I've never seen Squee Radiate From my Father's head before
For anybody here from Torch_wood: Hi, I'm Lydia. I spend most of my time bouncing between American states that start with 'M' and I've been watching some manifestation of science fiction since I was in diapers. While my original fandom-love, embarrassingly enough, has nothing to do with science fiction, it does have sparkle and often five people of wavering sexualities, so don't let the rest of the journal daunt you. I'm a long winded media studies/ cognitive science student on break this semester who has been trying to cut down on the things I have to say when I do these 10 things reviews, honest! There will probably be a lot of you that go TL;DR, but meh. Gotta think of something to keep the brain going until late January.
My father, who is almost 60, is officially in love with Torchwood. We're both so addicted to it's camp and hilarity that we started looking forward emphatically to Sunday nights, and sit down, after rather long talks about what's happening at work and workouts and family and all, to sit down and watch the innuendo squad. AND LOVE IT.
I know a lot of you, f-list, have gotten bitten by the Supernatural bug, and I can easily see why, but I'm sorry, in this household it's so obviously Torchwood, it's not even funny anymore. It's probably because we started getting into it the weekend it came out, he kept asking me whether or not I had it already, and I think if we had been watching supernatural beforehand, we would be very emphatically in that, now. The Brits just got to us first.
Now if we could only nudge my mother into the fun.
1. I think the both of us agreed that Jack just radiates (and not in the best of ways) every time he picks up a gun. I know someone highlighted Barrowman as 'would've been an interesting James Bond', but I honestly can't see him being all suave when Captain Jack makes those adorably GAY faces and how he runs into things all the time. Walls, doors, gwen, you name it. You just want a drag queen alien from a John Waters film to come up and GLOMP him from behind. With a gun that holds more than six bullets. That six shooter's on this side of getting on my nerves.
2. GWEN AND OWEN!
A) I didn't think it was going to work, when I saw it in the first couple of eps, but Jesus Christ, that last sequence was edited fabulously, and even though you obviously saw it coming, the two of them in Owen's apartment was beautifully done, like there was passion between their two characters, honest to god they look good even as the newbie and the asshole. The conversation line was hilarious, as were his 'all night long' lines that were really honestly out of a harlequin novel I read when I was about 16 (then again, I could probably pin a whole lot of dialogue out of a harlequin novel, when it comes to this series). And the scene in the woods! And, and, and...
B) I'm glad she's finally getting a little bad-girl into her character, since she's so OBVIOUSLY the focus of this damn show. I wish they would have took less time setting this part of her up, though. That's annoying by any rate, but if she gets to stop talking so damn much about how Jack needs to be a human, that will make me a much happier camper.
C) No captain lets all four of his crazy kids out of his sight at the same time so easily. Did Jack really, really have to give her up so early? I wasn't enjoying the whole Jack/Gwen too much, thought it was a little forced by RTD's 'Rose' syndrome (perhaps it's 'Buffy' Syndrome. That's rather up to debate), but hey, it was just not my thing, like Jack/Ianto isn't other people's thing. Easy Peasy.
3. I loved the way they used scale in this episode. It felt like a better balance between the grandeur of the scenery and the intimacy the acting has picked up in the past few episodes. Sure, the actors are still acting for the nosebleeds, most of the time as cardboard characters, but there's a better feel of proximity than there was before. It was intense, although I think a big chunk of it was significantly due to the story line instead of the performances. And for all the wank they're catching about using a classical horror gimmick, they did do it rather well.
I actually liked the change of scenery more than I thought I would. A lot of the sets, so far, have been rather artificial, as in the way that they are not organic, some of them even reek of being built, but this was well done, and really, if you turned off all the panic and suspense, was a nice episode to just look at, for this American girl whose only seen east-coast american countryside with the occasional venture into the deep south, where she focused on not getting shot by white supremacists instead of admiring the fields and such. I wish they'd do it more often.
4. This one has multiple points, where I get even more long winded! Yay!
A) I thought this episode was really much more horror than sci-fi, but they did a good job of making it as horror-filled as possible, I thought. Sure, it had the same god-awful hook as hostel and touristas and wolf creek and the texas chainsaw massacre and a thousand other movies, but did a good job of focusing, keeping pace, dealing with timing, and milking the act up until the final reveal of who was actually doing this shit. The first half to 2/3s was perhaps some of the best shit this series has had to offer since it went on air. Crack included.
B) And on top of that, it was rather spooky, at least, and didn't reek too much of a scooby doo episode, which was kinda what my expectation had eventually put together going in. For someone who spends saturday nights rather tipsy watching bad hack and slash C movies on the sci-fi channel, I wish this phenomenon would happen more often.
C) My father and I tend to have this little thing kick in where we just yell at the screen when people start doing dumb shit that's more than mildly suspenseful, and that's pretty much why we stopped looking at the newer horror films (Oh my god, I can't believe your jamming that scalpel into your EYE when the key is CLEARLY in your cheek, DUMBFUCK!), and when you're standing on your couch screaming 'DON'T LET HIM DO IT, HE'S GOING TO PULL A MIKE TYSON', I think it's pretty solid to say, it was jolting enough for your standard mid-shelf horror.
D) I think we were probably too desensitized to gore to care very much, though. Speaking of saw, We both started betting, in standard snarky Broussard fashion, who was going to saw off their foot first in the basement scene. And don't get me started about the fact that Tosh had that whole squirmy scene. I'm not as outraged about that as I should be, being wined and dined on the fact that that's obviously a staple of the sub-genre, I'm just kinda glad that there wasn't any clothes ripping or anything in it. And the fact that it easily could have been (and in my opinion would have been much creepier and more clever) Ianto in that role.
E) Really, Jack. No. Really. I'd be much happier if you finessed your way out of situations where you had to rescue your squad of twelve year olds out of a room full of cannibals instead of using a fucking tractor to impossibly John Wayne the whole situation. The Mexican standoff over Tosh wasn't handled too well, either. Alas, it rather is the american dream to run into a room and not mortally wound ANYBODY. Wait... there's something wrong with that. I think you're supposed to kill them.
5. I usually absolutely can't stand the very idea of writers siphoning off the lesser used characters into a mildly interesting side mission so that they can be doing the plot's busy work while the main characters with more central focus stand around and look angsty, but this really worked well for Tosh and Ianto. I'm sure that's a very unsavory sentiment, but could at least stomach it. Ianto has only a few shades of definition, and it's always very cool to see him fall apart, in a strange masochistic way, and I'm happy that Tosh finally got some kind of substantial face time before her own episode, be it wriggling around on the ground or nearly getting choked. Especially since, for the most part, the two of them stay around the office, or in the truck, or checking the pulses or disposing the bodies. Or just generally looking moody and sullen and very-not-sexually-fulfilled. Someone get foam backing for those two, please? The cardboard's getting a bit soggy.
6. I wonder how this whole unrequited love thing's going to work out for Tosh. Perhaps that's a good lead in for what happens next week, because she seems not desperate, but suspiciously unused, in the sexual sense.
7. More convoluted, circular language, Whee!
A) We were both really, really happy that Lisa was brought back up. Like, really. Probably because that's one of our favorite episodes so far (much to the dismay of my mother, because my father really does do a great sobby!Ianto impression for a good inside laugh), but mostly because we like it when Ianto and Jack look at each other in that way. Yes, you heard me, my dad's a slasher. Wanna make something of it?
B) I think my father actually squeed when Jack went off on his little wank about torture. I was split between watching his reaction on that, and hearing what Jack had to say, and kinda partially questioning where the hell that came from, and rolling my eyes over all the falsified BDSM stories that were going to pop up over that little morsel. DO YOUR RESEARCH BEFORE HE PICKS UP THE WHIP, PEOPLE.
C) Can someone bring Jack's happyback? Because really, for all the yelling Barrowman does in interviews about how Jack clicked with the British people, he's certainly lost the perk that clicked with me. It wasn't even the fact that he hasn't sexed someone, yet. It's just...they've taken so much focus off him that when he drops knowledge like this whole torture bit, I first go 'WHUHUH?' and then wonder 'when did that become essential to your heroism?' But I suppose they're going for this whole unconventional heroism tip. Fucked up way of doing it, I suppose, as I go back to the first appearances he made in DW season one and he's kinda got the same undiscovered hidden depths of anguish there as, oh, maybe Ianto had pre-cyberwoman. And still probably has. Depressing, man.
8. I loved the main cannibal guy. He was really into the whole 'I munna eat chu' deal, and it really worked out to his advantage. Like, really in a chinzy, happy cliche kinda way for me. I won't say it was a full-on sexual attraction, but only a few echoes away from it. He honestly looked very hot for his food, in a snuff movie kinda way, and while I wouldn't call it 'well acted', I'll call it creepy as fuck. And he was definitely into being as creepy as fuck, with economy and all of that. I mean, let's be serious, that last bit, with the 'interrogation' and all, was lame but effective for his character, IMO. Perhaps this is the adult-ness we'd been promised before finally coming into clearer, sharper focus. The last time it had been so seared into a character was back with Carys, I thought, and then it was only seared in so much. Lisa had the outfit, but was too focused on the task at hand. I still want that outfit, though.
9. Was I the only person who caught that little bit of a suitor's battle between Owen and Jack when they were in the house with Gwen and that kid? Perhaps I'm reading into that too much, but dude, I could have sworn it was very emphatically there.
10. Ianto. Jesus christ, Ianto. I don't know how you make panic look so good, but I'm torn between saying 'Sad can't be your only emotion', and 'dude, keep that whole pain and suffering and hidden depths of anguish up'. Perhaps it's just that I'm really happy that there's still residue from 01x04 and all, but he definitely still feels very left out and then suddenly in over his head. I don't know what my criteria for acting is on this show, it feels very lopsided and ignorant, but I know that, from American TV, I love economy of displaying depth of character, and general organic acting. Yes, I have no idea what that means, either. But I know David Garreth-Lloyd has it, and manages getting hotter every single episode because of it. Yes, please. Andi'mhappyyoudidn'tshootgwenafterallcauseitwouldhavesuckedandjackwouldn'thavelookedatyouthatwayagain.
And next week seems like the cure to the whole FS/LS syndrome: It needed more lesbians, and we're getting them next week. Let's just hope it's not a Battlestar Galactica six rehash, and that tosh doesn't freeze up the way she and Gwen always seem to do in every episode. Ew. No.
And now that I've gone through three extra cups of tea burning up analytic brain cells on this episode, I'm gonna go, write some more of my genderswitch, do my Ashtanga and get the fuck to bed. Bah, Three Fourty AM again. Pshaw, night.
My father, who is almost 60, is officially in love with Torchwood. We're both so addicted to it's camp and hilarity that we started looking forward emphatically to Sunday nights, and sit down, after rather long talks about what's happening at work and workouts and family and all, to sit down and watch the innuendo squad. AND LOVE IT.
I know a lot of you, f-list, have gotten bitten by the Supernatural bug, and I can easily see why, but I'm sorry, in this household it's so obviously Torchwood, it's not even funny anymore. It's probably because we started getting into it the weekend it came out, he kept asking me whether or not I had it already, and I think if we had been watching supernatural beforehand, we would be very emphatically in that, now. The Brits just got to us first.
Now if we could only nudge my mother into the fun.
1. I think the both of us agreed that Jack just radiates (and not in the best of ways) every time he picks up a gun. I know someone highlighted Barrowman as 'would've been an interesting James Bond', but I honestly can't see him being all suave when Captain Jack makes those adorably GAY faces and how he runs into things all the time. Walls, doors, gwen, you name it. You just want a drag queen alien from a John Waters film to come up and GLOMP him from behind. With a gun that holds more than six bullets. That six shooter's on this side of getting on my nerves.
2. GWEN AND OWEN!
A) I didn't think it was going to work, when I saw it in the first couple of eps, but Jesus Christ, that last sequence was edited fabulously, and even though you obviously saw it coming, the two of them in Owen's apartment was beautifully done, like there was passion between their two characters, honest to god they look good even as the newbie and the asshole. The conversation line was hilarious, as were his 'all night long' lines that were really honestly out of a harlequin novel I read when I was about 16 (then again, I could probably pin a whole lot of dialogue out of a harlequin novel, when it comes to this series). And the scene in the woods! And, and, and...
B) I'm glad she's finally getting a little bad-girl into her character, since she's so OBVIOUSLY the focus of this damn show. I wish they would have took less time setting this part of her up, though. That's annoying by any rate, but if she gets to stop talking so damn much about how Jack needs to be a human, that will make me a much happier camper.
C) No captain lets all four of his crazy kids out of his sight at the same time so easily. Did Jack really, really have to give her up so early? I wasn't enjoying the whole Jack/Gwen too much, thought it was a little forced by RTD's 'Rose' syndrome (perhaps it's 'Buffy' Syndrome. That's rather up to debate), but hey, it was just not my thing, like Jack/Ianto isn't other people's thing. Easy Peasy.
3. I loved the way they used scale in this episode. It felt like a better balance between the grandeur of the scenery and the intimacy the acting has picked up in the past few episodes. Sure, the actors are still acting for the nosebleeds, most of the time as cardboard characters, but there's a better feel of proximity than there was before. It was intense, although I think a big chunk of it was significantly due to the story line instead of the performances. And for all the wank they're catching about using a classical horror gimmick, they did do it rather well.
I actually liked the change of scenery more than I thought I would. A lot of the sets, so far, have been rather artificial, as in the way that they are not organic, some of them even reek of being built, but this was well done, and really, if you turned off all the panic and suspense, was a nice episode to just look at, for this American girl whose only seen east-coast american countryside with the occasional venture into the deep south, where she focused on not getting shot by white supremacists instead of admiring the fields and such. I wish they'd do it more often.
4. This one has multiple points, where I get even more long winded! Yay!
A) I thought this episode was really much more horror than sci-fi, but they did a good job of making it as horror-filled as possible, I thought. Sure, it had the same god-awful hook as hostel and touristas and wolf creek and the texas chainsaw massacre and a thousand other movies, but did a good job of focusing, keeping pace, dealing with timing, and milking the act up until the final reveal of who was actually doing this shit. The first half to 2/3s was perhaps some of the best shit this series has had to offer since it went on air. Crack included.
B) And on top of that, it was rather spooky, at least, and didn't reek too much of a scooby doo episode, which was kinda what my expectation had eventually put together going in. For someone who spends saturday nights rather tipsy watching bad hack and slash C movies on the sci-fi channel, I wish this phenomenon would happen more often.
C) My father and I tend to have this little thing kick in where we just yell at the screen when people start doing dumb shit that's more than mildly suspenseful, and that's pretty much why we stopped looking at the newer horror films (Oh my god, I can't believe your jamming that scalpel into your EYE when the key is CLEARLY in your cheek, DUMBFUCK!), and when you're standing on your couch screaming 'DON'T LET HIM DO IT, HE'S GOING TO PULL A MIKE TYSON', I think it's pretty solid to say, it was jolting enough for your standard mid-shelf horror.
D) I think we were probably too desensitized to gore to care very much, though. Speaking of saw, We both started betting, in standard snarky Broussard fashion, who was going to saw off their foot first in the basement scene. And don't get me started about the fact that Tosh had that whole squirmy scene. I'm not as outraged about that as I should be, being wined and dined on the fact that that's obviously a staple of the sub-genre, I'm just kinda glad that there wasn't any clothes ripping or anything in it. And the fact that it easily could have been (and in my opinion would have been much creepier and more clever) Ianto in that role.
E) Really, Jack. No. Really. I'd be much happier if you finessed your way out of situations where you had to rescue your squad of twelve year olds out of a room full of cannibals instead of using a fucking tractor to impossibly John Wayne the whole situation. The Mexican standoff over Tosh wasn't handled too well, either. Alas, it rather is the american dream to run into a room and not mortally wound ANYBODY. Wait... there's something wrong with that. I think you're supposed to kill them.
5. I usually absolutely can't stand the very idea of writers siphoning off the lesser used characters into a mildly interesting side mission so that they can be doing the plot's busy work while the main characters with more central focus stand around and look angsty, but this really worked well for Tosh and Ianto. I'm sure that's a very unsavory sentiment, but could at least stomach it. Ianto has only a few shades of definition, and it's always very cool to see him fall apart, in a strange masochistic way, and I'm happy that Tosh finally got some kind of substantial face time before her own episode, be it wriggling around on the ground or nearly getting choked. Especially since, for the most part, the two of them stay around the office, or in the truck, or checking the pulses or disposing the bodies. Or just generally looking moody and sullen and very-not-sexually-fulfilled. Someone get foam backing for those two, please? The cardboard's getting a bit soggy.
6. I wonder how this whole unrequited love thing's going to work out for Tosh. Perhaps that's a good lead in for what happens next week, because she seems not desperate, but suspiciously unused, in the sexual sense.
7. More convoluted, circular language, Whee!
A) We were both really, really happy that Lisa was brought back up. Like, really. Probably because that's one of our favorite episodes so far (much to the dismay of my mother, because my father really does do a great sobby!Ianto impression for a good inside laugh), but mostly because we like it when Ianto and Jack look at each other in that way. Yes, you heard me, my dad's a slasher. Wanna make something of it?
B) I think my father actually squeed when Jack went off on his little wank about torture. I was split between watching his reaction on that, and hearing what Jack had to say, and kinda partially questioning where the hell that came from, and rolling my eyes over all the falsified BDSM stories that were going to pop up over that little morsel. DO YOUR RESEARCH BEFORE HE PICKS UP THE WHIP, PEOPLE.
C) Can someone bring Jack's happyback? Because really, for all the yelling Barrowman does in interviews about how Jack clicked with the British people, he's certainly lost the perk that clicked with me. It wasn't even the fact that he hasn't sexed someone, yet. It's just...they've taken so much focus off him that when he drops knowledge like this whole torture bit, I first go 'WHUHUH?' and then wonder 'when did that become essential to your heroism?' But I suppose they're going for this whole unconventional heroism tip. Fucked up way of doing it, I suppose, as I go back to the first appearances he made in DW season one and he's kinda got the same undiscovered hidden depths of anguish there as, oh, maybe Ianto had pre-cyberwoman. And still probably has. Depressing, man.
8. I loved the main cannibal guy. He was really into the whole 'I munna eat chu' deal, and it really worked out to his advantage. Like, really in a chinzy, happy cliche kinda way for me. I won't say it was a full-on sexual attraction, but only a few echoes away from it. He honestly looked very hot for his food, in a snuff movie kinda way, and while I wouldn't call it 'well acted', I'll call it creepy as fuck. And he was definitely into being as creepy as fuck, with economy and all of that. I mean, let's be serious, that last bit, with the 'interrogation' and all, was lame but effective for his character, IMO. Perhaps this is the adult-ness we'd been promised before finally coming into clearer, sharper focus. The last time it had been so seared into a character was back with Carys, I thought, and then it was only seared in so much. Lisa had the outfit, but was too focused on the task at hand. I still want that outfit, though.
9. Was I the only person who caught that little bit of a suitor's battle between Owen and Jack when they were in the house with Gwen and that kid? Perhaps I'm reading into that too much, but dude, I could have sworn it was very emphatically there.
10. Ianto. Jesus christ, Ianto. I don't know how you make panic look so good, but I'm torn between saying 'Sad can't be your only emotion', and 'dude, keep that whole pain and suffering and hidden depths of anguish up'. Perhaps it's just that I'm really happy that there's still residue from 01x04 and all, but he definitely still feels very left out and then suddenly in over his head. I don't know what my criteria for acting is on this show, it feels very lopsided and ignorant, but I know that, from American TV, I love economy of displaying depth of character, and general organic acting. Yes, I have no idea what that means, either. But I know David Garreth-Lloyd has it, and manages getting hotter every single episode because of it. Yes, please. Andi'mhappyyoudidn'tshootgwenafterallcauseitwouldhavesuckedandjackwouldn'thavelookedatyouthatwayagain.
And next week seems like the cure to the whole FS/LS syndrome: It needed more lesbians, and we're getting them next week. Let's just hope it's not a Battlestar Galactica six rehash, and that tosh doesn't freeze up the way she and Gwen always seem to do in every episode. Ew. No.
And now that I've gone through three extra cups of tea burning up analytic brain cells on this episode, I'm gonna go, write some more of my genderswitch, do my Ashtanga and get the fuck to bed. Bah, Three Fourty AM again. Pshaw, night.