison to Rose in Rose and the way RTD reintroduced the Doctor is obvious, though I find one difference in the set up fascinating. Faced with her death at the end of Everything Changes, Gwen is frightened, scared and not able to save herself or defy the villain of the hour. In other words, she behaves like Mickey in Rose, not like Rose. Mickey’s initial fear, much like Wesley’s initial fear on BTVS, hung over many viewer’s perception for a while. To me, it made their later people-and-world-saving activities more poignant and courageous, but you have to consider one thing: they’re both male characters. For a female character to show fear when faced with certain death means the danger of her being dismissed, unfair as it is, as “the girl” instead of The Plucky Heroine, and it’s a risky decision. So far, I think it pays off: Gwen’s decision to join Torchwood and her later way to solve the situation in Day One gain depth because we know she can be scared out of her wits.
The rest of the team is still a bit sketchy, but I expect we’ll get more on them in future episodes. The continuity nods to Who - save for the existence of Jack – are just the right dosis – they assure you you’re in the same universe when you’ve been watching, and if you’re a new viewer, you shouldn’t be more puzzled than Gwen is. Regarding Jack, John Barrowman is charming as ever – and on one occasion slapworthy, with the narrative saying he is, as he puts the amnesia on Gwen, which is realistic, because no conman is successful without being able to be a bastard – and of course you have two elements showing Gwen, and the viewers, there is something darker and more desperate going on beneath the suave survace: the revelation that he can’t die anymore – and though I was unspoiled, I guessed something of the sort in the teaser of Everything Changes because of the way he posed his “what did you see when you died?” question, which was neat – and the way he reacts when Carys/the Alien picks up that severed hand to blackmail him with. BTW, this is the one situation where Who viewers really have the advantage. Fits that Torchwood would keep the Doctor’s hand from The Christmas Invasion, but why does it mean so much to Jack? Because it’s a symbol of his lost past, because he means to use it to track down the Doctor or because he means to use it in another way? Hmmm. Anyway, showing him actually letting the Alien go in order to keep it instead of doing the hero thing and saying “no way” was an unexpected and gratifying twist.
As mentioned before, the concept of the Alien (well, demon in the other case) killing via sex is used in Lonely Hearts as well, but here the emphasis is on Carys and her plight as the unwilling host, and Gwen’s determination to save her. The Torchwood team’s approach – they’re interested in stopping the Alien – is juxtaposed to this, and though I’m a bit wary of the idea of a female character bringing in the compassion and plight of the individual, the fact the Torchwoodians already had female team members – with one of the original ones being revealed as the villain of the first ep – prevents this from looking a bit gender-clichéd.
Irreverent side note: will we get same-sex snoggings every episode? This isn’t a complaint, mind. In Everything Changes, Owen’s way of getting out of the angry boyfriend situation by making the angry boyfriend go for him as well was a neat twist, and in Day One, the Gwen/Carys make-out contributed to the storyline. (Oh, and dealt with what was a complaint in an Enterprise episode I recall: to wit, if Orion slave girls have pheremones inducing instead sexual attraction, how come all the female crew members are immune? Clearly, RTD does not believe in default straightness.)
Sidenote two: I do hope Gwen’s boyfriend isn’t either a redshirt or suffering the fate of Mickey in the sense that he’ll be dumped for the exciting life of adventure and/or used as a safety cushion from same.
So, a good start, and I’m looking forward to more!
