(no subject)
# As a sort of addendum to the post about the radio plays... It's funny, really. I thought I was over CoE. I never had as bad a reaction to Ianto's death as many others, I've rewatched the whole story several times since without tears or trauma, and I thought that with the The World is Always Ending meta at the latest I'd made my peace with it. Apparently not quite though, because somewhat belatedly it occurred to me that such a strong, and in the end probably disproportionately negative, over(?)-emotional reaction to HotD, two years after CoE, wasn't exactly the response of someone who's over it. I actually find that a bit frightening. It's a strange thing how your own brain can catch you by surprise.
# TW 4.06 The Middle Men
I wasn't very enthusiastic about it yesterday, but oddly enough liked it considerably better on rewatching, which might partly be due to the fact that I hate those storylines where people walk unaware into situations that as a viewer you know are potentially fatal, and pretty much the entire episode consisted of that. Rex, Esther, Rhys, even Gwen, although she seems pretty safe at least at this point of the story... The episode is a lot more bearable to watch once you know that everyone survives at least for now.
Another problem, I guess, were my own expectations. After last week's revelation, Oswald's speech about humanity having evolved into angels, the burning of Vera and the 'category 1' patients, I expected more of a follow up on that, and in many ways the episode seemed frustratingly slow the first time I watched it. It delivers a very few hints - the sequence before the opening credits, Mr. Owens mentioning the 'blessing' -, but it barely moves the plot forward at all, and what it mainly does is once again show what it is not about. Phicorp isn't controlling the miracle, only profiting from it. Someone else is manipulating the system, with different aims. As Rex sees it, and I think he's right about that, it isn't about the sick as such; the miracle serves as a means to rebuild society, to get rid of whoever is deemed 'undesirable' and discipline the rest.
In a way it's an intentionally anticlimactic episode, and even though I liked it better the second time, I'm not sure if the script is good enough to pull that off successfully. The whole thing still felt rather clumsy and too heavy handed at times, spending too much time on exposition. And there's something else. Although I could rationalise my way around it if I had to, I thought it was borderline OOC for Jack not to realise that the tied-up Gwen was a trap in 4.04, and I had the same problem here. How could Rex think that Maloney, as the director of the facility wouldn't know? He already knows the truth of what is happening, he saw Vera burn, and yet he makes the same mistake she did, and that's almost criminally stupid and naive. Put it down to shock, but still. Maloney practically radiates creepiness and Rex picks up on that way too late, which IMO diminishes what might otherwise been a strong scene. Even when Maloney is sticking his pen into Rex's wounds, Rex still insists that he can't die, so Maloney can't kill him. Who does he think burned Vera? That man is supposed to be a trained CIA agent, and he wasn't just sitting at his desk doing research like Esther, either. Even she should have suspected something. At the very least she should have known Maloney might not be terminally dead.
I still think that MD has finally departed from the path CoE set, though. If one compares John Frobisher to the 'middle man' in this story, Frobisher was helpless by the end, true, and that was his tragedy and his punishment, but for a long time he was a devastating study of what kind of a power a 'middle man', or maybe more generally speaking, a single human being in the right place at the right time, could have, if only they realised it. Frobisher might have made all the difference, if he'd proposed to work with Torchwood, rather than to eliminate Jack in order to cover up what happened in 1965. But Frobisher's primary goal was to keep the machine running, until the machine finally swallowed him too. In MD with its global scenario the middle man are shown to be effectively powerless. Whether they're murdering, misogynist, badminton loving psychopaths completely out of their depths, but quickly adapting to the new world order and eager to use the limited authority and power it grants them like Collin Maloney, or polite, intelligent, educated, upper class business men like Stuart Owens with his wife and mistress, who even has a personal interest in finding out what happened - they are effectively powerless. So powerless that Zheng Yibao, who apparently did find out at least part of what the miracle really was about, responded to this discovery by throwing himself off a building.
Jack has to learn that it isn't as easy and clear-cut as he thought it was or wished it to be. Rex's nearly fatal mistake is that he believes that this isn't systematic, that he can convince people, first the soldiers, than Malloney. That they'd stand up if only they saw what was happening, or at least fear the consequences they might have to face. And like Jack, who offered Oswald the chance to be a hero in the last episode, he fails. Gwen believes she can beat the system, but even her big statement of saying no and blowing up the Module falls rather flat. They get the information out, which they never did in CoE, but the reaction isn't what they expected it to be. There might be a bit of outrage, but there is no general uprising.
There are minor acts of kindness in this episode, like the cleaning woman who opens the door for Gwen, but going by the message Gwen received in the end, unless they're bluffing, which I doubt they are, because Gwen will to demand proof that they have her family, her father is already dead.
Effectively, Ralph is the only one who makes a real difference in this story.
In MD the emphasis is definitely on the powerlessness in face of the system, which might result in an interesting discussion about what kind of power the individual does or doesn't have in the wider process of history, but at this point I'm sceptical, because it looks at least a bit like it'll come down to some Big, probably alien, Bad pulling the strings in the background, and Team Torchwood/Jack in the end heroically saving the day, which simplifies things too much. It's more complicated than that; it's not either/or, it's both, to varying degrees. Somehow I wonder if this story works better for people who are only superficially, if at all, familiar with the history of National Socialism. 'How can you be part of it and not know what's going on', seems a bit of a naive question, especially coming from someone like Jack, who supposedly has lived for thousands of years.
And there's another thing. I think the problem might turn out to be that humanity can't psychologically deal with the absence of death. There will be no general uprising, because on some level people are profoundly uncomfortable with the post-miracle situation. We already saw the Dead is Dead movement. CoE was different, because it went against most people's instincts. Whether it's biological or social, under normal circumstances people are conditioned to protect their children. On the other hand, however much collectively we may want to avoid death, a world without it goes against tens of thousand years of evolution of the human brain, against the entire history of conscious human thought, religion and philosophy, and the longer this goes on, the more the consequences will become apparent, the more people will welcome burning as a solution and the knowledge that there is still an escape from life. Just look at the 45 club.
I guess my main problem with MD is that while I find the story interesting in how it compares to the rest of RTD's work, I'm not sure yet how well it stands on its own. Mostly I'm fascinated by the use of religious themes. We've had 'revelation' as a keyword, Oswald was comparing the new humans to angels, not there's the 'blessing'. Why is the religious terminology so important? I still have hopes for the denouement, because RTD hasn't written a story yet that in the end didn't push all my buttons, but right now for me it's more about the end of the journey, so to speak, whereas I find the process of getting there a bit lacklustre. Sometimes I wonder if I've simply become too analytical...
Minor points:
- It's strange, because she's a rather unlikely character for me to be so fond of, but my love for Esther continues. I really liked the fight with Maloney, her reaction to it, and the scene between her and Rex in the car afterwards. She shows a mixture of strength and weakness that strikes me as very realistic.
- On the other hand, I thought both Maloney and Ralph were too much like caricatures, or maybe slightly exaggerated portrayals of a certain type of person and how they'd react to the new situation, rather than real, three dimensional human beings.
- Rex is finally beginning to see himself as Torchwood, disillusioned with CIA and the government, but at the same time there is still too little bonding and interaction between the old and the new characters, IMO. I thought Gwen being back in Cardiff would give Jack the opportunity to connect to Esther and Rex, but everyone went their separate way in this episode, so no chance of that. Although on the other hand at least Rex and Esther fixed their issues...
- The cliffhanger was interesting, and at least finally makes good use of the two seasons of tension between Jack and Gwen. And now it's going to get interesting for Jack too, because he's no longer 'safe' and it's rather doubtful that whoever is behind this wants him because they fancy his coat.
- I was almost surprised that they actually addressed the concentration camp parallel; it's logical, because it's really way too obvious for no one to remark on it, but somehow I still thought it'd remain implicit.
- The question of suicide has already been brought up in the second episode, and again in this one. Is this a reminder because it'll become important at the end of Jack's arc, or was that it?
- The feeling wasn't as strong when I rewatched the episode, but yesterday for the first time I also felt I was watching an entirely new show, and ironically the moment where I felt this most strongly was when Gwen did that action movie thing with the motorcycle before blowing up half the camp, when there has been absolutely no indication so far that she even knew how to drive one. I think Jane Espenson has a better feeling for old school TW and character continuity.
# TW 4.06 The Middle Men
I wasn't very enthusiastic about it yesterday, but oddly enough liked it considerably better on rewatching, which might partly be due to the fact that I hate those storylines where people walk unaware into situations that as a viewer you know are potentially fatal, and pretty much the entire episode consisted of that. Rex, Esther, Rhys, even Gwen, although she seems pretty safe at least at this point of the story... The episode is a lot more bearable to watch once you know that everyone survives at least for now.
Another problem, I guess, were my own expectations. After last week's revelation, Oswald's speech about humanity having evolved into angels, the burning of Vera and the 'category 1' patients, I expected more of a follow up on that, and in many ways the episode seemed frustratingly slow the first time I watched it. It delivers a very few hints - the sequence before the opening credits, Mr. Owens mentioning the 'blessing' -, but it barely moves the plot forward at all, and what it mainly does is once again show what it is not about. Phicorp isn't controlling the miracle, only profiting from it. Someone else is manipulating the system, with different aims. As Rex sees it, and I think he's right about that, it isn't about the sick as such; the miracle serves as a means to rebuild society, to get rid of whoever is deemed 'undesirable' and discipline the rest.
In a way it's an intentionally anticlimactic episode, and even though I liked it better the second time, I'm not sure if the script is good enough to pull that off successfully. The whole thing still felt rather clumsy and too heavy handed at times, spending too much time on exposition. And there's something else. Although I could rationalise my way around it if I had to, I thought it was borderline OOC for Jack not to realise that the tied-up Gwen was a trap in 4.04, and I had the same problem here. How could Rex think that Maloney, as the director of the facility wouldn't know? He already knows the truth of what is happening, he saw Vera burn, and yet he makes the same mistake she did, and that's almost criminally stupid and naive. Put it down to shock, but still. Maloney practically radiates creepiness and Rex picks up on that way too late, which IMO diminishes what might otherwise been a strong scene. Even when Maloney is sticking his pen into Rex's wounds, Rex still insists that he can't die, so Maloney can't kill him. Who does he think burned Vera? That man is supposed to be a trained CIA agent, and he wasn't just sitting at his desk doing research like Esther, either. Even she should have suspected something. At the very least she should have known Maloney might not be terminally dead.
I still think that MD has finally departed from the path CoE set, though. If one compares John Frobisher to the 'middle man' in this story, Frobisher was helpless by the end, true, and that was his tragedy and his punishment, but for a long time he was a devastating study of what kind of a power a 'middle man', or maybe more generally speaking, a single human being in the right place at the right time, could have, if only they realised it. Frobisher might have made all the difference, if he'd proposed to work with Torchwood, rather than to eliminate Jack in order to cover up what happened in 1965. But Frobisher's primary goal was to keep the machine running, until the machine finally swallowed him too. In MD with its global scenario the middle man are shown to be effectively powerless. Whether they're murdering, misogynist, badminton loving psychopaths completely out of their depths, but quickly adapting to the new world order and eager to use the limited authority and power it grants them like Collin Maloney, or polite, intelligent, educated, upper class business men like Stuart Owens with his wife and mistress, who even has a personal interest in finding out what happened - they are effectively powerless. So powerless that Zheng Yibao, who apparently did find out at least part of what the miracle really was about, responded to this discovery by throwing himself off a building.
Jack has to learn that it isn't as easy and clear-cut as he thought it was or wished it to be. Rex's nearly fatal mistake is that he believes that this isn't systematic, that he can convince people, first the soldiers, than Malloney. That they'd stand up if only they saw what was happening, or at least fear the consequences they might have to face. And like Jack, who offered Oswald the chance to be a hero in the last episode, he fails. Gwen believes she can beat the system, but even her big statement of saying no and blowing up the Module falls rather flat. They get the information out, which they never did in CoE, but the reaction isn't what they expected it to be. There might be a bit of outrage, but there is no general uprising.
There are minor acts of kindness in this episode, like the cleaning woman who opens the door for Gwen, but going by the message Gwen received in the end, unless they're bluffing, which I doubt they are, because Gwen will to demand proof that they have her family, her father is already dead.
Effectively, Ralph is the only one who makes a real difference in this story.
In MD the emphasis is definitely on the powerlessness in face of the system, which might result in an interesting discussion about what kind of power the individual does or doesn't have in the wider process of history, but at this point I'm sceptical, because it looks at least a bit like it'll come down to some Big, probably alien, Bad pulling the strings in the background, and Team Torchwood/Jack in the end heroically saving the day, which simplifies things too much. It's more complicated than that; it's not either/or, it's both, to varying degrees. Somehow I wonder if this story works better for people who are only superficially, if at all, familiar with the history of National Socialism. 'How can you be part of it and not know what's going on', seems a bit of a naive question, especially coming from someone like Jack, who supposedly has lived for thousands of years.
And there's another thing. I think the problem might turn out to be that humanity can't psychologically deal with the absence of death. There will be no general uprising, because on some level people are profoundly uncomfortable with the post-miracle situation. We already saw the Dead is Dead movement. CoE was different, because it went against most people's instincts. Whether it's biological or social, under normal circumstances people are conditioned to protect their children. On the other hand, however much collectively we may want to avoid death, a world without it goes against tens of thousand years of evolution of the human brain, against the entire history of conscious human thought, religion and philosophy, and the longer this goes on, the more the consequences will become apparent, the more people will welcome burning as a solution and the knowledge that there is still an escape from life. Just look at the 45 club.
I guess my main problem with MD is that while I find the story interesting in how it compares to the rest of RTD's work, I'm not sure yet how well it stands on its own. Mostly I'm fascinated by the use of religious themes. We've had 'revelation' as a keyword, Oswald was comparing the new humans to angels, not there's the 'blessing'. Why is the religious terminology so important? I still have hopes for the denouement, because RTD hasn't written a story yet that in the end didn't push all my buttons, but right now for me it's more about the end of the journey, so to speak, whereas I find the process of getting there a bit lacklustre. Sometimes I wonder if I've simply become too analytical...
Minor points:
- It's strange, because she's a rather unlikely character for me to be so fond of, but my love for Esther continues. I really liked the fight with Maloney, her reaction to it, and the scene between her and Rex in the car afterwards. She shows a mixture of strength and weakness that strikes me as very realistic.
- On the other hand, I thought both Maloney and Ralph were too much like caricatures, or maybe slightly exaggerated portrayals of a certain type of person and how they'd react to the new situation, rather than real, three dimensional human beings.
- Rex is finally beginning to see himself as Torchwood, disillusioned with CIA and the government, but at the same time there is still too little bonding and interaction between the old and the new characters, IMO. I thought Gwen being back in Cardiff would give Jack the opportunity to connect to Esther and Rex, but everyone went their separate way in this episode, so no chance of that. Although on the other hand at least Rex and Esther fixed their issues...
- The cliffhanger was interesting, and at least finally makes good use of the two seasons of tension between Jack and Gwen. And now it's going to get interesting for Jack too, because he's no longer 'safe' and it's rather doubtful that whoever is behind this wants him because they fancy his coat.
- I was almost surprised that they actually addressed the concentration camp parallel; it's logical, because it's really way too obvious for no one to remark on it, but somehow I still thought it'd remain implicit.
- The question of suicide has already been brought up in the second episode, and again in this one. Is this a reminder because it'll become important at the end of Jack's arc, or was that it?
- The feeling wasn't as strong when I rewatched the episode, but yesterday for the first time I also felt I was watching an entirely new show, and ironically the moment where I felt this most strongly was when Gwen did that action movie thing with the motorcycle before blowing up half the camp, when there has been absolutely no indication so far that she even knew how to drive one. I think Jane Espenson has a better feeling for old school TW and character continuity.