Torchwood: Something Borrowed (2x09)...

[fajrdrako]

I spent yesterday avoiding my flist and my mailing lists because I hadn't seen the episode yet. I saw only two non-spoiler comments. One person said 'it was the best Torchwood episode since "Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang".' And another person said, 'it was the worst Torchwood episode ever'. So what was I to expect?

I watched it last night with auriaephiala, commodorified and iclysdale. We screamed a lot, and laughed a lot - missed some good lines that way, without regrets. I picture my neighbours saying to each other, "Awfully noisy in apt. 104 this evening. They must be watching Torchwood there again."

iclysdale thought the plot "improbable" which I think is an absurd consideration: no more 'improbable' than Doctor Doom crashing the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm, and that isn't "improbable", it's classic.

Yeah, I loved it. (This was a relief, because I wasn't that crazy over "A Day in the Death" last week.) Specific comments:

1. The big surprise for me was that Gwen and Rhys actually got married. I didn't think it would happen. I thought one or both would find a reason not to marry - not that they don't love each other, not that they won't stay together, but I thought they'd decide it was too dangerous for Rhys, or Gwen had too many reservations, or something. I would have been ready to place a bet that they wouldn't be married at the end of the episode - and I'd have been wrong. Totally wrong. I love that.



2. Loved seeing Rhys slug Jack for insulting his mother.



3. Loved the Jack/Gwen interactions, especially the dance at the end. Loved the exchange:

   Gwen: What will you do while I'm gone?
   Jack: Oh, you know, the usual. Pizza. Ianto.

   Also loved seeing Ianto cut in, and then seeing Jack dancing together so comfortably in public.



4. Ianto is a god among men. The god of cleaning-up-afterwards, with a snarky comment. "That's what I love about Torchwood. By day, you're killing the scum of the universe, by night you're the wedding fairy." Loved his comments about his father.



5. Rhys was pretty darn cute in his wedding outfit.



6. I was relieved and pleased that the whole Torchwood team ended up at the wedding. Otherwise - however near and dear these people must be to Gwen, she can't get to see them all that much any more - she barely makes it home to Rhys.



7. I have a soft spot for alien shape-changers. (Skrulls. Bring on the Skrulls.) Loved it when the alien became Rhys's mother, and then Jack.



8. Loved Gwen's father. His... calm resignation when she told him about alien pregnancies and Torchwood and the Rift was wonderful. I can just see him living through her adolescence with one teen crisis after another.



9. I would have liked more emphasis on Jack - I always want more focus on Jack. He was not at his best, but he was far more in good form than last week.



10. I was so relieved there were no sad deaths in this one. Seems to me that episode after episode we've had the sad death of the victim-of-the-week: Beth, Tommy, the space whale, Jack's father (with the added twist of the loss of Grey), Owen, and Parker.



11. Tosh was pretty snarky to poor Banana Boat! Truth was, I didn't much like Toshiko in this episode. But she was pretty in that dress.



12. I still heartily dislike all the Tosh/Owen interaction, but I love Owen as walking-dead-in-the-midst-of-life. Loved the Jack-Ianto exchange:

    Jack: Ever since Owen died all you've done is agree with him!
    Ianto: I was brought up not to speak ill of the dead. Even if they do still do most of their talking for themselves.

    It was great to see Owen at the wedding in his T-shirt with his little yellow flower - was that supplied by Ianto?



13. And how could I not like Ianto's conversation with the clerk in the bridal shop?



14. Loved it when Gwen shot the alien. Gwen-the-bride as Terminator! Way to go, Gwen.



15. The liberal use of Retcon at the end was entirely predictable, and I like it that there are levels of potency. Will Gwen's family and friends not be confused later, when they don't recall anything about the wedding? Or will they just forget the alien monster, Torchwood, and he shooting?



16. Jack was married? What are we to make of that?

For my own easy reference: "Something Borrowed" review posts on torch_wood.

Comments

[cionaudha.livejournal.com]

Improbable?! It's TORCHWOOD. They have a PET PTERODACTYL. :-D

I just loved this episode! It filled me with glee all around. A light, airy souffle with many delicious bits, and just enough substance to satisfy.

I am beginning to have a thing for Rhys. No longer that sad, beaten puppy he was. The truth has set him free.

Ianto. Ianto is clearly the Welsh word for SWEETY-PEETY PUNKIN-PIE. Even with his emotional troubles, he is as fine a specimen as I believe I've ever seen.

Ah, the dancing... pressed tight together from chest to thigh, and cheek to cheek... Ianto's head down, dreaming. *sigh* I loved seeing Owen watching, then Tosh noticing Owen watching something, turning to see what, and staring as she realizes she's THE LAST PERSON TO KNOW.

I loved Ma and Pa Cooper. They seem like great people. Geraint! I love that name.

Tosh was full of piss and vinegar this time out! Love that! And I need her shoes.

[beck-liz.livejournal.com]

Ianto is a god among men.

Isn't he just? I loved him in this episode. So many delightfully snarky comments and wonderful expressions on his face.

I would have liked more emphasis on Jack - I always want for focus on Jack. He was not at his best, but he was far more in good form than last week.

Yes and yes. I'd love a Jack-centric episode that actually gives us a lot of information about him. Thus far, we're getting it mostly in these little tiny dribs and drabs that come every once in awhile.

I still heartily dislike all the Tosh/Owen interaction, but I love Owen as dead-in-the-midst-of-life. Loved the Jack-Ianto exchange:

Ditto. I'm not at all fond of Tosh/Owen, especially since she seems to revert to shy and insecure when she's around him, whereas the rest of the episode she was a lovely, confident woman. Bleh. And loved how matter-of-factly Owen is dealing with his deadness in this episode.


Jack was married? What are we to make of that?

I know, right? Did a bit of theorizing (http://beck-liz.livejournal.com/783868.html) in my journal about it (in the comments), and decided that: a) that photo could easily have been taken in the mid-to-late 1800s, and b) that there does appear to have been a significant number of years where Jack was unaware that he was immortal, and therefore c) he likely thought he was settling down to live with this woman for the rest of his (normal human) life. Except that d) then he got himself killed and came back to life, and he realized that things weren't quite as he thought. *shrug* I could be, of course, completely wrong, especially given how little we really know about Jack, but I think it's a likely explanation.

christn7 wrote a story (http://community.livejournal.com/teadis/34754.html#cutid1) based on that, if you're interested.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Improbable?! It's TORCHWOOD. They have a PET PTERODACTYL.

Yes. Their boss is immortal and their doctor is dead. Jack is growning a TARDIS on his desk. They use an invisible lift to get to work. Improbability is just part of the fun!

A light, airy souffle with many delicious bits, and just enough substance to satisfy.

Yes, excactly. The action was such fun.


Ianto: Even with his emotional troubles, he is as fine a specimen as I believe I've ever seen.

And then some. As far as I'm concerned, his emotional troubles just make it better.

I loved seeing Owen watching, then Tosh noticing Owen watching something, turning to see what, and staring as she realizes she's THE LAST PERSON TO KNOW.

I didn't notice that. Have to watch it again!

Geraint! I love that name

So nicely Welsh. Arthurian, isn't it? Yes, "Geraint and Enid" -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraint

[cionaudha.livejournal.com]

Don't have to wait to see it again. There's an animation here: http://cowboyhd.livejournal.com/5435.html#cutid1

(The last one.)

I am not kidding when I tell you that my laptop went into screensaver mode watching those animations. On a 20-minute shut-off cycle. Hypnotic.

Have I ever mentioned the things Ianto's cat-eyes do to me? Yes? Well, they do things. And he's looking especially good this ep.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

So many delightfully snarky comments and wonderful expressions on his face.

Inato manages to be so expressive and blandly unrevealing at the same time. (When he's not being hysterical or emo, of course.) I love the endless faces of Ianto.

I'd love a Jack-centric episode that actually gives us a lot of information about him.

I want something that plays up his courage and his feelings. But anything would do! I'd like to see more of him in different times and places. So many untold stories. More anecdotes of those he has loved. More comments about the future and the past.

I'm not at all fond of Tosh/Owen, especially since she seems to revert to shy and insecure when she's around him

Yes - I really think they bring out the worst in each other.

loved how matter-of-factly Owen is dealing with his deadness in this episode.

I did too. That was great.


Oooh, I will read your marriage theories a.s.a.p.! (Limited reading opportunities at work here. Too much to do. Groan.)

that there does appear to have been a significant number of years where Jack was unaware that he was immortal, and therefore c) he likely thought he was settling down to live with this woman for the rest of his (normal human) life

Interesting point. I couldn't help thinking of Methos, who was married 68 times in 5,000 years.

I think it's a likely explanation

So it is! I look foreward to [Unknown site tag]'s story, too.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

There's an animation here

I love it! Awwww. Wonderful moments in Torchwood!

Hypnotic

Yeah. Nicely so.

he's looking especially good this ep.

That's for sure. I think he's looking better all the time.

[gillo]

Nerys Hughes, ex-Liver Bird as Evil Bitch Mother-in-law From Hell! And Killer Gwen rocked.

Married Jack was merely a sop to maintain the plausibility of his omnisexuality, when it's clear he really prefers boys.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I don't agree that Jack prefers boys - I think he really does like people regardless of gender, though we don't see much about his relationships with women - for, IMHO, three distinct extratextual reasons. Meanwhile he prefers Ianto at the moment, and that suits me just fine!

Killer Gwen rocked.


I'd say!

[nina-ds.livejournal.com]

Combining comments to your last two posts: I do agree that this was a surprisingly good episode, and it moved with unexpected skill between slapstick/silly and a few moving moments as Gwen struggled with how she thought her wedding would go. I felt like the whole Martha-UNIT-dead Owen arc was weakly written, despite having some good actors. Only Richard Briers really pulled it out for me (I have to admit, Freema still looks very amateurish to me, and Burn Gorman seemed curiously, well, dead - it could have been a choice, but it didn't work). I feel like they got this "ooh, cool!" idea and then stopped thinking, which isn't encouraging for consistency. I was just saying the other day that perhaps this group of writers, both DW and TW should stop trying to think in big arcs, because I don't think it's their strong point, and there's no particular reason why every series should have one. As for Jack/Ianto, I like the casualness of it (for the most part - the "dance" moment was rather like an anvil waiting to drop! - but I still just don't see any chemistry. I wish they'd cast someone with whom John Barrowman could spark, because Matt Rippy, Eve Myles, Christopher Eccleston, and to a lesser extent Billie Piper show that he can.

And the way they treat Tosh. ::headdesk:: Let's not even start.

This all sounds rather negative, but on the whole, I am liking this so much better than last year. They're much more successful when they realize they're televising crack fanfiction and just go with it!

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

I agree that there is too little spark between Jack and Ianto. Ianto is nice for snarly remarks and double entendres, but for me the physical chemistry isn't there. For instance, compare the dance in season one with the other captain Jack link naar youtube clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7-OS4fvOHo) with th dance with Ianto in the last episode. I know which one seems more intimate to me.

I do wish they could pull off a longer arc though, something about Jack's past, there are enough little titbits hanging around, the time agency, Grey, the erased memory....

[nina-ds.livejournal.com]

I know which one seems more intimate to me.

Oh, absolutely, no doubt. JB and Matt Rippy had very intense chemistry; and JB and CE had an easy, breezy sexiness, all banter and in each other's space with total body awareness (watch how many times they move in complete synch with each other, and how natural it looks if you're not paying attention). But with Ianto, there's just nothing, even when they're trying to banter, as when they got "caught" in conversation in this episode. Last year, I couldn't stand Ianto. He's improved a lot this year, but I still find him bland, so it makes me hard to root for their relationship - even before considering their past! Then again, the TW/DW writing team has a very bad "ear" for relationships, I think. Gwen/Rhys is the healthiest they've drawn, and yet she rufied him. Yuck.

A long arc might be nice, but I'm so gunshy with the writing, I think I prefer the little bits of insight. The wedding picture, though, could come back to haunt us. Maybe I've just watched S1 of Due South too many times, but that was totally a Victoria moment. ::shudder:: But Due South had remarkable narrative discipline, at least in S1-2, and that's missing rather spectacularly from TW. Sometimes I think the DW S1 narrative arc was a total fluke, or a result of CE's notorious "story-editing"!

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I don't see any reason why Jack, even if he knew he was immortal, might not have married. Plenty of TV immortals have been shown to have settled down in the past, some even had kids (most recently seen in the new series "New Amsterdam") I'd like to think Jack had moments of joy and happiness in his life

[adnamamai.livejournal.com]

**The liberal use of Retcon at the end was entirely predictable, and I like it that there are levels of potency. Will Gwen's family and friends not be confused later, when they don't recall anything about the wedding? Or will they just forget the alien monster, Torchwood, and he shooting?**


Jack told them to to make the clean up good because it was Gewn's wedding. I took that to mean replacing the real memories with memories of a perfect wedding.

[raissad.livejournal.com]

Everyone else has covered the bits I loved. I do have to dock the ep. a point for being an alien pregnancy plot, just not my favorite, even when well executed.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I go not, in general, like any kind of pregnancy plot, including alien pregnancy. But I enjoyed the story quite enough to overlook it this time. After all, alien pregnancy is one of the few plot cliches they hadn't explored yet.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I took that to mean replacing the real memories with memories of a perfect wedding.

That makes the most sense, especially if they can make it appear that the dead guy was never even there. And they can.

Only Gwen will remember Rhys's heroism with a chainsaw!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, it makes perfect sense that Jack might have been married, on any number of counts. Immortality would be no handicap. I have wondered whether Jack is fertile - I mean, being a father - but there's no obvious reasons he wouldn't be. I quite like the idea that he was married. I'm just curious about who his wife was, and what happened!

Another untold story.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

something tells me we might be getting more hints about it eventually (not that I've read spoilers, just that otherwise the writers are really mean!)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, I suspect that all aspects of Jack's life that they've been hinting at will have some sort of follow-up. There's sure to be a Grey story, for example, now he's been mentioned twice. So what other Jack-related loose ends are there?

- Grey
- Jack's marriage
- Jack's pregnancy
- Jack's war (with the 'most terrible creatures')
- Jack's missing two years

...Anything else specific?

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

My assumption is if they ever talk about the missing two years it'll be on DW, since that's the only place it has been mentioned.

I wonder if the terrible creatures he talked about in "CJH" are the same ones that killed his dad in "Adam"

They might explain a bit more about the Time Agency. John's offhand comment about there only being 7 of them left radically altered how many fans thought the whole thing was set up and run.

I'm not sure Jack was actually ever pregnant- he makes so many randomly odd comments, there might have been nothing to it more than 'lets annoy the team'

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

My assumption is if they ever talk about the missing two years it'll be on DW, since that's the only place it has been mentioned.

I agree, and it's quite likely.

I wonder if the terrible creatures he talked about in "CJH" are the same ones that killed his dad in "Adam"

Though there's no proof or evidence either way, it would make sense - he refers to them in the same way, he talks about having joined the military at a very young age to fight them - to do so because of the death of his father and the attack on his world would be a logical development.

John's offhand comment about there only being 7 of them left radically altered how many fans thought the whole thing was set up and run.

That was an interesting detail. I also found it interesting that the only two Time Agents we have met have been con men - with Captain John being more lawless and dangerous than Jack, but neither of them fitting any stereotype of "time cops" or "law enforcement agency". Makes you wonder what the Time Agency does, what it's there for, who it was/is/will be. I would guess, since Jack was involved, that they are not villains - they might indeed be a very ad hoc sort of thing.

Which is why it's fun to see the fanfic in which Torchwood becomes the Time Agency.

It's also interesting to think of Jack's perspective on different times: the present he is inhabiting in the show, the past and future that he travels to and through like a sightseer, and the 'present' of the 51st century that he came from - which I would assume was where the Time Agency was based, for lack of other information.

there might have been nothing to it more than 'lets annoy the team'

Maybe. I am unconvinced either way. In isolation, I might agree, but we get DW references to the pregnancy of the Face of Boe. Most likely explanation is that it's just Russell T. Davies' sense of humour, but that doesn't absolve it from being a story point, either.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

The fact the only Time Agents we've seen were con men is very interesting. In DW I'd assumed Jack had been on the straight and narrow, working for the Time agency until they erased his memories and that is what drove him to doing cons. Now, I'm not sure.

The Time Agency (and it's being in the 51st Century) was mentioned once in an OldSchool Who- The Talons of Weng Chun (which I've probably misspelled), it's a brief one line comment. Presumedly that's where Moffatt got the idea originally.

The pregnancy and Face of Boe ideas are both things I file under "not going to think about it, I'll just hope they are jokes."

jack and Ianto - Part 1

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I felt like the whole Martha-UNIT-dead Owen arc was weakly written, despite having some good actors.

Yes. I liked part 1, "Reset": the plot wasn't much, but it was all right, and Martha's character meshed well with the Torchwood team, with Jack, and the sitation. I liked the changes of mood in it and everyone seemed at their best. I liked certain things about "Dead Man Walking", especially Jack's determination to revive Owen, but the plot seemed to lose its way and by the end I was wondering what the point was - I was not fond of Death as an antagonist. In "A Day in the Death", I thought the story itself was well-written but not interesting in itself, and it was as if I'd walked into another TV show, not Torchwood at all: it made weaknesses of Torchwood's strengths and everyone was out of character. (I.e., Jack was cold, Owen was compassionate, Martha was dull.) I went from liking dead!Owen (as I had in the previous episode) to feeling impatient with him. So now I'm back to square one, and wish Owen wasn't around.

I feel like they got this "ooh, cool!" idea and then stopped thinking

Good assessment! Did they know where they wanted to go with it, or was it just, "What can we do with Owen, now that we've made him fall in love and get his heart broken, kill Jack and be forgiven for it, rebelled against Torchwood and then conformed to the rules, be an annoying jerk and then a good doctor? What haven't we done? Well, we could make him undead. That would be different, and we could play with the Buffy themes again."

As for Jack/Ianto, I like the casualness of it

Yes. I have mixed feelings in so many ways. I like the casualness of it, but don't entirely know what to make of it.

I still just don't see any chemistry

It isn't just the acting, it's the writing, too. In "Captain Jack Harkness" the writing, acting and dialogue all made me believe I knew exactly what these men felt for each other, and it was powerful - all developed and shown in the space of considerably less than an hour, since part of that episode was about Owen and Ianto. And in a total of twenty-one episodes of Torchwood I still feel they are being unclear about how Jack and Ianto feel about each other, skirting around the issue. Teasing? We get clues - many of them ambiguous, like Jack saying "I came back for you - all of you," or "I have loved people I would never otherwise have met".

Jack and Ianto - Part 2

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I think the best Jack/Ianto moments have been passionate (guns in each other's faces in "Cyberwoman") or warm (the kiss on the forehead in "Adam") or sweet (the kiss at the end of "End of Days") but there's not one moment between them I'd point to and say, "that was erotic". Least of all the kiss in "To The Last Man", which was very nice, but oddly lacking in emotional or physical connection.

From most scenes Jack and Ianto have together, I'd never guess they were lovers in any sense of the word at all.

Why? Maybe because they don't want to play any two of Jack's relationships in the same way, in which case I'd give them A for effort. Maybe because they want Jack to have someone to sleep with but don't know where to go with the relationship.

I wish they'd cast someone with whom John Barrowman could spark, because Matt Rippy, Eve Myles, Christopher Eccleston, and to a lesser extent Billie Piper show that he can.

And did. Very effectively. Perhaps if he had a hand-touching scene, or a gunroom scene, or something of the sort with Ianto - but it's hard to imagine, given what we've seen. I'm not sure if it's that Gareth David-Lloyd isn't a good enough actor, and too much the straight boy to pull it off - or if it's that they want to give us this relationship and back off on it at the same time.

the way they treat Tosh. ::headdesk:: Let's not even start.

Yeah. In my opinion, Tosh's role is just getting worse and worse and still worse.

They're much more successful when they realize they're televising crack fanfiction and just go with it!

They have a sense of fun and imagination that really works for me, even when I find lots and lots of things to gripe about. I still think the writing is all over the map and someone should be paying more attention, but I still love the show anyway.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Ianto is nice for snarly remarks and double entendres, but for me the physical chemistry isn't there.

No, it isn't there for me either, though sometimes I enjoy the tension that puts on the relationship. It works best in my head if I play it in an almost negative way - that they have given each other so much, including love but not intimacy, and that Jack feels too little and Ianto feels too much and they're never going to balance their conflicting roles.

The Matt Rippey scenes were incredibly erotic and romantic and moving.

I do wish they could pull off a longer arc though, something about Jack's past,

I often find myself impatient that I am watching a show featuring an ensemble cast when really what I'm interested in is Jack's story. Aliens in Cardiff? Owen and Tosh's troubles? Gwen's family? That's not what I'm looking for. I want more about Jack: the freebooting life-loving time traveller who is as good at getting himself out of trouble as into it.