Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Torchwood- Season One Discussion (As It Happens) SPOILERS

Page: 1 2 3 4(5)6 7 8 9 10... 19

21:43 / 30.10.06

We all like bearers of refreshments. I want to like Ianto outside of this specification, but the script-writers don't make it any easier. Next week's episode looks like it'll make him a right old questionable bastard, what with (and this is based only on what I've seen in the trailer) the possible harbouring of a cyberperson and turning against Jack and company.

23:10 / 30.10.06

all he done is bring in refreshments

AND DRANK THEM!
It's a bit like liking Thunderbird 4, isn't it?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:37 / 31.10.06

It is an important role in the organisation, though. If Ianto doesn't bring in refreshments, Owen has to order a pizza, and we already know what a security nightmare that can be.

11:03 / 31.10.06

More importantly, he's sort of hot.

All Acting Regiment

12:07 / 31.10.06

Is this on BBC2 tonight or tomorrow?

12:41 / 31.10.06

Wednesday at 9, methinks.

17:59 / 31.10.06

I liked that Blake was in this week's episode, and I'm surprised that no-one else seems to have mentioned this yet.

I'm also echoing the Ianto hotness.

I'm glad that this seems to be calming down the hypersexual beginnings slightly, so at least it's heading in the right direction from that perspective, albeit currently at the expense of downplaying the nonhet aspects. However I have to agree with those people who've already remarked on Barrowman's inconsistency and the fact that the only really sympathetic characters seem to be the 'humans' in the form of Gwen and Rhys.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

18:25 / 31.10.06

Fuck, I'd forgotten the whole Gareth Thomas thing. When I was watching it I was all "ah, the lith'll be all over that!" and then I completely forgot once I got to the thread.

18:33 / 31.10.06

I like Ianto too and can't help wondering if he's not secretly their boss.

But yeah, it would have been nice if someone had drawn a parallel between drugging people up with love-dust and what happened under the bridge all those years ago.

I'm still hoping that they're going to. The realization that he's a rapist himself could be a multi-episode arc that he's on. I'd hate to think the two storylines were just a coincidence.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

18:48 / 31.10.06

Thing is, did that original scene with Owen actually end up with any sex? I assumed he'd just fucked off home after that. Is he a rapist if no sex occurred?

I'm also wondering if the fact that we all picked up on that means they DIDN'T actually need to signpost it more- unless we're going down the "everyone except me is TEH STUPID" route, which is a bit eurgh. Anyone who's seen both episodes is gonna draw conclusions, surely?

I don't think we can judge until we see whether his experiences in #3 change his behaviour, really.

If he pulls the "alien spray GHB" card again, then the show is on dodgy ground.

20:04 / 31.10.06

Thing is, did that original scene with Owen actually end up with any sex? I assumed he'd just fucked off home after that. Is he a rapist if no sex occurred?

Whilst they don't show all three in full flagrante delecto I think it can be inferred that's what happened from the "I'm going to have you!" "Not before I do!" and then cut away from his cheeky grin.

Either way his use of the sexy party potion does kind of indicate his intent to get some action regardless of consensus from any prospective partner. It certainly doesn't seem to be the first time he'd used it.

20:24 / 31.10.06

Ianto: He doesn't say much, he does all the admin, and he has a mysterious appeal...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

23:01 / 31.10.06

Oh, I assumed he fucked off home and let those two fight it out.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

23:04 / 31.10.06

Though I agree- his intent was there... I just wasn't sure it had actually been carried out, and even at the time (during #1) I thought he may have realised afterwards it was a bad idea. Doesn't make his actions any more laudable, mind you.

Thing is, I kind of figured that was *why* they had him as the one to see Lizzie's death in #3... and that therefore there wasn't any need to explain one in terms of the other.

23:45 / 31.10.06

"Anything less probably shouldn't be expected from somebody who constantly spends her time editing and plugging the plot-holes of other people's scripts."

Oh, if only she did.

I'll echo some of the previous comments. Wanted to love this but it's all a bit flat. No tension, no atmosphere and - for a series supposedly aimed at adults - no maturity. And why is it that programs made a decade earlier (X-Files/Ultraviolet) look so much better? I get the sense that everyone involved is faithfully translated the script to screen but forgetting to TELL A STORY.

Ex

08:16 / 01.11.06

I'm sad to say that it's not grabbing me, either - I find it visually jumbled, I look at the shots of the underground lair and I can't seem to pick out elements, or get a sense of the whole. Possibly I need new specs. If only to do justice to Captain Jack's increasingly lovely wardrobe.

However, I only started to feel resentful when I realised that the current Halifax advert (Halifax gives you more/ Interest than your bank for sure/ It only takes a mo/ To get more interest on your dough!) has more sense of menace, better special effects and nicer visual coherence. Damn.

Sticking with it and hoping the characters emerge mroe forcefully and the plots shape up.

18:24 / 01.11.06

Sorry to be ignorant, and apologies if I missed it onscreen (either in this thread or the show), but why is everyone saying that the pickled hand in ep2 was the Doctor's ? I didn't get that at all, and in all honesty was rather hoping that it was CJH's last relic of someone he cared about, not the Doctor... probably because I'd like the show to build its own separate backstory and not lean completely on DW, I guess.

Anyway, if someone can point me in the appropriate direction I'd appreciate it.

23:05 / 01.11.06

I've finally gotten around to watching this, and reading the first page of this thread is making me wonder a bunch about what important information and background material I might have missed as a result of not watching the new Doctor Who stuff. Anyone know a good source for a quick recap?

07:20 / 02.11.06

Anyone know a good source for a quick recap?

Wikipedia will probably give you a quick rundown of the episodes from season's 1 and 2 of Who.

Season 1 will give you some background on Captain Jack and is where he gets "blessed" with immortality.

Season 2 is, in many ways, a launchpoint for Torchwood and ends with the Battle of Canary Wharf (as referenced in ep.1).

If you want I can answer any questions and give you a paragraph or so catch-up via PM.

14:59 / 02.11.06

DaveBCooper: There's obviously no direct indication that it is indeed the Doctor's hand, but it's implied heavily through several cues and examining Jack's background. A musical cue familiar to fans of Doctor Who can be heard playing as he cradles the hand. It's accepted that this is one of the Doctor's musical leitmotifs.

Secondly, the Doctor had his hand cut off during the climax of last year's Christmas special, "The Christmas Invasion." As Torchwood shares a universe with Doctor Who, then it's sensible to assume that it's the Doctor's hand and not some other hand belonging to another enigmatic figure from the Doctor's past.

It would be nice for Torchwood to build it's own mythology, but it would also be fairly churlish just to abandon the wealth of back-story, characters and concepts introduced by Doctor Who.

A quick look through any Wikipedia entries about The Christmas Invasion, The Doctor or Day One will probably yield a more helpful answer than my own, but I hope I helped clarify things for you.

ONLY NICE THINGS

15:22 / 02.11.06

There's obviously no direct indication that it is indeed the Doctor's hand, but it's implied heavily through several cues and examining Jack's background.

Yes. Also, it said so in the Radio Times.

15:27 / 02.11.06

That too, I suppose. Where's the fun in that though?

15:47 / 02.11.06

They've also done a bit of spoilage this week's RT for something that's not even in next week's show.

07:55 / 03.11.06

Many thanks, Llama and cube - I think my tendency to watch DW episodes once and leave it at that* has clearly left me not getting the full benefit, had totally forgotten that his hand got chopped off in the Xmas special.

Slightly more on thread, if you're a UK-er and have access to a copy of the free newspaper Metro, today's edition features an interview with John Barrowman in their '30 second interview' (or whatever it's called). He does seem like an awfully decent sort, I have to say.

*Well, with the exception of the bit where Eccleston leaves - love those lines about Rose being great, and him too.

Whisky Priestess

11:38 / 03.11.06

Here's the Barrowman interview

Although what the fuck he thinks he's wearing in that picture, I don't know. He looks like Adam Ant in panto. In prison.

01:44 / 05.11.06

Hand and deliver!

ONLY NICE THINGS

20:27 / 05.11.06

Who the fuck is in charge of HR at Torchwood?

20:59 / 05.11.06

I didn't realise how long I'd been waiting to watch a cyborg punch a pterodactyl.

20:59 / 05.11.06

No-one, it seems which might possibly explain why there only appear to be 5 people in torchwood Cardiff whereas the London Branch had loads of people. And I'd imagine it's high time the employees at Jubilee started demanding danger money...

21:01 / 05.11.06

Sadly the visceral thrill of watching a cyborg punch a pterosaur didn't really make up for the rest of it...

21:04 / 05.11.06

After all that, it didn't even satisfactorily answer the ages old question of who would win in a fight between a Cyberman and a pterodactyl.

This was enjoyable, pantomime fare, with the occasional fun set-piece, but suffered from taking itself far too seriously and some annoying production weaknesses. The device that Toshiko used to open the door was the exact same as the one she used to scan books in the first episode. The cyberwoman's design was pretty impractical-cyber-stilettos? At least they retained the satisfying clunking noise of the parent show.

I would have believed Ianto's angst a little more, if it had been previously established that he doesn't enjoy cleaning up the other's shit, but unfortunately in the preceeding episodes he seems quite happy to do it.

A lot of the humour this week was fairly puerile stuff: hard-ons, shit for the sake of (sh)it.

Other than those few quibbles, I quite enjoyed it. "Small Worlds" looks excellent and if Cube still doesn't want to read anything about it, then look away now: I wonder if the elderly woman is a previous lover of Jack's from back in the war. Seems like it'll be fairly Jack/Gwen centric, with very little Ianto, Tosh, Owen. I hope that Ianto doesn't slip back to being a tertiary character after an energetic performance this week, he deserves to stay in the foreground-especially over Lee Evans Jr.

miss wonderstarr

21:44 / 05.11.06

This week, a cyborg punches a pterodactyl. Next week, Captain Jack waterskiis over a shark in Cardiff Bay.

I thought that was awful, cheesy, inconsistent, uninvolving stuff ~ like mediocre kids' TV with some swearin and snoggin.

21:47 / 05.11.06

Why did Suzy top herself in episode 1? If they're not going to fire Ianto for all that then killing a couple of people surely wouldn't have bothered them...

weird I still so want to like it and next weeks trailer looks really good and I wonder how long I'll keep saying that before I go and do something else with my life...

Jack's insistence on forcing Ianto to kill her? what? why? help...

22:22 / 05.11.06

The best guess is that Ianto knows something about Jack that Jack really doesn't want anyone else to know. I was unimpressed by the reliance on Who of this episode, and utterly confounded by the snoggery in the morgue.
Yet I felt it had a little more of the horror themes I was expecting from the series as a whole: that poor pizza girl and the implants in the cyborg expert were genuinely very nasty, so still on the fence.

miss wonderstarr

22:43 / 05.11.06

I don't know... it seems so incompetent, both Torchwood and Torchwood. The organisation is so slapdash ~ recruiting members virtually off the street, with its staff entirely unreliable and untrustworthy ~ they let pizza girls just walk in, and they can't get radio communication within their own building, and they have thermal sensors but not working CCTV, and they can't tell if a cyberwoman's walking around the building with an intruder, until they register a power surge. They bark official sounding orders about battle protocol and take up operation positions #9, but these manoeuvres seem to consist of Old Who strategies like run-down-a-corridor, race-up-some-stairs, distract-the-baddie. They're a secret organisation that treats alien invaders like a minor nuisance, but they don't have any weapons to use against the cyborg except medical tools, ketchup, a dinosaur and conventional Earth revolvers. Their main entrance is a huge cog ~ their default lighting system is spooky blue and red on the left and right of people's faces ~ the Torchwood HQ looks like the Batcave from Adam West's TV show. It's so cheesy, and it seems to be trying to be dark and adult.

Page: 1 2 3 4(5)6 7 8 9 10... 19