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Jul. 10th, 2009 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ebonlockOk I've gotta' get this off my chest,
Now I know that may put me in the minority and that there has been a great rending of garments and tearing of hair in the fandom. Maybe it's because I don't really have a strong emotional attachment to any of the remaining characters and haven't had thanks to two utterly lame seasons. I wanted to enjoy this show more than almost anyone I know, I mean I adored Captain Jack on DW and the idea of him starring in his own show...and having tons of wonderfully gay sex with Ianto...was enough to make me watch even after the stories had lost me.
I mean giant demon guys stomping around Cardiff, really?
When Owen and Tosh died I kind of shrugged. I didn't really like either of them, so no biggie. When we had the possibility of Mickey joining the team I was all over it. Martha...well, not so much but I might've still checked it out. But ultimately I expected a lot more boneheadedly annoying plots with one or two character moments that would make me squee like a little girl. Ok, one or two Ianto moments, let's be totally honest here.
Still, I couldn't get a handle on Jack, Gwenn was all over the place from one episode to the next...and well Ianto was practically perfect except he seemed to be totally ok with hot gay sex one second and then gay panicking the next.
Interestingly, by the end of TW:CotE I feel like I finally get this Jack. He makes sense to me now in a way he never really did before. Gwenn was astonishingly consistent, strong and admirable. Maybe having Rhys around helped even her out a bit for me, and I like him so much I'm willing to overlook a little. Ianto was...well adorable and wonderful and the revelations about his family fleshed him out in ways that two whole previous seasons had failed to do. The bit between he and his sister where they discuss how their dad broke Ianto's leg when he was a kid was just heartbreaking. The simple line, "He always pushed too hard," was devastatingly effective.
And can I just say I fucking worship his sister and brother-in-law? Worship them.
Also I will be very happy if the TW season 4 revamp includes both Lois Habiba and the Lady in Black (did she ever say her name?). I love the fact that that I started out hating the Lady in Black, but after she took out Jack and then had the brains to seal him in concrete (OMG, sexy and smart, yay!) my feelings began to change. She'd won me over by the end for being willing to fight back when everyone else seemed content to just stand by and watch the aliens take those kids.
Ok beyond the characters, who were astonishingly interesting, right down to Frobisher and the PM. And even better they rang disturbingly true. I could see each politician making the very decisions they did...as horrifying as that is.
What else did I like? Well a grown up plot so dark even my jaw was hanging open a few times (and I spent most of the last two episodes in tears) and an ending that, for the first time in a long time, made sense. I will be the first to admit that this is not a series of episodes you want to watch if you're feeling even vaguely emotionally unstable. Seriously, this takes the word "dark" to entirely new levels. Just when you start to think, "Things cannot get worse" they do. But...I liked it.
I also liked that the 456 scared the living hell out of me.
Finally truly evil, terrifying aliens that you never even get a good look at. Finally, finally a scifi show gets the fact that the scariest monsters are the ones you create in your own mind. And yay to the script writers who figured out that the mere insertion of heavy, long pauses from the aliens would do more to freak out the viewers than lots of ridiculous CGI nonsense.
Yes, ok, I was absolutely devastated when Ianto died (even though I knew it was coming) but at least he died well. And yes the whole thing with Steven was emotionally manipulative as hell, but I was willing to give a lot of that a pass because the rest was so damn good. And again, giant demon guys...it's like it's not even the same series.
Torchwood finally grew up. About goddamn time.
I know several folks may strongly disagree with my take on this, and I'm willing to agree to disagree, but I may just be pimping the show hard to those I know haven't seen it.
Will I tune in for season 4? Yeah, I think I just might.
Now I know that may put me in the minority and that there has been a great rending of garments and tearing of hair in the fandom. Maybe it's because I don't really have a strong emotional attachment to any of the remaining characters and haven't had thanks to two utterly lame seasons. I wanted to enjoy this show more than almost anyone I know, I mean I adored Captain Jack on DW and the idea of him starring in his own show...and having tons of wonderfully gay sex with Ianto...was enough to make me watch even after the stories had lost me.
I mean giant demon guys stomping around Cardiff, really?
When Owen and Tosh died I kind of shrugged. I didn't really like either of them, so no biggie. When we had the possibility of Mickey joining the team I was all over it. Martha...well, not so much but I might've still checked it out. But ultimately I expected a lot more boneheadedly annoying plots with one or two character moments that would make me squee like a little girl. Ok, one or two Ianto moments, let's be totally honest here.
Still, I couldn't get a handle on Jack, Gwenn was all over the place from one episode to the next...and well Ianto was practically perfect except he seemed to be totally ok with hot gay sex one second and then gay panicking the next.
Interestingly, by the end of TW:CotE I feel like I finally get this Jack. He makes sense to me now in a way he never really did before. Gwenn was astonishingly consistent, strong and admirable. Maybe having Rhys around helped even her out a bit for me, and I like him so much I'm willing to overlook a little. Ianto was...well adorable and wonderful and the revelations about his family fleshed him out in ways that two whole previous seasons had failed to do. The bit between he and his sister where they discuss how their dad broke Ianto's leg when he was a kid was just heartbreaking. The simple line, "He always pushed too hard," was devastatingly effective.
And can I just say I fucking worship his sister and brother-in-law? Worship them.
Also I will be very happy if the TW season 4 revamp includes both Lois Habiba and the Lady in Black (did she ever say her name?). I love the fact that that I started out hating the Lady in Black, but after she took out Jack and then had the brains to seal him in concrete (OMG, sexy and smart, yay!) my feelings began to change. She'd won me over by the end for being willing to fight back when everyone else seemed content to just stand by and watch the aliens take those kids.
Ok beyond the characters, who were astonishingly interesting, right down to Frobisher and the PM. And even better they rang disturbingly true. I could see each politician making the very decisions they did...as horrifying as that is.
What else did I like? Well a grown up plot so dark even my jaw was hanging open a few times (and I spent most of the last two episodes in tears) and an ending that, for the first time in a long time, made sense. I will be the first to admit that this is not a series of episodes you want to watch if you're feeling even vaguely emotionally unstable. Seriously, this takes the word "dark" to entirely new levels. Just when you start to think, "Things cannot get worse" they do. But...I liked it.
I also liked that the 456 scared the living hell out of me.
Finally truly evil, terrifying aliens that you never even get a good look at. Finally, finally a scifi show gets the fact that the scariest monsters are the ones you create in your own mind. And yay to the script writers who figured out that the mere insertion of heavy, long pauses from the aliens would do more to freak out the viewers than lots of ridiculous CGI nonsense.
Yes, ok, I was absolutely devastated when Ianto died (even though I knew it was coming) but at least he died well. And yes the whole thing with Steven was emotionally manipulative as hell, but I was willing to give a lot of that a pass because the rest was so damn good. And again, giant demon guys...it's like it's not even the same series.
Torchwood finally grew up. About goddamn time.
I know several folks may strongly disagree with my take on this, and I'm willing to agree to disagree, but I may just be pimping the show hard to those I know haven't seen it.
Will I tune in for season 4? Yeah, I think I just might.
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 05:57 am (UTC)So what would Torchwood season four look like? Gwen, Rhys, Lois and scary black ops lady?
no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 06:28 am (UTC)If I were writing it? No on Rhys (someone has to look after the baby, right?), but yes on everybody else and as I say a reinvigorated Jack plus Mickey because I love him so.
As for trauma, yeah I get that, believe me I do. If I were more invested in the series I'd probably feel pretty trashed as well. Because I was on the periphery I could look at it fairly objectively and enjoy it on that level.
Also I like good horror done well, and I like dark, dark, dark. I really like it. It's one of the reasons I adore Hong Kong flicks so much. I know from the start everybody's probably going to end up dead (if they're lucky) and I'm down with that.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 06:31 am (UTC)OMG I would so watch TW season four if Mickey were in it.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 03:29 pm (UTC)See? I could totally make this right if only they'd hire me to take over next season. Of course I'd also find some way of bringing Ianto back as well...
no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 08:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 03:31 pm (UTC)Again, giant demon guy vs. this well thought out and acted emotional rollercoaster. It's not really computing for me either. The only thing I can think is that the team finds it way easier to work on a single story spread over 5 episodes with a beginning, a middle and an end than they do on a per season basis.
This would, in fact, explain a lot.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-25 04:46 am (UTC)The wife actually thought they might just fail to come up with anything on time and lose the 10% in the end anyway. I wouldn't have complained. As it is, the moral of the story is pretty clear: start compromising with what you know to be wrong and look where it gets you in 43 years.
I don't see how they can carry on at this point. It would just feel wrong for Jack to return in anything less than a very long time, even allowing for the aforementioned blue box to pick him up a thousand years later and return him to Earth in 2011 or whenever. Gwen has her own troubles having two boys in the house and isn't about to bring Torchwood back all by her lonesome, especially with the Hub in ruins. (And besides, John Barrowman is in roughly 140% of all BBC shows now so who's got the time?)
David Gerrold once said the problem with TV versus feature film writing is that you can't really do high drama on TV because you've got to bring everyone back next week, and that feature films work because it's the most important thing that will ever happen to those characters. In that sense, I think this was our Torchwood movie, and a good one too.
One other thought: look at what's happened in the UK in the last decade or so of TV time: government wiped out by the Slitheen. Replaced by Harriet Jones, prime minister (yes we !-ing know who you are) who then gets cast out shortly after the Sycorax incident. Replaced by Harold Saxon, which worked out REAL well...replaced by a guy who just sold one-tenth of the children of Britain down the river and had it all on tape. At this point, I think that there are serious questions about how well the Who-niverse Great Britain can continue to function as a democratic society, and I would not at all be averse to seeing how that plays out in a notional Season 4 (or for that matter Season 5 of Who).
no subject
Date: 2009-07-25 05:43 am (UTC)BTW, funny timing, Aelf and I were just watching eps 1-2. I made her stop there as she will want to watch the next 3 without a break. She wants to do so tomorrow, she's utterly hooked and hasn't even seen the 456 yet. Heh :)