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I find it quite hard to articulate why Torchwood is annoying me so much. I think it might be because of its potential versus its execution ~ that it now seems so rubbish and bog-standard despite its decent premise, prestige slot, high budget and very good source mythos.
Again, my response mainly comes down to just how unprofessional, sloppy, thoughtless and amateurish both Torchwood and Torchwood are. I don't really want to do it in a list, but in haste:
~ Lack of internal continuity and logic, or even basic emotional and plot coherence between episodes ~ as noted above, everyone apologising for mentioning Ianto's girlfriend, the murdering alien he sneaked in and should have been sacked or killed for concealing.
~ Attempts at snappy, hard-ass professional lines that just go nowhere in the situation or story: "Judging by the air quality, we're deep underground", "I've never met a cell I can't get out of", "How are you on target pressure points?" followed by a woman letting them out of what's obviously a house cellar. All that smart, sub-X-Files chat about deduction and technique ends up having no relation to the real set-up or to what happens.
~ Utter lack of any convincing procedure or organisation among a "special ops" unit. In the face of a threat, they split up, tremble down alleys and point shaking gun-hands round corners. They puke at the sight of a dead body and go bug-eyed traumatised at a lack of criminal motive. They have no policy on backing each other up (beyond "when I say three, RUN!") and defend a building by blocking up the main door but leaving glass windows unprotected and forgetting the cellar. When they corner someone about to kill their own agent, they let country police offers get the drop on them. When one of them discovers a body, they all abandon the SUV with the keys inside. When the SUV goes missing, all the armed agents run after it, abandoning the dead body, as if they might catch it. (One minute later, it's apparently "four minutes' drive away").
~ Torchwood's stated motive, and the motivation of its characters, is meant to be to protect civilians. In this episode again, it seems to be their lowest priority. They let the boy get captured from a room with three special ops agents. They can't even protect their own.
~ What seems to be some approximation of a central theme about the Rift in Cardiff allowing aliens into our world is abandoned for a ho-hum old tale about nutso country cannibals; the whole set-up had a 1970s hokum about it, and this is hardly a case of producing contemporary horror from modern social issues. A number of scenes actually felt like live-action Scooby-Doo.
~ Grown-up drama = adults talking about who they snogged last.
~ Jack's big entrance (utterly predictable, not least because he's the only person left to do it) is backed with celestial choirs and slow motion. He lets off about a dozen precise shots while perhaps four antagonists have their guns pointed at the wall he bursts through, and don't get one shot fired.
~ Gwen's scene about needing to "KNOW" was totally overwritten and overplayed. She's seen things you people wouldn't believe (another gripe: too many of these pointless little in-jokes) and it's a rural community of killers that shocks her most? After she dealt with fairies last week, and a pterodactyl fighting a cyberwoman the week before? This is the case that's going to drive her mental because she doesn't know why people kill other people?
~ Final scene (OMG I thought she was alone in the room talking to herself, but he comes up behind her with no shirt on!! they must have been doing it!1) was the sort of "adult" drama I might have daringly written at age 13. |
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