RTD said at the time that the episode was set up to get Owen and Gwen together. The kiss game thing just has Gwen being cruel IMO, but TPTB don't seem to get that's how she comes across. Clearly she says it because she and Owen are sniffing around each other.
I loathe the scene where Owen pins her to the tree, he is just horrid and creepy with that dialogue. I didn't like him at all for the first series, so this didn't bother me on first viewing, but after how great he is in series 2 it is odd to go back and see Owen the grumpy bastard. Although I know Burn Gorman said the same thing and preferred playing Owen in series 2 when he was a nicer guy.
I think the look between Jack and Ianto is loaded with meaning. Surely it's because they both lied? Although I tend to think it's pretty clear that Jack and Ianto have been shagging all along, I know there are fans who refuse to believe that and think they hadn't shagged until after Countrycide. So I see the look as anger between them, Jack evaded the question about his last kiss, because it was Ianto, and Ianto lied about who his last kiss was.
I think they did both lie. But I think that Ianto was putting Gwen in her place a bit. This isn't that long (two months maybe? if you go with Ianto's month long suspension and then the fairies case,) and she's asking about last kisses? What's he supposed to say? And Jack lied, because that wasn't exactly classic mouth to mouth he gave Ianto to revive him, was it? I do think that they were shagging prior to Cyberwoman, but I don't think they picked up straight away after. (But I also think they want to, they just had to find a way through the minefield that was their relationship to do so.)
Owen comes off as a creep until they get down to the case, and then he's a professional doctor. But I think that he recognised that Gwen gets off on illicit and dangerous and he was playing up to that.
I think Owen is just mostly unlikeable in series 1. I agree he suddenly becomes OK when he has to start being a doctor in this episode. Although I know it's inspired mountains of stories, I do think it's odd how poor Ianto is clearly beaten about badly, yet he doesn't seem to get any medical attention or even a "poor you".
I just loathe that sort of dialogue re Owen and the tree scene, it's so sexist and awful, I would be a bit sick in my mouth if someone tried that on, but it's the sort of thing people write I guess. It's like a scene in one of the series we are ignoring on this comm (MD) where I find Jack's dialogue creepy and sexist, yet some people find that sort of nonsense sexy.
Agree Ianto does come across as putting Gwen in her place, and also being petulant with all of them. It's a fascinating little moment.
One of the other Dragon*Con tidbits was the makeup people gave Ianto such a bad head injury, it was deemed too graphic to depict in anything other than a long shot. Rather than correct it, that's all we got for Ianto or his face is turned away from the camera, so you can't see the gash. (I think he must have meant in post production so he got his closeups cut.)
See they could have said that in the behind the scenes show, because it does seem like he is ignored, or even in long shot had someone with him, even a paramedic. Poor thing, no wonder he gets tortured by so many fan fiction writers!
I think it was JB who said that, quite by drunken accident, Gareth knocked his head into a bell at the pub/B&B where the cast was staying and actually had a really BAD knock they had to cover over.
And I have this vague notion that the head-butt wasn't originally in the script, but Gareth came up with it. Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this. There were a lot of those moments he took them by surprise, either by adding things (the crying as he leaves the warehouse in "Fragments" wasn't in the script), or acting the sh*t out of them (the punch/'watch you suffer' moment) so they become a lot more significant than they were originally meant to be.
I've read the same thing Laws, also that it's the reason they didn't kill Ianto off because GDL pretty quickly was coming up with this stuff and standing out despite being really underwritten.
I didn't like the scene in 'Day One' where Jack remarks about Gwen that she has all the right curves in all the right places. What a creepy thing to say to a strange police officer about your brand-new recruit!
Owen in the tree-pushing scene is quite creepy too, I agree. I didn't find it nice at all and certainly did not find it 'hot' in any way.
I think I may have felt that way if I'd come to the show later, I was watching as it was first broadcast and really disliked both Owen and Gwen by this point. It was the Jack/Ianto and also liking Tosh that was literally getting me to tune in, I was clinging onto it by the skin of my teeth, and it grabbed me as the first series went on, but I remember talking to some friends at the end of series 1 and we were saying we were still bothered by not liking Gwen and Owen, I remember cheering when Ianto shot Owen in fact.
Anyhow series 2 was when I started looking at online fandom, and I started liking the whole team, and Owen a whole lot more than I had. I still feel Burn Gorman is a significantly better actor than Eve Myles in fact, well to be honest he may well be the best actor they had, I would say GDL came close to him at times, but he's bloody outstanding.
Well, really late chiming in here, but I was away all weekend and wanted to comment on the "they both lied" interpretation. One of the things that interested me about this scene is that Jack didn't lie. He misdirected by asking a question, and did it in a way that basically excused him from answering while leaving everyone laughing. That struck me as a very Jack-type action. I don't think he actually lies so much as he misdirects, distracts, or just doesn't respond at all.
You're right. Jack misdirected. He tends to keep his personal life very close to the chest. The stories he does tell tend to be so flamboyant, even if they are perfectly true, they can be discounted as hyperbole.
You have to wonder what might have been the outcome if he'd said, "Ianto."
Also, besides the stories being flamboyant, I think he tells or alludes to so many that people react with "Right... you'd have to be 150 years old to have done everything you claim." Um...
On Ianto, it's funny, but I just can't imagine him doing that. My read on Jack is that he's very extroverted, but also very private. He can talk constantly, but give very little away. And I don't see him as someone who reveals info about others either, especially when he knows it would disturb them. In his own way, he's very protective. In this case, I can believe his misdirection was more to protect Ianto than himself, and he did it in a way that diverted attention. I contrast this with Gwen, who doesn't realize that not everyone wants to share, or Owen, who has no problem embarrassing anyone. In fact, this just occurred to me, but the look he gives Ianto at the end could well have been "I diverted their attention. You could have just kept quiet and probably no one would have pushed, but instead..."
I loathe the scene where Owen pins her to the tree, he is just horrid and creepy with that dialogue. I didn't like him at all for the first series, so this didn't bother me on first viewing, but after how great he is in series 2 it is odd to go back and see Owen the grumpy bastard. Although I know Burn Gorman said the same thing and preferred playing Owen in series 2 when he was a nicer guy.
I think the look between Jack and Ianto is loaded with meaning. Surely it's because they both lied? Although I tend to think it's pretty clear that Jack and Ianto have been shagging all along, I know there are fans who refuse to believe that and think they hadn't shagged until after Countrycide. So I see the look as anger between them, Jack evaded the question about his last kiss, because it was Ianto, and Ianto lied about who his last kiss was.
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Owen comes off as a creep until they get down to the case, and then he's a professional doctor. But I think that he recognised that Gwen gets off on illicit and dangerous and he was playing up to that.
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I just loathe that sort of dialogue re Owen and the tree scene, it's so sexist and awful, I would be a bit sick in my mouth if someone tried that on, but it's the sort of thing people write I guess. It's like a scene in one of the series we are ignoring on this comm (MD) where I find Jack's dialogue creepy and sexist, yet some people find that sort of nonsense sexy.
Agree Ianto does come across as putting Gwen in her place, and also being petulant with all of them. It's a fascinating little moment.
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And I have this vague notion that the head-butt wasn't originally in the script, but Gareth came up with it. Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this. There were a lot of those moments he took them by surprise, either by adding things (the crying as he leaves the warehouse in "Fragments" wasn't in the script), or acting the sh*t out of them (the punch/'watch you suffer' moment) so they become a lot more significant than they were originally meant to be.
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I know what I'd rather have seen ...
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Owen in the tree-pushing scene is quite creepy too, I agree. I didn't find it nice at all and certainly did not find it 'hot' in any way.
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I guess I'm in the minority re: Owen and the tree scene. The dialogue was dreadful, but the actors were electric, and it sold it to me.
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Anyhow series 2 was when I started looking at online fandom, and I started liking the whole team, and Owen a whole lot more than I had. I still feel Burn Gorman is a significantly better actor than Eve Myles in fact, well to be honest he may well be the best actor they had, I would say GDL came close to him at times, but he's bloody outstanding.
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You have to wonder what might have been the outcome if he'd said, "Ianto."
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On Ianto, it's funny, but I just can't imagine him doing that. My read on Jack is that he's very extroverted, but also very private. He can talk constantly, but give very little away. And I don't see him as someone who reveals info about others either, especially when he knows it would disturb them. In his own way, he's very protective. In this case, I can believe his misdirection was more to protect Ianto than himself, and he did it in a way that diverted attention. I contrast this with Gwen, who doesn't realize that not everyone wants to share, or Owen, who has no problem embarrassing anyone. In fact, this just occurred to me, but the look he gives Ianto at the end could well have been "I diverted their attention. You could have just kept quiet and probably no one would have pushed, but instead..."
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