Torchwood TorchWood Torchwood
DAMN. The Children of Earth is just, well, DAMN. This makes me love Torchwood. I liked it before, but this is amazing and excellent and thought provoking. This reminds me of old school thinking focused Science Fiction you don’t see much of anymore, like the original The Day the Earth Stood Still, or the original The Thing, or the Quartermass films. In fact, this reminds me A LOT of the Quartermass films, in a brilliant, edgy and thought provoking way.
This is a deeply political scifi miniseries that really challanges the watchers and makes you actually confront what they’re talking about. Amazing.
I loved season 1 of Torchwood, when they told smaller and more emotional stories about the human condition. The plots may not have been all that new (though Torchwood never sank to the depths of derivative crap that Fringe dishes up week after week), but the emotional core of the stories was unique and different and that was what drew me in. But the SFF community hated it, so instead of sticking with the audience they had (Torchwood season 1 was a success), RTD and pals changed it around to suit the demographic they thought it should appeal to.
Season 2 was inferior from the start with lame jokes, Buffy rejects, developments from season 1 ignored and characters changed beyond recognition. I gave up watching halfway through (mind you, this used to be my favourite show). Glad I stopped when I did, because they senselessly killed off my favourite character (and the best actor on the show bar none) in the end. Meanwhile, characters that were pure narrative deadweight and should never have survived season 1 were kept on and even had their role expanded.
I haven’t even bothered with season 3, since I know I’ll hate it anyway and with the characters I liked dead or married off I no longer see any point watching. From what I’ve heard, it seems to have turned into an action fest with thinly veiled references to contemporary politics masquerading as depth. In short, it seems like Torchwood has turned into another new Battlestar Galactica, a show I really, really hate. But apparently, that’s what the SFF community wants and the squeeing fangirls won’t complain as long as they get their requisite amount of pretty boys kissing.
A pity cause Torchwood used to be an SFF show that appealed to non-SFF fans (and even though I used to consider myself an SFF fan, I am beginning to realize that I’m not a proper SFF fan and never was). Now it looks just like any other SF show and there’s plenty of those on the air already.
Actually, there is some depth- not just thinly vieled politics. But after watching more, I have to agree. I hae this last season. It pissed me off and it sucks. See how one episode can change you opinion of a show? heh
Don’t get me wrong, I do like political subtext in my SFF, but not at the expense of the characters and not so blatant that you could just as well watch a political talkshow.
But I have heard that other people were pissed off by the final episode of this season, too, and hated it.
To be honest, this was the first season of Torchwood I managed to finish. I found it difficult to pay attention to (ie - I got bored. I don’t care about Barrowman. He’s a terrible actor. The eye candy is not doing it for me.). So either in the middle (first) or the beginning (second) of the season, it was time to turn off the media device and do something more interesting with my life.
From day one, my problem with Torchwood has been in how it takes itself too seriously. Maybe the darker tone is intended to divorce it from the dorkery of its parent show (a dorkery of which I am fond, though occasionally exhausted by), and if that’s the case then I understand why they chose to employ it, but I find the execution melodramatic to the point of absurdity. Not that I don’t enjoy absurdity, but it’s not (I think) what the show is going for, and so its cred suffers for my bemusement.
That all said, I really, really enjoyed season three. I paid rapt attention to the out and out politics (so what if it was heavy-handed? I like seeing it addressed - but then, as Cora notes, so do scifi fans who enjoyed BSG, and I loved BSG), I got the giggly shivers at the kitten huffing twist, and I adored the minor characters. It continued to suffer from its own melodrama, but I’ve come to accept Torchwood’s emo for what it is, and would rather judge it on the quality of its emo than the sheer inevitable presence of it.
Well, I hate the new Battlestar Galactica with a passion and seeing Torchwood go down the same road was the last thing I wanted to see. And I actually liked the emotional intensity in season 1, probably because it’s something we don’t get too often in SF TV.
Besides, I vastly preferred the smaller stories of season 1 and to a certain degree 2 (e.g. the one about the displaced people from the 1950s or the gay romance in WWII or the one about the alien device that uncovers a 40 year old murder) to the big picture story of season 3. Leave the big picture and high stakes stories to Doctor Who and use Torchwood for the quieter and more human stories. As for Britain as a fascist rogue state, that plot was interesting when I first read it in the comics twenty years ago. But how many times can you retell that story? Besides, Ms. Thatcher has been gone for almost twenty years - time to give it a rest.
I admit that I do like looking at John Barrowman, though I can’t for the life of me understand what so many women see in the Ianto character. But the true appeal for me was Burn Gorman’s Owen, who is not as pretty as Barrowman but a damn fine actor playing a complex character. And of course his character was killed off in season 2, which pretty much killed the show for me. That and the fact that Torchwood, which was supposed to be about pushing the sexual envelope, suddenly turned into an advertisement for monogamy like any other show out there.
I start watching torchwood when it they have the five mini series children of earth and also when there was nothing on Monday night’s. I got interesting with Jack and Ianto relationship along with Gwen because it have alot of action. And now I am so active to the show that I brought the first, second and third series of torchwood to watch all night long during the summer time. I usually watch horror fict’s but now they going down with them. It just characters in the series are very interesting. I can’t wait until fourth series of torchwood. But I hope they bring Jack back and have some good character in this next season. Also, one the character haven’t be just like Ianto because he was kind of funny.