Torchwood: The Way it Looks... The Ten Best Visual Details of Torchwood

[fajrdrako]

Excluding people. Picspam follows.

1. Jack's Coat
   
   
   
   It isn't just that it looks good on him; it's that it makes the right kind of statement on several levels:
   
   • It's reminiscent of World War II, and the period when he met Rose and the Doctor.
     
   • It's reminiscent of his hero, role model, and lover, the other Captain Jack Harkness.
     
   • It looks good, stylish in a classic way, a fashion statement - and yet is masculine, militaristic and imposing.
     
   • It's something for Ianto to tend; I love it when Ianto hands Jack the coat, or holds it for him, and of course, I love the scene where he held it to his face, weeping, in "End of Days". Ianto taking care of Jack's coat is also reminiscent of Jack taking care of the Doctor's coat in Doctor Who.
     
   • It has big pockets to keep things in.
   
   Looks good on him, looks good hung on its peg.
   
   
   
2. The pterodactyl, Myfanwy
   
   
   So cool. So unique. A symbol of the far-ranging scope of Torchwood's range, and also of the way it holds the alien, the exotic, and the bizarre in its realm - to tame, to tend, to study, to keep, to control and contain. She's a pet, a guard-dog, and a weapon.
   
   I particularly like it that they let her fly free at night.
   
   
   
3. The window in Jack's office
   
   
   
   I like the way it looks. The Hub is full of interesting shapes; the rectangular tiles, the arched doorways, the interesting juxtapositions of rounded and squared hallways and rooms. Curves and straight lines, all emphasized and complicated with the curves of wires, cords, hoses and other objects in the place. There are several particularly interesting uses of roundness in the design of Torchwood, all of them oddly significant:
   • The heavy round door at the entranceway;
     
   • The entrance to Jack's bedroom;
     
   • The window, which combines the round exterior with the straight panes within it.
   
   The window has diagrams on it, whose significance I am not sure of. Did Jack put them there? Is it possible to understand what it shows? Does it look somewhat Gallifreyan, or Victorian, or contemporary? Though the design isn't precisely the same, there's a similarity to the Doctor's fob watch: circles and intersecting curves with a circular frame.
   
   The window looks out from Jack's office down to the visible main level of the Hub. It isn't clear to me how much he can see from the window, but he can see the workstations, and the entrance. There's something nicely introspective about a window that looks into it own heart, rather than an exterior view of the world.
   
   I also like the way Jack leaves books on his rounded windowsill.
   
   
   
4. The Dragon
   
   
   
   A symbol of Wales, heraldically, except that this isn't the same as the heraldic dragon, and it isn't red. Who put it there, and why?
   
   But it's a nice symbol of Torchwood. Dangerous, far-reaching; something that can burn the unwary. Something that guards secrets in deep lairs. Something that is unpredictable and old.
   
   
   
5. The baby TARDIS on Jack's desk
   
   
   
   It's easy to overlook this, or to not know what it is - it was mentioned in publicity for the show, but it's yet another object which has far more to it than meets the eye onscreen. Almost always under the lamp on Jack's desk, I often think it looks like popcorn or scrambled eggs, but it's coral which, according to Russell T Davis, will eventually grow into a TARDIS, ready to be carved in another 500 years or so.
   
   Interestingly, it looks quite different from episode to episode, though always distinctively yellow. Here's a slightly more detailed close-up:
   
   
   
   I wonder what the other Torchwood employees think of it, or whether they know what it is. They probably just think Jack finds coral decorative. It does add a nice splash of colour.
   
   It raises another interesting question: how many of the objects lying around Torchwood have stories yet to be told?
   
   
   
   
6. The Doctor's 3-D Glasses
   
   
   
   Usually hanging over Jack's lamp in series one, the 3-D glasses are only one artifact of the Doctor that Jack has tracked down and collected. There's the Hand, the televisions from "The Idiot's Lantern" - what else?
   
   
   
7. Torchwood's name
   
   
   
   I love the way Torchwood's name is painted on the tiles of the main room of the Hub. The font gives it that antique-industrial look, in contrast and to highlight the high-tech and futuristic nature of so much of the material in the Hub. The name appears in the background in a lot of significant scenes, along with "cold storage". There's something just a little steampunk about this.
   
   
   
8. Jack's cufflinks
   
   
   
   When did Jack start wearing these? A smart set of cufflinks, shaped like a World War II plane. Commemorative of his own flying days, when he met the Doctor? Or a souvenir of his meeting with the other Captain Jack Harkness?
   
   
   
9. Jack's wristband
   
   
   
   We saw it in use from Jack's first appearances in Doctor Who. It's a high-tech device apparently issued to all Time Agents, which functions as a Vortex Manipulator (allowing for time travel, when it isn't dismantled), a communications device, a hologram projector, a computer, and an encyclopedia. Does it have other uses?
   
   Jack is almost never without his. I don't blame him. If I had one, I'd keep it on all the time, too. But we know Jack takes it off to rest - hard though it is to see his wrists here, there's clearly no watch or wristband:
   
   
   
   And he also takes it off for sex:
   
   
   
   And yes, of course I had to research this detail. It's necessary to be thorough. I wonder if he removes it to shower or bathe?
   
   Here's a more detailed picture:
   
   
   
   Captain John seems to think his might be bigger than Captain Jack's, but we have reason to doubt it.
   
   
   
10. Jack's Handwriting
    
    
    
    As far as I know, the only time we see Jack Harkness' handwriting is in "Captain Jack Harkness", when Owen looks into his personal notebook.
    
    I love the way his handwriting looks: old-fashioned, precise, but still natural. I like to imagine it being used for love letters.

So what are your favourite visual details?

Comments

[deedeedee123.livejournal.com]

love this and good catch with spoting the wristband wasn’t in the hothouse scene i missed that:)

[deedeedee123.livejournal.com]

fave visual detail hhhhmmmmmm John Barrowman lol

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Unquestionably!

That's why I had to specify "excluding people" becuase otherwise I could just list 100 (or 1,000) good shots of Captain Jack....

Mmm, that might be fun to do.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I wonder if there are other scenes where he isn't wearing the writstband? It's something to keep an eye on while watching.

The hothouse scene must be studied in great detail, of course, just so we can get these things right in our fic and art. Can't allow mistakes, right?

[topgeargirl2.livejournal.com]

Why is it that we feel giggly when we look at photos of Jack?

I think the reason I didn't spot that he wasn't wearing the wristband is because being too distract at what he was doing with Ianto.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Why is it that we feel giggly when we look at photos of Jack?

Maybe because it is such a pleasure to look at him?

Of course it is easy to be distracted, especially when Jack is distracting Ianto in the best possible way. The best way to handle this is to watch it all over and over. Just in case we miss something.

[topgeargirl2.livejournal.com]

Actually I will still be distracted, no matter how many times I would watch it.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, but that's why it's so much fun! We love distraction!

[topgeargirl2.livejournal.com]

Oh I just remembered John's was smaller.

[rustydog.livejournal.com]

The dragon is my favorite, followed by the cavernous space of the main area of the Hub, with the water tower drawing your eyes upward. It's unexpected to have a space like that underground, and it's gorgeous.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

The dragon is wonderful - such a fearsome beast! That icon shows it well. I'd love to know the story behind it.

As for the cavernous space, one of the pictures I love and considered using was this:



...because of the way it shows the space looking up from the main Hub floor. I am used to thinking of the many levels under the main section that they use; I tend to forget that there are levels and passages above, too. The place is huge. Another offhand comment in one of the novels that the Hub extends under Cardiff Bay got me thinking, too.

I wish we saw more of it in the show.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

So it seems. Jack is pretty smug when it comes to comparative measurements.

[topgeargirl2.livejournal.com]

I remember noticing John's wrist and seeing that it was smaller.

[midasu.livejournal.com]

I love this. I watched the Torchwood episodes on a tiny screen on my computer and never caught all these lovely, awesome details. I really enjoyed this picspam and your reasons for what you loved.

[mylenn.livejournal.com]

The Torchwood name on the wall looks the way London tube stations have the names on the walls. Just a thought.... :)

[pinkfairy727.livejournal.com]

Oh wow! This is brill! I think I'd have to go with Jack's coat though I love all Ianto's old-fashioned trinkets as well.

[moonlitcactus.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I read or heard somewhere (a Declassified? an interview?) that the dragon is meant to by a hybrid of Welsh and Japanese, and the backstory is that it was painted by Tosh (and Gwen?) during a 'quiet moment'. I honestly can't pin down where I got that from right at this moment though, does anyone else know?

[rose-cat.livejournal.com]

Still talking about wristbands here? :D

[rose-cat.livejournal.com]

I just saw the DW ep "Stolen Earth" on rerun, and it occurred to me that Ianto and Gwen could have hidden from the Daleks for a while in the basement levels. Not as dramatic as having them face certain death immediately before Tosh saved them from beyond the grave(yay Tosh!), but still...too expensive to film and hard to fit in, I guess.

And yes, it would be great to see more use of the different parts of the Hub in the show. They need more alien invasions in there :)

[rose-cat.livejournal.com]

Awesome post! Great pics, observations and analyses.

Jack's coat is almost a character in itself, isn't it? It flaps nicely in the wind, or when he's running, and helps to highlight the similarities between him and the Doctor(with his own "dashing" coat).

I hadn't noticed the office window detail before. It does look like Gallifreyan. Maybe it says something like, "Jack + Doctor = OTP"? *snork* I like the books on the sill too -- just what I'd do -- and how they're falling over because the sill isn't flat.

I saw Torchwood before New Who, so I wondered what that thing on Jack's desk was for a while. To me it looked like a cheese pizza. Or a piece of shag rug. (not trying to be funny there, honest)

In some season one screenshots there's a spiky paperweight thingie on Jack's desk that looks like a bunch of colored pencils (pens?) stuck together and all pointing outward. I believe it was in an ep of Who as well.

I like all the piles of hardware and tech cluttering up the place. It may be alien tech, but it still looks like somebody needs to clean out their garage and have a yard sale :) Also the chains hanging from up above -- what are those for, anyway? Does Ianto climb up and clean out Myfanwy's nest, or what? (There's a fic in there somewhere :) )

Now that I think of it, the hanging chains are reminiscent of the dangling cables in the TARDIS console room. Likewise, the round structural details. Probably just RTD having fun :)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Ianto and Gwen could have hidden from the Daleks for a while in the basement levels.

Yes - they'd have all the advantages. They could hide for a long time. Given that not all the rooms and passageways could be equipped with detectors and cameras, it makes more sense, when you think about it, that Ianto could hide the Cyberwoman in a lower level for an indefinite period of time.

They need more alien invasions in there :)

At least on a temporary basis!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Still talking about wristbands here?

... Not necessarily.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

A measure of rank? Comparative duties? I wonder how wristband-allotment is determined.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

So glad you enjoyed it. It was fun finding the pictures. And yes, it's something I love about the show. In terms of character and storyline they often seem incredibly - and annoyingly - inconsistent and careless of details. But in terms of set dressing and concept, they're inventive and imaginative and details either enrich the background, or add intriguing mysteries. I find myself thinking, "what is all that stuff?" I like that. It's delightfully realistic.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, and that reinforces the impression of age or... what, motion in time? Venerability? Stability and travel together? I tried to find a photo of one of the names from a London tube station, and failed, but I did find this:



and it reminds me of Torchwood. Not just the combination of curves and tiles, but the colours of the tiles (off-white with black detail) and visual complexity.

But they aren't an old tube station, are they? For one thing, Cardiff never had such a thing. It's original purpose was... industrial? A Victorian power station? I don't remember where the source reference for that is, but that's what I recall.