Welcome Back!
Jan. 17th, 2008 12:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fairyd123Hey kids! You miss me?
We sure as hell did Jack!
So after a painful year of being absent from our tv screens Torchwood was finally back - and back with a vengeance it was too! Having now watched it twice (I'll just take a moment to worship my shiny new Humax ptv recorder) its great to be able to say that Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was Torchwood finally living up to its potential.
It was the perfect re-introduction to the series. Slick, peppered with clever one liners (I worked my way up the ranks. And I'm sure the ranks were grateful ), populated with feisty, likeable (praise be!) characters, a proper nasty villain, fantastic action sequences and the whole thing moved so fast you barely had time to draw breath, never mind worry about the plot. Even the music was amazing with its Western style licks. Has Chris Chibnall finally learned how to write?
The majority of the key gripes about the first series seemed to have been addressed. Jack - too often a bit part player in his own series during the first season was precisely where he should be in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - front and centre. Gone was the Angel lite brooding and angst which had reached the level of self-parody by the end of the series. Replaced with a funny, lighter but still wonderfully layered character.
The team who in the previous series always acted like they might kill each other should they get stuck in a lift together for 5 minutes were finally looking and acting like a proper team - a team who like and care for each other and woe betide anyone who gets in their way. I really loved the little sequence of Jack watching them all work together like a well oiled machine at the beginning of the episode. Clearly Jack's absence caused them to bond and all the pettiness and hatred seems to have fallen away.
I have to say I was very impressed with James Marsters as Captain John. Granted he was just playing Spike (as I guess I knew he would be) although a more x-rated HBO version of Spike but I still thought he did it exceptionally well. The character may have been completely amoral and fairly repugnant but he was also genuinely funny and very charismatic. I thought he had fantastic chemistry with John Barrowman - which surprised me as that hadn't come across at all in the shortened version of the kiss which the BBC had released prior to the episode airing. Out of context the kiss looked rather awkward but within the episode it worked really well. I thought Marsters really really sold the concept of Hart as a man who was in his own way still very much in love with Jack. Jack is fairly dismissive of their relationship so you see it through Hart's eyes - and you never believe for a second that it was only a fling. They were together for 5 years and what they had was important enough to Hart that he's desperate to re-kindle it. I thought his line delivery of He won't stay with you. We had something special was quite heartbreaking in its conviction that Jack will choose him over his team. The look of horror and regret after he'd pushed Jack off the roof was also brilliantly done.
But given that all the pre-publicity was James, James, James I was delighted that all of Team Torchwood got a chance to shine.
I love Burn Gorman but I found Owen to be so unlikeable and unstable at the end of the last series that he was getting difficult to watch. But this was a much more grown up Owen. I adored his action sequence at the beginning (the line about any children up at midnight and out on the roads getting what they deserved was my favourite of the episode) and his bickering interactions with the team were funny and sharp without being barbed. And the part where he threatened Hart if he touched Tosh again - I got goosebumps! Its funny how when they stopped pretending that Owen is a sex god and having women fall at his feet and just let Owen be funny and commanding and resourceful he suddenly became about a 1000 times more attractive!
Tosh - oh how I love Tosh. She's very much a woman coming in to her own. She's grown in confidence enough that she can joke about how hot Captain Hart is, flirt with him and blush adorably when he praises her skills which is why it was so horrifying when he turned on her and smacked her in the face. But oh Tosh honey - the unrequited love for Owen is not healthy. My heart was bleeding for her as she perked up at the prospect of being the kind of girl that Owen would have something in common with.
And astonishingly I didn't hate Gwen - Gwen as part of the Torchwood team is perfectly palatable and Eve does have great comic timing - her bit about Rhys not being able to go down on one knee to propose as his back gave out was lovely.
Ianto - well he's very Gareth this year isn't he? I've heard that bellowed "Hello" that he gave to Gwen at the beginning of the episode a fair few times. That was pure Gareth - not so much Ianto. They've obviously decided this year that they're going to capitalise on Gareth's impeccable comic timing and his very dry sense of humour. I did think he managed to steal pretty much every scene he was in and with very few words so I'm very encouraged by that. Also he did look like quite the hard man when he refused to back down to Hart in the lift and the following sequence was quite an erotic little scene I thought - with Hart suggestively stroking his gun over poor Ianto's face.
And they've finally given John some lovely stuff to work with. His acting last year varied wildly from wonderful (Captain Jack Harkness, Out of Time) to just plain horribly embarrassing (pretty much the last 20 minutes of Countrycide) but given great material he's brilliant. It would have been easy for him to simply decide to now play Jack as he did in Doctor Who - light, breezy and a tad shallow, but instead he managed to capture the light heartedness of Who Jack whilst still making it clear that he's a very different person to who he was when he was with the Doctor. Torchwood series 2 Jack is much more fun to be around but you can still tell that he's been through some very painful experiences. My heart broke for Jack when he was telling Gwen about being dragged back to life over and over again against his will - the broken glass metaphor was quite upsetting.
And of course I was delighted to see my favourite pairing alive and well! I giggled at the "I came back for you lengthy beat All of You" line because I swear I must have read it in a million fan fics since End of Days. I was quite worried that they were just going to pretend that the relationship never occurred so it was lovely to see that so much of the episode was devoted to that not being the case. You've got Ianto being instantly jealous of Hart, out right asking Jack whether he's going back to his Doctor and wanting to know why Jack is helping his ex-lover. Jack spends a fair amount of the episode re-assuring Ianto that he's here to stay.
I thought the scene in the office was lovely. You've got a pissy, jealous Ianto, still upset over being abandoned for the Doctor and distressed that Jack has barely been back 5 minutes and they've dropped everything to help Jack's old lover, acting all super, let's just focus on the work, professional. And meanwhile Jack is completely thrown at his some-time lover now refusing to call him anything other than Sir and not responding to him on a personal level. We've never seen Jack so unsure, so vulnerable. He was really nervous asking Ianto out and Ianto himself was emotionally all over the place, awkwardly accepting the invitation. It was a lovely bit of acting from both of them and gave me a lot of hope for how the relationship will be handled throughout the series.
It wasn't all brilliant - Torchwood are still endearingly useless. Jack must have known that Hart was lying through his teeth and yet he endangered his team anyway on the 1 in a million chance that he was telling the truth. He never should have let Gwen go with Hart and he should have worked out that Hart would be able to shut down their comm system. Gwen in turn probably shouldn't have let her guard down so completely with a man she knows is a murderer by practically turning her back on him to answer a phone call (and what happened to the ever present blue tooth attachments they all had last year - they seem to have gone low tech) And did it not dawn on any of them that a man with less than 10 minutes to live moght resort to violence to encourage you to help him with his little problem?
I was also a little confused as to why the fish had the pyramid. Chibnall's scripts are renowned for their gaping plot holes and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was no exception. Was the fish Hart's partner in crime? Did he steal the pyramid from Hart? Did he send the fish through the rift to retrieve the pyramid? A throwaway line in the script would have helped solve that mystery.
I guess any discussion of Saxon, Jack's year of hell, the Himalayas etc is going to be relegated to the website or fanfic. I would have liked it touched on in a little more detail but I don;t see it happening - even in the Martha episodes.
Also I confess my joy was slightly tarnished by the fact that they haven't entirely rectified my biggest problem with the series. Why does it have to be All. About. Gwen?
Why was Gwen in charge of the team when Jack was gone? Owen is second in command. Why did the new girl get to take charge? And Gwen is the one who was paralysed by the toxin. And Gwen was the one who gets handcuffed to Hart. Gwen, Gwen, Gwen. And don't get me started on the Jack/Gwen scene with Jack being dismayed about Gwen being engaged. It looks like the writers haven't stopped flogging that dead horse yet (and John and Eve still have no chemistry). The scene wasn't entirely helped by Eve's decision to play the whole thing with huge bug eyes - which was a little strange to say the least.
I didn't hate Gwen in this but the sense that Torchwood is a show about Gwen Cooper and the team hasn't quite gone away.
Still. I'm now very excited for the rest of the series and I can't wait for all the John/Jack/Ianto fic to start appearing.
Welcome Back Torchwood!
We sure as hell did Jack!
So after a painful year of being absent from our tv screens Torchwood was finally back - and back with a vengeance it was too! Having now watched it twice (I'll just take a moment to worship my shiny new Humax ptv recorder) its great to be able to say that Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was Torchwood finally living up to its potential.
It was the perfect re-introduction to the series. Slick, peppered with clever one liners (I worked my way up the ranks. And I'm sure the ranks were grateful ), populated with feisty, likeable (praise be!) characters, a proper nasty villain, fantastic action sequences and the whole thing moved so fast you barely had time to draw breath, never mind worry about the plot. Even the music was amazing with its Western style licks. Has Chris Chibnall finally learned how to write?
The majority of the key gripes about the first series seemed to have been addressed. Jack - too often a bit part player in his own series during the first season was precisely where he should be in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - front and centre. Gone was the Angel lite brooding and angst which had reached the level of self-parody by the end of the series. Replaced with a funny, lighter but still wonderfully layered character.
The team who in the previous series always acted like they might kill each other should they get stuck in a lift together for 5 minutes were finally looking and acting like a proper team - a team who like and care for each other and woe betide anyone who gets in their way. I really loved the little sequence of Jack watching them all work together like a well oiled machine at the beginning of the episode. Clearly Jack's absence caused them to bond and all the pettiness and hatred seems to have fallen away.
I have to say I was very impressed with James Marsters as Captain John. Granted he was just playing Spike (as I guess I knew he would be) although a more x-rated HBO version of Spike but I still thought he did it exceptionally well. The character may have been completely amoral and fairly repugnant but he was also genuinely funny and very charismatic. I thought he had fantastic chemistry with John Barrowman - which surprised me as that hadn't come across at all in the shortened version of the kiss which the BBC had released prior to the episode airing. Out of context the kiss looked rather awkward but within the episode it worked really well. I thought Marsters really really sold the concept of Hart as a man who was in his own way still very much in love with Jack. Jack is fairly dismissive of their relationship so you see it through Hart's eyes - and you never believe for a second that it was only a fling. They were together for 5 years and what they had was important enough to Hart that he's desperate to re-kindle it. I thought his line delivery of He won't stay with you. We had something special was quite heartbreaking in its conviction that Jack will choose him over his team. The look of horror and regret after he'd pushed Jack off the roof was also brilliantly done.
But given that all the pre-publicity was James, James, James I was delighted that all of Team Torchwood got a chance to shine.
I love Burn Gorman but I found Owen to be so unlikeable and unstable at the end of the last series that he was getting difficult to watch. But this was a much more grown up Owen. I adored his action sequence at the beginning (the line about any children up at midnight and out on the roads getting what they deserved was my favourite of the episode) and his bickering interactions with the team were funny and sharp without being barbed. And the part where he threatened Hart if he touched Tosh again - I got goosebumps! Its funny how when they stopped pretending that Owen is a sex god and having women fall at his feet and just let Owen be funny and commanding and resourceful he suddenly became about a 1000 times more attractive!
Tosh - oh how I love Tosh. She's very much a woman coming in to her own. She's grown in confidence enough that she can joke about how hot Captain Hart is, flirt with him and blush adorably when he praises her skills which is why it was so horrifying when he turned on her and smacked her in the face. But oh Tosh honey - the unrequited love for Owen is not healthy. My heart was bleeding for her as she perked up at the prospect of being the kind of girl that Owen would have something in common with.
And astonishingly I didn't hate Gwen - Gwen as part of the Torchwood team is perfectly palatable and Eve does have great comic timing - her bit about Rhys not being able to go down on one knee to propose as his back gave out was lovely.
Ianto - well he's very Gareth this year isn't he? I've heard that bellowed "Hello" that he gave to Gwen at the beginning of the episode a fair few times. That was pure Gareth - not so much Ianto. They've obviously decided this year that they're going to capitalise on Gareth's impeccable comic timing and his very dry sense of humour. I did think he managed to steal pretty much every scene he was in and with very few words so I'm very encouraged by that. Also he did look like quite the hard man when he refused to back down to Hart in the lift and the following sequence was quite an erotic little scene I thought - with Hart suggestively stroking his gun over poor Ianto's face.
And they've finally given John some lovely stuff to work with. His acting last year varied wildly from wonderful (Captain Jack Harkness, Out of Time) to just plain horribly embarrassing (pretty much the last 20 minutes of Countrycide) but given great material he's brilliant. It would have been easy for him to simply decide to now play Jack as he did in Doctor Who - light, breezy and a tad shallow, but instead he managed to capture the light heartedness of Who Jack whilst still making it clear that he's a very different person to who he was when he was with the Doctor. Torchwood series 2 Jack is much more fun to be around but you can still tell that he's been through some very painful experiences. My heart broke for Jack when he was telling Gwen about being dragged back to life over and over again against his will - the broken glass metaphor was quite upsetting.
And of course I was delighted to see my favourite pairing alive and well! I giggled at the "I came back for you lengthy beat All of You" line because I swear I must have read it in a million fan fics since End of Days. I was quite worried that they were just going to pretend that the relationship never occurred so it was lovely to see that so much of the episode was devoted to that not being the case. You've got Ianto being instantly jealous of Hart, out right asking Jack whether he's going back to his Doctor and wanting to know why Jack is helping his ex-lover. Jack spends a fair amount of the episode re-assuring Ianto that he's here to stay.
I thought the scene in the office was lovely. You've got a pissy, jealous Ianto, still upset over being abandoned for the Doctor and distressed that Jack has barely been back 5 minutes and they've dropped everything to help Jack's old lover, acting all super, let's just focus on the work, professional. And meanwhile Jack is completely thrown at his some-time lover now refusing to call him anything other than Sir and not responding to him on a personal level. We've never seen Jack so unsure, so vulnerable. He was really nervous asking Ianto out and Ianto himself was emotionally all over the place, awkwardly accepting the invitation. It was a lovely bit of acting from both of them and gave me a lot of hope for how the relationship will be handled throughout the series.
It wasn't all brilliant - Torchwood are still endearingly useless. Jack must have known that Hart was lying through his teeth and yet he endangered his team anyway on the 1 in a million chance that he was telling the truth. He never should have let Gwen go with Hart and he should have worked out that Hart would be able to shut down their comm system. Gwen in turn probably shouldn't have let her guard down so completely with a man she knows is a murderer by practically turning her back on him to answer a phone call (and what happened to the ever present blue tooth attachments they all had last year - they seem to have gone low tech) And did it not dawn on any of them that a man with less than 10 minutes to live moght resort to violence to encourage you to help him with his little problem?
I was also a little confused as to why the fish had the pyramid. Chibnall's scripts are renowned for their gaping plot holes and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was no exception. Was the fish Hart's partner in crime? Did he steal the pyramid from Hart? Did he send the fish through the rift to retrieve the pyramid? A throwaway line in the script would have helped solve that mystery.
I guess any discussion of Saxon, Jack's year of hell, the Himalayas etc is going to be relegated to the website or fanfic. I would have liked it touched on in a little more detail but I don;t see it happening - even in the Martha episodes.
Also I confess my joy was slightly tarnished by the fact that they haven't entirely rectified my biggest problem with the series. Why does it have to be All. About. Gwen?
Why was Gwen in charge of the team when Jack was gone? Owen is second in command. Why did the new girl get to take charge? And Gwen is the one who was paralysed by the toxin. And Gwen was the one who gets handcuffed to Hart. Gwen, Gwen, Gwen. And don't get me started on the Jack/Gwen scene with Jack being dismayed about Gwen being engaged. It looks like the writers haven't stopped flogging that dead horse yet (and John and Eve still have no chemistry). The scene wasn't entirely helped by Eve's decision to play the whole thing with huge bug eyes - which was a little strange to say the least.
I didn't hate Gwen in this but the sense that Torchwood is a show about Gwen Cooper and the team hasn't quite gone away.
Still. I'm now very excited for the rest of the series and I can't wait for all the John/Jack/Ianto fic to start appearing.
Welcome Back Torchwood!
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 12:47 am (UTC)Hee! Oh I'm so glad I'm not the only one whose mind went there. It started with the gun stroking his face, and then the fact that you could actually see Ianto considering the logistics of a TW/John Hart orgy for a few seconds - Jack's 51st century attitudes must be starting to rub off on him :)
I think my main gripe with the ep was that it was clearly being written so that folks who haven't seen most/all of S1 can catch up. Which in a sense is good because it's always great if you can hook new viewers, but for those who do know it did feel like losing precious seconds for simple exposition. Still, the trailer for the rest of the season looked amazing, and in particular the slight extension of THAT scene has me very very happy!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 01:19 am (UTC)Yes it was a catch up episode/re-boot to the series and as such worked very well. But the downside of that is that the characterisation was fairly cursory (although still well done) so I'm looking forward to a more normal ep. Next week's looks good.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-18 06:12 pm (UTC)Naughty boy!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 12:55 am (UTC)With regards to Gwen, I think, without a doubt, when the show was first commissioned they wanted Jack and Gwen to have that will they/won't they 'Moonlighting' tension. However, I think that while they've realised this won't work (the viewers don't like Gwen enough, her affair with Owen means that another affair will make her look even worse...), they (Chibnall and RTD) can't quite let it go!
I don't believe for one second that they don't listen to fan opinion, no matter what RTD says (rather patronisingly!). They know that many of the viewers want Jack/Ianto - they just can't quite bring themselves to admit they were wrong in the first place!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 01:03 am (UTC)Hey, I guess it was all pretty reasonable...!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 01:16 am (UTC)I thought it was good - the Gwack scene was a little painful but I'm willing to overlook that! I thought it was a good solid re-boot to the series and I'm looking forward to having a slightly slower paced episode next week where the characters get a little more chance to breathe.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-18 06:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-18 06:12 pm (UTC)Have been a couple of good John/Jack, Jack/Ianto fics today.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 01:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 02:11 am (UTC)Why was Gwen in charge of the team when Jack was gone? Owen is second in command.
And Owen was the one barking out commands when they confronted the blow fish. I was a bit miffed by that as well. Did she self-proclaim herself in charge and they were just humoring her.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 03:25 am (UTC)Actually, that's what I posted in someone's journal - they let Gwen pretend to be in charge to keep her quiet and out of their way, and the rest of the team did the work as usual.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 03:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 08:05 pm (UTC)After Gwen's first "I'm in charge" behavior I went all "WTF?? - but now it makes perfect sense. And I'll stick with this. *g*
no subject
Date: 2008-01-21 06:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 03:58 am (UTC)I *still* don't see the Gwack twu wuv connection (and never will unless one of them undergoes a complete personality change), and thought the whole engagement ring scene fit in as well as last season's stopwatch scene. As a stand-alone scene, fine, but that puzzle piece ain't fitting into the rest of the puzzle and made me wonder where it came from. At least with the stopwatch scene, I could see the chemistry and potential between Jack and Ianto. I don't see *anything* between Jack and Gwen other than a crush on Gwen's part and an "observing an ant farm", "so *that's* how people in this time live" curiosity on Jack's part. And Gwen, bless her heart, still has no sense of self-preservation, does she? Especially for an experienced policewoman?
I definitely liked the changes in Owen and Toshiko, and was thrilled to see the changes in Ianto. That boy's come a long way in a short time. (That's my boy. :beams proudly:)
I was quite impressed with the way James Marsters played Capt. John. It's the first time I've seen him in anything, and I was wondering how he'd come across: I can totally see Jack having once been that person. Wasn't he a nasty piece of work!
I love the way Jack's changed from last season. And OMG, the way Jack looked when he told the team he'd found his doctor. So happy. :flails: :melts: And then his vulnerability and uncertainty watching the team work in the hub, and in the office scene with Ianto, and the way Ianto responded. :sighs:
Overall, I'm more than satisfied with the episode and have my fingers and toes crossed that the rest of the season will be at least this good and with a little less Gwen. (I'm not holding my breath over Gwen, but I can always hope.)
no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 10:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 11:02 am (UTC)Most importantly I don't think Jack/Gwen have any sexual chemistry at all. Which is bewildering as John and Eve are adorable together and clearly get along wonderfully but it just doesn't translate to the screen. Jack and Tosh have fabulous chemistry (their scenes in Captain Jack Harkness were beautiful) but Jack/Gwen just doesn't fly for me at all.
Now Gwen was much better written in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - she was funny, brave (willing to sacrifice her life for Cardiff, feisty as hell (loved her smacking John) and relatively competent although she was daft enough to turn her back on a murderer.
Gwen's scene with Jack was distinctly odd. Jack had always been Rhys' biggest champion - telling Gwen to hold on to her life and not let it slip. And yet he is openly dismayed that Gwen is getting married the indication being that if she weren't engaged he would have put the moves on her - which is completely inconsistent with his characterisation to date and makes him come across as a bit of a weasel. It also diminished the very lovely scene with Ianto in the office as it could be seen that Ianto was his second-choice (again) the re-bound guy that he's willing to warm his bed with now that Gweb is unavailable. I can fanwank the Jack/Gwen scene as Jack being upset that life did indeed go on without him - that things didn't remain static and that Gwen has changed - but that is fanwanking.
As for Owen being second in command? I think there were various lines last season which suggested that the order was Jack, Suzie, Owen, and then presumably Tosh and Ianto. Either way logic dictates that the new girl doesn't get to take charge - there's no way she'd be ranked as second in command. It was definitely Owen's job to lead the team - whether he wanted to do that is another matter!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 11:18 am (UTC)...which is completely inconsistent with his characterisation to date
Well a lot of last night's episode was hardly consistant with his charactarisation from the last series!
Also, don't forget Owen and Ianto arguing last series about just who was in charge! As I recall, it wasn't exactly resolved.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 08:13 pm (UTC)Yeah. Unfortunately, this is how the office scene made me feel, too.
I just don't get it. Forget the lack of chemistry, but simply nothing in first series implicated Jack's reaction to Gwen's engagement.
And I feel sorry for Rhys, too. They made him another second-in-line. He's a good guy, and now looks like Gwen accepted him just because Jack wasn't around to "stop" her.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-18 03:29 am (UTC)wrt Jack letting Gwen spit up the team and go with Captain John: I think Jack was partly wanting to show the team they still needed him, although Jack probably didn't expect the demonstration to be quite so thorough.
I thought Gwen ended up in charge because Owen was still feeling the "I shot Jack" guilt, Ianto & Tosh being too introverted to want the job.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-18 06:39 pm (UTC)