Torchwood and Sarah Connor
Jan. 17th, 2008 12:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iceminkSo yes, like everyone else I'm doing the obligatory OMG James on Torchwood! post.
So to start off, I really didn't like the first scene, except for the fact that the old lady knew who Torchwood were and didn't approve. My main problem was the blowfish's big exposition, yeah I understand why he introduced all of the characters, but later in the episode it is implied that he was working with John, so why doesn't John know about Torchwood? But the real problem was that he basically says Torchwood is useless without Jack, and then Jack goes and proves him right. To be fair the team does better throughout the rest of the episode, but that scene almost makes you wonder how they can tie their shoes without Jack.
And then comes John. I tried to stay mostly spoiler free for this, but I did give in and watch the clip of the kissing/fight scene when it went around LJ a few days back. I have to say, watching it as an isolated clip I wasn't that wowed by it, perhaps because I didn't really know who John was supposed to be. Seeing it as part of the whole episode though I was sufficiently Guh! Even better was the wife argument, and points to Tosh for speaking up for once.
Of course like all the other Buffy fans I saw clear parallels between John and Spike, which I think you're meant to see (or rather that they type cast JM to do that role). Actually, it's interesting how much like School Hard this episode is. The biggest differences stem from the fact that where Torchwood is about Jack mostly, Buffy of course was about Buffy and not Angel. It's kind of interesting to note though that although Spike knows Angel has changed right away, John really doesn't get that Jack has changed until the end. It's also interesting that we see more of good Spike (at least in his treatment of Drusilla) in School Hard, whereas John doesn't really get any kind of redeeming moment. Sure he looks a bit choked up when he thinks Jack is dead, but it's hard to give him a lot of points there, when he just pushed the guy off a building.
Actually the most interesting character moment for John I think is when he finds out that Jack is Immortal. There's so much going on in that moment. I think in part he is jealous, but I think he also gets what that means for Jack a lot better than any one in Torchwood does, and he knows right then that he can never have Jack. But actually there's so much going on in that moment that I could probably read it about a dozen different ways.
Oh, and I love Gwen in this episode, except for the part where it seems like she'd leave her fiance for Jack if she thought she had a chance with him. But generally I like how she wasn't willing to just step back and let Jack take over. And yes, punching John at the end was brilliant.
Overall I loved the episode and my biggest hope is that their will be more Ianto. I know lots of people find him boring, but I think he has so much potential if the writers just start using him.
Also I think I've figured out how I'm going to use my iTunes credits. I downloaded and watched the first two episodes of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
I can't say I was all that surprised when the first scene turned out to be a dream. I think it was supposed to justify why Sarah decides to run off, but it didn't really work for me. Of course it does turn out that the FBI was about to find her, so maybe she was right (or was it her fiance going to the cops that tipped off the FBI, I wasn't clear).
As soon as Summer appeared I was trying to figure out how she could possibly fit in as a recurring character. I knew there had to be something unusual about her. The moment she got shot I knew she was a robot.
And can I just say it's neat to see a show where the guy is the damsel and the women are the people who kick ass. And they don't have to wear sexy little outfits. Sure there was some nudity, but that actual belongs in the Terminator cannon, so it wasn't just about getting the actresses naked. I did feel sorry for John during the naked scene though, because all I could think about when the girlinator (they really need to give her character some kind of name) was beating up guys while naked, was that he's probably really turned on, and he's standing there right behind his mom, and probably has an erection. But that's probably just the NC-17 writer in me.
Anyway. I think there's a lot of potential in this show. There's also a lot that's just dumb, like the fact that robots from the future can't hit the broad side of a barn. Sure that was a problem in the movies too, but still. Can't robots figure out how to lead?
If they do it right though, I think John character could be very interesting, and I'm very curious about little miss terminator and her relationship to future!John. All I could think when we first found out she was a robot was, "Wow, so future!John sent back a cute robot to take care of his 15 year old self. I wonder just what sort of programming she has." Again that's my smutty mind doing it's smutty thing, but seriously, future!John has to know that 15 year old John will be turned on by the femme bot.
The one problem I can see in the show, is that since evidently there's time travelers everywhere, they could over use the deus ex machina thing and have someone from the future always show up to save them just in the nick of time. To be fair that didn't happen in episode 2, in fact the people from the future weren't much help (well except for their stash of cash).
And of course that's the problem that none of the main characters seem to have realized. They can't stop SkyNet. Just like future!John sent his own father back in time, and so in some sense created himself, SkyNet can always send a programmer (or a robot with the right code) back in time to invent itself. There really is no way to stop the future.
The other problem with the show is that evidently when a cat licks the skull of a Terminator robot it activates some sort of dormant repair mode. Cause otherwise I don't see why the blown up robot didn't put itself back together during the years between being blown up in the bank, and being found by the guy cleaning the road.
So to start off, I really didn't like the first scene, except for the fact that the old lady knew who Torchwood were and didn't approve. My main problem was the blowfish's big exposition, yeah I understand why he introduced all of the characters, but later in the episode it is implied that he was working with John, so why doesn't John know about Torchwood? But the real problem was that he basically says Torchwood is useless without Jack, and then Jack goes and proves him right. To be fair the team does better throughout the rest of the episode, but that scene almost makes you wonder how they can tie their shoes without Jack.
And then comes John. I tried to stay mostly spoiler free for this, but I did give in and watch the clip of the kissing/fight scene when it went around LJ a few days back. I have to say, watching it as an isolated clip I wasn't that wowed by it, perhaps because I didn't really know who John was supposed to be. Seeing it as part of the whole episode though I was sufficiently Guh! Even better was the wife argument, and points to Tosh for speaking up for once.
Of course like all the other Buffy fans I saw clear parallels between John and Spike, which I think you're meant to see (or rather that they type cast JM to do that role). Actually, it's interesting how much like School Hard this episode is. The biggest differences stem from the fact that where Torchwood is about Jack mostly, Buffy of course was about Buffy and not Angel. It's kind of interesting to note though that although Spike knows Angel has changed right away, John really doesn't get that Jack has changed until the end. It's also interesting that we see more of good Spike (at least in his treatment of Drusilla) in School Hard, whereas John doesn't really get any kind of redeeming moment. Sure he looks a bit choked up when he thinks Jack is dead, but it's hard to give him a lot of points there, when he just pushed the guy off a building.
Actually the most interesting character moment for John I think is when he finds out that Jack is Immortal. There's so much going on in that moment. I think in part he is jealous, but I think he also gets what that means for Jack a lot better than any one in Torchwood does, and he knows right then that he can never have Jack. But actually there's so much going on in that moment that I could probably read it about a dozen different ways.
Oh, and I love Gwen in this episode, except for the part where it seems like she'd leave her fiance for Jack if she thought she had a chance with him. But generally I like how she wasn't willing to just step back and let Jack take over. And yes, punching John at the end was brilliant.
Overall I loved the episode and my biggest hope is that their will be more Ianto. I know lots of people find him boring, but I think he has so much potential if the writers just start using him.
Also I think I've figured out how I'm going to use my iTunes credits. I downloaded and watched the first two episodes of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
I can't say I was all that surprised when the first scene turned out to be a dream. I think it was supposed to justify why Sarah decides to run off, but it didn't really work for me. Of course it does turn out that the FBI was about to find her, so maybe she was right (or was it her fiance going to the cops that tipped off the FBI, I wasn't clear).
As soon as Summer appeared I was trying to figure out how she could possibly fit in as a recurring character. I knew there had to be something unusual about her. The moment she got shot I knew she was a robot.
And can I just say it's neat to see a show where the guy is the damsel and the women are the people who kick ass. And they don't have to wear sexy little outfits. Sure there was some nudity, but that actual belongs in the Terminator cannon, so it wasn't just about getting the actresses naked. I did feel sorry for John during the naked scene though, because all I could think about when the girlinator (they really need to give her character some kind of name) was beating up guys while naked, was that he's probably really turned on, and he's standing there right behind his mom, and probably has an erection. But that's probably just the NC-17 writer in me.
Anyway. I think there's a lot of potential in this show. There's also a lot that's just dumb, like the fact that robots from the future can't hit the broad side of a barn. Sure that was a problem in the movies too, but still. Can't robots figure out how to lead?
If they do it right though, I think John character could be very interesting, and I'm very curious about little miss terminator and her relationship to future!John. All I could think when we first found out she was a robot was, "Wow, so future!John sent back a cute robot to take care of his 15 year old self. I wonder just what sort of programming she has." Again that's my smutty mind doing it's smutty thing, but seriously, future!John has to know that 15 year old John will be turned on by the femme bot.
The one problem I can see in the show, is that since evidently there's time travelers everywhere, they could over use the deus ex machina thing and have someone from the future always show up to save them just in the nick of time. To be fair that didn't happen in episode 2, in fact the people from the future weren't much help (well except for their stash of cash).
And of course that's the problem that none of the main characters seem to have realized. They can't stop SkyNet. Just like future!John sent his own father back in time, and so in some sense created himself, SkyNet can always send a programmer (or a robot with the right code) back in time to invent itself. There really is no way to stop the future.
The other problem with the show is that evidently when a cat licks the skull of a Terminator robot it activates some sort of dormant repair mode. Cause otherwise I don't see why the blown up robot didn't put itself back together during the years between being blown up in the bank, and being found by the guy cleaning the road.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 08:37 pm (UTC)What's up with the robots not being able to shoot straight? They have rifle scope vision, for goodness sake! It's very silly. The way they keep throwing one another through paper thin walls is also pretty silly. Oh, well, it's very entertaining so far.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-18 12:03 am (UTC)I don't mind the physical fights as much as the shooting, mostly because at least they can hit each other when they are slugging it out. But yeah, I'm enjoying the show and I think it has great potential.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 08:58 pm (UTC)I want to give a nice, smart reply to this, but all I can think of "That is James' 'I saw Barrowman's naughty bits' face!"
Ianto seems to be getting some nice and needed development. *crosses fingers*
Also, agreeing on the fish's monologue.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-18 12:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 09:04 pm (UTC)But, agreed, I'm very interested in finding out about their future relationship.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-18 12:07 am (UTC)And the future relationship is really interesting. It's kind of neat to see an robot character that isn't just flat out "I have no emotion" I mean maybe she doesn't, but she sort of acts like she does, and she's far more interesting than being simply a chick version of Data. (And so much better than whoever the girl in T3 was. I'm glad they've retconed that movie out of existence.