Torchwood: Random Shoes...

[fajrdrako]

Last night Alayne came over to my place, and commodorified came over with Ian, and we ate apples baked in cinnamon and brown sugar and watched two episodes of Torchwood: "They Keep Killing" (which only I had seen) and "Random Shoes".

I'd heard a bit about "Random Shoes" because, however hard I try to avoid spoilers, fans not not a discreet bunch, on the whole - I'm sure they mean well, but I'd seen lots of LJ entries and mailing-list subject headings along the lines of "Well, that was boring, wasn't it?" and "Where the heck was Captain Jack?" (Starring in panto? Singing for the Queen?)

So I expected a change of pace, and I got it. As soon as Eugene was introduced, Ian and I said, "It's Elton again! It's 'Love and Monsters'!" And so it was. And I should maybe mention again that I absolutely love the Doctor Who series 2 episode, "Love and Monsters". I'd call it off-beat, but there are no Doctor Who episodes that are not off-beat, original, and unique in style. The whole show is blissfully free of formula. But "Love and Monsters" is different even by Doctor Who's always-different standards.

So. Eugene. The Eye of, what was it, Dogon? I'm used to thinking of Torchwood as conceptual mix of Batman, Buffy, and X-Files, the proportion of each varying from episode to episode. Now I see there's a good dollop of Douglas Adams in there too, and that explains a lot.

It boils down to: "It isn't what I wanted, but I loved it anyway." It didn't have much of Torchwood or Captain Jack, or Captain Jack flirting sexily with Ianto, or scenes with Gwen and Rhys being sweet together, or a cameo by the pterodactyl. Maybe it's just that I'm getting to feel I know the characters better and better as the show continues, and as I think and write about them, but I did feel that everyone was particularly well in character this time.

Measured on other terms, It didn't have the punch of "Love and Monsters". I didn't like Eugene and his friends the way I liked Elton and LINDA, I thought the theme of "why Eugene's father left" was weaker than "how Elton's mother died", and I'm not sure if there was a climax. If there was, I didn't understand it. But that doesn't matter. It was fun. It made me smile a lot. Gwen was adorable. [1]

My favourite moment: Eugene looking around the Hub, thinking it was cool. Him seeing the Doctor's hand.

I liked the "random shoes" image - that Eugene had taken the picture, that it was a clue in Gwen's investigation. And I liked it that she was pursuing an investigation, just like a detective might.

Have I ever seen a ghost faint before, in all of fiction? I suppose it would be possible to argue that Eugene wasn't a normal ghost, he was a dead human affected by an alien eye. It's still a novel image.

I liked the way Gwen could almost perceive Eugene and sometimes interact with him, though the story didn't make a big deal of it. We thought Gwen was psychic all along. That helps to explain some of her insights and empathies. I suspect Jack has a sense of this, and it's one of the talents he hired her for.

Are Gwen and Owen still having sex at every chance? Unclear, but it seemed to me that Owen was back to his old level of bitchiness and grumpiness, so maybe their little joyride of erotic thrill has come to its end. (Or maybe not.)

I liked the way Eugene couldn't make the people at Torchwood see him or pay attention to him when he was alive, but at the end they could see him and notice him - when he was dead.

A plot point I didn't understand: who bid the 15,000 pounds on eBay for the eye, and why?

I loved it that there were scenes in Aberystwyth. I once applied to the University of Aberystwyth, and was accepted; but the courses I wanted weren't offered that year, so I went to the University of London instead. And I loved every moment. No regrets. But I always react to Aberystwyth as "the road not taken."

[1] And it cheered me up from feeling sad over a little budgie.

Comments

[firko.livejournal.com]

Now, I did go to Aberystwyth Uni (spooky - we could have been alumni) so I squeed merrily over that and spent half the episode trying to work out if the museum place they went in was actually one of the buildings on campus! I wish they'd shown more of Aber to make it clearer if they actually went there.

I really liked the guy playing Eugene (and remember him from 'As If'), so he certainly helped this episode. It just lacked a little excitement, that's my only gripe.

Oh, and apologies for not putting my comments about it under a cut on my journal. I hope I didn't spoil(er) it for you!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I did go to Aberystwyth Uni (spooky - we could have been alumni)

Oh, cool! Lucky you! What did you take?

spent half the episode trying to work out if the museum place they went in was actually one of the buildings on campus!

I wondered that. Did you come to any conclusion? I also wondered if it might be somewhere in Cardiff, masquerading as Aberystwyth!

It just lacked a little excitement, that's my only gripe.

It lacked emotional tension. Eugene was sweet. He had angst, but not conflict. Even when his friend betrayed him. I liked the actor, too.

Oh, and apologies for not putting my comments about it under a cut on my journal. I hope I didn't spoil(er) it for you!

No, it wasn't your comments that spoiled me (insofar as anything did). It was a large number of comments on a large number of LJs, many with spoiler cuts *after* comments like, "Well, that was dull, wasn't it?" - which are spoilers in themselves.

The same thing happened in the previous week, though I got a kick out of it - all sorts of mutterings about stopwatches, so all I knew about "They Keep Killing" was that stopwatches suddenly had some sqeeworthy significance. It was a rather nice tease.

[cupati.livejournal.com]

Now, although I was distracted by duckbunny reading a newscientist all the way through, I truly jumped when gwen responded to him outside his dad's work. [She didn't notice.]

Though I was worried by people suggesting it was boring, I'd also noticed comparisons to Love+Monsters, so I understood their problems with it, and that they weren't my problems.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I truly jumped when gwen responded to him outside his dad's work. [She didn't notice.]

I thought that was wonderful. I think it was her lack of awareness in particular that I loved - if she doesn't realize she's doing it, it might be a common occurrance for her.

I understood their problems with it, and that they weren't my problems.

Well said.

[cupati.livejournal.com]

Was it the alien eye that was doing it? Because he hung around after it. Or was he an unfinished-buisness ghost, who had finally got Torchwood to notice it?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It could be either or both. He didn't disappear immediately when the eye was taken out of him. He disappeared after they saw him. Maybe it worked in stages. The removal of the eye made it possible for him to be seen. Being seen made it possible for him to die.

[firko.livejournal.com]

I took Agricultural Economics - yep, farming theory and maths. Not the most practical degree and I don't use it now, but I met some amazing people that are still some of my best friends, and got to live by the seaside which I really miss. One of the things I loved about Aber is that all my friends did different degress to me - we met because we were in the same halls, so we all now have completely different careers. Solicitors, teachers, pharmaceuticals, etc.

Some of the campus building have fantastic entrance halls with marble floors very like the one used in Torchwood. It could have been the biochem building but I was only in there a couple of times. Could also have been Cardiff pretending though.

Glad it wasn't me that spoiled you - but that it a problem with the Torchwood fans. Many times the text they include as the cut is spoilery! I just don't get it...

So, if you had gone to Aber, what would you have been doing (and roughly when, if you want to share!)?

[cupati.livejournal.com]

Aaaah. Makes sense.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well... as much as it needs to.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Lovely icon you have there.

Not the most practical degree and I don't use it now,

I'm not using mine as much as I'd like to. Certainly not professionally. But I have plans and hopes to use it more in future.

Many times the text they include as the cut is spoilery! I just don't get it...

Enthusiasm? Missing the point of spoiler cuts? Cluelessness? Carelessness?

So, if you had gone to Aber, what would you have been doing (and roughly when, if you want to share!)?

I was in London 1976-77. The course I wanted to take was in Celtic culture and archeology of the 6th-7th centuries. I ended up taking 12th Century studies in London - history, not archaeology. A also considered, and was accepted for, but didn't take, Renaissance studies in Reading. I think I made the right chioce: I loved doing the 12th century.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I think I made the right choice: I loved doing the 12th century.

Too right!!!!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Hoo, yes, it's the best for sure!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

P.S. I must say that not only do I love this icon, I love the double entendre in it.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

As historical fandoms go, I can only think it's got better as I've got older: so many attractive and appealing 40-somethings.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It has so many of the themes and personalities that I most like. Dramatic events, civilisation-building. Enough sophistication to have arts and architecture and literature and music but still a struggling economy. Political events closely based on personal events. Conflict and conflict-resolution. Church vs. state and state vs. church. Strong women and strong men. Peaceful encounters between civilisations as well as warlike ones. State-building and dynasty-formation. Warrior monks and professorial monks and renegade monks and monks in fighting orders. Saints and sinners. The triumph of the secular and the counterattack of the ecclesiastical. Exploration, expanded trade, the rise of the Italian city-state and all those beautiful towers.

All this, and Conrad too.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

It's the music and poetry and art and architecture that really do it for me.
And Conrad. (It helps that his family were all major patrons of trobar!)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

That certainly appeals to me.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I like being able to put on a CD and listen to something that they would have heard...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

So do I (and thanks again for the one you sent me). It's so evocative of the time, the place, the mood.

I also like the atmosphere of the old buildings they had - the castles, mostly ruined now, the churches.... Or copies thereof. I like sitting in the courtyard of The Cloisters in New York, where they play medieval music.

We don't have old places like that here but it makes me appreciate them even more when I'm in Europe.

[cupati.livejournal.com]

Dude, the only thing that's been keeping me going this week is the need for this icon. Cos duckbunny pointed it out at last weeks UTS, and I've been busy avoiding work since.

[cupati.livejournal.com]

More than Bunny considered it to.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

LOL. Ain't life grand?

A good icon is worth a thousand words.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

We don't have that much hereabouts: one of the problems of the UK being a small country that got the Industrial Revolution early is that so many towns redeveloped themselves in 19C. A lot of older parts of cities were destroyed in slum-clearance instead of being smartened up.

Here in Glasgow, they demolished the genuine mediæval university in the city centre to build a mock Gothic one near me; St Andrews also demolished its 15C quadrangle and built a mock-Jacobean one on the same site. In Hull, there are 2 decent Gothic churches, and one or 2 domestic buildings, but the Victorians knocked down what was left of the Suffolk Palace of the de la Poles and various half-timbered inns, & c. Anything that survived the Victorians was then flattened by the Luftwaffe in WW2, or by the modernising-mad council in the 1960s-70s.

[cupati.livejournal.com]

Bah, it's eaten this once...

I tend to prefer icons with writing on, because if it's just a screenshot it's either nothing new, you've seen it before, or you've not seen it before and don't understand the significance. My view has probably been cultivated by not being voted for in icontests, and not understanding what people saw in the winners.

*notes your icon*

You dissagree, I take it?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I used to prefer icons without words because I liked the purity of the picture. But I have seen so many with interesting or clever words or script that I've more or less changed my mind.

But even though I have icons with writing on them in my collection for potential use, I hardly ever use them. Maybe because if they're really clever, people are already using them; or becuase I never come up with that sort of verbal cleverness for an icon of my own; or because I'm lazy about it. I see icons with sayings I wish I'd thought of, but don't want to take other people's cleverness second-hand.

I seem to be stuck on a round of pretty icon-portraits of Captain Jack, Nine or Ten, and I'm enjoying it mightily.