beccatoria (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccatoria) wrote2009-07-11 12:40 pm
beccatoria) wrote2009-07-11 12:40 pm
Torchwood: Thoughts about the actual show this time.
So, you know, first just to indulge my obsession, we actually got someone saying something in Welsh zomg! When Gwen gets off the helicopter, PC Andy says, "Croeso i Gymru," which, if you're curious, means "Welcome to Wales." From the way he said it, Andy's not a fluent speaker, but it's one of those phrases most people here know and recognise. I liked it, it was a nice touch.
Now, on to the actual series.
I'm...I dunno. The problem here is that this is, I think, hands down the best five episodes of Torchwood we've seen.
That said, it left me feeling profoundly unsettled and disatisified and not, I think, in entirely the ways it intended.
The thing is, the third season is written as the actual logical conclusion to the first and second seasons as I saw them. Except I'm still convinced that at the time they wrote those seasons they had no idea how dangerous and unprofessional Torchwood seemed?
So we have this actually fairly well-written (with a few glaring and embarassing exceptions) story about what happens when completely inappropriate people fuck about with a no-win situation, make everything worse and get most of themselves killed in the process.
About how when you don't have "I'm the Doctor!" to back it up, running into a room and yelling a lot and having that be, apparently, the entirety of your plan, is a pretty ludicrous way to behave and what the hell were you expecting?
But then, if suddenly, retrospectively, it's being acknowledged that Jack Harkness' Torchwood conducted itself appallingly, the question is...not quite why should I care, but there is the question of where our sympathies lie? Of why we should trust these people and why they haven't worked out the bottom line - that it's all going to hell and the world is not a playground?
In some ways, the chosen threat was very effective for this. It really was one of the few things calculated (and yes, I include myself in this) to make the viewer really want to say damn the consequences - fuck choosing 10% deliberately, let's fight to the death and refuse to collaborate. But then at the same time - entire human race at stake here.
So we really want to side with Jack - we want to believe that he will save us all. Like his daughter. Makes it all the more crushing when he doesn't. Or does, but doesn't if you are his daughter.
Torchwood lets people down. It's a last-ditch defence against things it's entirely unequipped to handle. Because if the Doctor's left you (and I disagree with Gwen who apparently thinks of Tennant's Doctor the way RTD does, not as an arrogant, self-righteous git like I do), you pretty much should be screwed.
But there's the question of generosity on the part of the audience, of how far I'll follow a bleak story and why and what I'm getting out of it.
It's why I dislike Neon Genesis Evangelion; I find the ending (even the revised one) indulgent. I resented watching 24 episodes that only ever posited a single question - when will our heroes break out of their depressions? - to find the answer is, never. No growth, just despair.
What frustrates me is that had I never seen seasons one and two, I think I would have really been on board with this story. I would have thought the bleakness was self-justifying; the sense of ants swatting at gods deliberate. A feel that the Torchwood team, ill-equipped, pissing into the wind, were characterised this way on purpose; so we fall with them, realise how arrogant or useless we are with them, but still, have not a single alternative "good guy" to turn to.
Ianto's death is probably the best example I have of how the bleakness goes from artful to disappointing due simply to the context of previous seasons.
Solely within the context of this mini series, it was the point at which you really realise you're screwed. How dumb they've been. It's that classic, oh crap, real danger moment, and to an extent, yes, that's a cliche. But it's also sudden and understated, and, I think, if John Barrowman were a better actor, would have been quite emotionally affecting.
The problem comes in that I can't forget that Tosh and Owen both died like, two minutes ago. Yes, longer ago in the show world, sure, but...it breaks the fourth wall. It becomes, once again, Torchwood yelling, look at me, I must be deep because I have sex and swearing in me and I kill major characters just because I can! Worse than that, though, is the in-universe problem. Which ties to my other major issue.
While both Tosh and Owen died, it was really only one major event that was responsible for both of their deaths. That's something that's tragic, but that you can write off as, well, "a horrible tragedy," rather than, "Tuesday".
Kill Ianto too, and... Both for Gwen and the non-immortals involved with Torchwood, and for me as a viewer, the question has to be raised: what's the point? This is too dangerous for any sane person to be a part of, and frustrating for the viewer to boot. Are they gonna kill Gwen in S4 because there's no one else left?
My other major issue being, the fallout.
Because I think that my problem, as I said above, is that on its own, I think the darkness is self-justifying. A great deal of the scenario and the plot that went down, I found very compelling. It even ended up working well for me that in early episodes I didn't find the children particularly freaky, considering where it later led. But in introducing not a team like Torchwood, but specifically Torchwood, with all its baggage, I'm left confused as to the message.
Was this their comeuppance? More darkness for the sake? I don't know and I can't even put into words the undercurrent of discomfort I have but somehow this doesn't fit.
And I wish there'd been more fallout. I think that would have, for me, made all the angst and bleakness totally worth it. If we really HAD been watching the end of the world. If this was our apocalypse.
But we get that scene six months later suggesting that civilisation didn't collapse. Even though I know the kids didn't end up getting taken, it also suggests maybe we got some kind of brush-it-under-the-carpet reset button. I liked that Jack ran away, because frankly, after what he did, just...yeah. I'm hoping it's permanent. I think that would be a fitting end to his character at least for the forseeable franchise future. But the explication that he was actually running away and being juvenile about it kind of...made me unfortunately feel we hadn't seen the last of him. Certainly I suspect he'd be back for a fourth season which would disappoint me. I'm not interested in seeing him angst about being such a bastard.
Which is why I wish there'd been more realworld fallout. If they're going to kill Ianto, effectively kill Jack to me (I found his story here interesting but have no faith in the current team of writers to tell me more of it in a way I would find interesting), start a class war about the one thing that people really will fight to the death about, then...use that. Irrevocably change your world.
I half wish they'd taken the ten per cent just for story potential. But even if not, start a fucking mutiny. Have the entire nation rise up against the state and declare revolution. Something.
Plus what's even going on with Torchwood now? Jack clearly naffed off and didn't go back to it and then called Gwen to say goodbye. And presumably she's at least currently off active duty until after the baby's born. But, see EVERYONE DIES above - there's the dilemma now.
I can't see Gwen ever, ever being happy with a quiet life after all she's seen. But after all this, who the hell would go back to that job?
Personally I vote we put Jack's daughter in charge of it. Now there's a character (and a decent actress) who really has nothing to lose. And Lois, since the Cabinet Woman promised to release her and Gwen said she should come if she wants a job. Make Rhys join against his will somehow in a horrifyingly unfair fashion and invite PC Andy as the useless, overeager one to get horrified by the realities of aliens.
But...that's the thing, isn't it? They could follow through with what S3 started; do something interesting with Torchwood. As in, write a bleak, crime-fighting show about messed-up people trying to do something because otherwise they'd go insane. And then I remember, that's what it always thought it was. And it wasn't. It was a juvenile show that thought swearing and sex made it edgy.
I've seen people comparing fan reaction to BSG, or even the finale to it. It's interesting because in some ways I think their problems are opposite. BSG's finale didn't, to my mind, follow through enough on the bleak reality of their situation and previous stories, while TW focused on it exclusively, but this was at odds with both its previous seasons and ultimate fallout?
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asta77 made a comment about BSG and TW and their respective bleaknesses, and it was about how BSG started with an apocalypse. And while her point was about what you signed on for at the start with each show (and that is a point I agree with as I said above), what it impresses on me is how much I wanted this story to be the start of an apocalypse.
Yeah. Maybe that's it. This should have been the start of an apocalypse. And it wasn't. So it just comes off as unendingly dark for the sake of it. A few beautiful moments in there, and when I think about it as a standalone, a surprisingly good story from this creative team, but ultimately, I find myself thinking, if this wasn't really the start of the end of everything, then what was the point?
Now, on to the actual series.
I'm...I dunno. The problem here is that this is, I think, hands down the best five episodes of Torchwood we've seen.
That said, it left me feeling profoundly unsettled and disatisified and not, I think, in entirely the ways it intended.
The thing is, the third season is written as the actual logical conclusion to the first and second seasons as I saw them. Except I'm still convinced that at the time they wrote those seasons they had no idea how dangerous and unprofessional Torchwood seemed?
So we have this actually fairly well-written (with a few glaring and embarassing exceptions) story about what happens when completely inappropriate people fuck about with a no-win situation, make everything worse and get most of themselves killed in the process.
About how when you don't have "I'm the Doctor!" to back it up, running into a room and yelling a lot and having that be, apparently, the entirety of your plan, is a pretty ludicrous way to behave and what the hell were you expecting?
But then, if suddenly, retrospectively, it's being acknowledged that Jack Harkness' Torchwood conducted itself appallingly, the question is...not quite why should I care, but there is the question of where our sympathies lie? Of why we should trust these people and why they haven't worked out the bottom line - that it's all going to hell and the world is not a playground?
In some ways, the chosen threat was very effective for this. It really was one of the few things calculated (and yes, I include myself in this) to make the viewer really want to say damn the consequences - fuck choosing 10% deliberately, let's fight to the death and refuse to collaborate. But then at the same time - entire human race at stake here.
So we really want to side with Jack - we want to believe that he will save us all. Like his daughter. Makes it all the more crushing when he doesn't. Or does, but doesn't if you are his daughter.
Torchwood lets people down. It's a last-ditch defence against things it's entirely unequipped to handle. Because if the Doctor's left you (and I disagree with Gwen who apparently thinks of Tennant's Doctor the way RTD does, not as an arrogant, self-righteous git like I do), you pretty much should be screwed.
But there's the question of generosity on the part of the audience, of how far I'll follow a bleak story and why and what I'm getting out of it.
It's why I dislike Neon Genesis Evangelion; I find the ending (even the revised one) indulgent. I resented watching 24 episodes that only ever posited a single question - when will our heroes break out of their depressions? - to find the answer is, never. No growth, just despair.
What frustrates me is that had I never seen seasons one and two, I think I would have really been on board with this story. I would have thought the bleakness was self-justifying; the sense of ants swatting at gods deliberate. A feel that the Torchwood team, ill-equipped, pissing into the wind, were characterised this way on purpose; so we fall with them, realise how arrogant or useless we are with them, but still, have not a single alternative "good guy" to turn to.
Ianto's death is probably the best example I have of how the bleakness goes from artful to disappointing due simply to the context of previous seasons.
Solely within the context of this mini series, it was the point at which you really realise you're screwed. How dumb they've been. It's that classic, oh crap, real danger moment, and to an extent, yes, that's a cliche. But it's also sudden and understated, and, I think, if John Barrowman were a better actor, would have been quite emotionally affecting.
The problem comes in that I can't forget that Tosh and Owen both died like, two minutes ago. Yes, longer ago in the show world, sure, but...it breaks the fourth wall. It becomes, once again, Torchwood yelling, look at me, I must be deep because I have sex and swearing in me and I kill major characters just because I can! Worse than that, though, is the in-universe problem. Which ties to my other major issue.
While both Tosh and Owen died, it was really only one major event that was responsible for both of their deaths. That's something that's tragic, but that you can write off as, well, "a horrible tragedy," rather than, "Tuesday".
Kill Ianto too, and... Both for Gwen and the non-immortals involved with Torchwood, and for me as a viewer, the question has to be raised: what's the point? This is too dangerous for any sane person to be a part of, and frustrating for the viewer to boot. Are they gonna kill Gwen in S4 because there's no one else left?
My other major issue being, the fallout.
Because I think that my problem, as I said above, is that on its own, I think the darkness is self-justifying. A great deal of the scenario and the plot that went down, I found very compelling. It even ended up working well for me that in early episodes I didn't find the children particularly freaky, considering where it later led. But in introducing not a team like Torchwood, but specifically Torchwood, with all its baggage, I'm left confused as to the message.
Was this their comeuppance? More darkness for the sake? I don't know and I can't even put into words the undercurrent of discomfort I have but somehow this doesn't fit.
And I wish there'd been more fallout. I think that would have, for me, made all the angst and bleakness totally worth it. If we really HAD been watching the end of the world. If this was our apocalypse.
But we get that scene six months later suggesting that civilisation didn't collapse. Even though I know the kids didn't end up getting taken, it also suggests maybe we got some kind of brush-it-under-the-carpet reset button. I liked that Jack ran away, because frankly, after what he did, just...yeah. I'm hoping it's permanent. I think that would be a fitting end to his character at least for the forseeable franchise future. But the explication that he was actually running away and being juvenile about it kind of...made me unfortunately feel we hadn't seen the last of him. Certainly I suspect he'd be back for a fourth season which would disappoint me. I'm not interested in seeing him angst about being such a bastard.
Which is why I wish there'd been more realworld fallout. If they're going to kill Ianto, effectively kill Jack to me (I found his story here interesting but have no faith in the current team of writers to tell me more of it in a way I would find interesting), start a class war about the one thing that people really will fight to the death about, then...use that. Irrevocably change your world.
I half wish they'd taken the ten per cent just for story potential. But even if not, start a fucking mutiny. Have the entire nation rise up against the state and declare revolution. Something.
Plus what's even going on with Torchwood now? Jack clearly naffed off and didn't go back to it and then called Gwen to say goodbye. And presumably she's at least currently off active duty until after the baby's born. But, see EVERYONE DIES above - there's the dilemma now.
I can't see Gwen ever, ever being happy with a quiet life after all she's seen. But after all this, who the hell would go back to that job?
Personally I vote we put Jack's daughter in charge of it. Now there's a character (and a decent actress) who really has nothing to lose. And Lois, since the Cabinet Woman promised to release her and Gwen said she should come if she wants a job. Make Rhys join against his will somehow in a horrifyingly unfair fashion and invite PC Andy as the useless, overeager one to get horrified by the realities of aliens.
But...that's the thing, isn't it? They could follow through with what S3 started; do something interesting with Torchwood. As in, write a bleak, crime-fighting show about messed-up people trying to do something because otherwise they'd go insane. And then I remember, that's what it always thought it was. And it wasn't. It was a juvenile show that thought swearing and sex made it edgy.
I've seen people comparing fan reaction to BSG, or even the finale to it. It's interesting because in some ways I think their problems are opposite. BSG's finale didn't, to my mind, follow through enough on the bleak reality of their situation and previous stories, while TW focused on it exclusively, but this was at odds with both its previous seasons and ultimate fallout?
asta77 made a comment about BSG and TW and their respective bleaknesses, and it was about how BSG started with an apocalypse. And while her point was about what you signed on for at the start with each show (and that is a point I agree with as I said above), what it impresses on me is how much I wanted this story to be the start of an apocalypse. Yeah. Maybe that's it. This should have been the start of an apocalypse. And it wasn't. So it just comes off as unendingly dark for the sake of it. A few beautiful moments in there, and when I think about it as a standalone, a surprisingly good story from this creative team, but ultimately, I find myself thinking, if this wasn't really the start of the end of everything, then what was the point?