Torchwood thoughts

[neadods]

I've been offline for over a day, and it's a day that had a season finale in it and a season opener that a lot of my friends watch. Wish me luck, I'm tackling the friends list... hopefully I'll get through before the second explosion of the Who premiere!

Comments

[lukadreaming]

Yep, agree with pretty much all you've said. The thread with Jack's brother was unsatisfactory and really not very convincing (the fact the bloke couldn't act his way out of a paperbag didn't help *g*).

I don't think RTD is in any position to be criticising Primeval for being too white, given the way Dr Who and Torchwood have gone.

Oh, and I've just watched the first ep of Who. It was absolute pants. I don't think I can stand 13 weeks of Catherine Tate yowling like a fishwife.

Sigh.

[neadods]

With the possible exceptions of Smith and Jones and Invasion of the Bane, the first episodes of every season of Who and its spinoffs have been pretty pants.

[wendymr]

Are you including Rose in that? I thought that was brilliant in so many ways, both internal to the episode (the turn of the Earth, Rose's reaction to the Doctor being curious rather than scared and so on), and external: the way the Doctor was introduced to a new audience through the companion, the immediate chemistry between CE and BP and the way - fairly novel to the Who universe - that the companion is given a life, with family and friends who matter to her. It's not my favourite episode of Nine's season, but it's still pretty damn good :)

[neadods]

I am. My supreme glee over seeing the Autons again and the fabulous chemistry between Billie and Chris glosses a lot, but in comparison to other stories of that season, and also the other two meet-the-new-companion stories, I feel it's fairly weak. I've always had big trouble that this is a show about a *Time Lord* so why did the first episode of New Who have no time travel in it at all? They introduced all the other concepts except the two hugest - travel to other times and travel to other places. They couldn't even wedge it in as a throwaway bit, a la Smith and Jones?

ETA: I know, the Doctor gets a single line about it, but that's not the same, IMO.

[thanatos_kalos]

I agree that the thing with Jack's brother being violentlypsychotic was not the best way to go-- something more like what happened in 'Adrift,' with non-violent madness would've been better. I've got to disagree with you on a couple of points, though; I like Captain John as slightly more sane, though since he's still alive I'm virtually certain his sociopathic tendencies will return with the next crazy scheme for money

[neadods]

I'd say it was beside the point except for the fact that every single minority in every version of the show just coincidentally has crappy things happen to them.

And if the rumors are true that they're making room for Martha, then it has a very ugly undertone of suggesting that only one minority character is sufficient, and two are too many. Note that Tosh already had next to no interaction with Martha.

[thanatos_kalos]

But all of the characters have crappy things happen to them, no matter their backgrounds. All characters generally have crappy things happen, otherwise the drama would be dull.

And I think 'introducing Martha' = 'only one minority character' is reading far too much into the 'text.' Martha and Tosh wouldn't necessarily have much contact; she was working mostly with Owen on the medical matters, and she and Jack had a pre-existing relationship. Tacking a scene in just so two characters who happen to be minorites can interact wouldn't make sense (and would probably feel completely tacked on).

[moropus]

In order to qualify as a minority, a group has to be out-numbered. So it makes sense to only have one in a cast this size.

"Horrible things happen here!" is a theme in this show. Owen-not a minority-being a zombie-horrible. That stunt Suzy(?) pulled on Gwen with the Resurrection Gauntlet-horrible. Jack-dying a zillion times in pain-seeing all his normal friends grow old and die-horrible. Ianto's Cyber girlfriend-horrible.

[melusinehr]

So, since I never had time to watch more than the first two episodes of this season's T'wood, I have a question for you, as one of the few people I know who could answer honestly--should I bother? Do you think there's anything Martha-related that I should see before she shows up on Who? 'Cause I love me some Martha, but not enough to bother if the show in general sucks as much as the first season...

(And though this is the wrong post for it, I too am squeeing over the Who premiere. Aw.)

[neadods]

I thought the season was much stronger in general than last season. However, there seems to be only one thing that you "need" to know, and that's that the Doctor appears to have directly gotten Martha a job in UNIT.

[melusinehr]

Wow. How on earth did he manage that? Hmm. I seem to be able to get the last few episodes through On Demand, so maybe this evening I'll watch one or two.

[neadods]

He did used to work for them, so presumably he still knows a few people at the top.