Thursday, November 09, 2006

 

Just saying:

It's damn depressing, if you meet the guy you used to have a crush on again and it turns out that your Dad gets along with him better than you ever did.

posted by Cora link 03:08

 

Tired:

Today, I did a six hour stint of interpreting. One hour of phone conference with people who had serious communications issues (it took us 45 minutes to figure out that the problem was a crossed wire in a control box) plus five hours of face to face business discussions. Followed by dinner and then another two hours of newleaf poems & pints reading. And I'm still somewhat fireshocked.

posted by Cora link 00:55

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

 

Fire Update:

Yesterday's fire apparently wasn't arson, but caused by a furnace malfunction. Though the local grapevine is still peddling stories of hot demolition. I wonder why the police seems to have no interest in following up on those rumours.

The bungled performance of the local fire brigade was apparently due to a gas main which couldn't be shut down in time. And to the fact that the fireplugs were too far away and water supply a problem. Which I find rather worrying, considering that my home is no closer to the fireplugs.

And as fate would have it, I had a dream of fire last night. It was your standard always-on-the-run dream (I get a lot of those and usually don't mind them), but it did feature fire. I dreamed I was sitting in a 1950s car with an American family (father and two kids) trying to escape some sort of wildfire. Eventually we ended up in some sort of mall, thinking we'd be save there. And then the mall caught fire as well (malls and department stores have the tendency to burn down in my dreams - no idea why), we lost the kids' father and I was cruising round the mall parking lot desperately trying to find the exit. Then I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep, even though I had left the lights on.

I suspect that I have some sort of mild trauma - at any rate, I feel sort of disconnected from the rest of the world. And depressed whenever I see the gutted ruin and the blackened beams where Blockmeiers' house stood only yesterday. And I wasn't even directly affected by the fire, I was just a witness. For some reason, this makes me wonder whether I have depicted the trauma suffered by the characters my novella Prisoners of War (which is much more extreme than just witnessing a fire) strong enough.

That's the curse of the writer, everything that happens to us gets turned into fiction.

posted by Cora link 23:27

Monday, November 06, 2006

 

This morning, the house on the other side of the road, a house which has been there for as long as I can remember and even longer, burned down. I have been inside that house, more than once, I knew the people who lived there. It was a part of my life and now it's gone.

Let's backtrack a bit to Sunday. I had been taking an afternoon nap, which I do whenver I have the time, as I'm a nocturnal creature. I took the nap, only to be woken up by the wail of sirens. Fire sirens. I got up, looked out of the front door and saw a column of smoke rising up somewhere nearby. I later learned that a garden house had burned down a ten minutes walk away. Police says it was arson.

So far, so good. In the evening, I watched The Onedin Line, one of the best TV shows ever made, which is currently being rerun on a regional channel. Unfortunately, it happened to be the one episode I most dreaded seeing, the one where poor Anne Onedin dies in childbirth. I cried my eyes out, even though this time around I knew what would happen. Later, I switched on my PC (which is still acting up), waited for the latest episode of Torchwood to become available in the usual places, started the download and went to bed. As I didn't have to be at the university or anywhere else today, I decided to watch Torchwood in the early morning hours and set the alarm accordingly. The Torchwood episode (more on that later) was utterly stunning but also emotionally gutwrenching, which on top of an emotionally gutwrenching episode of The Onedin Line was not the best thing to go back to sleep on. Hence I logged onto the internet to get myself back to a somewhat normal emotional state and see what everybody else had to say on the Torchwood episode for that matter. I was on the net for maybe five minutes when the fire sirens went off.

It was 6:24 and my first thought was, "Not again." I did my best to ignore the sirens and was successful for maybe five minutes, before there were more sirens, this time those of firetrucks. And gasps of horror and voices downstairs and on the street outside. Leaving my PC on and connected to the net, I finally decided to go downstairs, still in my pyjamas, to see what was up. And opened the front door to see the house on the other side of the road ablaze.

A bit of information is in order: The house in question is a former farm house, though the farm has been inactive for fifteen years or more. There is the main house, two floors with space for two families, though only the first floor is occupied at the moment. And there are the former stables and barns, which are currently used for storing camping trailers and the like. The part of the complex that was on fire was the bit connecting the main house to the barn, which incidentally also houses the furnace. The house is heated by wood, the people were never particularly scrupulous regarding the type of wood they used and their bloody furnace almost caused a fire some two or three years ago.

The fire brigade was already present by the point, in fact the school and bank parking lots were ablaze with flashing blue lights. However, the fire trucks tried to approach the fire from the other side, which didn't work, because they didn't have enough room to maneuver. Meanwhile, on my side of the fire, there was this huge open field (which separates my house from the one that burned down and is probably responsible for the fact that I wasn't totally scared the fire would spread to my home the whole time) with plenty of room for plenty of fire trucks. Except that the bloody fire brigade didn't seem to know it existed.

The fire brigade in my part of town is made up entirely of volunteers (hence the sirens), but they're usually pretty effective. And in case of severe fires (like this one), they are supported by the volunteer fire brigades of the neighbouring districts. However, for some reason, all the various fire brigades did for a full twenty minutes was sit around on the school and bank parking lots doing absolutely nothing. At least the local fire brigade should have known about the field, particularly considering that the former owner of the burning farmstead (who died in February and gladly did not have to see this) used to be the chief of the volunteer fire brigade. After twenty minutes, finally, a small truck (just a van really, not one of the big ones with ladders) showed up on our side of the fire to scout around. It was soon joined by another firevan and a bunch of firemen standing around still doing fuck all!. Almost an hour until they finally started rolling out the hoses.

By now, the fire had all but consumed the middle part of the building and spread to the adjacent barn. The main house was still safe because there was a firewall between it and the middle part. By the time, the firemen had gotten their hoses connected (the nearest fireplugs were at both ends of the street respectively, i.e. quite far away, which leaves me more than just a little worried) and were ready to start spraying water, the roof of the barn was entirely ablaze and even the roof of the main house had started burning.

By now, it was gradually getting light, and the street was filled with neighbours. Lots of them were annoyed that the fire brigade so totally screwed up, one woman even openly confronted a fireman about it ("The problem is we didn't have enough water", the fireman confessed). And everybody was speculating whether the fire was what we call "hot demolition" round these parts, i.e. whether the owners of the house set the fire themselves. The whole estate is at the center of an inheritance dispute, which speaks for the theory. What speaks against the theory is that the couple living there was apparently still asleep when the fire brigade arrived. I actually have their phone number, but I never thought of calling them, because frankly I couldn't imagine anyone not waking up from the fire and the ruckus made by the fire brigade. Relatives of the owners showed up (it's a big, far-flung, messy family), including the nephew and the obviously distraught niece (she spent much of her childhood in that house). I offered her a cup of tea (I happened to have some brewing) before her brother took her to her grandparents.

I got out my digital camera and took photos until I had exhausted my battery. I'm not even sure why I did it, documentary urge, coming to terms with the fact that the farmhouse that had always been there won't be there any longer. Maybe I'll post my pictures on flickr or one of those sites, once I can figure out how they work. Meanwhile, here are a bunch of fire photos from a regional news service. Those photos were taken from the other side of the house, somewhat closer to the fire. There even was some footage in the local TV news and mention on the radio. And they closed down the B51 road for a while because of the smoke, even though we were much closer to the fire (though luckily smoke free due to the wind blowing from the other direction). One of the neighbours started spraying his fence and garden shed with water, because he was scared that flying sparks might set his own house ablaze.

By half past eight, everything was largely over, though a few firemen still hung around and they still closed down the local elementary school (much to the rejoicing of the neighbourhood kids) because it was too close to the site of the fire. The house was saved, though part of the roof is gone and the upper appartment must have been badly affected by smoke. The middle part was gone except for the brick walls, the roof of the barn is entirely gone with blackened beams reaching out into the autumn sky. The other ancillary buildings (a former stable converted to a party room and a separate house on the premises) were saved. Later in the day, the police arrived, probably to do some arson investigation. Even later, we got a some people covering the damaged part of the roof with plastic sheets and a bulldozer knocked down the remnants of the totally burned out middle part, probably because it was in danger of collapsing.

And now it's dark, and I can't see the gutted farmstead anymore, though I can see the lights from the school gym through the gap left by the burned down middle part. And I'm scared of going to bed, because I don't know how well I can sleep, just in case we do have a mad arsonist in the area (remember that other fire in the garden house). I guess I'll leave the light on, just in case.

posted by Cora link 18:54

Saturday, November 04, 2006

 

Cora's Comments on Torchwood:

The Ghost Machine, the third episode of the BBC's new SF show Torchwood, is a quieter tale than its two predecessors. Nonetheless, it's a highly effective story, one whose impact grows on repeat viewing.

Even though The Ghost Machine is a quieter story than either Everything Changes or Day One, it still starts out with an action scene, as Gwen and Owen chase a bit of alien technology through the streets of Cardiff, with Toshiko providing support back at the Hub. The bit of alien technology turns out to be in the possession of an ordinary teenaged thug. Owen and Jack (who is still en route to the scene) are foiled by a sliding gate, but Gwen manages to catch up with the fleeing boy, only to have him slip out of her grip. The frustrated Gwen is left with the boy's jacket, just as Toshiko congratulates her with "You've got it". And indeed Gwen finds something which looks very much like a TV remote control in a pocket of the jacket. When Gwen holds the device in her hand, it lights up. Gwen - rather foolishly - presses a button on the device, and all of a sudden the bustling train station is eerily empty. An instant later, a little boy in old-fashioned clothing wanders into the station, wailing that he's lost and that no one know who he is. Gwen tries to talk to him, but the child doesn't respond.

An instant later, everything returns to normal, as Jack and Owen burst in to find a very distraught Gwen still holding the alien artifact, now inert. Back at the Hub, the Torchwood team try to reconstruct what happened to Gwen, especially as the security camera shows nothing out of the ordinary. Gwen believes she saw a ghost, Owen believes Gwen was either hallucinating or is suffering from the symptoms of dementia (and is inconsiderate enough to say it out aloud), Jack isn't sure what to believe but wants to find out.

As an initial scan of the alien artifact only reveals that it is "so advanced it makes NASA looks like Toy R Us" ("Well, that narrows it down", Owen says), the Torchwood team decide to track down the kid who owned it. The instant face recognition database actually does its job this time around (big surprise) and spits out a name: Bernie Harris, small-time criminal. However, tracking down Bernie is a lot more difficult than it looks, for though Bernie seems to have stolen from everyone he knows and everybody hates him ("I wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire", a girl says), nobody actually knows where he is. Finally, the Torchwood team give up, much to the annoyance of Jack. They have a bit more luck in identifying the "ghost" Gwen saw, as the "ghost kid" was considerate enough to wear a name tag on his jacket. Toshiko is just about to run a search of that name in all available databases, when Owen finds him in the phonebook. The "ghost", it turns out, is very much alive and in his 70s (played by the nasty Capitalist from the Fifth Doctor's swan song Caves of Androzani). Gwen and Owen pay him a visit, and after having sent Owen off to the kitchen with the old man's daughter, the old man tells Gwen that what she saw was a real incident that happened when he was evacuated to Wales in WWII and accidentally forgotten at the train station. It's a nice moment and hopefully, this will take care of the obligatory WWII references for this whole season of Torchwood (though apparently, there is a WWII time travel story towards the end of the series - oh joy!). Though it doesn't really make sense for the old man to tell Gwen just what she needs to know on a whim. Plus, Cardiff doesn't seem like an ideal spot for evacuating endangered kids, as judging by the many post-1945 buildings on view, it seems to have been heavily bombed (a lack of pre-war buildings is usually a good indicator for heavy bombing). Finally, why has every WWII survivor seen in Doctor Who and/or Torchwood inevitably lost family members due to bombing raids? Statistically, this isn't all that likely. I know plenty of WWII survivors who lived in heavily bombed cities (including inhabitants of Dresden) and I don't think I know a single person who lost a family member to bombing. Not sure why this is so, though I suspect that since families tend to cluster together, bombing raids would often take out entire families at once, leaving no survivors. But apparently, British TV can't get by without the obligatory "Weren't we bombed horribly and aren't we brave that we survived?" reference. Still, it is a minor annoyance (unlike The Empty Child which was a mayor annoyance) in an otherwise excellent story.

One of the things I really like about Torchwood so far is how it tends to send up the conventions of CSI type cop shows. For Torchwood is very much patterned on the CSI franchise, both in visuals (aerial cityscape shots as scene breaks) and team set-up (different functions which overlap when the scriptwriter wishes, 3:2 gender ratio, token minority member). I recently watched CSI: New York and was struck by the stylistic similarities. Except that no CSI team has a Ianto to keep them supplied with food and coffee. The CSIs are entertaining enough, but one thing that always bugs me is the utter implausibility of what many consider to be realistic shows. Crappy security camera footage can always be enhanced to give an accurate portrait of a suspect, fingerprints and/or DNA samples can always be found in some database or other, witnesses/suspects can always be made to talk and usually tell the truth (if they don't, they're the killer), the dirt found under a murder victim's shoe is always some kind of incredibly rare sand from Hawaii which is to be only found in a single place in a 100 kilometer radius (the Hawaiian sand bit actually was in an episode of CSI: Miami I think it was). In Torchwood, which is billed as an SF show after all, a face recognition software comes up with 119 matches, fingerprints are not in any databases, potential witnesses are unresponsive or downright abusive, a witness/suspect is actually in the phonebook and tracking down a 19-year-old petty criminal can be more difficult than dealing with alien technology.

Though The Ghost Machine is less CSI: Wherever than it is Torchwood's take on Cold Case/Waking the Dead, i.e. the solving old crimes genre. For when Owen ends up with the ghost machine, he has a paranormal experience. But while Gwen saw a lost child, Owen witnesses the rape and murder of a young woman, a murder that was never solved. And as if that wasn't enough, he gets to feel what the victim felt, too.

The viewer sees only the build-up to the event, not the rape and murder itself. This relative restraint is a good thing in this case. We don't need to see the actual rape and murder - in fact, it isn't even spelled out what happened until later - because it's all there on Owen's face (great acting from Burn Gorman - and I'm very sorry that I had to look up the actor's name, because I didn't remember). And it is doubly significant that it is Owen who has this experience rather than Jack or Gwen or Toshiko, because Owen has been portrayed pretty much as an insensitive jerk up to this point. Having a male character and an insensitive jerk at that suddenly thrust into experiencing the feelings of a female rape victim is interesting enough, but the fact that Owen's ideas about sexual consent are somewhat flexible (see episode one) makes it even more interesting. It makes me wonder whether there wasn't something to all those date rape accusations with regards to the alien sex spray scene in Everything Changes after all (though personally I don't see it as date rape). It would be too much of a coincidence to be otherwise, especially as what happens to Lizzie Lewis is also a date rape gone horribly wrong.

So while the viewer finally gets to see a hint that Owen Harper may be a decent human being after all, Owen's teammates ironically seem to be utterly unaware of how badly the incident has affected Owen. After a simple "Are you alright, Owen?", everybody quickly goes back to figuring out what exactly the ghost machine does (i.e. record intense emotions), totally ignoring the obviously rattled Owen. At which point I was all but yelling at the screen: "Hello! I know he's an asshole, but your colleague is having some problems there. So would someone please try to help him." Though of course, the fact that pretty much everyone ignores Owen's problems is the very thing which causes the tragedy to come.

Owen responds to his experience by devoting himself to bringing the killer to justice. Luckily enough, the girl addressed her murderer by name in the flashback, so he at least knows where to start (slight niggle: How likely is it that all three "ghosts" somehow managed to announce their names?). Unfortunately though, the guy's name is rather common. And - since Torchwood is not Cold Case, where the police have nothing better to do than solve decades old murders - convincing anyone to listen will prove to be more than difficult. There's a great scene where Jack tries to make it clear to Owen that he can't get the case reopened without new evidence, and anyway, solving crimes is not Torchwood's job. "But I saw it happen", Owen says, "I can testify." "And what will you tell them?", Jack counters, "That you saw a 40-year-old murder via an alien artefact?" The exchange ends with Jack telling Owen to go home. Which he promptly does, only to continue brooding over the murder files with a bottle of Jack Daniels to keep him company. One doesn't need to be a psychologist to see that this is a recipe for disaster.

If we include Suzie (though we saw too little of her in the actual episode to judge whether the fact that she was insane should have been obvious), Ghost Machine marks the second time in three episodes that Jack totally missed that one of his people was having problems. So either he's not the most empathic of people or his own damage (which he very obviously has) blind him towards the problems of others. In this case, the best course of action would probably have been taking Owen to the pub and pouring enough alcohol into him to make him pass out or at least dilute his desire for revenge somewhat. Alas, Jack prefers to send Owen home and spend the time teaching Gwen how to shoot instead.

Owen eventually does manage to track down the killer of Lizzie Lewis (he does have a phonebook after all) and decides to pay the man a visit, forcing his way in via a fake ID (apparently Torchwood issues its operatives with a whole battery of them). The killer is an old man now, played by someone who was in Blake's Seven and is apparently very famous, though I wasn't familiar with the actor, as Blake's Seven is a bit of Brit SF that has eluded me so far. Owen makes it clear to the old man that he knows exactly what he did, a tense scene which is made even more menacing by the fact that Owen whispers throughout. By the way, did I mention that the guy playing Owen is really great? He was so threatening in that scene that he almost made me side with a rapist and killer. By the way, one thing I really liked about The Ghost Machine is that unlike all those consumate liars to be found in the likes of Cold Case ("Oh yes, I briefly knew the victim some thirty years ago. Very tragic what happened, wouldn't you say? No, of course, I had nothing to do with that.") this killer wouldn't have a prayer of not giving himself away in an interrogation. To be fair, a murder mystery show like Cold Case operates under different rules than Torchwood (where the identity of the killer isn't much of a mystery). Still, the killer driven insane by paranoia and haunted by his crime for some forty years makes a pleasant change from all those cold fish murderers in the likes of CSI or Cold Case.

The old man eventually throws Owen out with the words "I told you before, you'll get nothing out of me". However, the morning is not entirely wasted, for who just happens to be lurking on the street outside the old man's house? None other than the elusive Bernie Harris. Now this would be an absolutely unbelievable coincidence, except that it turns out (once Owen has managed to catch Bernie after a lovely chase scene through Welsh backyards) that it isn't a coincidence at all. In the course of his criminal career, Bernie apparently came across some alien objects in a storage shed. Most of those objects were both useless and harmless, "foreign coins and strange bits of rock" (all gleefully confiscated by Toshiko), but the ghost machine was another matter entirely. And once Bernie found out what it could do (via witnessing a woman throwing a newborn baby into the river), he decided to use it to make some money by blackmailing people with what he saw in the ghost machine induced visions. Which is also the reason why he was lurking outside the house of the old man. Of course, there is a certain irony to the fact that an amazing piece of alien technology was used for a purpose as mundane as blackmail, particularly as both Owen and Gwen found better uses for it. Though I wonder why it took the Torchwood team so long to find out what Bernie was up to - I thought it was pretty obvious from the moment Owen spotted him outside the old man's house.

Bernie also reveals that the "ghost machine" is only one half of an alien device. The second half is even more frightening, because it supposedly has the power to show the future. And when Bernie used it, he saw himself lying dead on the street outside his home while still young. Torchwood confiscates both halves only to have Gwen accidentally set off the second half (maybe they shouldn't hand the dangerous alien technology to the clueless newbie). Gwen has a frightening vision of herself with blood on her hands, saying "Owen. He had a knife. I couldn't stop it." Gwen's vision is, unlike Bernie's, conveniently vague so that it could mean anything. My initial interpretation was Owen kills the old man with the knife, whereas from the words said it is just as likely that Owen is the one who gets killed or even Bernie (what actually happens is quite different, though).

When Gwen tells Jack about her vision, he tells her that having seen something does not necessarily mean it will come true. Nor will Bernie necessarily die, for that matter, as time is always in flux (spoken like a true time traveller there). Gwen is somewhat reassured by this and decides to inform Bernie that what he saw was only a possible future. For some reason, however, both Jack and Gwen neglect to tell Owen about Gwen's vision, even though it does concern him, which is at least partly responsible for what happens in the end. Come to think of it, much of the tragedy in this episode could have been avoided, if someone had actually taken the time to talk to Owen. Not that Owen is particularly open with his teammates, either. He tells no one except Toshiko (who has been breaking the rules by helping him and hence won't tell anyone either) about his little chat with the killer, which is why the Torchwood team catches on to the blackmail thing much too late. Seems to me that Torchwood have some serious problems with internal communications.

The situation comes to a head, when the killer (sorry, but I can't recall the character's name) has had enough of Bernie's blackmail attempts and decides to pay him a visit, at exactly the same time Gwen is visiting Bernie to tell him that the ghost machine induced vision will not necessarily come true. Owen also picks that same moment to confess that he threatened the killer and might accidentally have set him off - unfortunately too late to warn Gwen that the killer might be coming for Bernie. Minor niggle: What exactly are those headsets good for (except looking cool, that is), when Jack still has to use his mobile to contact Gwen, even though she is wearing her headset at the time?

Outside Bernie's house, Bernie and Gwen are confronted by the killer, and the old man brought a knife, most likely the same knife that killed Lizzie Lewis. And now the old man wants to use that same knife to deal with Bernie and probably finish off Gwen, too, while he's at it, since she's in the way and the old man seems to have a pathological hatred for women anyway, as he blames them for ruining his life. Bernie is understandably paralyzed with fear (after all, he saw himself lying dead on that very street). Gwen is paralyzed, too, which is somewhat less understandable. Okay, she may not have known how to shoot a gun before joining Torchwood, but as a police officer she should nonetheless have been able to tackle an old man armed only with a knife. Of course, Gwen may have been afraid of accidentally causing the very events she's trying to prevent (i.e. the ghost machine induced visions of the future) and hence simply froze up. Still, this scene does smell of the horror movie heroine syndrome with Gwen (and Bernie) patiently standing around being threatened, while waiting for the hero (or heroes in this case, as both Jack and Owen rush to her aid) to rescue her.

Predictably, Jack and Owen have no problem disarming with the old man. But unfortunately, Owen gets hold of the knife during the ensuing struggle and proceeds to hold it to the old man's throat. On first viewing, it seemed a bit unclear why Owen chooses this particular moment to go ballistic - after all, if he wanted to kill the old man for what he did to Lizzie Lewis, killing him while they were alone at his house would have been much more convenient than killing him in front of four witnesses including his boss. Initially, I thought that it was just the sight of the knife that set Owen off. Only upon second viewing did I catch (due to a mumbled line) that what really set Owen off was not seeing the knife but seeing it used to threaten another woman, Gwen. Now Owen suddenly coming within an inch of killing a man to defend Gwen is definitely surprising, considering that so far both characters have mainly expressed extreme dislike for each other. Hmm, could Owen secretly have a thing for Gwen?

Though in the end, the greatest threat to the old man's health turns out to be not Owen at all. For Owen apparently only wanted to scare the old man, and does surrender the knife once he has seen his victim squirm. Unfortunately, Gwen ends up holding the knife, and before she can do anything, the old man (who really doesn't like women, it seems) rushes at her and impales himself on his own knife. Owen, interestingly, immediately tries to save the old man, but it's already too late. Personally, I was rather surprised to see Owen attempting to save the life of a man he had been threatening only seconds before, especially as I had already forgotten by this point that Owen was supposed to be a doctor (he didn't get to display much medical knowledge in the first two episodes). Of course, this moment also illustrates that in moments of crisis, for all his unpleasantness, Owen is still be more interested in saving lives than in taking them. Moreover, it is also highly interesting that the first Torchwood member (excluding Suzie) we see killing someone is not the rather unlikeable Owen (who probably would have deserved to have someone's death on his conscience) but nice Gwen, who doesn't even kill spiders in the bathroom and is supposed to be the moral heart of the team, not to mention the audience identification figure. The contrast between the rather playful firearms training scene earlier in the episode and the grisly reality of death is very notable as well. Even more disturbing is that after three episodes, Gwen has - albeit inadvertedly - caused more deaths than the murderous Suzie Costello, as Gwen is indirectly responsible for the death of the hospital employee in episode 1, all of Carys' victims in episode 2 and now the death of the old man as well. For someone who is supposed to be the moral heart of the team, Gwen sure leaves a lot of blood in her wake. In many ways, The Ghost Machine also marks a point of no return for Gwen. So far, her time with Torchwood has been pretty much a big adventure for Gwen. But now, things are serious, for now she has got blood on her hands.

The story of Owen hunting down a killer is intertwined with a subplot about Gwen's gradually deteriorating homelife with Rhys. The relationship wasn't all that healthy when we first met them in Everything Changes, and Gwen's new job at Torchwood is making things worse. Now it was very obvious from the start that Rhys would be stuck with the Mickey role, i.e. that of the mundane boyfriend dumped for bigger and better things. However, I still liked Mickey and I liked what they did with the character in Doctor Who. Rhys, on the other hand, I don't like at all. As presented in Ghost Machine, he is the stereotypical clingy, whiney partner so common in cop shows. The kind of character who keeps on complaining that his significant other is married to the job, always working and never at home. And I hate that type of character, partly for biographical reasons (I grew up in a family where one parent was absent due to work much of the time, so people whining about "You're home late" seem ridiculous to me), partly because characters of that sort are all about "Me, me, me". Rhys is a classic example of that character. He's constantly phoning Gwen at work (to the point that Owen rolls his eyes when her phone rings), supposedly to ask stupid questions about how to operate the washing machine, but really to ask when she'll be home. And when Gwen says she doesn't know, he throws a fit. Awful character - I don't know why Gwen is putting up with him. Though I do like the fact that the production team gave us a male whiny partner, as most characters of that type tend to be female. Just witness all those annoying ex-wives in cop shows or doctor shows.

It is notable that Gwen barely interacts face to face with Rhys in this episode - most of their interactions are carried out via the phone, which symbolizes the growing distance between them. And there is a very poignant scene where Gwen takes the ghost machine home into her empty flat (three episodes in and Gwen is already violating the rules) and uses it to recapture memories of happiness with Rhys, because she can't be happy with him any other way anymore. When Gwen first unpacks the ghost machine in her flat, I halfway expected it to replay a scene of Rhys cheating on her with someone else. In fact, I almost hoped to see such a scene, because I don't like Rhys and this would get rid of him nicely. But in retrospect, having the machine conveniently reveal that Rhys was cheating on Gwen would have been far too easy. For even though I don't like the character, Rhys isn't a bad guy in himself. He's simply the wrong guy for Gwen, which she is in the process of finding out. And even though Gwen and Rhys seem reunited by the end of this scene, I really don't see them together by the end of the series.

If Rhys is the wrong man for Gwen, it seems as if Jack just might be the right person for her. At any rate, there is a level of intimacy between those two that doesn't exist between either of them and the rest of the Torchwood team. Which isn't that surprising in the case of Gwen, after all she's still new to the team. In the case of Jack, however, it is a bit surprising that he seems to get so much better along with Gwen than with the rest of his team, even though he has probably known them for a long time. Jack's lack of connection with his team is doubly surprising, considering that back in Doctor Who he seemed to be the kind of person who makes friends easily. But of course, various interviews with people involved in the production of Torchwood indicated that the spin-off would feature a Jack who had grown colder and more distant as a reaction to the events of The Parting of the Ways (even more so considering what we didn't know at the time of those interviews) and who needs Gwen in order to reconnect with humanity. Hence, it seems that Torchwood features yet another take on the "lonely and battle-scarred was survivor is saved by the love of a good woman" plot that was also the basis of the first season of new Doctor Who. Which might be clichè, except that Gwen and Jack are both good characters and the chemistry between the actors is great. Particularly the shooting range scene literally crackles with sexual tension, complete with the waving about of phallic objects. Plus, it ends with Gwen and Jack about an inch from having wild and sweaty sex on the floor. In fact, Gwen's hasty "I'd better go home" (after asking Jack if he doesn't get lonely at night) is the only thing that saves them from ending up in bed together. Though ironically, Gwen comes home to an empty flat, because Rhys has apparently tired of waiting for and has gone out by himself (the guy so deserves to be dumped). And the final scene, of course, shows Gwen and Jack watching the sunrise together after a night where Gwen most definitely did not go home.

As the focus of this episode is very much on Owen and Gwen and Jack is the star anyway, Toshiko and Ianto again get very little to do. Toshiko mans the computer and digs up some information about the killer's history of mental health problems (foreshadowing the suicide later on), which she passes on to Owen against Jack's explicit orders. This scene hints at a somewhat deeper connection between Toshiko and Owen, though what sort of connection this is (good friends, former lovers, something else?) is impossible to say at this point. As for Ianto, he makes coffee, brings food, pours brandy and gets to put dangerous objects into the safe. He is certainly a very useful member of the team (if only, because without him they wouldn't have coffee or pizza), but so far we know absolutely nothing about him. Though judging by the "next time" trailer (which looks fabulous BTW) that should change soon.

We do, however, learn a bit more about Jack. For example, we learn that he lives in the Hub (because he has to always watchful, he tells Gwen) and that he never sleeps, probably a side effect of his immortality. Another interesting observation is that Jack does not appear to drink any alcohol. At any rate, he is drinking water when he drugs Gwen in episode 1 and at the end of this episode, Jack is the only one who does not drink from the lovely crystal decanter in his office. This may well be another side effect of his immortality, as he did drink in Doctor Who.

The Ghost Machine makes a bit more use of its Cardiff setting than the previous two episodes. There also are some Welsh in-jokes which are probably impossible for anyone from outside Cardiff to understand. For example, there is some sort of running gag regarding the part of town where Bernie and the old man live, a place bearing the poetic name "Splott". Jack apparently mispronounces the name early on (at any rate, Ianto corrects him) to general hilarity. Which wouldn't be a problem except that Jack seems to have been in Cardiff for some time (probably decades even) and should have figured out how to properly pronounce the local tonguetwisters by now. Plus, the others also call it "Splott" later on. Or maybe I am totally misunderstanding something here. That said, I actually don't mind the occasional reference I don't get and I do like seeing parts of Britain that are not London or Manchester and small quirky towns, where 90 percent of British TV series and films seem to be set. Plus, I enjoyed the fact that The Ghost Machine showed us parts of Cardiff that look more like Britain (e.g. the chase through typically British backyards) and less like CSI style US cityscapes. Because frankly, the many aerial shots of not particularly impressive modern buildings did seem a bit weird. Besides, it is nice to finally see Cardiff as itself rather than pretending to be someplace else. I'm also getting used to the Welsh accents of many castmembers by now. Though I do understand if certain people have problems with regionalism in TV shows. Now I don't have a problem with Wales, frankly I know too little about Wales to have any problems with it. But I do refuse to watch any German TV shows which are excessively Bavarian, so I can understand why some British viewers may mind the Welshness of Torchwood (which I personally find quite endearing).

All in all, The Ghost Machine is a quiet but nice tale, which actually gets better with repeated viewing. And it does show us that Owen has some redeeming qualities, though he is back to being an asshole by the end of the story. Still, this seems to have been a bit of a filler episode, while tomorrow's looks absolutely spectacular.

posted by Cora link 01:41

Friday, November 03, 2006

 

Do you remember the computer trouble I had lately? Well, I took the PC to a local repair shop and was netless for five whole days, only to be told that the repair shop had no idea what was wrong and that I should upgrade. Still, at least the PC was working again properly, after they opened it up and took everything out.

Then, today, it suddenly started getting the same hiccups it had before. So whatever they did to fix the problem that they couldn't find was only temporary anyway.

Well, I'm not going to pay for that repair, that much is for sure.

posted by Cora link 01:26

Thursday, November 02, 2006

 

Cora's Comments on Torchwood:

I had huge expectations for Torchwood, the BBC's sexier, more adult Doctor Who spin-off, hence the potential for disappointment was huge as well. But I am glad to report that the first two episodes of Torchwood were just as good as I'd hoped they'd be. Even better, they managed to give me quite a few surprises. And they made me cry, which isn't something I do easily (unlike my mother who bawls at every emotion-manipulating piece of crap on TV).


SPOILERS, obviously, so don't read on if you haven't seen it.


With the first episode, Everything Changes, Russell T. Davies repeats the trick he used in Rose, the premiere episode of the new Doctor Who: He starts with an ordinary person, in this case Cardiff policewoman Gwen Cooper, in a seemingly ordinary world and slowly introduces that ordinary person (and along with her the audience) to the uncanny. And before anyone screams, "Bah, Davies is stealing from himself", Davies didn't invent the "start with the ordinary world" trick - nor did Joss Whedon for that matter. No, that one is far older. In my thesis, I have a quote from H.G. Wells (which I am too lazy to look up again now) outlining that very tactic.

At first glance, Torchwood looks like any other Brit cop show. There is a rain-drenched crime scene, police, forensics, etc... are bustling about, PC Gwen Cooper (you know you've watched too much British crime drama, when those weird abbreviations actually start making sense) arrives on the scene a little late and snags someone's coffee. So far, so ordinary. But then, things start to turn weird, when a big black Range Rover (I see the exact same model parking near the university from time to time - always makes me smile) shows up, four people get out, walk right up to the crime scene - and the police not only does not stop them, they even get out of the way. When Gwen asks what that is all about, the only answer she gets is that those four people represent a group called Torchwood and that they are to be given special access to crime scenes. None of the other police officers on site seems to wonder about this, but Gwen does. So she sneaks up onto a multi-storey carpark overlooking the crime scene to watch Torchwood in action.

One thing that has always struck me about Doctor Who is that curiosity and the willingness to ask questions about things other people simply accept is what makes a character companion-material. This trend goes all the way back to those two teacher characters, Ian and Barbara, from the very early episodes (who after all only ended up in the TARDIS because they were nosing around after a student) via the likes of Sarah Jane and Leela all the way to Rose in the new series. It is also interesting that Mickey only gets the invitation to travel in the TARDIS, once he has started asking questions. Of course, we're talking about Torchwood here, not Doctor Who, but the pattern still holds, and if Gwen had run into the Doctor instead of Torchwood, she may well have ended up becoming a companion. For while a whole bunch of police officers see Torchwood arrive on the scene of the crime and essentially boot them out, Gwen is the only one willing to ask the obvious questions and keep asking them. And considering she is a police officer, she is a bit better at finding answers than someone like Rose. Of course, natural curiosity should be a standard trait of every adventure hero or heroine, but sadly this isn't always the case. Take Buffy for example, who - even when confronted with absolutely incredible things - hardly ever asked a question, probably because she was too busy whining that she can't go to the prom, because she has to kill those nasty vampires. And that's it with the requisite Buffy bashing for today.

What Torchwood actually does at the crime scene is a twisted variation on the oft repeated mantra of CSI type shows, "Listen to the victim - he/she will tell you what happened." Only that in the case of Torchwood, they literally resurrect the murder victim to ask him who killed him. Problem is, the resurrection lasts only two minutes, then the unfortunate victim is dead again - this time permanently. The moment when the murder victim opens his eyes is a genuine shock - and would have been even more shocking if we hadn't seen it in the trailers - and the audience pretty much shares Gwen's gasp of amazement. Of course, the question regarding the morality of this short term resurrection immediately occurs: Is it right to put the victim through two minutes of extreme stress and anguish for the sake of possibly getting some clue regarding the identity of a serial killer? Especially since the victim has absolutely no idea who killed him, since he was stabbed from behind (Duh! You'd figure Torchwood would be able to find that out beforehand).

But the resurrection scene not only shows us what Torchwood can do, it also gives us a little insight into the personalities of four of the five team members (Ianto apparently doesn't go out on field missions). Suzie Costello is in charge of the resurrection device (a gauntlet like metal glove), though she has no idea how it works (she has to feel it, she says). Once she has made the glove work, the lady is cold as a fish, counting down the seconds left in full earshot of the murder victim. Owen Harper, the medic, comes across as a bit of an asshole, complaining about the cold and about how a previous revived body punched him (we're sure you deserved it, Owen) and bickering with Suzie and Toshiko about the proper way of doing things. Toshiko Sato comes across as a basically decent, if somewhat clumsy person - she flat out tells the revived corpse he's dead, with predictable results, and when she runs out of questions to ask, she gets desperate.

Jack is of course the character the audience (at least those who've watched Doctor Who) knows most about (more than the other characters to a certain degree). The scene starts of with Jack talking about estrogen (which he pronounces really weird) in the rain. It's a fourth-wall breaking moment, which would be weird, except that Jack has had a couple of fourth-wall breaking moment before in Doctor Who. Besides, the monologue is damn funny, as Jack concludes it with, "Well, at least I won't get pregnant. Wouldn't want to go through that ever again." Uh, Jack, hate to tell it to you, but estrogen only works on women.

The "estrogen in the rain" scene is actually the closest Jack gets to the character we met in Doctor Who. For the Jack of Torchwood is darker, moodier, more mature and - at least judging by the first two episodes - more restrained than he was in Doctor Who. Of course, it was inevitable that Jack would not survive the events of The Parting of the Ways unchanged (though at this point we do not yet know how much he has changed). And I for one welcome the change, because - let's face it - the character introduced in The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances needed a bit more depth, if he was to carry a whole show (okay, the Torchwood team actually has five members, but so far the focus is very much on Gwen and Jack). In fact, I only really started to like Jack during Bad Wolf (though I didn't mind him before - he was funny and nice to look at), when the character started to show a bit more depth than just providing funny and slightly smutty one-liners. In retrospect, there were glimpses of depth in The Doctor Dances and Boom Town as well, but what brought me over was the scene where Rose is zapped in Bad Wolf and the good-bye kiss in The Parting of the Ways. Because that was the moment where I realized, "Okay, this guy's in love. With someone who couldn't care less."

In Torchwood, Jack is no longer quite as selflessly heroic as he was in the Doctor Who season one finale, though he hasn't gone back to his amoral conman ways either. Still, as the opening scene shows, Torchwood is not a very nice organization. And it should be noted that Jack was actually the most caring of the bunch. He was obviously not happy with the way his team was handling things, and he was the only one who actually thought to introduce himself and ask the dead man for his name (after the poor guy had had total strangers bombard him with questions for one and a half minute). The second question Jack asks the murdered man is whether he saw anything while he was dead, a question that makes a lot of sense in the light of the events in The Parting of the Ways and even more sense in the light of what we see later in this episode. The answer, by the way, is "Nothing." And this is why I love British television. Because in every US show ever made, the murder victim would have been waffling on about that beautiful bright white light and the music and all that crap. Never mind that that bright white light has become such a cliché by now that it isn't even funny anymore (as a teenager, my cunning plan for achiving immortality was staying the hell away from any bright white lights). Why can't someone see a green light for a change? Or a glimpse of hell? Or - as in the case of Torchwood - nothing. Besides, the dead man's final desperate "Nothing. Oh God, there's nothing" makes the whole resurrection scene even more effective. Because knowing that there's nothing afterwards makes resurrected the dead guy for only two minutes an even crueler thing to do. It was actually this "There's nothing" moment that brought the first tear to my eye, approximately three minutes into the episode.

There is a neat little twist at the end of the resurrection scene (after the murder victim has expired for good), when Jack suddenly calls out to Gwen and we realize that he knew all along she was watching them. He also seems remarkably unconcerned by this (we later learn why). Gwen reacts by running away in panic.

The episode gives us a bit more of Gwen's ordinary life next. We meet her boyfriend, Rhys (to my shame I only caught his name in the second episode - on second viewing). By the way, it seems to me that they are going a bit overboard with all the Welsh names. We have Gwen, Owen, Rhys, Ianto and in episode two a girl named Carys (the last two names are so unusual that I at least have never run across them before and neither has my naming dictionary). Not that there's anything wrong with emphasizing that the show is set in Wales (though all those shots of Cardiff should have made that amply clear), but surely there are plenty of people with non-Welsh names in Cardiff.

Gwen's boyfriend seems to be very much a Mickey type, a nice ordinary guy, whom you just know will be ditched at the first opportunity. The relationship between Gwen and Rhys seems to be strained even before her involvement with Torchwood. When she comes home after her first encounter with Torchwood, she not only does not tell Rhys what she has witnessed (you'd think seeing a dead man resurrected would be a natural thing to discuss with your boyfriend - confidentiality rules or not), when he asks her if she is investigating that murder he's heard about on the news, she actively tells him that it's got nothing to do with her. What is more, Rhys also apparently prefers watching TV to going to bed with Gwen. Now I usually hate the "nagging girlfriend wants guy to come to bed, when guy is engaged in something more interesting like websurfing" stereotype, but it does make sense here to show that there are both sexual and communication problems between those two. And then of course we have the final shot of Gwen and Rhys lying in bed, facing into different directions, which speaks volumes. Poor Rhys, he will either be alien fodder in three episodes time (though I thought that of Mickey, too, and he not only lived but actually got to blast Cybermen and Daleks) or Gwen will dump him.

Even though she does not talk about Torchwood with Rhys, Gwen is still intrigued enough to try to find out more about them. She asks a colleague to run a check on Jack (agzer all, she heard him introduce himself to the dead man) only to find out that the only Captain Jack Harkness on record vanished in 1941 (which everyone who has seen The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances already knows). Gwen also asks her partner (whose name escapes me at the moment) about Torchwood, who believes them to be DNA specialists or "something like that CSI show". "CSI: Cardiff, now that's something I like to see", he says. Of course, the "CSI: Cardiff" joke is so funny, because it is true. Torchwood is essentially CSI: Cardiff, except that the characters actually seem to have personalities and that they've got all that cool alien tech to help them. Even the pattern is similar, all three CSI teams started out with three guys and two girls as well. Actually, human technology is depicted more realistically in Torchwood than in any CSI show. In the second episode, running an analysis of the alien gas takes hours and footage taken from a CCTV camera can't be properly matched with a face recognition database, because the image is too low-res. And fingerprints from random people don't necessarily show up in any database. Nor can a killer be tracked down, because the victim happens to have the pollen of some plant which grows only in one particular spot under his shoes. Now when was the last time any CSI characters actually had these problems?

Talking of influences, on forums like Outpost Gallifrey's, a lot of people are complaining that Torchwood is unoriginal, because it borrows from other sources. Which it of course does, but then which TV show is truly original these days? The CSI and X-Files influences are obvious, as is - considering that this is a British show - the influence of Bugs and Spooks. But what really baffles me is how many people claim that Torchwood is a rip-off of Angel, while Doctor Who, at least in its current incarnation, is a rip-off of Buffy Because, frankly, Doctor Who/Torchwood and Buffy/Angel have very little in common apart from the fact that both are largely set in a seemingly normal world, where supernormal forces (vampires and demons in Buffy, aliens in Doctor Who) are at work below the surface. Oh yes, and both Who/Torchwood and Buffy/Angel place more emphasis on character development and relationship than usual for SFF shows, except that the characters in Doctor Who are far more interesting and likeable than those in Buffy and Angel (which more often than not induced the fervent desire to strangle them). Besides, there is a general tendency towards character development and arc plots in modern television. After all, a show like Gilmore Girls, to take a particularly absurd example, has character development, too. Does that make Doctor Who a Gilmore Girls rip-off? I suspect part of the reason that people keep comparing Buffy and Doctor Who is that Russell T. Davies apparently said in some interview that he liked Joss Whedon's work (just imagine what would have happened if he had said he liked Gilmore Girls). Secondly, there is a generation of younger (born sometime after 1980) SFF fans whose genre fascination began with Buffy and Angel and for whom Joss Whedon is god, Jesus and the best and most original writer in the known universe all rolled into one. Which he is not. Whedon is just a writer who took a lot of ideas from elsewhere (including, ironically, the original Doctor Who) and gave them a new twist to create something that was frequently watchable and sometimes great, until it started disappearing up its own ass (Buffy and Angel that is, Firefly never lived that long). Which is similar to what Davies is doing with Doctor Who and Torchwood, except that he has an established mythology to build on and that his results are generally better, at least IMO. And that Davies manages to create more effective emotion than Whedon. At any rate, Russell T. Davies has managed to make me cry a few times. Whedon only managed it once - when Shepherd Book was killed in Serenity (I am apparently a very bad person, because I thought "Good riddance" when Buffy's annoying mother died). Okay, how did this turn into another round of Whedon bashing again? Especially as I don't really hate Whedon, I'm just annoyed by all those people who believe he is the second coming.

Gwen and her police partner (whose name still escapes me) get called in to break up a barroom brawl, in the course of which Gwen is knocked on the head. She is taken to hospital, where she catches a glimpse of a very familiar WWII military coat. Intrigued, Gwen follows the coat up a staircase and comes upon a sealed off corridor. She asks a hospital orderly about the sealed off corridor, who has no idea what it's about, though he suspects it may have something to do with dangerous chemicals and anyway, shouldn't the police know about this. Undaunted by the possible threat of dangerous chemicals, Gwen ventures into the sealed off area and has her very first encounter with alien life in the form of a Weevil.

What makes the Gwen encounters an alien sequence so interesting is that Gwen has no idea what she's facing and what danger she is in. In fact, the first thing she does is commend the Weevil for its great mask (she is correct, by the way, the Weevil make-up is great) before asking it if it has seen a man in a big grey coat. Gwen's reaction is a bit similar to Rose's upon being attacked by Autons - she tries to find a halfway plausible explanation to something obviously implausible. And "man in a mask" is a far more plausible explanation to the average person than "Oh, look, it's an alien and it is possibly dangerous". Besides, we viewers know that we're watching an SF show and thus expect aliens - but Gwen doesn't know she is a character in an SF show and hence doesn't expect them. Of course, given the number of large-scale alien invasions in the Doctor Who universe, people should be expecting aliens - but there is actually an in-story explanation why they don't. People are in denial - the visible large-scale invasions we've seen in Doctor Who (the Christmas invasion and the Cybermen invasion are actually namechecked) are apparently dismissed as mass hallucinations due to terrorists dumping drugs in the water supply.

The Weevil's reaction to Gwen's lack of reaction is lovely as well - it just keeps looking at Gwen with this "Shouldn't you start screaming and run away" expression. It seems that the Weevils may well be a recurrent feature in Torchwood, for according to Jack there are several hundreds of them living in the sewers, generally harmless unless one decides to go rogue and attacks humans, which has been happening a lot more often lately (I smell a story arc brewing). The hospital orderly who wanders into the sealed off section looking for Gwen reacts much like she does, by the way - except that he is stupid enough to get too close to the Weevil and insult it, too ("Maybe some plastic surgery would help") with the result that he gets his throat ripped out in a fountain of spurting blood the likes of which you wouldn't have seen in Buffy. Before Gwen has much of a chance to react, the Torchwood team bursts in and jumps the Weevil, while Jack tells Gwen to run.

This second encounter between Gwen and Torchwood is a bit of a contrived coincidence, as Gwen just happens to be in the right place at the right time. It would certainly have been more believable, if Gwen had managed to track down Torchwood for the second time through some investigations of her own, but as the episode is only 50 minutes long, there probably wouldn't have been time for this. In fact, my only big criticism of the Torchwood debut is that it would have worked much better as a two-parter, especially as episodes one and two were broadcast together anyway.

Since no one will believe Gwen regarding what happened during her second encounter with Torchwood at the hospital (the hospital staff are all accounted for, the licence plates of the Torchwood car don't exist), Gwen does some investigating of her won. She follows the Torchwood car and manages to track them back to that big, empty cobblestone square with the lampposts, the monolith fountain and that big concert hall thing, all of which we saw in Boomtown, only to lose them at the monolith, when they just vanish.

It is always interesting to see how cities are presented in films and TV shows set there, what landmarks are shown prominently, which are not. And I must say, I am a bit baffled by the way that Cardiff is presented in both Doctor Who and Torchwood. Both shows prominently feature the same square with monolith fountain and concert hall, which - to me at least - isn't all that attractive a location. And for some reason, an attractive looking building on the other side of that square (seen in one of the aerial shots) is never seen in any of the ground shots, which focus on that concert hall thing instead. And the concert hall is terribly distracting, because I keep trying to read the words written in huge letters on the front of the building, only to realize that they randomly switch between English and Welsh and don't seem to make any sense. The extensive aerial shots of Cardiff in Torchwood are nice enough and obviously imitate the extensive aerial shots of "insert city here" seen in various US TV-shows (the CSIs do this extensively). On the other hand, most of these aerial shots happen to show fairly new (1950s to 2000s) buildings. It almost looks like an attempt to show Cardiff as a cool and modern place ("Look, we've got highrise buildings and highways, too."). Which may well make sense in the light that Wales is apparently considered a rather backward part of the UK. Again, it is one of those things (much like the Welsh in-jokes we got at one point) that Non-Brits will probably never quite get.

Gwen's partner (who is quite annoyed, because she just left him standing at the hospital) eventually convinces her to leave, but that evening she decides to come back to the square, telling Rhys she has to work (lying to her boyfriend for the second time in one episode - not a good sign). Gwen hangs around the fountain for a long time, then she spots a pizza delivery scooter and has an idea. She asks around if the pizza service has a customer named Jack Harkness. They don't, but they do have a Torchwood. "Very good customers", the pizza guy says, "We have them all the time." The idea of a top secret organization revealed because someone (Owen in this case) happens to have an urge for pizza is very funny, if not entirely original (there was something similar in an issue of Alpha Flight once).

Of course, this also gives Gwen an excuse to infiltrate Torchwood by pretending to deliver pizza. The address she is given turns out to be a dingy newsagent/souvenir shop manned by Ianto, the fifth member of the Torchwood team. In good old tradition, the dingy shop is just a front and upon mentioning the magic word (in this case that the pizza is intended for a Mr Harkness), Ianto presses a hidden button, the shop door locks behind Gwen and a portion of the wall swings open. "Well, don't keep him waiting", Ianto says.

Next, we follow Gwen's descent (quite literally, as the place seems to be several storeys below ground) into the Torchwood Hub. Now I've always had a thing for secret headquarters, and the Hub is an lovely example (though not quite up to the standards set in the Bond movies - nothing can beat Blofeld's volcano headquarters in You Only Live Twice). Visually, it couldn't be any further from the gleaming efficiency of the Canary Wharf Torchwood HQ seen in Doctor Who (later we learn that the London office was Torchwood 1, Torchwood 2 is in Scotland, presumably in the mansion seen in Tooth & Claw, Torchwood 3 is the Cardiff office and Torchwood 4 has gone missing). The Torchwood Hub is messy and chaotic, a bizarre fusion of the old and the new. There is turn-of-the-century tube station tiling next to WWII era blast doors next to 1950s sofas next to state-of-the-art computer technology. The attention paid to little details is amazing - there are empty pizza boxes lying around, odds and ends on desks, notes stuck to monitors, alien artifacts, including a very familiar severed hand, in display cases, etc... In short, the Hub looks like people actually live and work there. Great job by the set designers there.

The viewer is given about as much time as Gwen to let all those little touches sink in, which is not very much. We also share Gwen's growing dread, as doors slam shut behind her and she slowly begins to realize that she is in a place where she is absolutely not supposed to be. Even worse, the Torchwood crew seems to totally ignore her - at least until Owen and Toshiko break down giggling, that is. The giggling and the general friendliness of the Torchwood team break the tension somewhat, though Gwen is still obviously scared and indeed her first impulse is to get the hell out of there. Jack doesn't let her leave, though.

What follows are basically some ten minutes or so of exposition, as Jack introduces Gwen to his team - medic Owen, computer wiz Toshiko, hardware specialist Suzie and clean-up man Ianto - gives her a tour of the hub and a close-up look at a safely locked-away Weevil. We also meet the team's pet, a life Pterodactyl flying around the Hub (a pet dinosaur - now how cool is that?). There isn't a whole lot of new information here, at least not to those who have watched Doctor Who (I'm currently in the process of rewatching season 2 with my Mom). What keeps this lump of exposition from being infernally boring is that the characters are just so fun to watch. The chemistry between Jack and Gwen is great. Once Gwen gets over her shock at being confronted with both a top secret organization and evidence for the existence of aliens, she gives as good as she gets, deflating his technobabble at every turn. When Jack sprouts some technobabble (with a sneaky Doctor Who reference, too) about an invisible elevator leading straight down to the Hub, Gwen counters with "Well, if won't people fall in, if they can't see it?" And later on, when Jack tells her that Torchwood is "outside the police, above the government and beyond the United Nations", because they cannot risk any one power getting their hands on the alien technology Torchwood has collected, Gwen asks him, "Well, what's to keep you from abusing it then?" Jack replies that no alien technology leaves the Hub without his explicit permission - nicely countered by the fact that immediately afterwards we see that everyone at Torchwood (with the sole exception of Ianto) ignores Jack's orders and takes home alien devices to use them for purposes ranging from the perfectly harmless (Toshiko's instant book scanning device) via the not-quite-so-harmless (Suzie testing the resurrection glove on swatted flies in her kitchen) to the potentially dodgy (Owen and the amazing alien pheromone).

The alien pheromone bit caused a lot of discussion in the usual places. What happens is that Owen's attempts to pick up a girl at a bar fails, so he sprays himself with an alien perfume and the girl immediately throws herself at him. The girl's boyfriend shows up, threatens Owen and, after talking doesn't work, Owen sprays himself with the miracle perfume again - with the result that the girl's boyfriend starts kissing him. The scene ends with Owen calling for a taxi, grinning like a Cheshire cat. The whole thing is essentially a throwaway scene and played for laughs, yet it caused a huge uproar at the usual places (Outpost Gallifrey for one) because some people interpreted this scene as date rape. Now the alien pheromone scene was undoubtedly intended to be dodgy, after all Owen is the only one who uses alien technology for his personal gain. Though it must be pointed out that it isn't even clear what actually happens. The scene ends with Owen calling for a taxi, whether he goes home alone or has a threesome with the couple is left to the viewer's imagination. And besides, this scene also serves as a good illustration of Owen's character: He is a sleazy, opportunistic loser. Interestingly, he is very much trying to be Jack (just imagine how the same scene would have played out with Jack instead of Owen) here and failing miserably. Interestingly, the first two episodes include several references to Owen's supposed lacks in the sex department (Gwen basically tells him his penis is too small twice in the same episode), which suggests that Owen may well have problems getting laid the usual way. It is perhaps no coincidence that after the first two episodes Owen is the most sharply defined character next to Jack and Gwen. We haven't seen very much of Ianto and Toshiko yet, and as for Suzie...

Besides, Owen is not the only dodgy Torchwood operative nor is he the true menace. Even in the first episode, it becomes clear that Torchwood itself is a rather dodgy organization. There is their policy of "arranging" suicides or accidents for the unfortunate victims of alien activity, which shows up in both episodes (and which Gwen naturally objects to). And there is the revelation that Torchwood isn't the least bit interested in catching the serial killer who is stalking Cardiff, they only interrogate corpses to test the resurrection glove. Gwen is understandably upset by this and tells Jack that if Torchwood won't help voluntarily she will inform the police of their activities and force them to help. It is at this moment when Gwen (and the viewer) gets another taste - quite literally - of how dodgy Torchwood is. For Jack replies that Gwen can only inform the police if she remembers, which she won't, because he has spiked her drink with amnesia pills (Uhm, Gwen, has your mother never told you not to accept drinks from handsome strangers?).

In many ways, the amnesia drug is a very obvious ploy - after all, Jack cannot just let Gwen walk away considering what she's seen. On the other hand, it is also a shock, particularly considering that Jack had his own memories erased at some point in the past and was obviously very deeply affected by it. Enraged, Gwen storms out, determined to beat the amnesia drug (which also happens to be mixed with a sedative) by writing down what she knows about Torchwood before she the drug kicks in. We see Gwen frantically typing away on her computer, fighting the drug, only to have everything remotely erased by Ianto, once Gwen has fallen asleep at the keyboard.

The amnesia pill must have worked, because the next morning a somewhat hung-over Gwen wakes up with no real idea of what happened the night before, though she believes she must have been getting drunk with a friend. She also has no memory of the inquiries she was making regarding a certain Jack Harkness. Meanwhile, it seems as if the Cardiff police does have some kind of CSI equivalent, since they have figured out the shape of the weapon used to commit the murders. And it's a highly unusual blade that does not look earthly (first impression: Wow, the killer is a Klingon). Gwen is haunted by the unusually shaped blade - she is sure she has seen it somewhere before. This is where another criticism of the episode comes in. Because even though Gwen has seen the blade before, the audience hasn't. Upon second viewing I paid extra close attention during the Hub scenes and the blade is nowhere in sight. We do see the blade in Gwen's flashbacks (and upon second viewing it was also possible to figure out the identity of the killer from the flashback), but we never see it in the Hub itself.

That night Gwen cannot sleep, as the murder weapon continues to haunt her. Eventually, she gets up and sees the word "Remember" scribbled onto a broshure/programme for that concert hall building (good that she had the sense to write down at least something by hand), which prompts Gwen to go down to the concert hall in the middle of the night (Do they keep public buildings in Cardiff lit up all through the night? If so, I'm impressed). While wandering around the square, trying to remember, Gwen notices shadowy figure lurking next to the monolith fountain. The figure steps into the light to be revealed as none other than Torchwood's Suzie Costello.

Thanks to the amnesia drug, Gwen has no idea who Suzie is, though she seems slightly familiar. Though Suzie immediately shoots herself in the foot by telling Gwen that she was the only one who actually took her advice to liaise with the police and hence realized that the police know about the weapon. And that she fears Gwen may have seen the blade and that focussing on that image may help her beat the amnesia drug. Though the penny only drops for Gwen, when Suzie pulls the murder weapon out of her handbag. Gwen promptly begins to arrest her (by reciting her rights unfortunately - disarming her would have been better), when Suzie pulls a gun.

Suzie does try to justify herself to the panicked Gwen with a weird mixture of xenophobia (we only get the shit aliens), self-loathing (Earth is a dirty place, that's why we don't get any good aliens) and delusion (the glove can bring people back to life, hence I must kill people in order to test and refine it). By this point, it becomes painfully obvious that Suzie is completely insane. Gwen tries her best to calm Suzie down, with very little effect. Though considering that Gwen is a trained police officer (even if she is only a uniformed beat cop), it does seem a bit strange that she does not try to disarm Suzie. Okay, it might have been too dangerous while Suzie was holding the gun (especially since we learn in the second episode that Gwen has never handled a gun and has no experience with them), but Gwen never even tries to disarm her even before Suzie pulls the gun. But then UK police officers may well be trained to deal with insane and armed people by trying to calm them down and talk them out of their murderous intentions.

Besides, unbeknowst to Gwen, there is a witness to her confrontation with Suzie, Jack who has come up in his invisible elevator and watches the confrontation shielded by the perception field (or so he thinks). The mixture of shock, horror and grief on his face speaks volumes - great acting by John Barrowman there. What Jack doesn't know, however, is that Suzie is quite aware of his presence, as the invisible elevator perception field apparently does not work on those who know it exists. So before either Jack or Gwen have the chance to react, Suzie swings the gun around and shoots Jack right between the eyes.

This is a real jump-up-from-the-seat moment, simply because it is so utterly unexpected. After all, nobody expects the lead character to be killed off in episode one of the new, highly promoted series. So I thought, "Okay, he can't possibly be dead. This has to be a trick of some kind. She shot a hologram and the real Jack is safe or..." Cue another heart-stopping moment, when Jack suddenly starts moving again (even though he was very obviously very dead a minute before) and gets up, the bullet hole in his head closing. He reaches out to Suzie to get her to surrender, but before either Jack or Gwen can get to her, Suzie turns the gun against herself and fires.

Okay, so there was a supposed lead character killed in episode one, though it was Suzie rather than Jack. Which makes more sense, because unlike with most of the others (even the guy who plays Ianto), Suzie's casting wasn't publicized, she was not shown in that Doctor Who "Making Of" thing featuring Torchwood (even Ianto and Rhys were shown in that one, though we didn't know who they were at the time) and she appeared a central character only in the trailers. Hence, it might have been concluded that she might prove less important than she was made out to be. Talking of which, is the red shirt lead character becoming something of a trend. We've had it in Angel, in Stargate, in Six Feet Under, in Desperate Housewives of all things, and the device is becoming less surprising every time it is used. The first use, as far as I know, was in the pilot episode of the original Battlestar Galactica, by the way, where Apollo's little brother Zack, played by teen idol Rick Springfield, is set up as a mayor character only to be killed off fifteen minutes into the film. Upon first viewing, Zack's demise was a huge shock to me, and it still is shocking today, even though I know what's coming. Suzie's demise, on the other hand, was shocking, but not nearly as much as that of poor doomed Zack. Perhaps this is because the red shirt lead device is used more frequently, so that the edge has worn of. Or maybe it is that the viewer is not really shocked by Suzie being first revealed as a serial killer and than killed, because we do not know who she is. Prior to her rambling monologue in front of Gwen, Suzie has had maybe ten lines in the entire episode. In the morgue scene, we see how deeply her madness and suicide have affected Jack (more great acting from John Barrowman there), but the viewer is not really affected, because we were never given a chance to come to know Suzie. If there's one criticism regarding the opening episode it is that it should have been a two-parter, if only to give us more of a chance to get to know Suzie.

As for Jack, Rose went somewhat overboard with her resurrection attempt in The Parting of the Ways and as a result Jack is now immortal. That was definitely unexpected. Okay, there was a theory along those lines discussed in the Outpost Gallifrey forums, but they also theorized that Jack might turn out to be Davros, the Master, the Doctor's son and whatever else, so I for one didn't give much credit to any of those crackpot theories. Initially, I wasn't too sure what to make of this whole immortality thing. To begin with, isn't having an immortal hero in a spin-off from a show that already has a quasi-immortal hero (okay, the Doctor does regenerate from time to time) a bit much? Particularly as Torchwood should be trying to establish itself as indepent from its parent show. Plus, doesn't having an immortal hero kill off all potential for tension, because we already know that nothing can happen to him?

However, as I've had a few days to think about it, the immortality thing is starting to grow on me. To begin with, the fact that Jack is now immortal doesn't necessarily destroy all potential for tension, because even though he can't be permanently killed, he can still be physically hurt, as seen in episode 2. Lots of potential for sadistic villains there. And of course, a villain could always strike at Jack by threatening his team. Moreover, Jack's fate is relatively consistent with what we've seen in Doctor Who regarding the effect of the TARDIS power source (whether it's called time vortex, eye of harmony or something else) on living beings. The Master tried to use the TARDIS power source not once but twice to gain a new set of regenerations (success unknown), Grace and the Asian kid were brought back to life by the TARDIS power source (I wonder whether they suffer from immortality syndrome as well), Margaret Slitheen was turned into an egg, the Doctor was forced to regenerate due to absorbing too much energy, Rose was nearly killed and Jack became immortal. So exposure to the TARDIS power source affects a being's lifespan, though unfortunately no one seems to be sure beforehand what that effect will be (which incidentally also prevents using the TARDIS power source as a convenient get-out clause). Hence, what happened to Jack is as internally consistent as anything in the Doctor Who universe can be.

Of course, while regular Doctor Who viewers may be aware of all this (to varying degrees, depending on how much of the old show they have seen), Jack has absolutely no idea what happened to him, since he missed the last five minutes of The Parting of the Ways due to being dead at the time. For all he knows, he was rendered immortal by unknown causes and abandoned by the two people he cared most about. Talking of which, how does Jack know he can't die? In spite of a few close calls, he seems to have made it for some thirty odd years in a dangerous profession without getting killed until The Parting of the Ways. So how many times has he managed to get himself killed since then? Am I the only one who got a failed suicide vibe there? And how much time has passed between The Parting of the Ways and Torchwood anyway? In theory, it could be a very long time indeed, depending on whether Jack still ages or whether he truly is immortal. Incidentally, Jack's condition also solves the Doctor's problem of being unable to have lasting relationships with his companions, because humans are just so damn shortlived. I bet the slash writers are already on the case.

Jack's own explanation of his predicament (to Gwen at some point after the confrontation with Suzie) is rather vague: Something happened to him a while back and since then he cannot die. He has no idea why or how, but he is waiting for a Doctor ("the right kind of Doctor") to explain everything. It also becomes clear that the rest of the Torchwood team (with the obvious exception of Gwen) has no idea that their leader is immortal. In fact, as evidenced by episode 2, they know hardly anything about him, though they do have theories (most of which are false). So we now have the slightly odd situation of having an enigmatic character (we didn't learn all that much about Jack in Doctor Who after all) made even more enigmatic, even though the viewer, at least the viewer who has seen Doctor Who (Does anybody watch this who hasn't seen Doctor Who?), does know more about Jack than the characters.

Significantly changing a character who worked very well in another show is a risky gamble, after all Jack is probably the main reason at least for Doctor Who viewers to tune in. Because let's face it, the Torchwood organisation as portrayed in Doctor Who wasn't all that impressive. Hence, changing the one character half of the audience tuned in for is not only a very risky thing to do, it also has the huge potential to alienate viewers. Personally I think that they just may have pulled it off. To begin with, I am not at all certain that Jack as a provider of funny one-liners (which is how most of the people seem to remember his Doctor Who role, though there was always a bit more depth to the character than that) could have carried a show, besides Owen seems to have taken over that part. Though there are still flashes of the Jack we knew and loved in Torchwood, e.g. his estrogen in the water comment or him telling a funny anecdote, while the team are having lunch (there is a very similar moment in Boomtown). But on the whole, Jack in Torchwood is a lot more distant and restrained than he was in Doctor Who. He is obviously not happy about being immortal, and he doesn't seem to have a whole lot of fun in his life either. Hell, judging by the first two episodes, he doesn't even seem to have sex anymore. At any rate, he doesn't sleep with his team and doesn't seem to be in any other relationship either (at any rate, he shakes his head when Gwen asks him whether he has someone). Now this is a development that hardly anyone saw coming. Risky move, too, to take away the one trait (will have sex with anything) that defined the character in the eyes of many viewers.

Personally, I think that it may just work, particularly when seen in the context of Doctor Who (What non-Who viewers will make of Torchwood, I have no idea?). I am currently in the process of rewatching the second season of Doctor Who with my Mom (hope to get her hooked on Torchwood after that) and one thing that strikes me is how many of the episodes show that the Doctor not only changes people's lives for the better; there are just as many people whose lives were completely ruined by the Doctor. There's Sarah Jane waiting some thirty years for the Doctor to come back in School Reunion, there's Reinette waiting and waiting in vain in The Girl in the Fireplace, there's Elton and friends in Love and Monsters (though I haven't gotten that far with my Mom yet), there's Adam, stuck with a hole in his head, doomed to a life of obscurity, there's even Rose herself, who you just know will be pining for the Doctor for the rest of her life. And now in Torchwood we have Jack who had his life pretty thoroughly ruined by the Doctor and got less out of it than Sarah Jane or Rose or even Reinette (a kiss instead of some "dancing"), and as a result, we now have a character who used to love life resenting the fact that he cannot die.

There is an oddly touching moment in the second episode, where an alien possessed girl goes on a rampage in the Hub, smashing equipment wherever she goes. Jack does his best to stop her (the alien is dangerous, it has already killed and will likely do so again), until the girl grabs the jar with the Doctor's severed hand and Jack immediately surrenders. The jar gets smashed anyway, and the scene ends with Jack cradling the Doctor's hand. The greatest lover in the galaxy, in love with a severed hand. For me, that bit was more disturbing than all the sex and violence that had gone before. Incidentally, this scene also made me want to do something I have not wanted to do for the entire second season of the new Doctor Who (there were two moments in season one where I wanted to do it): Slap the Doctor.

Somewhere in the middle of episode one, there is a lengthy shot of Jack standing on some high building looking out across the city. There have been lots of complaints about this scene (though it is a lovely shot) in all the usual places, because it serves no apparent purpose in the plot. Except that it does. For the "Jack standing on a high building" shot in the middle of episode one has a twin at the very end. Jack is standing on a high building once again (that concert hall thingy with the weird light-up letters), except that this time around he is no longer alone. Gwen is with him (this is the moment where Jack explains his little immortality problem to her and offers her a job at Torchwood). And all of a sudden the first "standing on a high building" scene makes perfect sense, because it showed (and in very cool pictures, too) how detached Jack has become due to his condition and his various secrets, not only from his colleagues but from the world in general. Whereas the second scene showed him finally opening up to somebody. And for all those who need a more tangible reason for Jack to stand on high buildings, there a neat little CGI bit at the very end, which shows that he is essentially walking the pterodactyl. By the way, did I mention how absolutely cool the fact that Torchwood has a pet pterodactyl is?

Gwen accepts Jack's job offer without much hesitation. One would have expected her to think it through a bit more, especially considering that her first taste of Torchwood wasn't exactly a pleasant experience. But then, the entire episode one has shown us Gwen's insatiable curiosity and it's that curiosity which finally leads her to accept Jack's offer. That and the fear of getting amnesia-drugged once again.

Episode two, Day One (now isn't that a strange name for the second episode of a show) begins where Everything Changes left of - well, almost. It's Gwen's first day at Torchwood, or rather the night before. Gwen is out with dull boyfriend Rhys (whom she tells that her new Special Ops job will be "mostly filing"), when they spot what seems to be a meteorite over Cardiff. Of course, Rhy thinks it's a plane on fire, but then he thinks that all those Cybermen a few months ago were due to drugs in the water supply, too. Gwen's phone beeps with a text message calling her to work.

We next see the team on route to the meteor crash site. This also gives us our first look at the inside of the spiffy black Torchwood car, which is equipped with computer interfaces, monitors, flashing blue lights along the windscreen and probably anything else you can imagine. Some viewers seem to have problems with the car, since it is not particularly inconspicuous (it even has "Torchwood" written on the side), but I quite like it, because it brings back memories of those times when TV heroes drove weird and instantly recognizable cars that probably wouldn't last one kilometer on a public road without being pulled over. Though the Torchwood car makes more sense than say the A-Team's van. The flashing blue lights along the windshield are obviously for emergencies (and while I don't know about Britain, German unmarked police cars have similar flashing blue lights along the dashboard). And since they introduce themselves as Torchwood, there is no reason why they shouldn't write it on their car. Though I wouldn't let Owen of all people drive.

It becomes clear from the very beginning that Gwen is totally out of her depth with Torchwood. She seems lost much of the time, doesn't know what to do, gets left behind, etc... There is a nice moment where Gwen, having gotten left behind because she forgot some equipment in the car, tries to get past the soldiers guarding the landing site by whispering the magic word "Torchwood". Only that it doesn't work for her. The soldiers won't let her pass and Jack has to rescue her. In fact, I wonder why they took her to the meteor landing site at all, as there's nothing for her to do there anyway, since she's not a scientist like Owen or Tosh. Though Gwen doesn't prove herself to be particularly skilled at things she should be able to do, either. She almost lets a suspect get away and turns to Jack for help, when she is told to interrogate a prisoner. Uhm, she used to be a police officer, shouldn't she be able to arrest and question people? Besides, doesn't Torchwood have any sort of training program for new employees? The Canary Wharf Torchwood probably did (people skills!), but Jack seems to prefer the "throw 'em into the cold water" approach. Though to be fair, Jack does his best to make Gwen feel welcome, unlike Owen for example. For example, whenever Gwen says "You shouldn't have this" when faced with some computer marvel or other, Jack replies, "Shouldn't you start saying 'we' instead of 'you'?"

Gwen may not yet have gotten the hang of the them and us thing, but the people around her sure have. For in this episode, there are the first signs how Gwen's new position will affect her relationship with the people in her life. Her former partner in the police, whom Gwen meets at a crimescene, now sees her as just another Torchwood bully. And her boyfriend Rhys calls her up at work to complain that Gwen doesn't come home in time for dinner and doesn't know when she'll be home either. Definite potential for conflict there.

Gwen's inexperience causes some genuine problems, when she throws a chisel at Owen (with a snide comment about "his tool being too small for the job"), misses and hits the meteorite instead. The meteorite is split open and some strange pink gas emerges. The Torchwood crew are safe, because they immediately don breath masks (Jack is considerate enough to put one on Gwen, because judging by her behaviour I doubt she would have thought of it on her own). The pink cloud flies off and - ignoring a whole platoon of soldiers - enters the body of a young girl standing in an alley behind a Cardiff nightclub. The girl, who only second before had been crying into her mobile phone (at her boyfriend's mailbox, because he not only stood her up but wouldn't take her calls either), suddenly becomes very confident, strolls back into the club (after kissing the bouncer), picks up the first available man and has sweaty sex with him in the ladies' room. Unfortunately, the guy is incinerated at the climax. Jack's comment upon seeing some security camera footage of the incident: "He came and went."

Yes, Day One is Torchwood's take on Ye Olde Alien Sex Fiend tale. As seen in Species, Outer Limits, The X-Files, Buffy/Angel (don't remember which - they kind of blur) and probably dozens of other places as well. Using such a well-worn idea is always risky, particularly this early in the show's run, and I suspect that it was at least partly brought on by the "Hey, we're an adult show - we can show sex now" mentality that I usually term the HBO syndrome, because US shows first broadcast on HBO or similar Pay-TV channels usually tended to go way overboard with the sex and the swearing in a "Oh, look at us! We're talking about anal sex on TV. Ain't we risky?" way. However, Torchwood manages to put just enough of a new spin on a tired theme to pull it off.

What sets Day One apart from most other "alien sex fiend" stories is that the focus is very much on the plight of Carys, the possessed girl. In most stories of this type, the alien succubus is seen as a monster to be exterminated. The Torchwood team initially sees Carys as just that, an alien menace to be dealt with. Only Gwen sees the human being behind the monster and eventually manages to bring around Torchwood (well, Jack at any rate) to her point of view. Gwen's defence of Carys would have rung hollow, if the episode had portrayed her as nothing but a horny killer (think Species, where the alien loses all personality once she turns from Michelle Williams into Natasha Henstridge). However, we do get a few glimpses of Carys' none-too-happy life before she was possessed by an alien gas (her mother died when she was a child and she has a troubled relationship with an older married man). And we also witness Carys' struggle with the alien inside her, e.g. in the scene where Carys returns home after the first death and immediately showers in a fit of self-loathing. In the next scene, the alien has taken over again and Carys jumps the mailman (who is saved from a nasty fate by the timely entrance of Torchwood). Unlike Species or that Outer Limits episode, Carys is shown to be as much a victim of the alien as the men that she kills. Though in the case of the boyfriend, it was at least partially intentional - Carys explicitly tells him he could have saved himself. Of course, the implication that Carys is a victim rather than a killer is emphasized by the fact that the alien possessing her will eventually kill her in a particularly nasty way.

The only problem is that Gwen's human approach to the situation doesn't add to the solution at all. Sure, Gwen prints out all sorts of computer files and sticks them to a wall in the hub, which Jack considers "Bloody brilliant!" (said in a tone very reminiscent of one of my English teachers and trust me, you don't want to be reminded of your English teacher when drooling over John Barrowman). But in the end, it is Toshiko and not Gwen who comes up with an idea of where the escaped Carys might go in search of more victims (her boyfriend/ex-boyfriend) and it's also Toshiko who drags up the information that Carys works in a fertility clinic. And it's Owen who knows that the place is a fertility clinic (I am getting some very worrying suspicions here). The only thing Gwen really managed to achieve is get the alien to leave Carys' body by offering up her own.

Gwen's insistence to save Carys is at least partly the result of the fact that she feels responsible for unleashing the creature on the world in the first place (though Owen would probably have unleashed it anyway, if he had caught the chisel). Come to think of it, Gwen is not only indirectly responsible for all the deaths in this episode (at least fifteen people or so) but also for the Weevil victim in episode 1, because the guy would never have gone into the sealed off area if not for Gwen. Which makes Gwen responsible for more deaths than Suzie (three murders plus two attempts as far as we know), albeit indirectly. What this says about our heroine I do not know. Though to be fair, Jack is probably as responsible for all deaths save the first, because he lets Carys escape once she takes the Doctor's hand hostage.

As the first two episodes focus very much on Gwen and her outsider's view of Torchwood, we don't really get to see much of the other characters with the exception of Jack and his function is pretty much that of the mystery man. Of the other three regulars, Owen is probably the most developed so far. Unfortunately, he is an asshole, though he is damn funny as well (and it helps that the actor is really good). Just witness the glee with which he exclaims "Rat jam" after making a rat explode in an experiment.

Toshiko and Ianto remain very much cyphers at this point, without much personality beyond their immediate function, though I aspect that will change in the following weeks. From what we've seen, Toshiko seems to be one to stick up for the underdog (she defends Gwen against Owen and Jack). She also seems to be a bit of a gossip, as evidenced by her interest in the personal life of her colleagues (she asks Gwen about her boyfriend and seems very curious to find out more about Jack). So far, Ianto has only been portrayed as quietly efficient, though there are hints that he would like to do more than just make coffee for the team. For example, he offers his help in sorting through the many face recognition software matches (and how great is it that for once, the software doesn't immediately identify the suspect) and later also offers his help in preventing Carys from escaping (the poor guy is turned down in both cases). It is also interesting that Ianto does not seem to mind Jack flirting with him. Some definite chemistry there, and I bet the slash writers are already sharpening their pencils. And who could blame them, Ianto is rather cute.

In the usual places, some people have complained that unlike advertised Torchwood wasn't adult enough for them and substituted true "adultness" with gratuitous sex and swearing. Of course, the big question is, "What is adult?" As a kid and young teenager I knew exactly what "adult" was. "Adult" was what I wasn't allowed to watch, which included everything from Star Wars and Indiana Jones (which my parents didn't let me watch even at the age of ten or eleven) to Predator and some women's prison exploitation flick called Girls behind Bars. And I knew that when I would grow up, I would have a VCR and watch all those things I hadn't been allowed to watch (and I did, except for that prison flick) . However, when I became a cineast of sorts at around the age of sixteen, I realized to my own surprise that what I had considered adult was not adult at all, but - so all my film books informed me - adolescent ("And why wasn't I allowed to watch it then?", my teenaged self wailed). Whereas adult films were made by people called auteurs and dealt with forty-something people who have affairs, marital troubles or an incurable illness, preferably all three. Which sounded so dull that I wouldn't even have wanted to watch it. I still don't. So if you interpret "adult" in the sense of 45-yer-old divorced breast cancer victim stories, then Torchwood definitely isn't "adult" (thank God!). If you interpret it as something younger kids should not watch, then it is.

As for the supposedly gratuitous sex and swearing, uhm, did these people accidentally get the dirty porn version from a parallel universe? Because the version I saw was actually no worse in those respects than many other TV shows. People getting all worked up (or giggly, depending upon the person) about the swearing was particularly weird, because there wasn't really a whole lot of swearing in the first two episodes. The only rude words I noticed on first viewing were "cock" and "twat", both directed at Owen (and with good justification, too). Upon second viewing I also caught a "fuck" or rather "fucking" and a handful of "shits". Though it was more reflecting the way actual people talk than being gratuitous, unlike say that undubbed clip from Six Feet Under (a show I actually like) I once saw where every second word was "fuck". Though it must be said that my threshold towards swearing is higher than the average German's and definitely higher than the average Brit's or American's, as people in the UK and USA are much more sensitive to vulgar language. I mean, here in Germany TV viewers getting upset about the occasional bad word in a TV program is a relic from the early 1980s, when a bunch of old people got all worked up, because Schmimanski said "Scheiße" on TV. Nevermind that the adjectivistic use ("Scheiß") was featured in both Space Patrol Orion in 1966 and Salto Mortale in 1968. So people in the 21st century getting all worked up about a few rude words on TV is just plain anachronistic to me.

People complaining about gratuitous sex may have a point with Day One. It is an "alien sex fiend" story after all, so of course it features sex. But except for the first time (which is actually shown twice), all sex occurs offstage. We see Carys jumping someone, then cut to the Torchwood team bursting in to find a pile of ash. And that first sex act in the nightclub toilet is neither particularly revealing (both participants are fully clothed, the most we see are Carys' buttocks) nor particularly erotic (it is a quickie in a toilet, for heaven's sake). There's more on view in Six Feet Under not to mention Sex in the City (which was shown at 8 pm in Germany) and Queer as Folk.

The only scene which can be called gratuitous is the "lesbian" kiss between Gwen and Carys in a Torchwood holding cell. Personally, I suspect that the main reason for the existence of that scene is to amp up the same sex content we were promised. Which is probably also the reason why it features two women rather than two men, because to many viewers two women kissing is still more acceptable than two men. However, even the Gwen/Carys kiss still fulfils a narrative function. First of all, by seducing the apparently straight Gwen, the alien demonstrates that it snatches its victims by emitting some kind of irresistible sex pheromone (that's the second alien sex pheromone in as many episodes). Secondly, the scene explains why all of Carys' victims are male. Apparently females don't give the alien entity the kick it needs, which is why Gwen does not get herself incinerated. Incidentally, this also explains why the alien gas specifically sought out Carys rather than possess one of the (male) soldiers at the crash site. Because no way would the BBC have shown a whole episode of male/male sex. Thirdly, it shows yet again how inexperienced Gwen is, since going into that cell in the first place was obviously a bad idea. Finally, the "lesbian" kiss also gives us a nice character moment, as the Owen, Jack and Toshiko watch the whole scene via a security feed and are so captivated that they only belatedly realize that they maybe ought to rescue Gwen before she is incinerated. Not only does this tell us something about the characters (that Owen is a sleazeball, for example), it also gives us the nice "You people and your quaint little labels" line from Jack and last but not least, it nicely mirrors an earlier scene, where the nightclub bouncer masturbates while watching Carys and her first victim via security camera.

Besides, for all the sexual content (gratuitous or not), the story actually has a strong "casual sex without emotion is not a good thing" message. All sexual activity shown in Day One is essentially cheap and tacky, from the initial quickie in a toilet via Carys' relationship with her boyfriend (who basically uses her as a quick shag inbetween his regular relationship) via the masturbating bouncer to Owen not only spying on a colleague but also making rude remarks about her "thorough investigation methods". Gwen response is to strangle him, by the way ("Strictly speaking, throttling the staff is my job", Jack says). Owen gets his just desserts a bit later, by the way, when he falls under the spell of Carys' sex pheromones and ends up naked and handcuffed in a cell. Poor Owen, not even a sex-crazed alien wants to have sex with him. After she escapes from the Hub (by taking the Doctor's hand hostage), there is a montage of Carys wandering through the streets of Cardiff and seeing nothing but sexual imagery on billboards, etc... And for all those who still didn't get it (quite a few judging by all those complaints about gratuitous sex), Jack even neatly sums up the point with "You travel millions of miles for the greatest sex in the universe and still end up dying alone." He should know, that's what happened to him after all.

Interestingly, there is another level to Carys' dilemma as well. True, the alien gas claims to live of orgasmic energy (and anybody who claims there is no such thing should read Wilhelm Reich sometime), but the creature's description of the experience ("It's the best hit there is") is very reminiscent of drug addiction. What is more, the effect wears off more and more rapidly. So we not only have a commentary on the sex obsession of our society but a drug addiction analogy as well.

The climax of the story has the Torchwood team racing to save Carys from the alien that's slowly killing her and to save hapless sperm donors from Carys. They are too late for most of the sperm donors and nearly too late for Carys, for the girl collapses in front of the Torchwood team. Jack and Gwen do their best to save her, Jack by allowing the alien inside Carys to absorb some of his life energy. No, he doesn't have sex with her, a kiss is sufficient. Not sure what this scene is supposed to imply, that Jack's kisses are so great they cause an orgasm? But then the creature requires the male orgasm (and I kind of doubt that Jack would get one from kissing the very inexperienced Carys) not Carys'. Whatever, it's a sweet moment and actually the second time that a variation on the "kiss of life" scene from Uncanny X-Men #173 (no, I'm not that geeky - I only remember the exact issue number because it is one of my all-time favourite X-Men moments) appears in something Doctor Who related. The first time was of course the Doctor/Rose kiss in the season one finale.

Still, even kissing Jack is not enough to save Carys. So now Gwen steps in, offering up her own body to the alien in exchange for Carys. Jack, who had been very supportive of Gwen up to this moment (after all, Jack himself is no stranger to mistakes with dire consequences, having unleashed a plague of annoying gas mask zombie children unto the world), lets Gwen sacrifice herself with "Well, she is responsible for this" and a shrug. This action seems very our of character for Jack (and Toshiko immediately objects, by the way), and of course it turns out that he was never seriously considering leaving Gwen to the alien gas creature - it was just a ploy to get the alien to leave Carys' body. But before the alien can possess Gwen, Jack traps it with a handy bit of alien technology (Owen calls it "an inflatable cell"). The "inflatable cell" showed up in an earlier scene (Owen uses it to capture Carys) by the way. And I initially thought that scene was solely meant to illustrate that the Torchwood team are still ignoring Jack's orders about not taking alien technology without permission.

Gwen is understandably grateful for the timely rescue and decides to express her gratitude by kissing Jack. It's a sweet moment, and Jack's reaction is very interesting. Because he looks positively dazed afterwards, which is even cuter considering that he just made Carys swoon with his own kiss. Of course, almost every scene between Gwen and Jack has been crackling with sexual tension. Which is great, cause I love crackling sexual tension, though it is difficult to keep up for extended periods of time. Still, based on the first two episodes, it looks to me as if Jack and Gwen will end up together somewhere down the line (probably only to be separated again in the finale, where Jack will likely vanish to reappear in season three of Doctor Who). Which may disappoint those people who had hoped for a Jack/Ianto relationship. Not that I'd mind seeing Jack and Ianto together - they're both rather cute. And it could happen - there are eleven episodes to go after all. But at the moment, an eventual Jack and Gwen coupling looks more likely.

But for the moment, Gwen is still with Rhys, though I suspect she will either dump him (or the other way round) or he will be killed by some alien menace before long. And Jack, even though obviously attracted to Gwen, does seem to respect the fact that she is in a stable relationship, for at the very end of the episode he sends her home and tells her, "Live your life. Kiss your boyfriend. Be normal. For me." In part that scene illustrates that the fact that Gwen has a life outside Torchwood is important to Jack, because it gives her a broader perspective that the rest of them lack. And a big point was made of the fact that Gwen is the only one of the team who is in a regular relationship earlier. On the other hand, it is interesting that Jack of all people is willing to respect other people's relationships and does not interfere with them (because he probably could have seduced Gwen there and then, had we wanted to). This is especially interesting considering how little respect the Doctor shows for other people's relationships, after all he happily blunders into Mickey's and Rose's relationship and subsequently does his best to keep Rose from flirting with anyone else. So there is at least one area where Jack is actually more moral than the Doctor?

Based on the first two episodes, Torchwood looks like it may be shaping up to be a really great series, though I hope we will see a little more of the other three team members soon. Still, I'm definitely looking forward to the next episode.

posted by Cora link 02:13

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

 

Halloween versus Reformation Day

I got trick or treating kids on my doorstep tonight. First time ever I had trick or treating kids. Halloween has gradually taken hold in Germany in the last eight years or so. In the 1970s and 1980s it was totally unknown - and even as late as 1994, I had to import decorations for a Halloween party from the US.

Of course, the spread of Halloween is annoying the usual suspects. The Catholic church says it's a pagan festival, the Lutheran church says it's a pagan festival and also supplants Reformation Day (i.e. day when Luther nailed thesises to Wittenberg church door), which also happens to be on October 31st. Maybe nailing thesises to church doors was Luther's version of trick or treating? Xenophobiacs see Halloween as yet more evidence of creeping Americanization, which will certainly bring about the end of civilization as we know it. Spoilsports, one and all.

The reason why Halloween took hold in Germany is simply because it is fun. People of all ages get to dress-up and decorate the house all spooky, kids get to go round from house to house and collect candy. Frankly, I'm amazed that it took so long to show up over here. The Halloween party I threw back in 1994 was a pioneering event - it was the first one ever in the circles I moved in back then. And it was great fun.

I suspect that the churches don't like people having fun. Besides, it's no wonder that Reformation Day is being eclipsed by Halloween, because Reformation Day is rather dull. There's no party, no celebration beyond a church service (if you're lucky) - hell, it's not even a public holiday in most of Germany. Nor is Reformation Day a genuine religious festival - it's just a ritualized rememberance of a historical event, much like all those solemn marches in rememberance of the war dead. Maybe they ought to commemorate Reformation Day by nailing complaints to church doors - that might get the kiddies interested.

As for trick or treating, that practice first took hold in those parts of Germany, which didn't have a native local tradition of kids going around on a certain day in autumn/winter and collect small presents from neighbours. Because the kids in those areas were missing out on something that their peers living elsewhere had. Now in my area, we do have a local tradition called "Nikolauslaufen", which is basically like trick or treating, except that it's done on St. Nicholas Day (December 6th). I know that other areas do something similar on St. Martin's Day (sometime in November). Hence, our local kids didn't really need Halloween to get free candy. But this year, some of the kids from the neighbourhood apparently thought, "Why settle for free candy once a year, if you can have it twice?" and decided to go trick or treating.

Since I didn't expect trick or treaters, I was a little gobsmacked to find five little boys (two of them I knew) on my doorstep. I didn't have any Halloween candy (which you can buy in bigger supermarkets) at hand. So I thought, "Okay, what can I give them?" My first impulse was, fetch the chocolate bowl (full of mini-chocolate bars) from the living room table and distribute the contents amongst the kids. But then I remembered that the bowl in the living room contained several bars of alcohol-flavoured chocolate, which wouldn't go down too well with the parents of the kids (I accidentally passed out alcohol-flavoured chocolate in St. Nicholas Day once and realized my mistake just in time). So I ran into the cellar, got a new package of non-alcoholic chocolate bars and distributed it amongst the four little boys.

posted by Cora link 00:47