altariel | Torchwood

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torchwood

Torchwood

So, Torchwood. Kind of... icky, wasn't it? I think I get the story might be about corruption now. But Gwen is a useless POV character (and I'll never forgive her for what she's doing to Barry Backstory; although I think Burn wotsisname is giving the best performance in the show). I think if I was about fifteen, I might think this was the best TV programme I had ever seen. As it is - well, it's better than Robin Hood. But nowhere near as good as Strictly Come Dancing.

Hey, though! They're showing Crown Court on Legal TV!

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I decided last week that I'd had enough of Torchwood. Horror just isn't a genre I go for and Jack lost his sense of humour somewhere, so there wasn't really enough left to induce me to download any more.

I saw a recent episode of Torchwood last night - thought I'd give it a shot - it was about welsh cannibals? is that the one you saw? I thought it was like a show written and directed by intelligent teenagers who had seen some films and had a good imagination, but had never actually experienced real life.

I thought the best performance was by the doctor who was in Bleak House?

Well, icky with the Gwen/Owen maybe, but I think the actual gore is pretty standard and not very gruesome. Is Gwen the POV character now though? She seems to be getting more emotionaaly distant from the average watcher than someone like Ianto or Tosh...

At 20, I think it's occasionally brilliant but always very funny. (The tractor rescue!)

I think if I was about fifteen, I might think this was the best TV programme I had ever seen.

So much for the gritty adult take, eh?

The trailer looked good, it's disappointing to see all these poor reviews. (Mind you, I don't mind a bit of ickiness, if, like nudity, it's all about The Integrity of the Story, and if they're finally getting into the corruption angle, good, but that's all so easily undermined if the characters are poor and things feel gratuitous.)

Well, I thought it was pretty boring, but then I nearly always find horror dull (I did start thinking, halfway through this, "Wasn't Ravenous quite entertaining?"). There seemed to be long stretches that consisted of nothing but the characters running round the village clutching their guns and wondering whether the Big Bad Something was round the corner; possibly something else happened, but I was reading a newspaper and just glancing up occasionally to see if there was any sign of plot until Burn Gorman started talking again.

Owen was the only interesting bit, though I'm puzzled. They spent two episodes establishing that he was a nasty bit of work, and last night he's got the Tarrant-style "We've got to rescue the rest of our team" role. So are we supposed to think he's been un-corrupted by meeting Gareth Thomas? Or by his feelings for Gwen? Or he's putting on a show to get Gwen into bed? Or that The Same Person Can Be Nasty and Nice Depending On The Circumstances?

Egagds - i'd almost forgotten about Crown Court. I remember the theme tune too - it was staple school holiday fare on wet or cold days. I used to think it was a real trial until i was about seven when it dawned upon me that it couldn't be because there's no such place as Fulchester!. I never really liked it though - Rainbow was much more fun!

Today's version would be 'text 0898 xxx xxxx to decide the verdict. Texts cost £2.50 or more from a landline.'

Torchwood - er, I think I may be a week behind so the following probably makes no sense. It's been a bit disappointing so far, I reckon - no character development, rubbish plots, and so on. I can dimly see, though, that maybe it has some sort of ambition about it. In the last one I saw, with those fairy thingies, Jack deliberately sacrifices the little girl for some alleged greater good AND you get to see the consequences. Now I reckon that doesn't happen very often on the telly - TV heroes are generally falling over each other to sacrifice themselves or someone they think deserves it.

Crown Court - fantastic ! I grew up on that, you know.

I sort of made it through the pilot and was booored. And when I saw screenshots of Lisa the bikini-clad cyberwomen two weeks ago I deleted all the unwatched episodes from my hard-drive in a fit of rage.

This week's reaction posts to / summaries of the Welsh cannibal hillbillies don't really make me regret this decision. Hasn't anyone in Wales seen The Texas Chainsaw Massacre yet? Or at least a few X-Files episodes?

Actually, from what I've heard about it, Countrycide does remind me a bit of the X-Files stories Our Town and Home -- which I, aged 15, actually considered to be among the best things ever, so your observations re: Torchwood might be justified.

I'm starting to wonder if the show is a contest to see how many different cliches they can fit into a 13-episode run. There was nothing here that you couldn't get in a B-grade horror movie, except possibly Gwen's "omg I have seen the face of eval!!" speech, which takes the character in exactly the opposite direction I might have hoped for. I was hoping Torchwood would develop a unique feel, much as Doctor Who has but of course very different; at this point I'd settle for any one feel, rather than an anthology of SF/F-horror types.

I think Burn Gorman is quite good, but I've been more pleased overall with Gareth David-Lloyd, who made the equally cliche-ridden "Cyberwoman" bearable; the rest of the cast is forgettable.

Having watched it tonight (was away for the weekend), my comment near the beginning of the episode was that this was a Famous Five story (Ianto is Timmy the dog, in case you were wondering). I didn't really see anything that changed my mind, and the PC Plod who was in on it, just confirmed my opinion, since the local constabulary always being useless in Famous Five stories.

And the ending with Gwen and Owen-the-date-rapist was urgh. Poor Rhys (Reece?) - he deserved better.

It seemed to me that Royston Vasey had decamped (in more than one sense of the word) to deepest Wales this week.

Burn Gorman's a v. good actor, but seriously - would you go for him over Capt. Jack? I had a more disgusted look on my face during their hot'n'heavy tree passion than with any of the gruesome corpses.

Would you call two of your central characters such similar-looking names as Owen and Gwen?

Tosh is obviously meant to fancy Owen. As if. I can't stop seeing as her Saffy's best mate in Absolutely Fabulous. They nearly all act as if they're in an episode of Hollyoaks.

Still enjoyed the Welsh cannibals though. Creepy. Much creepier than aliens. That's where "Jeepers Creepers" went wrong, IMHO. Once you realised the baddie wasn't human, he wasn't nearly as scary. Agree with the posters about those two X-Files episodes being some of the best TV ever (Mulder's line - upon discovering that suspect X had produced suspect Y by having sex with his own mother - "you mean he could ground his brother when he stole his toys?"). Also like "Humbug", despite the comparative lack of inbreeding plotline.

Finally say the first four eps of Boston Legal. I love it. "Denny Crane." Is it just me, or is James Spader actually really sexy?

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