Just for clarification (I have a viewing problem), I haven’t seen Ghost Machine, Cyberwoman, or Small Worlds. I do know Cyberwoman, and Ghost Machine fairly well, and have a rough outline of Small Worlds but I’m sure to make some incorrect assumptions based on not having seen them. Correct me, if I do.
The whole ep just made me do a whole lot of character reflection. In particular Gwen, but also various relationships, and other characters off and on as well. Thoughts would be appreciated.
Let’s start with me being chicken (I am, I am). It’s the sole reason I didn’t watch Doctor Who as a child (though to be fair I was fairly young the last time it played here) - it was the scary programme, designed to give over-imaginative children such as myself nightmares (I told you I was chicken!). The first watch through of this scared me silly (not least of which because it was late and I was the only one awake). The second watch through made me a touch less scared, though, which is good (well, it was daylight and there were people and arguments and vacuum cleaners).
Moving on with the review. I loved it, I really did. Terrified and horrified though I might be, I really did enjoy it. Very much. The only down point was the ending. It made me cringe. Cheesy. Bleh. But other than that it really was awesome.
I also found it made me do a lot of character reflection. Lots and lots of thoughts buzzing around in my head.
First in foremost there was no emotional reset button for poor Ianto. His reaction to Gwen’s ill-timed and childish game (methinks she wanted to confess, or to have Owen confess - we know she doesn’t like secrets) was perfect. Lisa makes everyone supremely uncomfortable, but she his focus for a long time and that’s not going to change. And now, while being ignored may have suited him (despite his intense dislike of it) when he had a secret, now that he has nothing to hide he is going to make his presence felt from now on. I doubt he’s going to go back to being comfortable and invisible or in the background.
I did find his comment to Tosh interesting about the thrill that she and the others get out of their work, especially when things start to get rough, and then later her rather defensive comment about she did her job to protect people, when he asked her if she was afraid of what she might become. Interesting that he’s echoing words from Gwen and from Jack in conversations he wasn’t present for (because everyone was ignoring him :p).
But I do find that little exchange interesting because while Ianto didn’t get his emotional reset, Suzie certainly did (might change with the ep They Keep Killing Suzie), which makes me wonder what exactly Toshiko and Susie were told about Susie and her extra-curricula activities with the glove.
In her rather maddened ramblings to Gwen, she mentions what the glove might be capable of if they learn how to use it. Good intentions pave the way to hell - and what does that say about our heroes. How far will they fall, doing the right thing?
Gwen is the one to watch, because if anything she is the control for the others, which is why I think we see so much of her. Not just because she gives us the outsiders view coming into Torchwood, but because we know how she came in, we can watch her fall. Jack brought her on to the team as much for her humanity, her normalness, as any real policing skills she might have. Yet we’re beginning to see her pull away from that. She’s losing her ability to connect with the real world. With Rhys and all he represents - to the point where I think Rhys maybe the only connection with the outside world - and we all know how well that’s working out.
Which inevitably leads us to the fact of Owen (and there is something perverse in me that loves Gwen/Owen). Gwen, as she says, desperately needs someone to connect to, and she doesn’t have a particular rapport with Toshiko or Ianto, leaving her with Jack and Owen. There are a number of reasons that she and Jack aren’t together, reasons that are either not applicable to Owen, or ones he can overlook (notably that’s she ‘s in a serious relationship - permanent enough that she seems to have intended on having a child in).
Owen has a questionable morality and has said (right back in Day One) that he is attracted to Gwen. As she got to know him (as we got to know him), Owen has become less of a prick and more of a real person. These two add to make him accessible to Gwen.
[On a side note, I was highly amused to Owen’s reaction to Jack after he’d treated Gwen. The very clear, “Don’t touch. Mine.” All I could think was ‘poor Jack, no one lets him have the pretty girls’.]
Also, curious how Gwen/Owen will affect the Jack/Gwen dynamic, though there were points in this ep that I thought we finally might have started to see Gwen-as-second-in-command (just tiny glimpses. Owen’s told Jack to back off and Jack has so far revealed himself to be mindful of someone who is taken, despite the fat that Gwen has unbalanced her relationships by having an affair. What is Jack’s reaction going to be to the fact that he was Gwen’s focus and now may not be. How will Owen act if Gwen doesn’t noticeably modify her and Jack’s relationship? I don’t think he sees competition in her and Rhys’s relationship, at least not yet, it’s too early for me to predict that yet.
I also think that Jack and Owen are also attracted to Gwen for much the same reason: her normalness, the fact that she is still reasonably untouched by the darkness of Torchwood (although that’s changing). Jack seems to have consciously acknowledged that, but I’m necessarily sure that Owen has.
Yes, I could make all sorts of comments about Gwen and Owen’s relationship and how wrong and twisted it is, but we’ve all been there, we know why it’s wrong and we know that both of their motivations for the relationship are wrong and that it is going to be messy. There’s a big part of me that says ‘good!’, as much as I know it’s probably going to be a train wreck. I just like the way that Burn Gorman and Eve Myles interact with each other as Owen and Gwen.
On a completely different subject: This ep also highlighted for me (remember I haven’t seen three eps) the lack of team unity between the Torchwood members. Yes there is a loyalty and friendship (of sorts) there - they certainly seem to react badly to each other being threatened and Ianto was very self-sacrificial for Toshiko. Still at times they seem to be more a long the lines of people doing the same job, inhabiting the same place, but not necessarily working together. They will do what they want when they want, and Jack, as the leader can’t always control them. There is very much an element of self-service there.
Which brings us back to Tosh’s comment about protecting people. For all that Torchwood offers them something that nowhere else does and that’s what Gwen is drowning in now. Where this will lead her is where the others are now.
I realise I haven’t much commented on Owen, and that, I think is because there isn’t much to say. We don’t know a whole lot about his background (he’s almost as mysterious as the others), he doesn’t have much of a moral compass (as noted above), but there are genuine elements of caring in him. I want to know more about him, because I want to know more about his motives, more about his past, before I’m willing to say more about him as a person. I have too many conflicting things.
Thoughts? Rants?