Torchwood happens

The trailer features a Cybermanesque thing in it.

i am only posting about tv to ile anymore

(haha, i just got what ned was on about! yes, i may still post about food or, really, other people's food. if only so that my own food choices become more interesting/less same-y.)

wait, there is going to be some kind of time/space travel in this, right?

So Joe's hunch is back on.

Repeats on Wednesdays on BBC2. So much for "exclusive to BBC3".

I heard the radio trailer this morning, and by Christ this sounds like the biggest pile of shite ever. Although people who saw it last night seemed kind of impressed.

xpost, obv.

Or the cut-price legal drama starring Martin Landau, Case 91: 99p.

look at all this space, and just under 20 pounds

OFU.

Pretty entertaining Sunday night stuff I reckon, much more full-on than I had thought it would though; an F-word in the first five minutes, and then a plain old F in the second. Reminded me a bit of the Piglet Files though.

skip to S2, S1 is just terrible

(I've only watched one ep of S2 though, this is not an endorsement)

Yes, S2 is pretty good almost without exception, S1 is pretty awful almost without exception.

Children of Earth is the best of the first 3, plus it features Peter Capaldi

GIANT EARTH VAGINA

So, would I miss anything if I skip straight to season 2? Are there some important story arcs that are introduced during the first season?

My gut feeling is that some of the plot things in S2 could feel a bit gratuitous if you haven't invested time with the characters. Also what happens to Owen in S2 is set up in S1, in a mid-season episode which is in turn set up in the first episode.

But I'd probably just do S2, then ask here or watch S1 if you're confused.

I think we did this somewhere before, and I think you probably need to watch They Keep Killing Suzie from S1, and probably the rest of them from then onwards.

Wikipedia episode summary of Miracle Day is a thing of wonder.

Torchwood manages to recover important servers out of PhiCorp's HQ, and discovers plans for concentration camp facilities all over the world. Before his throat is shot, the assassin reveals that 'the Families' are behind the Miracle. Subsequently, Rhys calls and informs Gwen that her father has been put in one.

They Keep Killing Suzie was the episode I was alluding to. Does it make sense what happens in it if you haven't seen the first episode? Probably more than what happens to Ianto in S2 if you've seen Cyberwoman.

Yeah, I'm not sure it would make sense if you haven't seen ep 1, but Tuomas says he's seen that, so would probably be OK to dodge some of the Scooby Doo Adventure of the Week filler and go straight to TKKS.

So you're saying the incident in episode 1 where Owen uses what's essentially an alien date rape drug to some random woman (and then his boyfriend too) actually pays off? Because that's where I first thought, "ugh, I don't think I like this series!", seeing that how they played what should be a super creepy scene for laughs.

No, a different thing from that episode.

The alien date rape drug appears throughout all the remaining series and from memory is quite an important plot device at one point.

Okay, but do they still play it for laughs? Because I have really hard time watching any fantasy/sci-fi that uses this sort of "love potion" plot device without considering how creepy its implications are.

It almost felt like the third episode, where Owen has to witness a murder-rape from the victim's point of view, was written as a response to criticism of the date rape scene.

I have zero recollection of date rape being even implied in the first episode; my instant reference point was the mind erasing device from Men In Black.

Having said that, it is Rusty; I could have just blocked a terrible bit out of my memory.

I think it's played partially for laughs one of the other times it's used, but I can't remember properly. And it becomes harder to work out what's being played for laughs and what's being played straight as the series unfolds, as this thread attests.

The more I think about it, the disconnect between Cyberwoman and Ianto in S2 is astonishing. You would never have predicted it.

Dan, it's as Rusty as can be expected - if I hit her with the retcon then she won't remember what I've done so she won't call the police.

tuomas asks whether he should watch series 1 and everyone answers with MASSIVE SPOILERS so that he doesn't need to.

Well to be honest he should have JUST MADE A FUCKING DECISION by now.

Come the fuck in, or fuck the fuck off as it were.

(and now I have this sinking feeling that I've made a pop culture reference, and a further reference kind of related to this subject, both of which I'll have to explain at length, probably)

The mind-erasing thing and the date rape drug were two different things. The latter was used in a scene where Owen goes to a bar, tries to flirt with a woman, but she tells him to forget about it. He then sprays the woman with this alien chemical he nicked from the Torchwood office, and all of a sudden she wants to leave with him so they can go and fuck. As they leave the bar, the woman's boyfriend runs after them and asks what the hell is going on. After a bit of fighting, Owen sprays the guy with the chemical too, and now he wants to fuck Owen too, so they go and have a threesome. By the end of the episode Owen returns the drug to where it belongs, but the moral of the story is just "don't use Torchwood stuff on your free time!", not "date rape is wrong, even if you use an alien aphrodisiac!".

(xxxpost)

Ah, then ignore what I said. That sounds like typical Rusty Wrongness though.

This show is so good at switching between genuine entertainment and FUCK YOU, RUSTY at the drop of a hat

except for Miracle Day, which was just a season-long slide into FUCK YOU, RUSTY

And then a 5 minute slide into a GIANT EARTH VAGINA

it is amazing how enraging that is STILL

like obviously we were supposed to be sitting there going "oh my god, this is amazing" and all I kept thinking was "once you fall back on the giant earth vagina, you've completely run out of ideas"

I'm just surprised he didn't have Jack and Gwen make out in front of it

I suspect Tuomas thinks this is all an elaborate ruse involving fake spoilers.

(also Tuomas, Jack as a character verges on being a sexual predator so, while disappointing, it's not really a surprise that his takeaway from Owen using Torchwood stuff to boff a couple on his own time would be "don't do that outside of the office" because there's an unspoken subtext that Jack would rather they lure people down to the Torchwood base and pass them around the team)

(also Tuomas has seen Rusty's Doctor Who, a series which features a jokey ending to an episode about a man being sucked off by a sentient paving slab.)

Well yeah, but that was shown to be consensual, and it was actually kind of a sweet moment.

consensual pavement sucking

I like how that post makes it look like the entire episode is about a man being sucked off by a sentient paving slab and that said episode is ruined by a jokey ending

Given Rusty, that's probably how he initially wanted the episode written

pavement love and monsters

Love and Abrasions

Paving slab BJ (RTD) versus lesbian lizard tongue-whip (Moffat), who wins?

Moffat

Moffat could have Zwarte Piet as a recurring character and he would still win

HOOT!

Paving slab BJ (RTD) versus lesbian lizard tongue-whip (Moffat), who wins?

Phil Sandifer on sexism, Davies vs Moffatt: http://philsandifer.tumblr.com/post/58442753222/moffat-and-feminism-a-rough-draft-of-a-viewpoint

Barbara wasn't middle-aged, was she? I thought she and Ian were late 20s, early 30s at the most.

lol looking up the actors' ages, both were a good 5-10 years older than I thought they were when they were on the show

The history of subsequent female companions can hardly be called any better. No matter how lofty their intentions, they all ended up the same way. Let’s take a brief tour of the post-Susan female companions, or, more accurately, their fates. Married off hastily, as a last-minute replacement for a plot where she’d have died; died; died; mind-raped and dumped in London; hastily written out after only appearing in two episodes of her last story, last seen being told to look after the male companion who was also departing; given six episodes of 1960s torture porn before she sobbingly asks to leave because she can’t take it anymore; mind-raped into forgetting all her adventures with the Doctor.

Well, this is total shite of course. Post Susan:

Returned to London at about the time she left
Stays in Ancient Greece to stay with a soldier (NB she is a teenager who has been rescued originally from an abusive guy keeping her on a planet through a fake rescue plan)
Actually dies
SARA KINGDOM
goes to visit her Aunt, doesn't return
Is left exactly where she started
Decides to leave after a harrowing adventure to stay with a family the likes of which she never knew
Returns to where she started, but with no memory of her adventures

In other words, a bit of an agenda in the interpretation.

so wait, is Barbara listed as died or mind-raped

To put the other spin on it, to cover Ben and Jamie:

Hastily written out after only appearing in two episodes of his last story, last seen being told to look after the female companion who was also departing
Mind raped into forgetting all his adventures with the Doctor

So Steven is the only companion that has an 'acceptable' departure according to him in 6 years. Maybe suggests the problem isn't with the show.

xpost Looking back now, I don't think Ian and Barbara count in his list

Torchwood becomes less about sex starting in Season 2, which had something to do with being moved in timeslots or channels or ...?

Less Rusty.

I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I actually like Rusty, esp. vs. Moffatt.

And, I actually think Miracle Day was kinda ... amazing. In a good, entertaining way.

Almost finished with "Miracle Day," but first a "Children of Earth" question:

SPOILERS START
Did the aliens have any reason to establish a link through Clem? I mean, aside from creating a vulnerable point through which they could be killed?
END SPOILERS