(no subject)

[doyle]

I'm sure everyone else is doing this, so not looking at my (no doubt asploded) friends page before doing this:


Torchwood - 'Everything Changes/Day 1'

Hm. So it's about a group fighting paranormal occurrences, it has Angel-ish segues consisting of aerial shots of the city where it's based, and the POV character is basically Kate from the first two seasons of Angel, and the main character is an immortal with an angsty past and yes, in this equation the Doctor is Buffy, look at Jack's weirdness with his hand! It's Angel season 1 transplanted to Cardiff (with added Hellmouth), isn't it? It even does that thing Joss always wanted to do, set someone up as part of the regular main cast and then kill them in the first episode.

So if this didn't entirely fill me with giddy squee and omg must see the rest of the season now I remind myself that Angel took a while to find its feet too. Come to think of it, wasn't the very second episode of that show something to do with a demon stalking nightclubs for casual sex?

I do think Torchwood has potential. Certain scenes I loved: "who orders pizza in the name of Torchwood?", the CCTV of the candyfloss-gas-sex-alien's first victim, the team eating Chinese - I hope it becomes more of an ensemble, the bits that worked best for me were when the group was together. And Ianto and Toshiko need much more screen time, though preferably without the former's depths of anguish and despair: I like him as a Jeeves/Alfred figure. "Will you be needing me attacking someone, sir?" Hee. I can't remember if he said 'sir' or I subbed it in, but I liked it nonetheless.

I loved Susie. WHY COULDN'T WE KEEP SUSIE? Because she's in Rome, yes, sigh. But I thought she turned in the best performance of the first episode when she was rummaging through her bag for the gun, apologising to Gwen and nearly in tears. Maybe if I'm lucky there will be lots of pre-Gwen fic with Susie?

I'm ambivalent on Gwen. She's okay and I like the actress but I dislike the idea that she's there to teach them Love and Compassion and What It Means To Be Human (and what the fuck was with Jack parroting Nine's speech to Rose to her? "Do it for me?" And all the stuff about how brilliant she is and the kiss with Jack? Bloody hell, and I thought Nine/Rose happened a bit quick!) She just didn't grab me. I assume she has some character trait other than "nice police officer who makes all the other police officers tea" and I would have been shipping her Liek Whoa with Carys if there hadn't been the gratuitous inexplicable snogging in the cell. Err... the alien says a moment later that it won't work with a woman; so, what, it didn't realise till Gwen ripped her top off? And Gwen was too overcome with pheromones to shout for help? And Owen's such a total dick that even having seen the tape of the guy who died in the nightclub he just sits and watches? It was nearly as if that scene was only there to have some girl on girl action in the trailer but surely that can't be true...

Hm, Owen. I hope he gets better because so far I spend most of his screen time mentally chanting shut up shut up shut up. Not entirely sure why, though the rohypnol in a can pheromone spray made me squirm a lot. Can I fanwank that he just made his escape while the woman and her boyfriend fought over him? Or had a rougher time than he wanted and learned his lesson about messing around with people's free will?

So much Doctor/Jack fic is going to be spawned by Jack's new immortality. And I will read it all like the h0r I am.

Right, that's about as patient and self-controlled as I can be, off to read what everyone else thought now.

Comments

[sir-didymus.livejournal.com]

The ressurection glove....thingy looked a bit like a cyberman hand.

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

"Will you be needing me attacking someone, sir?"

He definitely said 'sir'. Well, unless I subbed it in too.

[doylefan22.livejournal.com]

I loved Suzie too...Tis such a pity. But since she's in cold storage we may not have seen the last of her, not in a show like this.

[paratti.livejournal.com]

Suzie would have been Rome free to do it.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

I do think Torchwood has potential. Certain scenes I loved: "who orders pizza in the name of Torchwood?", the CCTV of the candyfloss-gas-sex-alien's first victim, the team eating Chinese - I hope it becomes more of an ensemble, the bits that worked best for me were when the group was together. And Ianto and Toshiko need much more screen time, though preferably without the former's depths of anguish and despair: I like him as a Jeeves/Alfred figure.

Ooh, my thoughts in proper sentences! If I leave aside my aarg at Suzie.

Not entirely sure why, though the rohypnol in a can pheromone spray made me squirm a lot.

I'm currently trying to point out to to some people on OG that rohypnol-in-a-can ain't funny w/o resorting to "Look, you git, it happened to me, it ain't funny, now fuck off."

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

Is it too late to swap Suzie for Owen?

[calapine.livejournal.com]

We must construct a time-machine at once!

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

And OH GOD that thread on OG... I can't believe the stupidity of the comment about it being mostly women who are bothered by the idea. YOU THINK?

[calapine.livejournal.com]

My prize for boggling goes to the one who said: "not that i think there is anything wrong with rape lol."

[lim.livejournal.com]

I am trying SO HARD to fanwank away the sex pollen love potion rohypnol no. 5 pheromone spray. Lalalalalallalalalalalallala.

The first ep was greatness. I adored Jack and his hand in a jar and Susie and Gwen rocked, but then the second ep made me have to go LALALALALA quite a lot. omg why must everybody be reminded what it is to be human all the time? Why can't we be reminded what it is to be fish, or something? I think that would be more interesting, asithappens.

[beccaelizabeth]

the rohypnol in a can pheromone spray made me squirm a lot

I thought that if watched in the context of the theme of the episode - Torchwood employees going very very dark - and of what happened in the next ep, specifically to him - being on the wrong side of the chemistry - it was like taking a cliche and pointing out how messed up it actually is. Rather than being the messed up cliche.

also the gratuitous snogging in the cell... I felt like they were using the other characters to point out how weird it was to just watch that stuff. Like, show it up, make it uncomfortable.

It... kind of depends how much credit one gives the writers?

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

But the Owen stuff was all played for laughs, both the threesome and the voyeurism/later nakedness in the cells. It looked to be there for comic relief more than anything else. It's not as if he appears to learn that it's a Bad Thing.

Re: the gratuitous snogging in the cell, I said on nos's journal that they do actually need to have a character who wouldn't usually behave that way lose their inhibitions around Gwen and establish the pheromones thing. Otherwise when they find Owen naked in the cell it'd raise *very* awkward questions about what exactly he was doing to the prisoner when she escaped, esp. if you decide from the previous episode that he's not fussed whether his partner consents so long as he doesn't have to bother with all that talking stuff.

It... kind of depends how much credit one gives the writers?

Probably...

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

Argh, "lose their inhibitions around Carys" I mean.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

It were a bit Angelesque, wasn't it? With the rooftops and camera whatsits.

I'm with you on Gwen. I want to like her cos I hate hating the main character and... yes. It's a rerun of Rose's schtick, to the point where I feel horribly certain that she'll give a big speech to the boyfriend about how Torchwood > him. Or to her old partner in the police. Maybe both! And she's a bit too pointless so far. I am getting quite tired of Rusty's thing of the character who teaches the others how to love humanity again.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

I like her old partner in the police. And I bet her boyfriend is secretly a spy or something. Maybe a spy for UNIT!

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

No, he is Mickey! So he'll maybe get to become involved and useful, or he'll be dumped for being too boring and normal. ...and I only just realised how incredibly unfair Mickey getting dumped actually was. It's not his fault he's not magic!

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

The Torchwood website (http://www.torchwood.org.uk/html/index.shtml) says something like "he'd be crap undercover but that's probably not too important in his job". IT IS FORESHADOWING HIS SPYNESS.

And there's a bit in the Torchwood manual about using alien tech to 'give you an advantage' over civilians is a big disciplinary thing, which I hope means Owen's going to get it for using the spray.

[boji.livejournal.com]

it has Angel-ish segues consisting of aerial shots of the city where it's based, and the POV character is basically Kate from the first two seasons of Angel

Actually I think that, glowing ability aside Gwen is Cordelia - humanizing the team. But then I loved it. So... am willing to forgive RTD for being derivative. He dresses it up well.

[nwhyte]

I'm with you on Gwen = Cordelia. I don't have a big problem with the plot line of "she's there to teach them Love and Compassion and What It Means To Be Human" - just rereading Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber which has much the same plot!