Post by Elliot Kane on Jan 20, 2008 15:38:03 GMT
If we have a Torchwood thread, I can't find it. So I figured I'd start this one up! ;D
Having just watched the lot up to the first ep of S2, I thought I'd give my general impressions on Torchwood as a whole and say what I liked about it and what I did not. There's quite a bit of both, which makes it a balanced program, I guess ;D
Overall, I have to say it is NOT the 'adult' version of Dr Who that the trailers all promise. It is a 15 year old's idea of adult (With apologies to our more discerning 15 year olds) - all sex and graphic violence with no actual adult themes dealt with at all. Most of the characters are either bland or unlikeable, and they all come across as amateurs. If they're supposed to be the world's only hope, we're dead! The number of plot holes you can drive a truck through are also immense - and annoying. It would also be nice if Captain Jack was the same character in Torchwood as he is in Dr Who.
And yet... It shows the promise of so much more. There are some great ideas fighting hard to get out, and the actor/esses are all capable of making their characters believable. It could be the British Men In Black if it actually got in some decent writers.
There are some genuinely touching moments, and some really good eps that stand out from the surrounding bad to mediocre ones. The promise is there, it's the execution that is entirely lacking.
Season One
Everything Changes - as good an introductory ep as any, though an absolute cliche from start to finish. Gwen discovers the existence of the enigmatic Torchwood, and investigates, which leads to her coincidentally solving a murder and getting to join the team. Neither bad nor good, it's a standrd intro ep.
Day One - Oh look, alien sexual predator comes to earth, disguises itself as a human and proceeds to shag everything in sight, which kills the shagee. Never seen THIS before... Well, not more than about a trillion times. Standard 'fear of female sexuality' fable that was old when the dinosaurs were young. I think I got half an hour in before I got bored to tears. Totally ripped off and just bad on every level. Next!
Ghost Machine - an alien artifact allows people to see echoes of the past, leading the team to investigate an old rape & murder case that was never solved. Very good ep, with only one real flaw - Owen is shown in ep1 using an alien date rape drug, and he's the one who most hated the rapist here, yet there's no connection of the two. No realisation that rape by mind control is as wrong as rape by physical force. An opportunity missed. Nonetheless, the ep as a whole is very good.
Cyberwoman - Janto's (I'd LOVE to know where a Caucasian English guy gets a name like that...) lady love is a partly converted Cyberman. He can't let her go and is trying to save her. The end is obvious and inevitable, but the journey is good, which is what counts in this type of story. Totally unoriginal, but nonetheless effective.
Small Worlds - faeries. In a Dr Who spin off. Weird and totally pointless as the team don't actually get to do anything, but watchable. I have no idea why Captain Jack was even trying to find 'The Chosen One' when he knew there was no possible way to save her anyway. Would have worked as an ep of Buffy, but not for Torchwood who are supposed to be alien/science based, not horror/magic based.
Countrycide - standard 'evil hick cannibals' story though set in Wales. Totally derivative, but the biggest mystery is not the totally obvious from the start ending, but what on Earth Torchwood are doing there in the first place. The local police call them in because a few people have been going missing in the area. Since when were standard missing person cases in their remit? Wrong series for this story, and completely unoriginal anyway. 'Humans can be bad, too!' Wooo! never would have figured that one out... Does show how dreadful they are at actual fighting, though. Some elite team...
Greeks Bearing Gifts - Interesting and not bad. Toshi comes across as incredibly stupid to get the ep to work, but that's quite believable. Many, many geeks are 'science smart, people stupid' and she's never shown any real signs of intelligence beyond maths or computing. The ep as a whole is about telepathy, and yes it does rip off Unbreakable in some very obvious ways without ever being half so clever or original. Says nothing knew about telepathy, but nonetheless a solid ep.
They Keep Killing Suzie - the entire plot hinges on a dead Torchwood operative knowing something that she could not possibly know about an alien artifact and having set in train a whole plan that relies on the knowledge she does not in fact have. Which is a shame, because this was one of the better eps if only the gaping plot hole were not there. A quite common problem with many Torchwood eps, unfortunately.
Random Shoes - boring as heck, this one lost me inside ten minutes. 'The incredibly boring life of some idiot I don't know'. Why should I even begin to care? It also annoyed me that after the huge deal of 'There's NOTHING when we die!' we are now dealing with a ghost story for the very next ep!. Is asking for SOME internal consistency too much?
Out Of Time - too painful. Just couldn't watch it. I could already see all the standard cliches lining themselves up, and again - it's been done so many times. On the evidence of the entire rest of the series, I doubt anything new got said about time displaced people.
Combat - totally derivative and not explained well enough that it really worked. Fight club is the most obvious influence, though with added aliens that the punters get into the cage with to prove they were brave rather than fight. I was expecting gladiatorial combat and was rather disappointed. A lot of people will be wondering why on Earth the Tyler Durden substitute trusts Owen so quickly and drags him along when he absolutely knows he's a plant working for some kind of secret service, because it's never explained. It does make sense if you know a bit of psychology (The guy loves taking desperate risks and has a death wish besides) but I'm sure many were mystified. An OK ep, regardless.
Captain Jack Harkness - where do I even start? In 1941 two guys snogging passionately in the middle of a dance floor would have been arrested, not just stared at. There's certainly no way in hell a British officer could have done that and not been arrested and court martialled immediately. Using blood as ink is NOT going to last 50 years. Blood flakes. And there is no way in heck the Torchwood team would realistically have found the formulae Toshi put around the place. Would have been a very good ep were it not for the gaping plot holes you could have driven a fleet of oil tankers through, so it's a shame.
End Of Days - Well, the CGI Abaddon looks good... Not quite sure how they work out his shadow falling across people is how he eats, or why a 200 foot high demon would even notice Captain Jack when all he's doing is waving and shouting... And for that matter why or even IF the people dropping through time are returned to their own place in time. The team is tricked into opening the rift all the way to let Abaddon out. When he's dealt with, everything's back to normal with no real explanation as to why. Nonsensical ending and curiously unengaging. Possibly because the huge beastie seemed to be doing zero property damage while walking through the city. Made it all rather unrealistic.
Season Two
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang - James Marsters is awesome, and he steals the show completely. OK, this is only Spike 2, but he's more interesting in one ep than the entire rest of the cast has been in the whole series so far. I really loved this ep. If the rest of S2 is like this, I'll be more than happy.
***
Characters
Owen - Mr Date Rape Drug. As you can imagine this is hardly a great way to intro a new character, and he's been tainted by that ever since. He's sarcastic, nasty and a bully. The way every girl in the series seems to have the hots for him, I think he's supposed to be a 'bad boy' but he's not. He fails the archetype by being both plain and uncharismatic.
Toshi - bland. Computer geek with no real personality. Her sole piece of character development is the discovery that she is bisexual - which she seems to have in common with almost every other member of the cast.
Janto - also bland. Getting over the death of his cyberchick GF by having sex with Jack. That comes completely out of left field and left me scratching my head. No real character development because most of the time he's just in the background doing nothing.
Gwen - I liked Gwen until she started cheating on her BF with Owen, of all people. Then she told her BF but fed him an amnesia pill so he wouldn't remember because she wanted him to forgive her but not know what she was doing. I think he sums it up best: "You f-ing b!tch!" Yeah, that was about my reaction, too.
Captain Jack - what on earth happened to the upbeat charming omnisexual cosmic wideboy who was so utterly great in Dr Who? He's now a brooding charmless homosexual who no-one in their right mind would trust. C'mon Jack! Snog an alien horse or something while giving it with that cheeky grin! Remind us why we loved you!
Captain John Hart - Yeah, so James Marsters only had one ep - so what! He was easily the best thing in the whole series. Everything Jack used to be but with a far darker edge. 'Murder rehab' - I laughed out loud at that! I think they need to make him permanent cast, honestly. You have the whole Angel/Spike dynamic all over again, except with the added edge of sex thrown in.
Having just watched the lot up to the first ep of S2, I thought I'd give my general impressions on Torchwood as a whole and say what I liked about it and what I did not. There's quite a bit of both, which makes it a balanced program, I guess ;D
Overall, I have to say it is NOT the 'adult' version of Dr Who that the trailers all promise. It is a 15 year old's idea of adult (With apologies to our more discerning 15 year olds) - all sex and graphic violence with no actual adult themes dealt with at all. Most of the characters are either bland or unlikeable, and they all come across as amateurs. If they're supposed to be the world's only hope, we're dead! The number of plot holes you can drive a truck through are also immense - and annoying. It would also be nice if Captain Jack was the same character in Torchwood as he is in Dr Who.
And yet... It shows the promise of so much more. There are some great ideas fighting hard to get out, and the actor/esses are all capable of making their characters believable. It could be the British Men In Black if it actually got in some decent writers.
There are some genuinely touching moments, and some really good eps that stand out from the surrounding bad to mediocre ones. The promise is there, it's the execution that is entirely lacking.
Season One
Everything Changes - as good an introductory ep as any, though an absolute cliche from start to finish. Gwen discovers the existence of the enigmatic Torchwood, and investigates, which leads to her coincidentally solving a murder and getting to join the team. Neither bad nor good, it's a standrd intro ep.
Day One - Oh look, alien sexual predator comes to earth, disguises itself as a human and proceeds to shag everything in sight, which kills the shagee. Never seen THIS before... Well, not more than about a trillion times. Standard 'fear of female sexuality' fable that was old when the dinosaurs were young. I think I got half an hour in before I got bored to tears. Totally ripped off and just bad on every level. Next!
Ghost Machine - an alien artifact allows people to see echoes of the past, leading the team to investigate an old rape & murder case that was never solved. Very good ep, with only one real flaw - Owen is shown in ep1 using an alien date rape drug, and he's the one who most hated the rapist here, yet there's no connection of the two. No realisation that rape by mind control is as wrong as rape by physical force. An opportunity missed. Nonetheless, the ep as a whole is very good.
Cyberwoman - Janto's (I'd LOVE to know where a Caucasian English guy gets a name like that...) lady love is a partly converted Cyberman. He can't let her go and is trying to save her. The end is obvious and inevitable, but the journey is good, which is what counts in this type of story. Totally unoriginal, but nonetheless effective.
Small Worlds - faeries. In a Dr Who spin off. Weird and totally pointless as the team don't actually get to do anything, but watchable. I have no idea why Captain Jack was even trying to find 'The Chosen One' when he knew there was no possible way to save her anyway. Would have worked as an ep of Buffy, but not for Torchwood who are supposed to be alien/science based, not horror/magic based.
Countrycide - standard 'evil hick cannibals' story though set in Wales. Totally derivative, but the biggest mystery is not the totally obvious from the start ending, but what on Earth Torchwood are doing there in the first place. The local police call them in because a few people have been going missing in the area. Since when were standard missing person cases in their remit? Wrong series for this story, and completely unoriginal anyway. 'Humans can be bad, too!' Wooo! never would have figured that one out... Does show how dreadful they are at actual fighting, though. Some elite team...
Greeks Bearing Gifts - Interesting and not bad. Toshi comes across as incredibly stupid to get the ep to work, but that's quite believable. Many, many geeks are 'science smart, people stupid' and she's never shown any real signs of intelligence beyond maths or computing. The ep as a whole is about telepathy, and yes it does rip off Unbreakable in some very obvious ways without ever being half so clever or original. Says nothing knew about telepathy, but nonetheless a solid ep.
They Keep Killing Suzie - the entire plot hinges on a dead Torchwood operative knowing something that she could not possibly know about an alien artifact and having set in train a whole plan that relies on the knowledge she does not in fact have. Which is a shame, because this was one of the better eps if only the gaping plot hole were not there. A quite common problem with many Torchwood eps, unfortunately.
Random Shoes - boring as heck, this one lost me inside ten minutes. 'The incredibly boring life of some idiot I don't know'. Why should I even begin to care? It also annoyed me that after the huge deal of 'There's NOTHING when we die!' we are now dealing with a ghost story for the very next ep!. Is asking for SOME internal consistency too much?
Out Of Time - too painful. Just couldn't watch it. I could already see all the standard cliches lining themselves up, and again - it's been done so many times. On the evidence of the entire rest of the series, I doubt anything new got said about time displaced people.
Combat - totally derivative and not explained well enough that it really worked. Fight club is the most obvious influence, though with added aliens that the punters get into the cage with to prove they were brave rather than fight. I was expecting gladiatorial combat and was rather disappointed. A lot of people will be wondering why on Earth the Tyler Durden substitute trusts Owen so quickly and drags him along when he absolutely knows he's a plant working for some kind of secret service, because it's never explained. It does make sense if you know a bit of psychology (The guy loves taking desperate risks and has a death wish besides) but I'm sure many were mystified. An OK ep, regardless.
Captain Jack Harkness - where do I even start? In 1941 two guys snogging passionately in the middle of a dance floor would have been arrested, not just stared at. There's certainly no way in hell a British officer could have done that and not been arrested and court martialled immediately. Using blood as ink is NOT going to last 50 years. Blood flakes. And there is no way in heck the Torchwood team would realistically have found the formulae Toshi put around the place. Would have been a very good ep were it not for the gaping plot holes you could have driven a fleet of oil tankers through, so it's a shame.
End Of Days - Well, the CGI Abaddon looks good... Not quite sure how they work out his shadow falling across people is how he eats, or why a 200 foot high demon would even notice Captain Jack when all he's doing is waving and shouting... And for that matter why or even IF the people dropping through time are returned to their own place in time. The team is tricked into opening the rift all the way to let Abaddon out. When he's dealt with, everything's back to normal with no real explanation as to why. Nonsensical ending and curiously unengaging. Possibly because the huge beastie seemed to be doing zero property damage while walking through the city. Made it all rather unrealistic.
Season Two
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang - James Marsters is awesome, and he steals the show completely. OK, this is only Spike 2, but he's more interesting in one ep than the entire rest of the cast has been in the whole series so far. I really loved this ep. If the rest of S2 is like this, I'll be more than happy.
***
Characters
Owen - Mr Date Rape Drug. As you can imagine this is hardly a great way to intro a new character, and he's been tainted by that ever since. He's sarcastic, nasty and a bully. The way every girl in the series seems to have the hots for him, I think he's supposed to be a 'bad boy' but he's not. He fails the archetype by being both plain and uncharismatic.
Toshi - bland. Computer geek with no real personality. Her sole piece of character development is the discovery that she is bisexual - which she seems to have in common with almost every other member of the cast.
Janto - also bland. Getting over the death of his cyberchick GF by having sex with Jack. That comes completely out of left field and left me scratching my head. No real character development because most of the time he's just in the background doing nothing.
Gwen - I liked Gwen until she started cheating on her BF with Owen, of all people. Then she told her BF but fed him an amnesia pill so he wouldn't remember because she wanted him to forgive her but not know what she was doing. I think he sums it up best: "You f-ing b!tch!" Yeah, that was about my reaction, too.
Captain Jack - what on earth happened to the upbeat charming omnisexual cosmic wideboy who was so utterly great in Dr Who? He's now a brooding charmless homosexual who no-one in their right mind would trust. C'mon Jack! Snog an alien horse or something while giving it with that cheeky grin! Remind us why we loved you!
Captain John Hart - Yeah, so James Marsters only had one ep - so what! He was easily the best thing in the whole series. Everything Jack used to be but with a far darker edge. 'Murder rehab' - I laughed out loud at that! I think they need to make him permanent cast, honestly. You have the whole Angel/Spike dynamic all over again, except with the added edge of sex thrown in.
