posted
Okay, so Torchwood may be different than what I expected it to be, but I must admit the finale had a lot of great moments, especially in the first half.
- The first big one is that Captain Jack is not Captain Jack. Our 51st century (?) conman 'stole' the name from the real RAF Captain Jack Harkness, who died in 1941.
- For once, the love scenes between the two Jacks were really nicely done, I think. A bit of a shame we did not really learn anymore about our Jack.
- Owen. What a complete asshole he is. Risking the entire world to bring back two people, and getting away with it in the end. Why did Jack forgive him?
- I was expecting that the opening of the Rift, which would apparently 'bring everything back to normal', would actually transfer Jack back to his native time period, and that would be the cliffhanger. Instead, he doesn't seem affected at all by the Rift. Was it ever really explained why or how his time travel works? He's stuck in some way, isn't he?
- It seems like the new Doctor Who season should start with Captain Jack pretty soon. In the TW finale's last minutes, we see the Doctor's hand-in-a-jar glow, and we hear the TARDIS phasing in and phasing out, abducting Jack in the process. The Doctor is not normally so secretive, so I wonder why this adbuction was necessary. I also wonder how 'edgy scifi' Jack will behave in 'family show' Doctor Who.
- The worst -And then, there's the utter lack of snow until the end. I've never been to London, but can I assume that snow in December is pretty rare? How aobut rain or fog? I'm a Canadian bumpkin here, and my whole province (into which most of the UK can fit, I might add) is currently covered in snow.
- Too bad this episode has a pretty obvious Reset Button near the end. I'm never a fan of those.
posted
I stayed up really late to watch this one, so I'll leave the cursory full review notes for a later re-watch. Liked it overall, but the strengths AND the weaknesses of the show were very strongly highlighted in these two episodes. Quick notes:
-Jack will be in the last three episodes of Doctor Who's third season. They haven't even filmed them yet - Barrowman does this with the Doctor Who cast starting this month, gets a couple weeks off, then goes straight back into filming Torchwood. It's good to be so busy.
-Torchwood and Doctor Who are meant to be mutually exclusive, as the mostly-younger core audience of the flagship show won't be expected to watch Torchwood. Even with Jack coming back to hang with the Doctor and Martha for a few episodes, barely any mention of his omnisexual adventures in Torchwood will be made (other than that he's been AT Torchwood). When he gets back, he'll probably make a passing reference at having been gone to see a Doctor, and they'll move on.
-Speaking of omnisexual adventures, I'm rather tired of 'em being such a big deal in this show. They shouldn't be an issue in the present day, but they also shouldn't be so damned overt - especially in the workplace. And the kicker here is that when Jack and Tosh were back in a time where being gay WAS a big problem, no one made light of it at all. The original Jack Harkness, caught romantically dancing with another guy in public, would probably be spending the following day in a stockade instead of a cockpit.
-The flying saucers over the Taj Mahal were the Jatha spaceship CG model that Torchwood captured at the end of Doctor Who's second series. And is there any particular reason that Roman guy was so angry? He didn't do anything but scream and hit people. Whenever the Doctor visited that era, everyone there seemed uniformly pleasant.
-As the world is going to pieces, UNIT, the British Government, and everyone else is calling Torchwood-3. This seems to prove that the London branch of Torchwood no longer exists, and that Cardiff's five tortured individuals are the last line of defence. Gosh, good thing the Doctor and Sarah Jane stick mostly to London!
-The big monster at the end had me wondering if the Power Rangers were going to show up. More importantly, the monster is established as "The Son of the Beast". This, and its appearance, AND its origin being buried somewhere since the beginnning of time, strongly link it to the Beast the Doctor defeated in "The Satan Pit".
-I'd been thinking that Jack wears clothes contemporary to his 1940s gig because he figured out he'd end up back there at some point, and was wearing them against that time so he could quickly fit in. Here it seems that it's not the case, though it was useful when he did show up at a flyboy farewell.
-Aha, Jack and Ianto HAVE been getting it on part-time. So, everyone has slept with someone else on the team except Tosh (who DID get it on with a lesbian heart eater). How does this justify Jack accusing his team of their own sexual misadventures? Is his having sex with Ianto qualified as employee benefits?
-Also, Suzie shot Jack. Jack shot Suzie. Owen shot Jack. Ianto shot Owen. Suzie shot herself. Gwen's been shot by a maniac. Who's left?
quote:- The worst -And then, there's the utter lack of snow until the end. I've never been to London, but can I assume that snow in December is pretty rare? How aobut rain or fog? I'm a Canadian bumpkin here, and my whole province (into which most of the UK can fit, I might add) is currently covered in snow.
Errr. Phantom copy-paste...
quote:...barely any mention of his omnisexual adventures in Torchwood will be made....
His omnisexuality was established in Doctor Who, albeit with less kissing and more dancing.
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