"...you got to be ready, cause we sure as hell ain't."
I feel I'm being generous when I say Torchwood is rubbish. Utter rubbish. Entertaining rubbish, but rubbish nonetheless.
Those people are messed up as anything. They don't follow their own mandate. They have a leader who, being fair, generally has the authority of a wet paper hanky. These people want to protect us from what's coming? Dude, I wouldn't let them protect my dead cat. Because when I got back, it'd be a zombie-killer cat and they'd have to shoot a half dozen innocent bystanders to get it back under the ground.
There's been, what, seven episodes now? And how many of those have had Our Heroes going after an Actual Threat that's not their own goddamned fault? First we have Suzie, the murderer, then we have Gwen, the One Who Can't Throw Straight. Ghost Machine! Hurrah! Look, they didn't start that one! But they did decide to get rid of the tech at the end. Then there's reinforcement of the canonical fact that Torchwood Can't Spot Cybermen In Their Own Headquarters, followed by Exciting Sequences of Torchwood turning up and Doing Nothing to stop the Scary!Fairies. Then the whole fecking team idiotically gets themselves caught and Jack bails them out with a bloody tractor and IT'S JUST A BUNCH OF FARMERS WITH PITCHFORKS. Finally, it's more tech!destroying fun. Dude. Three episodes of them cleaning up their own mess, two destroying that oh-so-important tech and none showing that kick-ass competence the production team are desperate to make me believe is there.
And the reason it bothers me (feel I should put in a reminder here: I like this show) is because this, apparently, is not what the production team see. And I'm forced to ask, are they all quite, quite mad? There is a scary amount of dissonance between what I'm seeing on-screen and what they'd have me believe is up there. Is it the slow-mo team shots? Are they so darned convincing that they can't believe anyone who looks That Cool could be a bit rubbish really?
Now, UNIT. UNIT had a rise, fall, rise pattern. There was a time when they were a bit rubbish too. But it took them five years to get there, and they recovered the following year. They had a traitor too. And he was quietly packed off, dignity intact, and they did try to get him some help for his crazy even if he did try to eliminate the entire human race from history. But, to be fair, he wasn't exactly feeling himself after being subjected to the control of some crazy computer thing a few stories earlier. And he has a chance to redeem himself before he disappeared into the metaphorical sunset.
If you're a traitor at TW, and you don't shoot yourself, you get to stay on. You get to keep making the coffee and you get to keep writing your teen emo-goth poetry in your head. Also, nobody tries to get you any of that help that you probably need before you go all-out killer crazy (and he will, if only to not rescue Jack from Certain Death.)
The Brigadier would have a fit if he knew about this place. I tell a lie. He wouldn't. He'd stride it, and raise an eyebrow. Then he'd have the whole lot of them shipped out and get some people in who'd gone through a psych examination first.
And that is why I have my Lovely Theory about Torchwood: it's not really Torchwood. Jack was just wandering about London, got the Doctor's hand, heard a few things about the real TW and thought, "That sounds neat. I think I'll have my own secret organisation. And we'll have a cool base, and cool adventures and look really cool, like, all of the time. Also we shall have a pterodactyl. Cause that'd be cool. Now, what to call it? What to call it? Ooh! Torchwood! I'll just say we got caught in a time rift or something and are obv a real part of the organisation. We will clearly be cooler than the dude in Glasgow, so this will not be questioned."
And by some Madness, his plan has worked.
Now I'm going back to writing my epic post-Doomsday Rose reunion fic. No, really.
Those people are messed up as anything. They don't follow their own mandate. They have a leader who, being fair, generally has the authority of a wet paper hanky. These people want to protect us from what's coming? Dude, I wouldn't let them protect my dead cat. Because when I got back, it'd be a zombie-killer cat and they'd have to shoot a half dozen innocent bystanders to get it back under the ground.
There's been, what, seven episodes now? And how many of those have had Our Heroes going after an Actual Threat that's not their own goddamned fault? First we have Suzie, the murderer, then we have Gwen, the One Who Can't Throw Straight. Ghost Machine! Hurrah! Look, they didn't start that one! But they did decide to get rid of the tech at the end. Then there's reinforcement of the canonical fact that Torchwood Can't Spot Cybermen In Their Own Headquarters, followed by Exciting Sequences of Torchwood turning up and Doing Nothing to stop the Scary!Fairies. Then the whole fecking team idiotically gets themselves caught and Jack bails them out with a bloody tractor and IT'S JUST A BUNCH OF FARMERS WITH PITCHFORKS. Finally, it's more tech!destroying fun. Dude. Three episodes of them cleaning up their own mess, two destroying that oh-so-important tech and none showing that kick-ass competence the production team are desperate to make me believe is there.
And the reason it bothers me (feel I should put in a reminder here: I like this show) is because this, apparently, is not what the production team see. And I'm forced to ask, are they all quite, quite mad? There is a scary amount of dissonance between what I'm seeing on-screen and what they'd have me believe is up there. Is it the slow-mo team shots? Are they so darned convincing that they can't believe anyone who looks That Cool could be a bit rubbish really?
Now, UNIT. UNIT had a rise, fall, rise pattern. There was a time when they were a bit rubbish too. But it took them five years to get there, and they recovered the following year. They had a traitor too. And he was quietly packed off, dignity intact, and they did try to get him some help for his crazy even if he did try to eliminate the entire human race from history. But, to be fair, he wasn't exactly feeling himself after being subjected to the control of some crazy computer thing a few stories earlier. And he has a chance to redeem himself before he disappeared into the metaphorical sunset.
If you're a traitor at TW, and you don't shoot yourself, you get to stay on. You get to keep making the coffee and you get to keep writing your teen emo-goth poetry in your head. Also, nobody tries to get you any of that help that you probably need before you go all-out killer crazy (and he will, if only to not rescue Jack from Certain Death.)
The Brigadier would have a fit if he knew about this place. I tell a lie. He wouldn't. He'd stride it, and raise an eyebrow. Then he'd have the whole lot of them shipped out and get some people in who'd gone through a psych examination first.
And that is why I have my Lovely Theory about Torchwood: it's not really Torchwood. Jack was just wandering about London, got the Doctor's hand, heard a few things about the real TW and thought, "That sounds neat. I think I'll have my own secret organisation. And we'll have a cool base, and cool adventures and look really cool, like, all of the time. Also we shall have a pterodactyl. Cause that'd be cool. Now, what to call it? What to call it? Ooh! Torchwood! I'll just say we got caught in a time rift or something and are obv a real part of the organisation. We will clearly be cooler than the dude in Glasgow, so this will not be questioned."
And by some Madness, his plan has worked.
Now I'm going back to writing my epic post-Doomsday Rose reunion fic. No, really.