Torchwood: Lost Souls

[selenak]

...aka the radioplay the BBC broadcast today and then thankfully put up for download for the rest of the world, for one week, so you can go and get it here . Set post-season 2, with Martha as a guest star, written by Joseph Lidster, who wrote my favourite s2 episode Day of the Dead as well as several key Doctor Who audios for Big Finish.



Highly enjoyable, with good character stuff, if not as good as Day of the Dead. My one nitpick would be that I don't really buy Jack improvising science the way the Doctor does, but then again he's from the 25th century, so would have knowledge that would allow him to do what he does at one plot point. On to thoughts about the character interaction:

- Jack's delight in Martha calling him and their conversation reminded me of something I already thought in The Stolen Earth and Journey's End (and less intensely in Reset): the comradery and deep trust between them is something that fanfic usually gives to Jack and Rose, but canon actually provides for Jack and Martha. Not to say that Jack didn't care for Rose deeply (see him checking on her growing up from afar according to Utopia), but depending on how long you think he actually travelled with the Doctor and her, he might only have known her for a few (happy) weeks, so the difference is not surprising.

- loved, loved, loved Martha's choice of fake IDs for the Torchwood gang: making Ianto the "Ambassador of Wales", Gwen his wife and Jack their lowly assistant was inspired. I ♥ Martha and her way of teasing

- not surprisingly, considering this is Lidster, the loss of Tosh and Owen and how it's affecting the surviving three is a major theme; Martha's conversations with Jack and Gwen on the topic are characteristically different, just as they are.

- on that note, the fact Martha attended the funeral service for Owen and Tosh is a fanfic gold mine

- Gwen was fantastic in this story; since she had several scenes alone with Ianto, the reminder that the two aren't rivals but firm friends who got even closer because of the loss was great but will probably be ignored again by people insisting on fighting shipping wars. Loved in particular Gwen's way of trying to motivate a monster-of-the-week-afflicted Ianto to make it out of the tunnels she has to drag him through: "There is coffee - you love coffee - and Jack - coffee and Jack!" I strongly suspect now that Owen is gone Gwen is my favourite character on the show. Here she was vulnerable, scared, tough and courageous all at the same time, and in a very real, human way

- Ianto resisting fake!Owen and fake!Tosh but giving in when it's fake!Lisa and breaking down there, yelling out his continuing grief for her was interesting continuity; and reminded me yet agaon how the transition between Cyberwoman and stopwatches made no sense to me at all, though Fragments took care of that.

Comments

[elyssadc.livejournal.com]

I am so very excited to get home and listen to this. But I gotta know. How was the acting? Was it obvious that they were inexperienced with the audio medium? I'm a huge BF addict and I always wonder how difficult it is for these actors to make the transition.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It seems pretty much OK so far (listening to it now) except that we seem to have Jack as Basil Exposition occasionally and I'm not convinced he's the right man for the job.

[elyssadc.livejournal.com]

Oh, lordy. Barrowman would definitely not be my first choice.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I'm with ffutures; the only weak spot, acting-wise, is that John Barrowman has to deliver exposition occasionally. I thought Eve Myles was particularly good (and sounded as if she might have had previous radio experience). But I can see why Gwen wouldn't deliver science exposition...

[elyssadc.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I listened to it last night and was pleasantly surprised at how well Gwen and Ianto came across. I knew Martha would be great. All in all I enjoyed it, but it certainly wasn't up to Big Finish levels of quality. I would hate for this to be people's first exposure to the audioplay medium and have them not give it another chance.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

*is heretic*

Not all Big Finish is up to Big Finish levels of quality, either.

*remembers 100 A.D.*

It wasn't spectacular, but enjoyable, and if someone is put off the entire medium by one play, they deserve to be and don't deserve to enjoy audio plays anyway.

*is snob who has old Orson Welles recordings*

[elisi]

Yes to everything. :)

If I had any icon spaces left I'd be hunting down a 'coffe and Jack' icon already. I *so* love the Jack/Gwen/Ianto triangle, because they complement each other so very well.

loved, loved, loved Martha's choice of fake IDs for the Torchwood gang: making Ianto the "Ambassador of Wales", Gwen his wife and Jack their lowly assistant was inspired.
I nearly *died* at Ianto's "Ma'am, with these maps you are spoiling us." (Dunno if you know this, but it's a shout-out to this advert.) (Which for some reason has a laughter-track. It shouldn't.)

My one nitpick would be that I don't really buy Jack improvising science the way the Doctor does, but then again he's from the 25th century, so would have knowledge that would allow him to do what he does at one plot point.
51st century - and not only that, but Jack is *very* bright. The Doctor consistently uses him as his right-hand man whenever there's anything technological to be done. (F.ex. see him near-orgasming over the tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator in 'Boom Town'. And not only does he recognise it on sight, he is also the one who wires it into the TARDIS main frame later on.)

- on that note, the fact Martha attended the funeral service for Owen and Tosh is a fanfic gold mine
Oh it is, isn't it? I'm expecting some quality fic to appear now.

the comradery and deep trust between them is something that fanfic usually gives to Jack and Rose, but canon actually provides for Jack and Martha.
The moment that always springs to mind for me is Jack's "You too, huh?" in SoD. Of course they'd only known each other for around day then, but the fact that they shared that unrequited love for the Doctor suddenly made Martha's arc a lot better. (Sorry, that's hopelessly badly formulated, but I have to run off and bathe children. I'm sure you know what I mean.)

ETA: I have recs here btw. If nothing else, check out the vid! (Presuming you haven't seen it already - but you haven't pimped it yourself, so I figure that you probably haven't.)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I *so* love the Jack/Gwen/Ianto triangle, because they complement each other so very well.

When Jack asked if Ianto was moaning and Gwen yelled "YES", I had this huge grin on my face. They have a great dynamic.

Thanks for linking the advert - no, I hadn't known that. Makes Ianto's line that much funnier!

The moment that always springs to mind for me is Jack's "You too, huh?" in SoD.

It was when they first clicked as people, I think, other than "pretty girl whom the Doctor hangs out with now/ handsome guy out of nowhere who used to travel with the Doctor and who also knew Rose". After the year that wasn't, of course, they were as Martha put it fellow veterans of the end of the world survivors club, even if they spent it mostly apart, but they fought the same battle. And since the Torchwood site features some of their emails, it seems they kept in contact even before "Reset", and of course afterwards Martha kept in contact with other Torchwoodians as well. She was there when Jack resurrected Owen, so she knows just how deeply his issues (Jack's, not Owen's, though Martha got a good look at Owen's issues, too) run; she is familiar with Jack both when he's with the Doctor and when he's with his crew, which is a quite different thing. So a case can be made of her knowing him better than most people.

Recs: I am familiar with the vid, which I didn't pimp because by the time I had watched it, everyone else had recced it already. Still, thanks!

[jaydk.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure about distinguishing Jack's relationship with Martha from that with Rose based on time spent together, because Jack and Martha haven't actually spent that much time together that we've seen -- in the Year That Wasn't, Jack was on the Valiant while Martha was walking the earth. The time Jack has spent with Martha has been much more spread out, but cumulatively it's probably about the same -- it's just a few days here and there rather than weeks together, as he had with Rose.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Yes, but the references to emails and phonecalls definitely implies Martha and Jack have remained in contact via said emails and phonecalls aside from their occasional on screen meetings, which unfortunately he was unable to do with Rose.

[kathyh]

Here she was vulnerable, scared, tough and courageous all at the same time, and in a very real, human way

I thought it was an excellent vocal performance by Eve Myles. Big Finish should find something for her to do forthwith.

I enjoyed it far more than I was expecting to and was very pleasantly surprised at the amount of continuity we got. I thought they might mention the deaths of Owen and Tosh but certainly never expected them to be crucial to the plot. Good work from Joseph Lidster.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I thought it was an excellent vocal performance by Eve Myles. Big Finish should find something for her to do forthwith.

Absolutely. I was wondering whether she has done radio before, because she was really outstanding among the gang.

[aralias.livejournal.com]

the coffee and jack part was my favourite bit, too. very good story for gwen, which is great, because i think i do like gwen really, just not series one gwen.

thanks for posting this in general, btw, because that there even was a torchwood radio play had passed me by completely and even hearing the torchwood theme playing in front of something i hadn't seen/heard before made me grin like a loon.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I think that season 1 Gwen was very unevenly written, but then that's true for the rest of then save Owen as well. (Owen wasn't written as likeable, but he was written consistently, and had a character arc.) I didn't fall for her until s2, either, but I remember watching the teaser for Something Borrowed and thinking "I love Gwen! When did this happen? But I do love her now!"

[pujaemuss.livejournal.com]

The characterisation was good, the acting was passable, the whole audio was worth it just for Ianto's Ferrero Rocher quips, but the Bad Science hurt my brain.

Stealing people's neutrons? Glowing people because they're missing neutrons? Jack teaching the head of LHC research about her elementary mistakes in searching for the Higgs Boson? Anti-protons and protons creating the Higgs while protons and protons break the walls between realities? The fact that the first run of experiments isn't even the big one and the search for the Higgs Boson won't start till 2009-10ish? Nevermind the fact that having an alien and a doctor in a particle accelerator is going to screw the tests anyway. And the whole worship of the Higgs Boson as the "key to life" and reason for our special snowflakeness? IT'S A PARTICLE, NOT AN ANALOGY FOR A SOUL! It's not even definitely there; Stephen Hawking has bet fifty quid that it doesn't exist cause he subscribes to a competing theory!

[pants]

Sorry, that rant got away from me a bit. But that ruined the whole audio for me. If you're going to try and do something topical, then you have to try not to screw it up. Jack came off like a Mary Sue of the physics world - sauntering in and telling the geniuses at CERN, "Science - you're doing it wrong."

Gah!

PJW