My Little Burrow

CoE 1+2 Episodes and Golden Age: Review/Bullet points (Torchwood)

2009-07-09T03:01:21Z

Spoilers for the first two episodes and season 3 and the radio play: Golden Age.

(The 'i' button on my computer is still not fully working)

Okay. First the actual show:
Episode One (which was a long time ago –the day after yeasterday- so my memory is fading)

left me panting and running about with too much energy
the fact that everybody knew about Torchwood (I mean we all knew it but now we have PROOF)
not a lot of humour (to me at least)
LOVED Ianto’s sister because she was everything but the any possible fandom version of her. She was real! (Although somehow I would like somebody in Torchwood to have an upper-class family. Or in Doctor Who. I would like for a main character to have the 'perfect' home life rather than the seperated/divorsed/dead parents and so on... Am I the only one in that wish?)
Ianto coming out. I know a lot of people probably found it too fairytale-like that it's only Jack but I somehow think it is a more natural reaction. That it is only Jack - at the moment - because it's Jack. Whose personality doesn't fit any labels or genders.
The 'couples' thing. I think if we look at Ianto as a survivor - of Lisa and Canary Warf - then it would be in his nature to gain control over mundane things by sorting them, putting them into categories and I see him trying to define the relationship as a consequence of that.
Jack's Daughter. Very hard to say anything. I sort of knew that she would be related to him but I kept on thinking: daughter or lover. When I found out that daughter irrationally I thought "you cheated on Estelle, you bastard" but then did some maths in my head...
Thinking about it. He's still a bastard! He didn't tell Estelle and didn't want to tell Ianto but this family knows! Bastard!
Gwen calling them Chuckle Brothers. I'm sorry? Were you referring to the daytime CBBC slapstick comedy (if I remember correctly)? Or to something else? Also not exactly a worldwide thing is it?
What's with this speech of Jacks: "No you get killed, not me. You'll die like a dog, like an ugly dog." Nice Jack, very nice.
They blew up the hub. I loved that hub. Did the producers think about what they were losing? I really hope they did. Because it's not just the pets, but it's the coffee machine, it's all of Jacks photographs, it's all of the bodies (including Tosh). So yeah... Also I'm worried about how they are going to rebuild it. Although..that crater didn't look deep enough.
I'm very glad that Gwen is pregnant!
Just a note on that: Tosh was killed in the medical bay but no reaction from Gwen when she goes down.
The evils guys are not UNIT. There is no red berets. And I am glad that Martha is out of the country.
Martha's Married!

Episode Two

Ianto's family are love. I think the casting really rocks in this series.
Ianto's dad: he has fond memories of the cinema and yet he thinks that his dad broke his leg? Lovely metaphor with "He always pushed me too hard"
I'm sort-of sad that the government is trying to hunt down Jack, but at the same time I'm very glad Louis doesn't seem to be an evil character.
One thing inquiring minds want to know: Did Gwen and Ianto plan this together?
I was very amused that Ianto wore the hat while driving. It is just so...him.
But how did he know Jack was in a concrete cell?
Jack coming back was nice, and coat flipping over shoulder was nice, but Jack dies in first episode Ianto gives him a hug, Jack dies constantly in the second episode is reunited with Ianto, they barely share a glance.
The government is stupid.
Ianto's clothing makes me want to scream - and not in a good way- he had all night before meeting his sister, he could go to a public restroom and clean up a bit, you know brush down the suit, wash the cut...but no. He remains looking dirty.
The ending flopped a bit. Last night it was a cliff-hanger, this night it was... not as much I guess.
I was very worried that Jack would become the head of Boe. I mean there was only the head and an arm left, and the movements on the camera only seem to be closer to the head so... Yes, was worried that they were going to get rid of John Barrowman and just leave a head...Although if cutting his head off and destroying his body doesn't work how is he going to become the head of Boe?

And Thank You to all who made the series available online to the poor impatient souls in America and Australia (who don't have uktv) and the rest of the world

The Golden Age

I expected the Duchess to be young, hot, and dressed up. She really didn't disappoint. Also went in with guns blazing and attempted to seduce Jack to the dark side. I'm sorry but that just seems cliché.

Love Gwen and Ianto interactions.
Ianto doesn't mind being called sir-and Jack doesn't react.
John and the Duchess are much worse at the whole radio play-acting than the other three when they split up: no footsteps, extra noises.... when we first hear just the two of them
I hate her giggles
Nelson seepage????
I love how Gwen and Ianto are grouped together and called collectively 'welsh' it's lovely to see their friendship.
"English roses thrive in Indian beds", (in her voice it didn't sound like innuendo at all-hang on, was it even innuendo? Or is it just Torchwood on my mind?)
Jack telling her he can't die. He really does have a big mouth.
I think there were longer music intervals in this play compared to the first. At first I was annoyed but then it worked very well.
"If I wanted to be knocked out and murdered I would have stayed at home"....oh Ianto
"Stop pouting!"(yeah Jack, we all know you pout)
"You're no longer human!" "Oh but I'm still British!", I just loved this piece of dialogue, I can't really say why.
Absolutely no Janto or even proper interaction between Jack and the other two.

Some thoughts and a cry for help…

2009-07-08T12:21:39Z

Spoilers: One about Jack from Episode One, and a very obvious one from the Golden Age.

Warnings: It’s late at night, I had sugar and the letter ‘i’ on the keyboard sometimes refuses to work.

Just a thought. We assume that Jack is very experienced and you-know been around the block a couple of times. But he's what? 200-300 years alive and walking (the buried 2000 wouldn't have left a lot of time for dating) and yeah that's a few lifetimes... the first 20 or so years he was growing up. Then another 25 Time Agency and Con-Manship (includes 5 year with John Hart in a time loop). Meets the Doctor and Rose (loves them both) then dies, comes back to life, ends up in 1869-so has 140 years until 2009. Now how many people can you fall in love with? So far we know the Dutchess, Estelle, and the Mother of his Daughter (whose name I just can't catch) and now Ianto. (Tosh comments that he'll shag anything, a fact which is often confirmed by John Barrowman)

My question is thus: Does Jack really go through partners that quickly that he has a lot of experience; does he discard them so easily? Or does he attempt to have a fairy tale marriage with kids and stays with one person for 20-40 years? Can he commit? How quickly can he get over lovers? Has he had any male canon partners apart from Ianto, John, Jack and the obsession with the Doctor? Can his failure in relationships be blamed on the Doctor and now can he finally commit to Ianto? Is he all talk? Does he have separate concepts of Love and Lust? Is ‘shag’ a euphemism in the future for something else?

I'm looking to construct a rough timeline/chart of his lovers, partners, loves and people he flirted with (or alternatively didn’t). Also anything he mentioned in the outrages stories that too often appear in fiction by fans but I can't remember one from the top of my head in canon.

I know it is a pointless and slightly weird thing to do. But I do want to do this (probably). I will attempt on my own when I buy the DVD’s and rewatch the episodes. But till then does anybody have any notes, suggestions, links, and actual information?

Has someone done this before?

Does anyone want to help? (If so please, please do! Because I know myself, there is a 60% chance I won’t finish or even start and I really want to create a proper timeline for Jack. And if I get ambitious enough I’d probably try to collect all of his history as well.)

All this just from one thought when I was attempting to review the episodes. *headdeask*

I'll also post this on several communities come the morning.

Review Post: Radio Play Asylum (Torchwood)

2009-07-06T05:11:49Z

(Just a warning, a lot of critique and plot picking. The summary of the review is at the bottom and bolded. Also the letter ‘i' is somewhat stuck on my keyboard at the moment. Also mistakes galore, but to edit everything that I wrote? I’m way too lazy.)

Listened to Asylum. A bit later than usual, but better for it I thinking; or I'd be running wild until Children of the Earth.

I'm not normally a audio oriented person so I was slightly worried if I'd manage to concentrate all the way through, and I did. So quite compelling on the whole, however inconsistent of my idea of the canon or with the rest of the story.

This being my first radio play I have no standard for it to be measured up to so... The extra's -like the man at the start - in my opinion were better than the main characters. Unfortunately. I 'd also would have preferred more details about the surroundings/narrations. There was no certainly of time and with words like 'safe-house' we had to associate with what we saw on the show, which shouldn't have been necessary as the play is not just for the Torchwood fans but for the general listeners of Radio 4. (But that's just my opinion).

I liked the half-alien from the future. But didn't like their version of the future. She was from what? 69? So that's 60 years into the future? In my mind it doesn’t generally fit with the widely accepted version of the future, to me it seems the future was a bit like copping the state of Britain in the World Wars and moving into Australia (water shortage). Too many associations and not fully thought through. Also a lot of new terms brought into the Torchwood universe and unless there's going to be a follow up in a form of a book or an episode the terms didn't need to be there because they didn’t really add anything to the storyline; rather they confused it.

(Just a word of warning I'm one of those people who watch the show, enjoy the show, stalks/lurks the fandom. So canon/fanon is sort of mixed up in my mind. Merged)

Let's talk Captain Jack. Canonical? I think not. Let's ignore the whole hypocrisy issue for now. What happened to being a time agent? I assume that job required to know your history! Here he obviously doesn't react to the slang or the references or the technology. What happened to Captain Jack who's from the future and knows all the technical do-das? I assume something on the scale of that technology and its impact on the Earth would be taught in the Time Agency.

Now on to the hypocrisy. A new Asylum policy. While I understand the whole retcon/ isolation is standard Torchwood policy but since when is Jack standard? It's not out of place of him being bossy and quick-triggered but he has little of speaking role in this which makes him somewhat two-dimensional.

Gwen. One problem I had is the fact that when she finds out information (Freda is from the future, ghosties and other personal information) she doesn't report to Ianto or Jack but seems to keep it to her self. I do understand that she probably does so because the play is under 45 minutes and repetition of information would be quite boring but! Other than that Gwen seems to be pretty canonical.

Ianto/Gareth. I'm of those people who always gets surprised and annoyed that John Barrowman is famous and Eve gets these roles with other shows while Gareth remain positively ignored by the producers - despite often being the publics favourite-(Don’t get me wrong I don’t mind that they get the roles just that Gareth doesn’t). In this there was a lot of Gwen and Andy and Freda but very little Jack and even less Ianto. What I find annoying is the fact that while season one Ianto was just general support, then in season two he's supposed to become more of a team player but now that the teams down to three there should be much more of him. There is three main characters in the show: the boss (and famous actor) and the two employees and yet Ianto remain constantly portrayed as his initial role: General Support. For example at the police station Gwen and Jack go in, and yet it is Ianto that drives Jack back. What did he do? Stay in the car like K-9? (Does this remind anyone of the episode of Doctor Who and the school with Anthony Head?). And if he did go inside to smooth things over with the police - as we can optimistically think -isn't that Gwen’s job?
It seems that the writer couldn't find a place to fit him in so she just pushed him into random scenes - a mean thought - same with Jack. To me it seems that the writer had trouble grasping the team positions for both of them and because of that the characters come out wrong. She doesn't have the same problem with Gwen or Andy. Not sure why.

(I am being harsh I admit to that. Also on the whole Anita Sullivan thing. According to 'wired.com': "The radio shows are written by Torchwood veterans Phil Ford, Anita Sullivan and James Goss." And yet I haven’t managed to find any reference to her and Torchwood apart from this play, not on her personal site nor in the credits listed in IMDB)

One last plot pick. They just leave the SVU on a gridlocked street after stealing a motorcycle? Especially when all of it is their fault?

Onto the good things.

The author/script writer manages to tell an interesting story that adds to the history of Torchwood. Looking from a pure fannish point of view this is a bit like an encyclopaedia extra to the series that explain the background one of the policies. I would love to see this integrated with the canon and would enjoy seeing the use of this new policy in a future episode of Torchwood. Also good resource background for a future set fic. The story is very sad and very human which adds to the depth of the universe as it is about a half alien girl. It makes sense that it is told from the main point of view of Gwen as she is the most compassionate. In the timeframe it manages to tell a shortened story well and gives a lot of room for fannish and canon expansion. So while not action packed nor Torchwood driven it opens a lot of possibilities in my mind for the forth season.

Just some short (good) points:

Andy knows about Ianto
Jack can drive a motorcycle
Jack can throw knives
Ianto can trust Jack enough to drive a motorcycle
Andy doesn't get Retconed
Nether does Freda
I believe it is set after season three as there is no mentions of Owen or Tosh and when Ianto talks about the blood there is no sadness in the fact that he's no expert. And with the little we know about season 3, we know that they are still being mourned and still are a part of a daily routine which isn't present in the play

So to summarise for the future: there is a chance if this play becomes canon that Andy will join Torchwood as now he is allowed to have so much more knowledge of it. Also we're introduced to a new character who knows about Torchwood. While I do suspect she will be dismissed like the other time travellers before her, she is young, she will stay in Cardiff and she will be in contact with Gwen. So there is always hope for a good plotline there (adoption, future member of Torchwood).

Things I'd would have liked to ~~see~~ hear:

More of Ianto
A point of view of Torchwood from either Andy or Freda (a bit like Random Shoes, I guess but more)
More interactions from Freda with other characters so not only Andy and Gwen
A mention of Owen and Tosh
A mention of Rhys

Day 2: 1667 + 319

2008-11-02T07:48:21Z

During my first day my reasearch failed. Apparently you can't bribe bus drivers and the busses have tracking systems on them. Oh well this is fiction.

Why I Hate Twilight (Part1) and at the moment myself.

2008-10-14T09:29:19Z

At first I wouldn't read it on principal. Vampires should never be in a romance story where all ends well. No, a vampire romance should be a dark twisted tale that should leave you breathless, scarred and not sure of your sanity. If you're going to write/read a light vampire story, it should always have an element of humour, most commonly mocking and self depicting. I would say if it has to be a light romance it should b set within the genre of fentasy. A mixture of humour (often dark), romance and fantasy. In so far large followers of such genre I only seen in Russia but they do appear in smaller groups in America, Japan and China. (That is as far as I can tell). A good example of such books is Robert Asprin's Myth Series. They show vampires as they should appear in light books. I own the first 10 or so in Russian (in Russia).

All of the above was written at night, well after dark based on a coversation I was having with my self because I couldn't fall asleep in the Australian 'spring' heat. Summer, if you ask me. And hell I want to read Myths now!

Final Episode of Doctor Who, Season 4

2008-10-12T03:33:07Z

Watched the final episode of Doctor Who on t.v. Thought it should be longer, with not so many companions squeezed in (with one liners). The fact that the doctor split surprised me a lot. Loved! : Doctor-Donna. Am incredibly sad that she had to forget, in my personal little bubble I chose to believe she died bravely. Didn't like the fact that the Doctor dropped everybody off at London, I think he should go and meet Sarah Jane's boy and visit Torchwood. But then again poor doctor, he's all alone now. And broken. Don't you just want to give him a hug.

On that note right after the show I looked up when it will be back: not until 2010 apparently. It seemed that for next year they'll just have the specials. Am disappointed. Also Torchwood is only coming back for a week-plotline of several episodes. What am I going to do with out hugable aliens in my life?

And if anybody says Supernatural I'll shot them. I tried to watch it, really. Watched half of Season 1 Episode 1, but really it is so boring. I'm sure a lot of people like it - I know some of my friends do - but I really need something more than two -apparently- 'hot' brothers hunting down even 'hotter' monster who is dressed like a female bride....

Jones, Ianto Jones...

2008-10-12T02:58:19Z

I had some holidays recently. The first week I spent watching Torchwood (all episodes...ahhhh) and if I may, I wish to ramble about it just for a bit.

Now in general I have too agree with some people I know, it's not so much about aliens as it is about sex. However in it's self I like the characters more than I like the plot. Or I'm not sure, I'm still getting my head around it all. A few things I do know:

I dislike Gwen. A lot. A LOT. Now I didn't really mind her at the beginning but what annoys me is the fact that she 'loves' Jack but still marries Rhys. I feel extremely sorry for Rhys. So yeah.

Now, to go with the title. I Like Mr.Jones. I do. He's just so sophisticated and butler-ish. He's like Alfred without wrinkles. I also like his relationship with Jack. Just how it is on screen. Not madly in love, or very fluffy, but playful in the way it appears. Actually point being, he reminds me a bit of myself. I personally enjoy having things in order, but they never get quite there. Mainly because I hate tidying. But I still slave away for new filing system for all my papers. I hope with age tidying will stop being a chore.

Okay. lemme see, somewhere else I have more ramblings on Torchwood, just let me find them. Ok, give them to you some point later. Found the rambling in my diary on Last Episode of Doctor Who, will post them instead.

Note to self: Really Really need to get some proper icons.

Ta!
Fresco