HAI TORCHWOOD FANDOM
I've been watching Torchwood since I first followed Jack there from Doctor Who, and I loved the first two series completely. It's only this past few months that I've begun to be interested in the online fandom. Like nearly everyone else, my favourite character is Ianto, followed by Jack (followed by Gwen). I am a Jack/Ianto shipper, but with slightly more interest in Ianto's backstory than the ship. Watching Cyberwoman for the first time is my most memorable moment as a Torchwood fan. I know a lot of you didn't like it, and that's okay, but I loved it. Utterly.
I may have started watching for Captain Jack but, Cyberwoman was the episode that made me sit up and watch with interest for the first time. It was a revelation about the nature of Torchwood as an organization: even the secretary is fucked up beyond imagining. Torchwood was full of thrilling, intriguingly twisted possibilities.
The Cybermen have always been one of the most terrifying Doctor Who villains for me, something about the fate of cyber conversion horrifies me to the very core. When watching Cyberwoman, I began to identify with Ianto because he'd been at Torchwood One and lived through the battle, terrified out of his mind at the threat of being turned into a cyberman (one imagines), just like I had been when I watched it in Doctor Who.
It was a brilliant episode. I couldn't fail to get involved in all the drama of betrayal and love and loss and denial packed into it. Captain Jack was in his element, reverting to the soldier-type we knew him as from Doctor Who, and his final action in the episode, forgiving Ianto, was mindblowing as well, by far the most interesting thing he ever did, up until he resurrected Owen in series 2.
I saw Children of Earth on UKTV, so the same week as Britain got it. I was angry, hurt, betrayed, all that, but I haven't said anything about it anywhere. The thing is, generally I lurk, and read everything everywhere and lurk and lurk, but for some reason I feel like making an exception.
Something in a discussion on Torchwood_house prompted me to begin a response which rapidly went off-topic and over-long, so it's here behind the cut. Oh, yeah, SPOILERS.
Some people are expressing the opinion that Jack is indifferent to Ianto's devotion. I may be confusing things with my own views on the subject, but I read it as people are angry because as of CoE the J/I dynamic we're used to has actually unbalanced (or mirror-flipped).
Well, I really wanted to talk about CoE anyway.
To me Jack seems colder than he used to be. Ianto's attitude, on reflection, does seem a reasonable progression of the development in season 2. (You know, from the guarded interest in KKBB, to playing it down for Martha, to flirting in the office and dancing with Jack at the wedding, to issuing death threats when Jack is in peril.)
It is somewhat at odds with his characterization in some of the most recent Torchwood novels. "The Sin Eaters" is something else entirely, seeming to have been specifially designed as a prequel to Children of Earth. Of all the supplementary media, it seems to fit the best with The Dead Line, as far as J/I dynamic, and the Torchwood team style. (And the Gwen and Rhys wonder team!)
I won't disagree with statements that Jack is indifferent to Ianto's affection in CoE, but I think the weirdness runs deeper than in-character issues between the two. I think it might be showing a reluctance on the part of the show creators to commit to portraying a same-sex relationship. As if it's okay to hint that they're having the sex, and an on-screen kiss will cause only a moment's discomfort to someone who doesn't want to see these types of relationships on screen, but showing a serious emotional relationship between two men might be too much for a mainstream scifi show. And let's face it, this is true. My father loves Doctor Who, and Torchwood, and he still groaned in disgust when Jack and Ianto kissed on screen in Day One of CoE. How many viewers have this type of attitude? How would that contingent react if they actually wrote the relationship as something we couldn't brush off or ignore?
And you know, I don't think they've ever cared about that relationship enough, or wanted it to be important enough in the story to open that can of worms. That's surely their prerogative as show creators. The trouble is, they wrote this relationship. RTD also made a decision not to kill off and resurrect Ianto as planned in series 2, which would have neatly ended that romantic storyline before they had to show more of it than they wanted to.
With this in mind, killing Ianto in CoE must have been a good decision from their side. What bothers me as a viewer, that in those four episodes leading up to his death, they still refused to commit to that story.
This can be seen in the way the Jack/Ianto relationship was portrayed through episodes 1-3. So here's the bits I didn't like in those episodes:
- Ianto's weird "they think we're a couple!" remarks, which I really didn't like because I don't get the point of them. Maybe there's some answer to them in the interactions in subsequent episodes (like with the death hug trial run followed by getting it right in ep 4) but if so, I must've blinked.
- Then there's that incredibly crass joke about Ianto dying, which I really just can't get my head around even now. Did it seem forced? Or is that just me? I couldn't imagine Jack, who has actually lost many more people than anyone living could comprehend actually being comfortable enough with the prospect of losing someone else, to actually joke about it. Especially since the deaths of Owen and Toshiko.
- After they all save Jack from the concrete prison, Jack doesn't express any relief at seeing Ianto, (and Gwen!) are alive. I mean, it was pretty incredible that they survived the explosion and weren't even hurt. I wouldn't have thought Jack was completely confident they'd all survive. Ianto didn't even seem to actually clear the building before it blew. We got to watch Ianto's face as he watched the lumpy bag of Jack's body bits loaded into a van, and then again later on as he listens to Jack scream (well, actually not certain if he could hear that, but I think I could be forgiven for not being sure) as they pipe wet concrete in through the roof of the building.
- Obviously Jack got to experiencing being blown to bits, coming back to life at an extremely ouchy moment, and then the concrete torture, and coming back to life not knowing where he was. He looks terrified, for a moment, and then reminds everyone how awesome he is that he can come back to life, even after being ripped apart by an explosion.
- There is no sign that either are affected by what I can only assume would be somewhat traumatic events to experience, or witness happening to a loved one. Instead, the team gets back together, and Jack is more interested in getting in the middle of Gwen and Rhy's relationship than, say, dealing with the alien threat, or failing that, talking to Ianto about what'd happened.
- Later on, of course, we get Ianto being coy while asking Jack what it's like to get blown up, and this really sort of casual discussion of Ianto's mortality, and Jack's untroubled acceptance of it.
- Ianto's awesome boyfriend moment, replacing Jack's coat, actually kind of hurt. Did anybody not fall in love with Ianto there? I mean, except Jack, who turned it around to him being awesome again, instead of showing Ianto some much deserved appreciation. I think a kiss or a hug or something might have been appropriate there, even despite the awkwardness of Gwen and Rhys being present, because it was such an blatantly affectionate action on Ianto's part. Even Gwen and Rhys can't have been totally oblivious to that.
- The much talked-of beans scene, I really didn't like, because it was played for humour at a point in the story where I thought some seriousness might have been nice. After all, Jack and Ianto have always been about the funny sex jokes, and not much else. If this was the darker, more dramatic version of Torchwood, a more serious treatment of character relationships would seem to be called for, no...? Well, not if it doesn't suit the writers.
The last two episodes didn't arouse nearly as much fannish ire.
Oddly, episode 4 was the one I liked the most, despite the very sad thing that happened. I am pretty broken up about Ianto's death, but as time passes, I see it's more that his death is the final nail in the coffin of the old Torchwood, which I'd believed for a year had not seen its last days yet. There may be more Torchwood in the future, but I don't think it will ever be that show again.
I really didn't want to watch episode 5 after what happened, but, I did, and just cried through the whole thing because it was so cruel, and knowing a thing is manipulating my emotions is doesn't make me proof against it working, unfortunately!
(While I'm at it, how about those recent remarks from Davies in answer to those slash perverts who he presumes are simply miffed because Jack and Ianto didn't get enough bedroom scenes?)
If I could've had what I hoped to see of Jack/Ianto in CoE, it would have been more of a believeable portrayal of a couple in a relationship. I would have like to see two people who were both concerned about each other's safety and welfare. Some indication that they support each other emotionally, as well as those characters could. Perhaps, for once, a truly intimate conversation. (God forbid men talk about their feelings, I know, but surely "I was worried about you" or something like that isn't out of the realm of possibility.)
That's what I'd have like to see, rather than more sex jokes, because without it I'm just assuming the off-screen emotional attachment again, like I had to do all through series 2, and that's just not enough to make Jack's heartbreak seem real. Instead of sympathizing with Jack, I'm wondering... why was he so bothered?
That said, I'm just a fan having a whinge. I think it would be a lovely and generous thing, if creators of TV shows could take into account what the fans like about a show when making story decisions, but I'm too cynical to ever expect that they would.
The sudden change of show style, from focusing on the characters to focusing on the story, was sudden, shocking, more brutal because we seem to have been mislead by pre-publicity to expect the same Torchwood, perhaps, but it seems to have been something RTD almost had to do. Once it was cut by the BBC to only 5 episodes, could they have even told the same kind of Torchwood story that we were used to seeing in 13 parts?
OK, I'm done. Not the best structured or clearly-reasoned treatment of the subject, but, I hope, not too bad for an insomniac who doesn't even drink coffee!