30 Days of Torchwood: Day 5: Least Favourite episode...

[fajrdrako]

The 30 Days of Torchwood meme:

Day 5: Least Favourite episode.

Another easy one: "A Day in the Death" by Joseph Lidster.



Reasons:



• I prefer the episodes that feature the ensemble cast, or which focus on Captain Jack. This episode was almost entirely about one of my least favourite characters in the show, Owen, without much interaction with the others to make things interesting. Adding to my disaffection, Owen doesn't take his condition with good grace or heroism, but finds many ways to gripe and complain and feel sorry for himself.
  
  
• Bad enough to be focussing on Owen in a bad mood, but now he's an undead person. I'm not exactly a zombie fan. It didn't improve his character, either.
  
  
• The wonderful Martha is now working for Torchwood, but do we get to see much of her? No, she's not relevant, mostly we just see Owen and his friend. Bad trade.
  
  
• The previous episode, Jack was moving heaven and earth (and a posse of sleeping Weevils) to save Owen. In this episode he's indifferent to him to the point of callousness. What's with that? ...Okay, I know they changed the story, but couldn't they change it in a way that made sense and was still in character? Is this Jack's version of tough love?
  
  
• I didn't like Parker, which was a pity. I'd been hoping (foolishly, I know) that the mystery man buying up alien artifacts was Henry van Statten, my favourite Doctor Who villain, making a cameo comeback. That would have been delicious continuity, of the kind I most love, which would tie together the background story beautifully. Instead it was... well, someone who interested me far less and had no resonance for continuity whatsoever. I couldn't even hold to my illusion or hope that the mysterious buyer in "Random Shoes" was van Statten.
  
  
• And the alien artifact was lame. Pretty, but lame.
  
  
• I didn't like the deus ex machina resolution, or the fact that the most interesting thing about the artifact - its provenance - was unexplored.
  
  
• I might have liked Maggie if she'd been interacting with Tosh or Jack or even Gwen. But it was hard to buy Owen in the role they put him in, especially in the ironic circumstances - a dead mad extolling the virtues of continued life. I did not miss the point that he had been suicidal and came to feel hope; a trite sentiment badly expressed in the story. Owen's message of hope for the suicidal didn't ring true, given that he was generally misanthropic, and also because, looking back at his undead life, all that was left to him was true death through self-sacrifice. That makes it a rather empty hope he's talking about.
  
  
• The story has references to Stephen R. Donaldson novels. I heartily dislike his writing.
  
  
• I would have been so happy if Owen had died at the end of "Reset" and Martha had taken his place. Not that I wanted Owen to die; but what happened after that was much worse, where Owen was concerned, than we'd had before.
  


Now, just so this post doesn't sound entirely negative, a few good things about it:



• Martha did appear, and even had lines.
  
• I liked the Tintin references, silly as they were.
  
• I liked seeing Owen sneaking into the Parker mansion in stealth mode like a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.