Torchwood: Are we looking forward to it or not?

[Jim_Campbell]

"Another load of old wank."

Didn't even contemplate watching it this week. Somebody let me know if it suddenly gets good, otherwise ... meh.

Want to elaborate on the above, Herr Von Scott?

Cheers!

Jim

[Huey2]

I thought this week's was the best so far. Not quite where it should be, but not bad.
Unfortunately, the writers don't seem to have the confidence to follow through a decent story idea without adding some OTT melodrama.

So, they get stuck with the revived corpse of a colleague. Fine. That's a good enough starting point and there were some nice moments.
SPOILERS FOR THOSE WATCHING ON WEDNESDAY...

They didn't need to turn her into an evil machiavellian genius. Nor have her out to kill her dad. It was far more interesting when she seemed more human with believable motivation - wanting to save her dad. The ending would have been more interesting if she cared about the fact that her living meant the copper died, but still made that choice anyroad.

Disappointingly, the returning woman seemed a better actor than the others and a more likable character too.

- Huey

[paulvonscott]

Well,  I was hoping to continue adding on some general one liner dismissive interviews for the next few episodes.  But that's all ruined!

Torchwood has several problems including bad scripts, bad direction and bad acting.

Take this weeks story, it had maybe 25 minutes of unfulfilling story and a lot of fluff.  I'm guessing that a writer is asked to deliver a 35 minute script containing a full story (a difficult task I suspect, same for Who) and then RTD pads it out with 'character mush'.

A good example of how bad it is was the last few minutes (they seemed to last longer):

We are at the end and they are locking Suzie up again, Jack makes a tortuous speech that looks like he's performing it in some overly dramatic theatre play.  "One day we're going to run out of space.... sigh"  The camera pulls back quickly to show the wall of coffin space just so we understand what he means.  There is no logic to what he says or what they are doing.

Excrutiating writing follows:
Jones "What should we put on the death certificate, she had so many deaths"
Jack "I don't know... ... ... ...Death by Torchwood"

No, don't put that down you stupid fucking prick.

The acting is poorly thought out and accentuated by unpaced direction.  The long long pauses giving a silent run up to hammy dialogue.

You could achieve more by being more careful with the pacing.  It rushes madly desperately incoherantly through plot and grinds to a treacley crawl when people are staring at each other moodily over the character mush, or expressing some over the top emotion.  To me it shows where the priorities are.  

Character development is in the form of dropping a bombshell with no warning.  Such as Toshiko's unrequited love of Owen (clonk!) and, somewhat bizarrely at the end, Jones suddenly using a stopwatch as a chat up line for some casual sex with Jack (clang!).  Jack offers to send everyone home early so they can screw.  

Both the death certificate and the lets knock off early dialogue begs me to ask what the fuck is torchwood?  Is it a real organisiation that has protocols, receives funding and is expected to perform under pressure defend the country?  Or is it just a bunch of people fucking about and someone somehwere hoping that those Torchwood chaps don't destroy Wales along the way.  Anyway...

Presumably Jones is over resenting Jack for killing his girlfriend and Jack has forgiven Jones for bringing a cyberwoman home.  But I have been watching the show, and I've seen no sign of it and have no idea where this has come from.  I should say I don't mind who screws who in the show (apart from RTD), I have no problem with male characters in the show having sex with each other, I'd just like to have it make sense.  

Everyone in Torchwood has had a homosexual experience so far.  Again, not a problem, I don't want to be one of those people complaining about the shows gay agenda. Because if there is one, it's message is that everyone can have a homosexual experience, but only if it involves mind controlling aliens/alien technology that warp their reason.  That would be a fairly poor gay agenda.

While Jones' comment about gloves coming in pairs was a bit predictable - two blokes back from the pub both shouted it out in advance at my house - but actually not bad, and I say that knowing RTD wrote it.  However, what did Jacks strange blank questioning look mean and why did Jones suddenly look awkward?  What the fuck is going on, what was that, was it in the script, was it freeform jazz acting?  This sort of stuff plagues the show.  Plus the problem with a clever line not thought through is that it adds the classic B-Movie ending where all the efforts of the movie are spoilt by the threat of the reappearence of the monster at the end.  You've sat through all of this, but the monster is dead... .... ...or is it?  

The whole end scene of the show is a tiny microcosm of why the show is a load of old wank.  I was embarressed for them.

I even watched Torchwood Declassified for the first time to see them justify it.  They can't, they're too busy trying to work out what the subtext of the show is (no firm consensus, but be assured it's all deep and meaningful).

There you go, Jim.  If I could be bothered to watch it again sober, I could write a whole book on this crap.

[paulvonscott]

"Nor have her out to kill her dad."

What the fuck is it with RTD and bad dads?  

[WoD]

Paul, you love it really...Captain Jack's your boy friend...

[DavidXBrunt]

Yeah, but Pauls the husband.

[paulvonscott]

Damn straight.

[Concrete Block 15]

Sounds anything but to me... ;-)

[Quirkafleeg]

Torchwood or Love Actually? Decisions, decisions...

[Richmond Clements]

The strange thing is though, I agree with everything Paul said there- but I still like the show.

[paulvonscott]

Good for you RAC, I'm not trying to convince anyone its crap, it's there, people can make of it what they will.

[Cthulouis]

Today I got round to seeing episode three, the one with the past/future emotion reader.

Based on the first three, all I can say is, it doesn't suck (unlike the last series of Who) but it ain't great either. The ending was insane, as was the bit after that when Jack tried to make the woman feel all right, and not in the good way, but not anywhere near the "Doctor picking up the Olympic Torch" level of insane.

Considered in it's own right, its not that offensive to my nerdish disposition or anything.

Considered as the BBC's attempt to continue their fine heritage of classic sci fi, it's a little depressing.

More thoughts on the series as a whole when I finally get round to watching the rest (could be a fair few years yet).

[IndigoPrime]

"it doesn't suck (unlike the last series of Who)"

Give it time. Frankly, although I had problems with the second series of Who, it's high art compared to the dross that is Torchwood, which is in dire need of a brutal script editor. In the most recent episode, so many things jarred. That thing with the ISBNâ??what? She'd have needed the EXACT SAME EDITION of the EXACT SAME BOOK when setting things up! Idiotic! Shutting things down by using a cleverly found line from the actual poems would, of course, have been beyond the writers of this show. And, it has to be said, when I was living in Cardiff, it never went from the middle of the night to daylight in "40 minutes". Gnh!

[DavidXBrunt]

There were black screens behind the seats in the Torchmobile. For some reason. But it looked darker than it was.

[Jim_Campbell]

"There you go, Jim. If I could be bothered to watch it again sober, I could write a whole book on this crap."

Why, thank you, Doctor Von Scott ... a fine dissection that saves me having to subject myself to this tosh to reach the same conclusion!

Your sacrifice will not go unnoticed.

Cheers!

Jim