The wonders of a good green tea latte
I'm home today and tomorrow, as I try and scrub this book clean of typos and give it a better shape. Yay! Of course, this means I *should not* be wasting time mooning over the Doctor. :D It's difficult, though. He's so eminently mooning-over material. He's, like, made for mooning-over.
My rushing headlong slow slide into carefully flirtation with Doctor Who continues apace. heh.
But that's not really why I'm posting! No!
What I liked:
--In the scene when his mother visits him, and Jonah starts to freak out, I fully expected him to show some mutation, or to shift in some way, or to just change, probably into something horrific enough to justify the shell-shocked nature of the the psycology being shown -- what with the crying and the screams, and the general insane asylum atmosphere of the place. But then he just started screaming -- that was seriously disturbing. In part because the look on Jonah's face showed that he couldn't help it, he couldn't control it, he just had to scream, had to go insane. And it wasn't simple tortured screaming. It was quite literally the scream of someone who had looked into a dark star. As disturbing as it was, it was ten times more disturbing for being understated (always the scariest kind of horror, imo.)
That in and of itself is pretty scary, and fucking sad, but the reveal made it even more so. A "nice" whamey, a sort of switch-a-roo, leading us down one expectation but delivering with a twist. Nicely done, Torchwood.
--Rhys Williams. Whether it's the writers or Kai Owen, they're constantly making him the most believably real character on the show. They're really mining beautiful depths with him -- very every day wants and desires but not in the least bit surface level or cursory. And he's just lovely. I may want to cuddle Ianto excessively (or have him around to make witty dry comments and make me fabulous coffee,) but Rhys is totally my boyfriend on this show.
--I have No Objection Whatsoever to Ianto/Gwen, Rhys notwithstanding, because I don't actually get a UST vibe from Gwen and Ianto. It's much more Companion/Companion. They could go there, but they probably won't, unless extenuating circumstances call for it. Or something (hello OT4. Come on Torchwood, you know you want tooooooo)
What I didn't like:
--It's like the writers try very hard to make me dislike Captain Jack. I'm not keen on disliking him, you know. I want to like him, very much. I really do! And yet, he keeps doing things that I kind of hate. :( Why couldn't he just tell Gwyn? Why exactly did he have to be such a bastard about it? I get the emotions that were at play here, that's fine, but it doesn't make any sense at all for it -- the base or whatever it was, the missing people, what happened to them, any of it -- to be kept a secret from those who work at Torchwood. It's their job! That's what they do! It was horrific, yes, and just amazingly sad, but, that's what Torchwood is there for! He should have been upfront -- if he was protecting Gwen from the horror of it, fine, but when it was obvious that she needed to know, he should have told her.
--The problem with the above, of course, is that it's a conceit of the plot, needing Gwyn to discover things in her everyman capacity, to lead the audience to that horror of Jonah screaming, plus to the emotional arc of the episode with the theme of parents and babies and loss. This may or may not have been necessary. I'm leaning towards not necessary, mostly because it's so bloody obvious a manipulation of the audience. Viewers want to be manipulated (or else why watch TV?), but it shouldn't be at the cost of logic or at the cost of character bungling, because, really? I would love a Torchwood episode in which Jack doesn't act like a selfish bastard -- usually for the sake of the stupid plot of the episode! Stop it! Please? Or maybe I just have to look to Doctor Who for Jack to be the Jack I want. hrmph.
However! It was still a rather brilliant bit of understated horror. Much more effecting than the Death business, and especially better than episodes like Countrycide.
:)
Hm. Maybe I need a Rhys icon...
My rushing headlong slow slide into carefully flirtation with Doctor Who continues apace. heh.
But that's not really why I'm posting! No!
What I liked:
--In the scene when his mother visits him, and Jonah starts to freak out, I fully expected him to show some mutation, or to shift in some way, or to just change, probably into something horrific enough to justify the shell-shocked nature of the the psycology being shown -- what with the crying and the screams, and the general insane asylum atmosphere of the place. But then he just started screaming -- that was seriously disturbing. In part because the look on Jonah's face showed that he couldn't help it, he couldn't control it, he just had to scream, had to go insane. And it wasn't simple tortured screaming. It was quite literally the scream of someone who had looked into a dark star. As disturbing as it was, it was ten times more disturbing for being understated (always the scariest kind of horror, imo.)
That in and of itself is pretty scary, and fucking sad, but the reveal made it even more so. A "nice" whamey, a sort of switch-a-roo, leading us down one expectation but delivering with a twist. Nicely done, Torchwood.
--Rhys Williams. Whether it's the writers or Kai Owen, they're constantly making him the most believably real character on the show. They're really mining beautiful depths with him -- very every day wants and desires but not in the least bit surface level or cursory. And he's just lovely. I may want to cuddle Ianto excessively (or have him around to make witty dry comments and make me fabulous coffee,) but Rhys is totally my boyfriend on this show.
--I have No Objection Whatsoever to Ianto/Gwen, Rhys notwithstanding, because I don't actually get a UST vibe from Gwen and Ianto. It's much more Companion/Companion. They could go there, but they probably won't, unless extenuating circumstances call for it. Or something (hello OT4. Come on Torchwood, you know you want tooooooo)
What I didn't like:
--It's like the writers try very hard to make me dislike Captain Jack. I'm not keen on disliking him, you know. I want to like him, very much. I really do! And yet, he keeps doing things that I kind of hate. :( Why couldn't he just tell Gwyn? Why exactly did he have to be such a bastard about it? I get the emotions that were at play here, that's fine, but it doesn't make any sense at all for it -- the base or whatever it was, the missing people, what happened to them, any of it -- to be kept a secret from those who work at Torchwood. It's their job! That's what they do! It was horrific, yes, and just amazingly sad, but, that's what Torchwood is there for! He should have been upfront -- if he was protecting Gwen from the horror of it, fine, but when it was obvious that she needed to know, he should have told her.
--The problem with the above, of course, is that it's a conceit of the plot, needing Gwyn to discover things in her everyman capacity, to lead the audience to that horror of Jonah screaming, plus to the emotional arc of the episode with the theme of parents and babies and loss. This may or may not have been necessary. I'm leaning towards not necessary, mostly because it's so bloody obvious a manipulation of the audience. Viewers want to be manipulated (or else why watch TV?), but it shouldn't be at the cost of logic or at the cost of character bungling, because, really? I would love a Torchwood episode in which Jack doesn't act like a selfish bastard -- usually for the sake of the stupid plot of the episode! Stop it! Please? Or maybe I just have to look to Doctor Who for Jack to be the Jack I want. hrmph.
However! It was still a rather brilliant bit of understated horror. Much more effecting than the Death business, and especially better than episodes like Countrycide.
:)
Hm. Maybe I need a Rhys icon...