Torchwood Season 2 - Review
Apr. 20th, 2008 04:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat[Well, I've been playing with my toys, Facebook and MySpace. MySpace - you can apparently blog on just like you do here, but not really lock it as easily. While Facebook - you can post comments on and photos. I've no clue how you get an icon on MySpace, but Facebook is pretty easy. At any rate - I posted a movie review of The Lives of Others on MySpace. I joined it so I could read some of the professional writers blogs. Barack Obama has a site on both, apparently. These blogs are under my own name unlike this one which isn't. My name is too prevalent to use online. You google it and run into about 400 other people with the same one. Good luck figuring out which one is me.]
Torchwood - Season 2
I saw the season finale of Torchwood, Season 2, finally last night. Only three weeks behind the majority of people online, which is why I haven't been able to read anyone else's reactions. I would have to scroll back two-three weeks to do so.
The second season as a whole was a lot better than the first season. The story seemed to flow more from the characters as opposed to just being great ideas that the writers decided to insert the characters into like one might paper dolls or action figures. They also took the time to actually explore each character's background and what motivated them. Relationships were built upon, as opposed to just thrown at the screen for shock-value or titillation. As a result, I began to care what happened to them.
The writing was also far more consistent. Outside of maybe two or three weak episodes, the season held together fairly well. Not quite the same quality as a few of the Doctor Who episodes last year, but close.
The weakest episode might have been Sleeper - which attempted to tell a somewhat ambiguous tale about torture, but did not quite accomplish its aim. It did fit with the overall story-arc, and related well to Jack's own guilt in the finale regarding what happened to his younger brother and his own role in that. So structurally the episode does work and Jack's actions do fit with his actions during the series and how he ultimately pays for those actions. They also comment on what the Doctor tells him in the Season 3 finale of Doctor Who, which is why have you re-created Torchwood? Is that really a good idea? Can Jack get away from the Machiavellian techniques Torchwood thrived on? Apparently not.
This is partly the thematic arc of the season. What we are willing to sacrifice for the greater good? To what end do we lose a bit of ourselves in the process? What are the ultimate consequences of our choices? Another major theme is how one handles loss, specifically one's own mortality or the mortality of someone very close to you. The stages of grief.
Dr. Owen Harper's arc this season was all about handling death. Owen jumps through each of the stages of death. Owen spends most of the season as Dead Man Walking. Killed by a bullet, but brought back to life or rather to a half-life by Jack, Owen sleep-walks through the episodes, not quite there, a living corspe, unable to die, yet also unable to truly live. In Fragments, we see why he came to Torchwood - which was oddly because of a death, the death of his fiancee and lover. In the flashback, we meet a different Owen than the one we currently know, a less cynical man. The flashback explains Owen's somewhat cynical attitude towards love. He fears losing someone, so has to some extent cut himself off from his own feelings.
Whenever he allows himself to feel - it happens all over again - as we see with the pilot from Season 1. It is much simpler to just have sex. Or to flirt. But to feel nothing. Which explains his rather blase attitude towards Tosh. It's not until his mind is invaded by an alien, that he does fall for Tosh, a Tosh that he can't have.
The Tosh/Owen tale is rather tragic. The opposite of Jack/Ianto and Gwen/Rhys. You almost sense that Tosh and OWen were doomed from the start. The last of Jack's original team of scientists, Ianto was remember just the gofer at that time. Tosh, we learn in Fragments, was in prison, doomed to spend her existence in a cell without any human contact - Jack rescues her from this fate. The reason she's stuck there is because she had created and sold a top secret device to a terrorist organization in order to save her mother. Like Owen, Tosh joins Torchwood somewhat broken. Damaged. A fragment of herself. And Owen is the one thing she clings to within the organization, she falls for him.
I wish the writers did not feel the need to kill off these two, since they happened to be my favorite characters and the main reason I was watching the series. I'm not sure Gwen and Rhys are enough to keep me interested next season. Ianto - I find rather dull. I'm hoping they'll add Captain John Hart and Martha Jones to the cast, but I'm not holding my breath.
That said, I can see why the writers did kill them off. It worked beautifully from a story-telling perspective. But, there was more story there - I think - and there was another way they could have gotten the message across without the dual death scene. I did not cry during it, partly because it felt a bit heavy handed and contrived, unlike the episode two weeks before the finale, focusing on the boy who had been taken by the rift and driven mad. That episode, entitle Our Hour or something to that effect, was heartbreakingly sad in a way that the finale just wasn't. I'm not quite sure why. If it was the acting, the direction, or just the writing.
The best things about this season were: James Marster's portrayal of the morally ambiguous Captain John Hart (hardly a stretch for the actor, who specializes in playing morally ambigous anti-heros and villians), the episode about the boy who got pulled into the rift, Gwen/Rhys and Rhys discovery of Torchwood, the episode about the alien who invades the minds of the team, Owen's arc, and Fragments.
The worst bits? the Meat episode, the wedding episode, and Sleeper - three epsidoes that didn't really go anywhere or support the arc of the season. Two did provide some needed comedic relief. The third just felt out of place. I think they could have gotten across Jack's dark side in another way.
Overall? B+ effort. Not Masterpiece Theater quality, but then it wouldn't be a cult hit if it were, would it?
Torchwood - Season 2
I saw the season finale of Torchwood, Season 2, finally last night. Only three weeks behind the majority of people online, which is why I haven't been able to read anyone else's reactions. I would have to scroll back two-three weeks to do so.
The second season as a whole was a lot better than the first season. The story seemed to flow more from the characters as opposed to just being great ideas that the writers decided to insert the characters into like one might paper dolls or action figures. They also took the time to actually explore each character's background and what motivated them. Relationships were built upon, as opposed to just thrown at the screen for shock-value or titillation. As a result, I began to care what happened to them.
The writing was also far more consistent. Outside of maybe two or three weak episodes, the season held together fairly well. Not quite the same quality as a few of the Doctor Who episodes last year, but close.
The weakest episode might have been Sleeper - which attempted to tell a somewhat ambiguous tale about torture, but did not quite accomplish its aim. It did fit with the overall story-arc, and related well to Jack's own guilt in the finale regarding what happened to his younger brother and his own role in that. So structurally the episode does work and Jack's actions do fit with his actions during the series and how he ultimately pays for those actions. They also comment on what the Doctor tells him in the Season 3 finale of Doctor Who, which is why have you re-created Torchwood? Is that really a good idea? Can Jack get away from the Machiavellian techniques Torchwood thrived on? Apparently not.
This is partly the thematic arc of the season. What we are willing to sacrifice for the greater good? To what end do we lose a bit of ourselves in the process? What are the ultimate consequences of our choices? Another major theme is how one handles loss, specifically one's own mortality or the mortality of someone very close to you. The stages of grief.
Dr. Owen Harper's arc this season was all about handling death. Owen jumps through each of the stages of death. Owen spends most of the season as Dead Man Walking. Killed by a bullet, but brought back to life or rather to a half-life by Jack, Owen sleep-walks through the episodes, not quite there, a living corspe, unable to die, yet also unable to truly live. In Fragments, we see why he came to Torchwood - which was oddly because of a death, the death of his fiancee and lover. In the flashback, we meet a different Owen than the one we currently know, a less cynical man. The flashback explains Owen's somewhat cynical attitude towards love. He fears losing someone, so has to some extent cut himself off from his own feelings.
Whenever he allows himself to feel - it happens all over again - as we see with the pilot from Season 1. It is much simpler to just have sex. Or to flirt. But to feel nothing. Which explains his rather blase attitude towards Tosh. It's not until his mind is invaded by an alien, that he does fall for Tosh, a Tosh that he can't have.
The Tosh/Owen tale is rather tragic. The opposite of Jack/Ianto and Gwen/Rhys. You almost sense that Tosh and OWen were doomed from the start. The last of Jack's original team of scientists, Ianto was remember just the gofer at that time. Tosh, we learn in Fragments, was in prison, doomed to spend her existence in a cell without any human contact - Jack rescues her from this fate. The reason she's stuck there is because she had created and sold a top secret device to a terrorist organization in order to save her mother. Like Owen, Tosh joins Torchwood somewhat broken. Damaged. A fragment of herself. And Owen is the one thing she clings to within the organization, she falls for him.
I wish the writers did not feel the need to kill off these two, since they happened to be my favorite characters and the main reason I was watching the series. I'm not sure Gwen and Rhys are enough to keep me interested next season. Ianto - I find rather dull. I'm hoping they'll add Captain John Hart and Martha Jones to the cast, but I'm not holding my breath.
That said, I can see why the writers did kill them off. It worked beautifully from a story-telling perspective. But, there was more story there - I think - and there was another way they could have gotten the message across without the dual death scene. I did not cry during it, partly because it felt a bit heavy handed and contrived, unlike the episode two weeks before the finale, focusing on the boy who had been taken by the rift and driven mad. That episode, entitle Our Hour or something to that effect, was heartbreakingly sad in a way that the finale just wasn't. I'm not quite sure why. If it was the acting, the direction, or just the writing.
The best things about this season were: James Marster's portrayal of the morally ambiguous Captain John Hart (hardly a stretch for the actor, who specializes in playing morally ambigous anti-heros and villians), the episode about the boy who got pulled into the rift, Gwen/Rhys and Rhys discovery of Torchwood, the episode about the alien who invades the minds of the team, Owen's arc, and Fragments.
The worst bits? the Meat episode, the wedding episode, and Sleeper - three epsidoes that didn't really go anywhere or support the arc of the season. Two did provide some needed comedic relief. The third just felt out of place. I think they could have gotten across Jack's dark side in another way.
Overall? B+ effort. Not Masterpiece Theater quality, but then it wouldn't be a cult hit if it were, would it?
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Date: 2008-04-21 10:17 pm (UTC)I like Torchwood better than 95% of the people on my flist or at least that's what my pop culture poll told me. I think the reason I prefer Torchwood over Doctor Who is that it is more serialized. Episodic tv shows and me tend to be unmixy things - they just don't hold my attention very long for some reason. That said, I'll admit, Tennant is a MUCH better actor than John Borrowman and does a better job of playing his role, he's far more captivating. Of course if he wasn't = that show would not work. Torchwood luckily is more ensemble so doesn't depend on one actor. Unfortunately, they decided to kill off the characters portrayed by their best actors, and as a result were the most nuanced and interesting. Now all we have left is the Captain Jack quadrangle - John Hart, Ianto, and Gwen. LOL!
I'll tune in next year out of curiousity, but not with much anticipation, unless of course they bring back Marsters - Hart. Or at the very least introduce a new character that has the same appeal as either Tosh or Owen.
Gwen and Rhys were heartbreakingly good in the episode about the boy who got caught in the rift, and they saved the wedding episode and Meat for me. She also saved Sleeper. If it weren't for Gwen, Rhys and Owen in those episodes, I'm not sure they would have held my attention. Unfortunately, she didn't have much of an arc and spent most of her time just watching everyone else. She had more of an arc last year. The only characters who had a true arc - were Jack, Owen and Tosh.