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Nov. 6th, 2006 05:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenThe latest Torchwood is FUCKED. UP.
Coor. Really, really, really fucked up. I always sort of like the "what happened to the other guy" stories (not in fanfic, but when it's done in the canon, it's usually funny--see: the bowl of petunias; curiously, Doctor Who was the exception with the second series' other-guy ep) and it's a bit early to say that one member of a five-member squad is "that other guy," but if the shoe fits... Hell, I didn't even hardly know Ianto's name until this episode. I kept thinking he was "that guy in the suit"--Torchwood's Jeeves.
Bringing in the Cybermen again is messed up. The Cybermen aren't that scary, really. I mean, I know they slice your brain out or they kill you (and that's kinda a zombie scary), but there's a bit of detachment from the horror because most people marched out to them seem to already be under control (they were in "Age of Steel," anyway, and that's my reference point for them). They go in people, they come out cyborg. But Ianto's girlfriend being perverted into being Cyber-controlled but human-bodied (exploitatively, too) creature? That's chilling. That she kills the guy trying to convert him is freaky; that she cuts out her own brain and sticks it in another human body is TERRIFYING. You know Ianto had to have loved her a lot to hesitate to kill her. It doesn't matter if it's her, dude. Would you want to be with someone who is willing to take over another person's body--killing them in the process--in order to be with you? The fact she kept babbling about being upgraded properly after all that...sheesh, how much more disgust and heartbreak does this show think I can take?
Know what's not so messed up but has played out a tad weak? Setting up Jack as different from the Captain Jack on Doctor Who. There are hints that he's not the same, that he's been twisted up a bit, and those work fine. Having someone out-and-out call him an oddity or a monster? That's overplaying. Also, Jack has yet to make The Hard Choice. He made a bad one in episode two (where it was the Doctor's hand or Clarys escaping and he chose to preserve the hand), but it wasn't the awful choice. The Hard Choice is the one where you make someone suffer and fuck yourself over in order to Do The Right Thing That Still Pisses Everyone Off (or, worse, saves the world and no one cares what you suffer for it because they never can understand what you've done). The Ninth Doctor made The Hard Choice in the first of the new series to end the Time War. He spent the rest of the series building up to another awful choice, seemed to get away with having not made it, then the Tenth Doctor paid for it dearly.
What Hard Choice has Jack made? He's compromised his sympathy and integrity a bit with what he was willing to do to Gwen in the premiere, but given what he saved, he didn't lose too much (his integrity, as a former conman, is probably riddled with holes anyway). The Hard Choice at the end is not eliminating the threat, it's punishing those responsible. Just like in Battlestar Galactica--The Hard Choice is punishing the collaborators, not killing Cylons. Lack of mercy is The Hard Choice because the deciding party is usually one that would not have made it thus far if someone hadn't shown it to him/her. Jack is just such a decider. What monstrous things he is or feels or does haven't really come out yet, so let's go a little slower. I know the people accusing him tend to be under pressure, but sheesh! Melodrama much?
Coor. Really, really, really fucked up. I always sort of like the "what happened to the other guy" stories (not in fanfic, but when it's done in the canon, it's usually funny--see: the bowl of petunias; curiously, Doctor Who was the exception with the second series' other-guy ep) and it's a bit early to say that one member of a five-member squad is "that other guy," but if the shoe fits... Hell, I didn't even hardly know Ianto's name until this episode. I kept thinking he was "that guy in the suit"--Torchwood's Jeeves.
Bringing in the Cybermen again is messed up. The Cybermen aren't that scary, really. I mean, I know they slice your brain out or they kill you (and that's kinda a zombie scary), but there's a bit of detachment from the horror because most people marched out to them seem to already be under control (they were in "Age of Steel," anyway, and that's my reference point for them). They go in people, they come out cyborg. But Ianto's girlfriend being perverted into being Cyber-controlled but human-bodied (exploitatively, too) creature? That's chilling. That she kills the guy trying to convert him is freaky; that she cuts out her own brain and sticks it in another human body is TERRIFYING. You know Ianto had to have loved her a lot to hesitate to kill her. It doesn't matter if it's her, dude. Would you want to be with someone who is willing to take over another person's body--killing them in the process--in order to be with you? The fact she kept babbling about being upgraded properly after all that...sheesh, how much more disgust and heartbreak does this show think I can take?
Know what's not so messed up but has played out a tad weak? Setting up Jack as different from the Captain Jack on Doctor Who. There are hints that he's not the same, that he's been twisted up a bit, and those work fine. Having someone out-and-out call him an oddity or a monster? That's overplaying. Also, Jack has yet to make The Hard Choice. He made a bad one in episode two (where it was the Doctor's hand or Clarys escaping and he chose to preserve the hand), but it wasn't the awful choice. The Hard Choice is the one where you make someone suffer and fuck yourself over in order to Do The Right Thing That Still Pisses Everyone Off (or, worse, saves the world and no one cares what you suffer for it because they never can understand what you've done). The Ninth Doctor made The Hard Choice in the first of the new series to end the Time War. He spent the rest of the series building up to another awful choice, seemed to get away with having not made it, then the Tenth Doctor paid for it dearly.
What Hard Choice has Jack made? He's compromised his sympathy and integrity a bit with what he was willing to do to Gwen in the premiere, but given what he saved, he didn't lose too much (his integrity, as a former conman, is probably riddled with holes anyway). The Hard Choice at the end is not eliminating the threat, it's punishing those responsible. Just like in Battlestar Galactica--The Hard Choice is punishing the collaborators, not killing Cylons. Lack of mercy is The Hard Choice because the deciding party is usually one that would not have made it thus far if someone hadn't shown it to him/her. Jack is just such a decider. What monstrous things he is or feels or does haven't really come out yet, so let's go a little slower. I know the people accusing him tend to be under pressure, but sheesh! Melodrama much?
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Date: 2006-11-07 04:30 am (UTC)Of course, I was already spoiled by looking at the title when I copied it over to my computer (thanks again for that). Guess I'll just have to watch them sooner rather than later :)
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Date: 2006-11-07 06:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 06:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-22 07:24 pm (UTC)Plus, like I said, the kind of nerve and horror associated with this situation was enough to ride past the overacting. I liked, particularly, that Ianto recognized immediately how deeply he was in the shit when his girlfriend killed the guy who'd come to help her. He actually seemed to feel believably guilty about it.