Torchwood: Ghost Machine...

[fajrdrako]

Watched Torchwood's third episode last night, and enjoyed it very much, especially when the camera was showing Captain Jack. Luckily, it does this a good part of the time.

I watched it with commodorified and her spouses and we drank Lady Grey tea, which made me think of rosiespark, which was fun. I made fake gumdrop cookies and Rayne brought an incredibly delicious beef stew. It was difficult not to overeat.

To comment in detail:

1. I thought this had the best writing and story-structure of the three episodes so far: a good action-packed beginning, a well-paced plot in which each event built on the last, carefully established characterization, and an interesting premise.
   
   And I didn't like it quite as much as the previous two episodes. Why not? Well... mostly because Everything Changes and Day One each had a scene that was a big emotional pay-off for me, in each case centred on Captain Jack, in each case a dramatic but welcome surprise. In Everything Changes, it was his rising from the dead. In Day One it was the scene with the hand. Though there were bits I liked almost as much, there were no dramatic plot/character developments centred on Jack. If there were any references to Doctor Who continuity, I didn't catch them, except that Owen had a UNIT card. Which I don't care about. UNIT is not a reference to any episodes I have seen.
   
   All the character development here was centred on Owen, and I still don't care. I no longer find Owen appalling and annoying, but I don't find him very interesting, either. I certainly don't find him sexy, as Russell T. Davies seems to. Is this like Smallville, where the producers had a thing for Kirsten Kreuk as Lana Lang, and the rest of us couldn't figure out why?
   
   
2. Captain Jack's fashion choices have me in extended ecstasy.
   
   
3. I loved the shooting range scene. Sensuous gunplay such as only Captain Jack can offer. Fine by me. And I love it that this was immediately followed by the scene where Gwen went home and had loving thoughts of Rhys.
   
   
4. No pterodactyl.
   
   
5. When will Ianto get some dialogue? I keep thinking he's on the verge of doing or saying something ineffably cool but it hasn't actually happened yet. Well, bringing tea is cool. I love his "Alfred" personal style. I love the way he keeps calling Jack "sir" - not that he says it often, because he doesn't say anything often.
   
   
6. I continue to crush on Toshiko for no reason I can analyze. I hope I don't like her less when I get to know more about her. I love the visuals of her work-station.
   
   
7. Captain Jack seems to run a loose ship and I'm not sure why. I can see the value of having non-conformists in his team but his command style seems to be an odd strategy: "bully them and then let them do whatever they want to". Even the newcomer Gwen - who still seems somewhat awestricken by Jack - is breaking the rules by taking alien tech home with her. This seems in character, as we saw her breaking rules when she was a cop, too.
   
   
8. I loved it that there were no monsters in this one - no Weevils, no aliens in funny masks at all. Interesting that the origin of the cross-temporal emotion tracking device was not discovered. Is Jack still looking into that, or is he satisfied with the "washed in through the rift" explanation that is no explanation at all? ...I particularly liked it that there were 'alien coins' in the stash of things that Bernie found.
   
   
9. Loved, absolutely loved, the scene where Owen was chasing Bernie across everyone's back gardens.
   
   
10. After Everything Changes I said they'd probably do something to make Owen more sympathetic, to change him - and I think this was it, the enforced empathy with the raped-and-murdered Lizzie Lewis that brought about a different attitude on Owen's part. I didn't feel it was enough to change my attitude. I thought Owen's psychology made perfect sense and I enjoyed watching the experiences he was having psychologically, but I still didn't like him much. He just seemed... temperamental, uncontrolled. I wouldn't want him as my doctor.
    
    
11. There was one rather interesting revelation about Jack: apparently he doesn't need to sleep. Is this part of a sleep/death equation? Or a sign of his enhanced biophysical energy? I don't imagine that the TARDIS sleeps, come to think of it. I'm not sure what this means but Jack must have a lot of time to pursue his workaholic activities. Or is he spending the time in sexual adventure? The show implies not.
    
    
12. I continue to love Jack's voice. (Well, John Barrowman's voice.) Gwen's, too.
    

Comments

Re: Forgot to add...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was impressed with Gareth Thomas as Ed Morgan. Never liked him on Blake's 7.

not escaping his inner demons...

Yes - just making them worse in solitude and misanthropy.

I thought they showed an excellent reaction of him when he realized what Owen was talking about...

Yes. Excellent. Chilling.

poor Bernie! :-) I like to think that he was so shocked by his visions that he became totally an honest citizen:-)

Yes! Oh, what a shock to everyone! It would be fun to write that as a story... "Okay, I'm honest, what do I do now?" And see if he makes as much of a cock-up of being honest as he did of being a thief!

Re: Forgot to add...

[elebridith]

Oh, that's a spin-off! "Bernie - life after Torchwood" :-)

Re: Forgot to add...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I'm really quite tempted to write something like that. Poor Bernie - I really hope he finds something he can be successful at.