Comments | solitary_summer: What If

solitary_summer

What If

Oct 16, 2008 22:49

Very much tl;dr, way too much time spent writing it, but here goes anyway. Rewatching TW S2 I (think I) finally figured out what went wrong with Jack/Ianto, and why.

Actually I had a bit of an epiphany after watching Meat, thinking about Gwen and Rhys and Jack and Ianto's respective relationships, especially that one scene with Jack, Gwen and Rhys ( Read more... )

torchwood: meat, jack/ianto, torchwood: reset, torchwood: from out of the rain, torchwood, torchwood: adrift, torchwood: a day in the death, torchwood: s2, torchwood: jack, torchwood: dead man walking

Comments 6

echoingvista October 18 2008, 06:27:10 UTC

Hi, found this on torchwood_three. While I agree with a lot of what you said (once you started on about what if it really had been Ianto to die in Reset, because I completely disagree with you on the first few paragraphs), there's a certain fact that kind of makes your thoughts not jive as well. Originally, Adam and From Out of the Rain were switched. As you notice, there's absolutely no mention of Gwen and Rhys' marriage in From Out of the Rain, when it would've just happened, and in Adam a couple lines were changed (such as "I'm your fiance, I gave you the bloody ring you're wearing" was originally "I'm your husband.") And that then affects the rest of the series. And I believe the reason for switching them to the order they are now came with the decision to kill Owen in Reset, with the scene in Adam becoming much more powerful.

I mean, I do agree with you on the build up, and how it would've worked really well if it'd be Ianto. But I figured I'd point that out.

solitary_summer October 18 2008, 17:17:51 UTC

Thanks for pointing that out. I knew that Ianto got a few of Gwen's lines in FootR, but I wasn't aware that the episodes had been switched. It must have been in connection with the decision to kill Owen, because without the 'who'll save me?' and the story about Gray, Jack's resurrection attempt would have looked even more completely irrational after the Suzie disaster.

And that sequence makes a lot of sense. The slow FootR would have fit better at the beginning of the season, fleshing out Ianto's life and background at least a bit more, and Adam would have been even more powerful between SB and Adrift, fixing the hole in the Jack/Gwen/Rhys arc (because now that you mention it, the change from SB to the sudden fight in Adrift does seem to come a bit out of nowhere), and would have made for one hell of a Jack/Ianto scene. As for Owen - so unless his lines in Adam were changed, I guess it would still have been he who'd have died in Exit Wounds?

echoingvista October 19 2008, 00:04:11 UTC

Most likely. Also, I just realized, in Adam, Gwen and Rhys have just come back from Paris. Which was odd at the time, why would they take a holiday so close to their wedding? But that must have originally been their honeymoon, if it was supposed to have been just after Something Borrowed.

I kind of wish now that they had left the original order. But I'm more than okay with the decision to kill Owen in Reset instead of Ianto. I mean, you're right, it would forced a showcase of the emotional side of Jack and Ianto's relationship, but I don't like the idea of undead!Ianto. Especially if they had decided to "fix" him for S3. It would be cheap to pull him out of that sort of limbo state - like cheapening death.

... If you can't tell, I had issues with Dead Man Walking, haha. I like that death is a major theme in Torchwood, I was just really put off by the idea of treating death like a supernatural being that you can fight. Makes for an excellent metaphor, but literally like that? Oi. A Day In The Death, however, was a brilliant episode, ( ... )

solitary_summer October 19 2008, 18:37:56 UTC

Completely agree. DMW did have some good and touching moments, Jack and Owen, Owen and the boy dying from cancer, but the CGI skeleton certainly wasn't one of them, and in comparison faintly ridiculous. That part didn't work for me at all. And yes, ADitD was absolutely brilliant. :)

And undead!Ianto would have been difficult to handle in the long run, which probably was at least part of the reason why they gave up the idea in the end. I just wish they'd thought of that a bit earlier...

tigercheetah January 25 2009, 08:18:43 UTC

I agree with virtually everything that you've written. It's been obvious for a long while that the Jack/Ianto relationship wasn't as consistant in series 2 as the Jack/Gwen, Gwen/Rhys and Tosh/Owen relationships. It's also never made any sense to me that there wasn't a single moment between Jack and Ianto in Exit Wounds, although we got a kiss in End of Days, when their relationship was meant to be less developed.

It's going to be interesting to see how things are handled in Children of Earth. If their relationship is done well and made more clear to the audience, Russel will probably be forgiven for his slight screw up in series 2, although I totally appreciate that writing for a tv series is more stressful than it looks.

Good essay by the way. :)

aranl18 March 9 2009, 08:59:41 UTC

I find this fascinating! I've only just learned of these switches to the season and in a way wish I could at least read copies of the original episodes. Also, not being a massive shipper for JxI I may have been much more interested in seeing how they coped with Ianto being undead, rather than the mess that seemed to be their arc in the season we got ( ... )