I'm trying to blame these sniffles on a cold, but it isn't working
I really didn't think Torchwood would be very good. The overly bloody and overly sexualized Hey Look We're Doing The CSI: Cardiff Porn Channel in-your-face-ness of Torchwood is offputting and hilarious at the same time. Owen and Gwen are so phenomenally unattractive that it gets really silly really fast when they're trying to be hot together. Ahhh... no.
Jack/Ianto, on the other hand. Hey. I'd watch the CCTV of Jack's office to see what happened with the stopwatch. Um.
But I wasn't expecting writing on par with its parent show (the orgasmic-energy-gas-monster episode didn't help with first impressions), and it's been pretty pleasant to have my expectations overturned. At least a bad episode of Torchwood is better than reality TV. It feels pretty rough at first, but once it hits its stride it's surprisingly sweet and smart behind the gratuitous bloodspray. (And the Doctor fan in me loves it because it adds that extra layer or three to his interaction with Jack in the Master eps. "Just looking at you, Jack... because you're wrong." "Thanks." Bitter, bitter, bitter. The Torchwood Jack of Utopia-onwards is not the same Jack of Eccleston's run. Time travel is such a convenient plot device for writing massive character changes in only a couple of short seasons. It raises the very real thing that no one wants to think about, which is that, yeah, the Doctor's amazing, but outside the TARDIS people are living in linear time without a choice about it. And it makes linear time seem so cruel. Like something you should run from, but you can't -- and time is ruthless in its inevitability.)
Anyway. I was happy that Torchwood was pretty good. I didn't think it was going to sucker punch me. Stupid. But "Random Shoes" is probably one of those episodes I won't be able to watch very often, like "The Body" in Buffy and "Bad Timing" in Farscape, and a whole plethora of X-Files episodes.
You find beauty in the most random things.
-rave
ETA: So I was like, Hey, I finished my homework and I'm already past the uber-depressing episode of Torchwood, so I'll treat myself to the next ep to feed my inner Jack/Ianto monster. And I'll be damned if the next episode is not ten trillion times more depressing than the previous one. Stupid Torchwood. (Add "Out of Time" -- sans Owen in an ideal world, but alas, I cannot shoot him in the head because he is fictional -- to my list of ARGH, NEVER AGAIN episodes.)
Jack/Ianto, on the other hand. Hey. I'd watch the CCTV of Jack's office to see what happened with the stopwatch. Um.
But I wasn't expecting writing on par with its parent show (the orgasmic-energy-gas-monster episode didn't help with first impressions), and it's been pretty pleasant to have my expectations overturned. At least a bad episode of Torchwood is better than reality TV. It feels pretty rough at first, but once it hits its stride it's surprisingly sweet and smart behind the gratuitous bloodspray. (And the Doctor fan in me loves it because it adds that extra layer or three to his interaction with Jack in the Master eps. "Just looking at you, Jack... because you're wrong." "Thanks." Bitter, bitter, bitter. The Torchwood Jack of Utopia-onwards is not the same Jack of Eccleston's run. Time travel is such a convenient plot device for writing massive character changes in only a couple of short seasons. It raises the very real thing that no one wants to think about, which is that, yeah, the Doctor's amazing, but outside the TARDIS people are living in linear time without a choice about it. And it makes linear time seem so cruel. Like something you should run from, but you can't -- and time is ruthless in its inevitability.)
Anyway. I was happy that Torchwood was pretty good. I didn't think it was going to sucker punch me. Stupid. But "Random Shoes" is probably one of those episodes I won't be able to watch very often, like "The Body" in Buffy and "Bad Timing" in Farscape, and a whole plethora of X-Files episodes.
You find beauty in the most random things.
-rave
ETA: So I was like, Hey, I finished my homework and I'm already past the uber-depressing episode of Torchwood, so I'll treat myself to the next ep to feed my inner Jack/Ianto monster. And I'll be damned if the next episode is not ten trillion times more depressing than the previous one. Stupid Torchwood. (Add "Out of Time" -- sans Owen in an ideal world, but alas, I cannot shoot him in the head because he is fictional -- to my list of ARGH, NEVER AGAIN episodes.)