Torchwood 101
After reading a lot on Torchwood and getting interested in it, mainly because of a certain Ianto and his relationship to Jack, I started looking for more on the series and here is my comment on the first episode, "Everything Changes":
First, the plot. I liked the concept of Torchwood, that they keep to themselves, don’t even consider helping with the serial murders. If they had been helping with that, they might have discovered earlier that Suzie was the murderer. Her reasons were good, I really, really liked her motivation, in a psychotic way it’s a good one, one worth considering. Why she just came up to Gwen and confessed everything to her, I can’t really understand, it was for the plot. It would have been a lot more intelligent to approach her from behind and just shoot or stab her. But then, the whole story wouldn’t have worked.
Gwen was a bit annoying. She is that Lois Lane character that finds out about Torchwood and wants to know everything, too much. Coincidence is her greatest aid. I didn’t like how she coincidentally was in the hospital and saw a man in a trenchcoat running past. That could have been everyone, it’s not unusual to wear a trenchcoat. And although the pizza part was funny, with Owen having to admit that he ordered pizza under the name of Torchwood, it was just too unlikely that Gwen would spot this delivery guy and go ask in the pizzeria whether they delivered to Torchwood.
I don’t get why she lies to her boyfriend instead of just telling him the truth. He seems very much in love with her and would probably understand. She doesn’t have to go into great detail, just tell him that she was at the crime scene after John Tucker was murdered. It doesn’t make any sense to keep this from him, but it will probably end up with her breaking up with him or whatever because if she’s lying to him about her normal job already, what will she do now that she’s with Torchwood?
The team is a very unlikely bunch.
Captain Jack Harkness is obviously hot and in command. He has seen a lot, been to other planets (I should have watched the Doctor Who series before this one. One of the comments by him I found strange was "Still, 'least I won't get pregnant. Never doing that again." I won’t question it, it’s probably just some throwaway line. A thing that is interesting is his name, the fact that a Captain Jack Harkness who is an American has gone MIA in 1941 and it *could* be this one. Time travel is probably not impossible.
I would also like to mention the fact that he cannot die that is probably attributed to the Doctor Who series as well. Yeah, I know, I’m gonna watch it.
I loved the dialogue between Jack and Ianto:
Jack:
Ianto is the cutest thing ever. He didn’t say much or do anything important except for hacking into Gwen’s computer and turning it off, but he just has this puppy look and is incredibly cute.
Owen misuses the perfume to get this girl and her boyfriend to sleep with him which makes me wonder about his sexuality. He looked happy when seducing the guy as well, immediately calling a taxi. Wonder how this will play out.
Suzie and Toshiko are more interested in their jobs with Suzie going as far as killing people to get control over the gauntlet and committing suicide when she is discovered and Toshiko testing this little scanner.
The hand in the stasis tube that is shown in the hub seems to be of some importance, the camera lingered on it for a long time.
The gauntlet that looks like it has been removed from Doctor Doom’s armor and that is the main focus of this episode probably won’t be seen again, after all Ianto stores it in the end of the episode.
The pterodactyl reinforces the possibility of there being time travel although I can’t fathom why Torchwood didn’t get a dog if they wanted a pet, it would have been easier to look after.
John Tucker reveals that there is nothing after you die which I feel very comfortable with because I’m an atheist. This job probably shakes your religious beliefs anyway and thus it doesn’t matter that this was revealed, at least not to the crew, to the person watching, it might be offensive.
There were only two soundtrack songs I noticed, one of them being played when Gwen and her partner break up a bar fight and Gwen is injured which leads to her having to go to the hospital, thus setting everything in motion, made me cringe, it just didn’t fit in. But then Snow Patrol’s "Spitting Games" was played in the bar when Owen picks up the blond chick with his perfume and that made it up to me. I LOVE that song.
This is Ianto Jones, Ianto cleans up after us and gets us everywhere on time.
Ianto: I try my best.
Jack: And he looks good in a suit.
Ianto: Careful, that’s harassment sir.
This is enough for me, I’m a shipper (I admit that I got interested in Torchwood because I read something about these two and I have a thing for these kinds of whatever as my obsession with Wes and Hobbie proves).