Torchwood 2.01

[selenak]

Those crazy kids from Cardiff are back.




Firstly, I’m one of the few people who when the Jack/John make-out clip was leaked didn’t think it was hot, and I can tell you why – I didn’t know the character. And no, JM/JB visuals are not enough. The obvious Smashed parallels rather hurt than helped, because the reason the Buffy/Spike fight-and-sex scene from Smashed was hot, to me at least, was because I had observed these two characters and their relationship building up to this in the course of several seasons. Whether or not a scene sizzles to me is always related to character dynamics and interest in same, and JM’s Torchwood character was a stranger.

Now that I’ve seen the episode and the scene in context? It’s still the least interesting aspect in same. Otoh, I was very interested in how the team reacted to Jack, and vice versa. Also, is it me or does JB’ acting get back to early s1 of TW stiffness again when he’s doing dialogue with JM? He had loosened up around the middle of s1, had some great moments in “Out of Time” and “Captain Jack Harkness” and was excellent over at DW – , but the delivery of the whole “I dig this planet and my team” declarations was a bit painful. By contrast, he did sell me on Jack realising he could maybe put some effort into this whole Ianto thing, and I’m not a Jack/Ianto fan. But the office scene worked for me. What worked even better was “I found my doctor” (said with so much warmth) and Owen asking “and did he fix you?”, spoken without any flippancy, a bit hoarsely, a genuine enquiry; I always thought that Jack might see something of himself in Owen, some of less desirable character traits without the polish and the charm to make people overlook them, and that was one of the reasons why he kept him in the team, but Owen seeing that there is/was something genuinenly broken in Jack, as opposed to the façade, that’s new.

(Meanwhile, Owen’s reply to Gwen saying there could be children children outside, “If they’re outside after midnight, they’ve got it coming” demonstrated his continuing gitness and made me smile. And of course I appreciated that the episode used Owen being a doctor repeatedly. What? I can’t help it; he is my favourite character on this show, in as much as I have one.)

Looks like they’re back on selling Gwen/Jack UST, and I really hope they allow Gwen to make some character progress by not letting her make the same mistakes again like last season, only with Jack. Speaking of past mistakes, Jack is still not free of his “man of mystery” stick, but while he keeps withholding info from the team, he did tell them some important things (see above, re: “found my doctor”) and made it clear they mean something to him, so that’s good.

As John Hart: Chipnall, that gag about sizes was done better on DW, several times. Boys and their toys, as Martha Jones summed it up. On the other hand, as someone obviously meant to be Jack sans ethics or ties, the character served a function, though I’m not sure I can believe he and Jack managed to spend five years with each other without talking each other to death. And this was before Jack got immortalized by the TARDIS. Not sure it was a good decision to let JM use his fake English accent again; John Hart talking American would have made him more distinct. Acting-wise, he was okay, neither spectacular nor mediocre, delivering solid work; it’s probably no coincidence that him talking to Jack’s temporary corpse was the one time I really believed the intimate connection. (With Jack temporarily dead, no sudden renewed JB acting stiffness could distract me.) (Seriously, though: I was surprised, because it can’t be that JB hasn’t acted with JM before. He never acted with David Tennant before Utopia, either, and in Utopia he never had me doubt for a moment that this was Jack talking to a man he has a complicated backstory with and intense feelings for.)

Storywise: here Chipnall used a variation. Last season, we had, to londonkds’ severe disgruntlement, several instances where a morally ambiguous character was revealed as being an evil villain and then killed. Here, we didn’t think he was that ambiguous to begin with – the killing a human in the first two minutes kind of gave it away – but he wasn’t killed at the end, and actually the team (in this instance, Owen, but it wouldn’t have been possible without Gwen thinking of the Rift earlier, and Ianto rushing to everyone’s rescue before that) managed to find a solution that saved the day without getting him or anyone else killed, either. So, err, improvement?

In conclusion, I’ll keep watching, and not just because my beloved Martha will turn up later in the season, but some of the flaws from last year are still there.

Comments

[timeofchange.livejournal.com]

I totally agree.

[kathyh]

Not sure it was a good decision to let JM use his fake English accent again

No, I didn't think it was either. Apart from the fact that in a British show it sounds more fake than it did in BtVS it also meant that the shadow of Spike was always there and didn't completely allow me to see John Hart as a different character, which I would have preferred.

Apart from that I did think it was better (and so did J *g*) and even Ianto showed signs of being alive at times. Best bit was definitely "bloody Torchwood" at the beginning but I did like John Hart taking down the entire team so easily.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Yes, Ianto showed actual personality.

It's odd, I didn't mind the equally American David Anders using his English accent as Kensei/Adam; I never saw him as shadowed by Sark in Heroes. But with John Hart, an American accent and perhaps a different hairstyle definitely would have helped.

[kathyh]

It's odd, I didn't mind the equally American David Anders using his English accent as Kensei/Adam

I didn't mind that either because in the historical context it made sense that the character should be English. I don't think I've ever heard David Anders' real accent.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

There is a season 5 Alias episode in which Sark pretends to be an American called, wait for it, "Bob", and Anders uses his own accent there. It's meta fun.

But, yeah. It had to be an Englishman.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I didn't actually realise it was supposed to be an English accent... Maybe it was a not-very-bothered alien attempt at one.

[pujaemuss.livejournal.com]

Actually reviewed this episode in my LJ as well, cause I thought it showed so much potential for a better second season, despite having a lot of the flaws of the first still present.

Agreed so much on JM's moment with dead Jack being the best bit of their 'connection'. The kiss was a little empty and just looked like two people smashing their faces as hard into each other as they can, with lips touching only by luck. It was a headbutt that just happened to be lips first.

PJW

[selenak.livejournal.com]

"Empty" is just the word I was looking for. But as you say, the show definitely shows signs of improvement.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

the delivery of the whole “I dig this planet and my team” declarations was a bit painful

I always find speeches about aliens or near-aliens digging Earth, humans etc etc for some admirable quality apparently absent in the rest of the universe embarrassing. They're just so "Look, humanity, this is what you have the potential to be!"

I wasn't sure how the two-week timeloop extending over five years would work. I presume they wouldn't repeat the same two weeks in all their detail indefinitely, because then they wouldn't be so conscious of it being five years. I suspect they stopped talking altogether for long stretches. Probably just kissed and fought instead.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

....So, what you're saying is that for those five years, Jack (and John, by default) was actually monogamous?

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Well, they could have been. Though it's possible to fit in a bit of adultery even in the first two weeks of marriage.