Today's thought as I wake up
Feb. 18th, 2008 12:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethIs about TW 2-06 Reset, so goes under the cut.
Foreshadowing that makes me *ouch* now: "I'm here to complete your postmortem."
*ouch*
Then there's the change in attitude in Owen lately. Season 1 had a balance between 'Owen is a git' and 'Owen beats up the right people', with the chisel+cyberwoman sort of leaping to the defense stuff. But in this one Owen is actually afraid of fucking up, and we get to see it, and he was all holding his breath when it looked like it hadn't worked, and damn if it isn't a hell of a lot easier to like him when we know how scared he is. I've been thinking about season 1 a lot and noting some things make more sense if Owen is scared and pushing in the hopes someone will give him reason not to be, but this is a bit more straightforward.
Martha... is not a replacement Owen. Yet they've totally set her up to be. I mean, she walks out of there with his jacket. Mantle? Earlier with the matching doctor coats, now with the actual Owen coat, she's moving in.
Every character in a TV show needs Issues, or they run out of story. But apparently they didn't want Martha's Issues to remain 'must look after family' (because that would keep her in London, and be annoying on many ism levels), or 'oh no my boyfriend was asexual aliens woe' (and thank goodness for that). We get a couple lines about them. Family? Getting better. Doctor? Miss him a tiny bit but get over it. So she still cares, it isn't callous dismissal or lack of character continuity. It's just the important bit is: Martha is a doctor now! Medical officer! UNIT! Highly recommended! Genius!
... I has happy glow of yaay for Martha is Made of Awesome and they all know it now.
Unfortunately being made of awesome is not an issue. I mean it's funny watching the rest of Team Torchwood try and maneuver until they can be more awesome than thou, but even knows-everything-Ianto didn't get to be quite so smug about knowing how the contacts worked. (PS - contact lenses - we has bad pun magic) However if the issue is everyone's jealous we end up being *facepalm* at the everyone. So there can't be too much of that.
So, Martha needs new issues.
And damn does she ever get them after this.
She is made of awesome... but not used to being in a team, taking orders, or being without her little invisibility thing. Actually, that's key - pardon the pun, accident. She isn't invisible - team can see her, bad guys can see her, everyone's paying attention to her. And that's getting her in a lot of trouble, and getting the trouble passed on to who she works with. If I were her I'd want to go back to invisible kthxbye. Then there's the thing with being awesome but not actually as awesome as she thought - she fails big time here, getting caught and drugged and with the really big bug in her guts which eeeew and then with Owen protecting her and then with not saving Owen. Not saving Owen is probably a big one. How long has she been a doctor? How many times has she lost someone?
And then, on top of all that, her walking in being all swish and pwning Owen looks a whole lot different when she's The Replacement by the end of the day.
... was it just one day? Long one, if it was. Dark - light - dark again. Yeah, could be it started after midnight and ended before another midnight. Y/N?
... that's a rather bad day then.
So, Martha has Issues. And they are new and added to her for Torchwood... but expanding on moments from the end of DW season 1. Save the world! But not the guy.
Ouch.
Owen's issues are being reconfigured a bit. He gave himself some new ones at the end of season 1, and plausibly gave Jack some issues with him. When Jack says he came back for 'all of you', it's easy to believe he's including Gwen, and we likes Tosh, but did he mean it about Owen? Well look at that very last scene - who is the most obviously effected there? Jack.
That scene echoes the Rhys/Gwen scene from 2-04 really thoroughly. Owen put himself in front of Martha - took the bullet for her, to some degree. But it's Jack sitting next to him doing the litany Gwen had, stay with me, look at me. Jack who holds onto him, Jack who he looks to, Jack who gets the last word. It was romantic that week, is it this week? I'd say it doesn't have to be. Jack's little platitude about love making you vulnerable - he's being dragged through it this year. That's Jack's issue of the season. Jack loves - all of them. In Adam it wasn't vulnerability, it was strength. He knew Adam belonged because he didn't feel for him the warmth and pride (love) he felt for the rest of his team. But in this one? There's the suspicion he has too much pride in Martha - did he send her in over her head? And there's the horror of loss at the end - doesn't matter if he ever was or would be shagging Owen, he hurts for losing him. A lot. Love makes you vulnerable.
I think I like it all, but watching it play out at one episode per week? Ouch!
Foreshadowing that makes me *ouch* now: "I'm here to complete your postmortem."
*ouch*
Then there's the change in attitude in Owen lately. Season 1 had a balance between 'Owen is a git' and 'Owen beats up the right people', with the chisel+cyberwoman sort of leaping to the defense stuff. But in this one Owen is actually afraid of fucking up, and we get to see it, and he was all holding his breath when it looked like it hadn't worked, and damn if it isn't a hell of a lot easier to like him when we know how scared he is. I've been thinking about season 1 a lot and noting some things make more sense if Owen is scared and pushing in the hopes someone will give him reason not to be, but this is a bit more straightforward.
Martha... is not a replacement Owen. Yet they've totally set her up to be. I mean, she walks out of there with his jacket. Mantle? Earlier with the matching doctor coats, now with the actual Owen coat, she's moving in.
Every character in a TV show needs Issues, or they run out of story. But apparently they didn't want Martha's Issues to remain 'must look after family' (because that would keep her in London, and be annoying on many ism levels), or 'oh no my boyfriend was asexual aliens woe' (and thank goodness for that). We get a couple lines about them. Family? Getting better. Doctor? Miss him a tiny bit but get over it. So she still cares, it isn't callous dismissal or lack of character continuity. It's just the important bit is: Martha is a doctor now! Medical officer! UNIT! Highly recommended! Genius!
... I has happy glow of yaay for Martha is Made of Awesome and they all know it now.
Unfortunately being made of awesome is not an issue. I mean it's funny watching the rest of Team Torchwood try and maneuver until they can be more awesome than thou, but even knows-everything-Ianto didn't get to be quite so smug about knowing how the contacts worked. (PS - contact lenses - we has bad pun magic) However if the issue is everyone's jealous we end up being *facepalm* at the everyone. So there can't be too much of that.
So, Martha needs new issues.
And damn does she ever get them after this.
She is made of awesome... but not used to being in a team, taking orders, or being without her little invisibility thing. Actually, that's key - pardon the pun, accident. She isn't invisible - team can see her, bad guys can see her, everyone's paying attention to her. And that's getting her in a lot of trouble, and getting the trouble passed on to who she works with. If I were her I'd want to go back to invisible kthxbye. Then there's the thing with being awesome but not actually as awesome as she thought - she fails big time here, getting caught and drugged and with the really big bug in her guts which eeeew and then with Owen protecting her and then with not saving Owen. Not saving Owen is probably a big one. How long has she been a doctor? How many times has she lost someone?
And then, on top of all that, her walking in being all swish and pwning Owen looks a whole lot different when she's The Replacement by the end of the day.
... was it just one day? Long one, if it was. Dark - light - dark again. Yeah, could be it started after midnight and ended before another midnight. Y/N?
... that's a rather bad day then.
So, Martha has Issues. And they are new and added to her for Torchwood... but expanding on moments from the end of DW season 1. Save the world! But not the guy.
Ouch.
Owen's issues are being reconfigured a bit. He gave himself some new ones at the end of season 1, and plausibly gave Jack some issues with him. When Jack says he came back for 'all of you', it's easy to believe he's including Gwen, and we likes Tosh, but did he mean it about Owen? Well look at that very last scene - who is the most obviously effected there? Jack.
That scene echoes the Rhys/Gwen scene from 2-04 really thoroughly. Owen put himself in front of Martha - took the bullet for her, to some degree. But it's Jack sitting next to him doing the litany Gwen had, stay with me, look at me. Jack who holds onto him, Jack who he looks to, Jack who gets the last word. It was romantic that week, is it this week? I'd say it doesn't have to be. Jack's little platitude about love making you vulnerable - he's being dragged through it this year. That's Jack's issue of the season. Jack loves - all of them. In Adam it wasn't vulnerability, it was strength. He knew Adam belonged because he didn't feel for him the warmth and pride (love) he felt for the rest of his team. But in this one? There's the suspicion he has too much pride in Martha - did he send her in over her head? And there's the horror of loss at the end - doesn't matter if he ever was or would be shagging Owen, he hurts for losing him. A lot. Love makes you vulnerable.
I think I like it all, but watching it play out at one episode per week? Ouch!
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Date: 2008-02-18 01:19 pm (UTC)In series 1, particularly the first part, I wondered why Jack put up with Owen. I thought for some time that he saw himself in Owen - himself as he might have been, or feared he might be. But that didn't quite fit. Jack has his faults, and has had them in the past, and we know he is ashamed of things he has done. But his faults don't mesh with Owen's, not at any point.
Then I thought it was a sort of parental love.
Now I think it's a little more: I think he knew about Owen's difficult childhood, and helping Owen to overcome it is a sort of pet project. I think he sees Owen's genius (something that is more visible to us this series than last) and is encouraging it, giving Owen room to shine - and in giving him that freedom, he also gave Owen a lot of chances to fuck up, which Owen knows, and he knows he did mess up, big time, and is... maybe overcompensating.
I found Owen more interesting last series, more formless in this. He is, I hope, finding himself, but his self-definition has changed and has yet to be clear.
I love Jack's love of all the Team, and whether to call it romantic love is, once again, a question of assigning 'quaint categories' that don't quite fit.