Torchwood 2-12 Fragments
Mar. 22nd, 2008 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethFragments...
ooooh... that was good. That was very very good. In fact, that was pure character porn. I feel like I need a cigarette. And I don't even smoke.
Okay, so... I think the best Fragment has to be Owen's. Because that? Completely reconfigures the character. Yet it's also completely consistent. Not that it meshes well with the website stuff, granted, whatever all that was about it wasn't showing on there... and I'm having timeline issues trying to mesh this with 1-07 where he spent 2 years in Cardiff as a junior doctor. 4 years back was... 2004? Right, so that works... but why did they put him in Cardiff earlier? Ack, so that's a non-clue sort of clue then! Unless Jack's been stalking him since?
Actually, why did I get the impression that was not-Cardiff? Because of the emphasis on a particular line that Jack said, about how he needs to work with him in Cardiff. So, okay, maybe he meant 'here in Cardiff' not 'over there in Cardiff'. I'd have to rewatch.
... dammit, of all the episodes to not be able to rewatch!
So we got 4 flashbacks, the beginnings at Torchwood Three for all of them. Which was why Gwen wasn't much in it, we saw that anyway.
... I'm sorry, I'm just skipping to the end here. Captain Spike is going to destroy Jack's life because Jack doesn't have time for him? Oy. I could stand it having a different motive, y'know. Because it might have a nice loyal Jack/Ianto for comparison... but that's been obscure enough some have complained it's only sex so maybe not. But really, do we really need another insane/evil queer? I know he was already, but this makes all about the relationship, and...
Okay, I'm over it for now. Fuck it. Also? If John is to Jack as the Master is to the Doctor... that gets a whole lot less U rated.
Right then: Jack, Tosh, Ianto, Owen
Lovely character heavy goodness for all of them.
I tell you, the next transcript I do is going to be this one. Sod the order, I'm going for the good stuff.
Jack's flashback had a lovely version of a timestamp - gives how many deaths earlier it was. I wish to hug that everso. We can has so much fun with that.
It implies the only thing he's been doing all along is freelancing for Torchwood. Who were nutcases. Steampunk lesbian nutcases. I, er, can't actually hate that even a little. Also, I'm now thinking of Ace in Ghost Light, crossdressed. Don't you think she'd have fitted in real well with Torchwood Three?
... okay, plot bunny of -> bunk.
... and *facepalm*
ANYway
Jack's flashback kind of contradicts something from one of the books, where Jack says he doesn't drink any more cause it doesn't work any more. But, (a) Jack says, which clearly don't have to be so, and (b) it's a hundred years later, so who knows what could have changed?
So apparently he gets drunk a lot and complains to strangers about the Doctor. Kiss him then kill him. Yup, we knew that.
I love seeing the Hub different-but-same. That was just neat.
I don't think we learned much new about Jack or Torchwood. Empire obsessed? Check. Drives people nuts? Check. But we did see where he got his 'got to be ready' thing from. Because you should always take to heart the words of a mass murdering madman. And what did he see in that locket? And which Time Lord did it belong to?
Oh come on, you weren't thinking it? It's small, it closes and opens, and it shows visions of the future, including something about a storm... oncoming?
I was mostly thinking that Jack was, right then, missing meeting the 8th Doctor. Yesno? I mean I haven't watched the Movie lately, but I seem to recall.
I like that Jack's shiny silver earpiece was used as a marker of it being further back in time.
And I like that we know when he finally took over. He worked for them up until the turn of this century, fairly precisely. Then he got handed the whole thing due to everyone else being dead.
The next interesting bit came from Ianto's flashback - Jack cut all ties with Torchwood One. *How*? I mean why is bloody obvious - exploding teenage fish of recycled expensive makeup win. And all the rest. But how did he get away with it?
And it ties nicely to some data from the website referring to Adrift - that island was up for sale in early 2000, so that's when Jack started making changes.
What interests me also is how come he *didn't* have power in any of the previous hundred odd years. I mean, something changed there that goes way beyond some guy blowing his own brains out. He was on their string, blackmailed, one job short of becoming an experimental subject... and then he could go independent?
Also it opens up once again the question of where Torchwood gets their money. We knew where One got it - wide ranging patents and corporate investments, owning whole companies, they're a financial powerhouse. But if Three cut ties in 2000... where is *Three* getting it's money? And is that why there's only 5 employees? They're living off Jack's savings???
So Jack's flashback lasted from about the founding of Torchwood through to 2000.
Next was Toshiko's, in roughly 2003, yes? 5 years ago. Which is interesting because Jack's offer was for a 5 year indenture in exchange for her freedom.
Now what I don't like about this fragment is that in one fell swoop it eliminates any difference between UNIT and Torchwood. Holding Tosh indefinitely without charge in a nasty little concrete box. Er, did it have a toilet? Or a bucket even? That don't really work if it don't. ANYway... Up until this fragment, UNIT has meant the Brigadier, shiny well funded technology, military but with all that old school honor. Yes? No? I don't know, I haven't watched *all* of it, but it was certainly prettier and shinier than this. And then Torchwood was a contrast, gone twisted and power mad.
Now?
Five years ago we can't blame anyone but humans. Human policy changes. Which reflect RL attitudes to terrorists. But UNIT? Went dark. And Tosh has no rights once she's caught.
I like that we saw her mother with the exact same cut on her head that was there in the vision in 1-13. We got an explanation. Always of the good.
Tosh has only been allowed to send postcards? Just to her mother? Because she was going to a party with her grandfather in 1-12. What happened between this and that? Did the restrictions wear off fast or slow? Suddenly it's fascinating. We have new layers to Toshiko, her family, her sense of duty and honor - she'll sell out Britain to save her family, and 1-12 makes that much more sense cause she's done it before. Sorta.
I love that Toshiko is just that smart. She fixed something that didn't work and didn't even notice cause she'd understood what it was trying to do and just done it. And I love that she was just that sneaky. She didn't get caught at work. The bad guys got caught.
I don't so much love that she... no, wait, this gets interesting. She didn't do the smart thing, realise that once she worked for them she'd never get off the hook, and go to her bosses. Maybe she didn't trust them, maybe she didn't think they were any kind of use. But, she did a different set of smart and self-reliant thing. She was all mousy!Tosh, with the clothes and glasses and body language, but she was still kick arse and getting things done.
Up to when she got caught.
Then she got locked up, and we get a different spin on 1-06, Toshiko's confidence she could get herself out of that cellar. Because she doesn't get herself out of that room. Or even try. She sits there in nice montage of time passing (with lovely echoes in Owen's bit later) but she's all immobile and stopped. So some time after that... she decided to never be that helpless again and studied up.
... either that or 1-06 was pure bravado.
Given that we find Tosh has been there longest of the surviving team, maybe she was just looking after the baby-bro Ianto. Cheering him up.
But I believed her confidence, so I think she studied up.
We also get an interesting sense of how Jack chooses his recruits, more of why Owen got away with so much in 1-12, and why Ianto wasn't on the street after 1-04. This is the second chance club, and Jack's *already* taking a chance on the lot of them. Toshiko most of all. And weren't we all thinking Tosh was the nice one? She's the one who did spying already! Which, actually, adds interest to 1-12.
I *love* this episode. They aren't just random flashbacks, they're flashbacks that put new layers on what we already knew and give us surprising extras and... I love it.
The one thing I don't as much love? Once again, Ianto's life only goes back to Canary Wharf! Which gives us the least new data about him... so we got a slightly lighter hearted section. Jack's and Ianto's had more dark humour LOLs, alternating with Tosh and Owen's gutpunch of unfun.
So... the first time Jack laid eyes on Ianto.
"Jones, Ianto Jones".
Yes, he was having a Bond moment.
While wearing tight jeans, dark jacket, and was that a studded belt I saw?
I was too busy having sort of *facepalm* LOLs at the whole thing, which came off a bit BtVS-Andrew-world in some ways, a bit trying too hard.
So we go through that whole section of Ianto begging for a job, and bringing Jack coffee in the morning, and volunteering to be a Butler. And Myfanwy wrangling with chocolate. And then that funny/gorgeous/hot moment with them lying on top of each other, sexual tension like woah.
And then just when we're grinning and all... the look on his face when he walks away.
Because we know why he's desperate. Why he's courting Jack so hard. And it has nothing to do with 51st century pheremones.
Girlfriend, deceased... he says.
... Damn.
Lines I liked? Jack saying "You are not my responsibility." Because I've always thought that was a complicated truth/lie that's important to why Jack/Ianto happened at all. Jack didn't get him into this, not like the others, and that counts for something in some twisty way.
And... Jack mentioned the 51st century when he didn't even know him?!?
... fun.
And, pheremones. Are we going to have fun with that? Yes we are. Because that's sex gas alien territory. Jack has chemistry. Big time.
Hello ethics?
So the Ianto section was funny and yet with more going on in there.
And I want to go back through it for aftermath-of-battle stuff, and relation-to-TW1... or lack thereof.
But then... Owen.
And right away we get a complete inversion of what we thought we knew. Because here's the lad, the guy who's introduced to us first episode as out on the pull and not really wanting to put the work in, the guy who seemed so surprised that he could feel anything for Diane... and people were figuring it's because he hadn't been in love before. And that fit, one way around.
New data. Reconfigures everything.
They're talking about the wedding plans.
And how much of even recent episodes does that echo through oddly?
And... I only just thought, he gave Rhys the opportunity to save his new wife's life. Maybe that's what he said, not confident in the off hand... or maybe it's the one thing he'd have most wanted.
Because another thing we never would have expected of season 1 Owen - he's marrying her, he's going ahead with it, and she's... ill. Losing herself. Early onset Alzheimers, brain tumour, they're looking for a cause, but the bit I want to pause on and zoom right in on is he's ready to make a commitment to staying with her anyway. And you can't say he, a doctor, doesn't know what he's getting into. He knows how it will go. He just isn't going to *accept* that. And he wants to save her anyway.
Was there a bit in the 1-01 deleted scenes that reckoned Owen cried the first time he saw an alien? Because this would give it a whole different set of reasons.
4 years ago. After Tosh. And, er, buggering up our timeline calculations once again... when did he do the MD thing again?
ANYway... the whole thing, the stubborn persistence, the caring for her... it's this great mix of stuff that fits canon and stuff that completely flips the view of it. And I rather love it.
I've got to say though - Torchwood season 2 has moved so far from season 1, from the characters and situation and basic moral setup, that it's pretty much a different show. And I miss the first show. And it fits together rather oddly. They've rehabilitated Owen to a rather large degree here... without making him not have done those other things we kind of wanted to kill him for. It's... something that needs more thinking about.
But all these pieces, this episode? I really, really love it. We're going to be polishing these fragments and fitting them in all through the gap between seasons.
Excellent.
... now the only bad thing: Two weeks before the next new episode. And it's the last.
Blast.
ooooh... that was good. That was very very good. In fact, that was pure character porn. I feel like I need a cigarette. And I don't even smoke.
Okay, so... I think the best Fragment has to be Owen's. Because that? Completely reconfigures the character. Yet it's also completely consistent. Not that it meshes well with the website stuff, granted, whatever all that was about it wasn't showing on there... and I'm having timeline issues trying to mesh this with 1-07 where he spent 2 years in Cardiff as a junior doctor. 4 years back was... 2004? Right, so that works... but why did they put him in Cardiff earlier? Ack, so that's a non-clue sort of clue then! Unless Jack's been stalking him since?
Actually, why did I get the impression that was not-Cardiff? Because of the emphasis on a particular line that Jack said, about how he needs to work with him in Cardiff. So, okay, maybe he meant 'here in Cardiff' not 'over there in Cardiff'. I'd have to rewatch.
... dammit, of all the episodes to not be able to rewatch!
So we got 4 flashbacks, the beginnings at Torchwood Three for all of them. Which was why Gwen wasn't much in it, we saw that anyway.
... I'm sorry, I'm just skipping to the end here. Captain Spike is going to destroy Jack's life because Jack doesn't have time for him? Oy. I could stand it having a different motive, y'know. Because it might have a nice loyal Jack/Ianto for comparison... but that's been obscure enough some have complained it's only sex so maybe not. But really, do we really need another insane/evil queer? I know he was already, but this makes all about the relationship, and...
Okay, I'm over it for now. Fuck it. Also? If John is to Jack as the Master is to the Doctor... that gets a whole lot less U rated.
Right then: Jack, Tosh, Ianto, Owen
Lovely character heavy goodness for all of them.
I tell you, the next transcript I do is going to be this one. Sod the order, I'm going for the good stuff.
Jack's flashback had a lovely version of a timestamp - gives how many deaths earlier it was. I wish to hug that everso. We can has so much fun with that.
It implies the only thing he's been doing all along is freelancing for Torchwood. Who were nutcases. Steampunk lesbian nutcases. I, er, can't actually hate that even a little. Also, I'm now thinking of Ace in Ghost Light, crossdressed. Don't you think she'd have fitted in real well with Torchwood Three?
... okay, plot bunny of -> bunk.
... and *facepalm*
ANYway
Jack's flashback kind of contradicts something from one of the books, where Jack says he doesn't drink any more cause it doesn't work any more. But, (a) Jack says, which clearly don't have to be so, and (b) it's a hundred years later, so who knows what could have changed?
So apparently he gets drunk a lot and complains to strangers about the Doctor. Kiss him then kill him. Yup, we knew that.
I love seeing the Hub different-but-same. That was just neat.
I don't think we learned much new about Jack or Torchwood. Empire obsessed? Check. Drives people nuts? Check. But we did see where he got his 'got to be ready' thing from. Because you should always take to heart the words of a mass murdering madman. And what did he see in that locket? And which Time Lord did it belong to?
Oh come on, you weren't thinking it? It's small, it closes and opens, and it shows visions of the future, including something about a storm... oncoming?
I was mostly thinking that Jack was, right then, missing meeting the 8th Doctor. Yesno? I mean I haven't watched the Movie lately, but I seem to recall.
I like that Jack's shiny silver earpiece was used as a marker of it being further back in time.
And I like that we know when he finally took over. He worked for them up until the turn of this century, fairly precisely. Then he got handed the whole thing due to everyone else being dead.
The next interesting bit came from Ianto's flashback - Jack cut all ties with Torchwood One. *How*? I mean why is bloody obvious - exploding teenage fish of recycled expensive makeup win. And all the rest. But how did he get away with it?
And it ties nicely to some data from the website referring to Adrift - that island was up for sale in early 2000, so that's when Jack started making changes.
What interests me also is how come he *didn't* have power in any of the previous hundred odd years. I mean, something changed there that goes way beyond some guy blowing his own brains out. He was on their string, blackmailed, one job short of becoming an experimental subject... and then he could go independent?
Also it opens up once again the question of where Torchwood gets their money. We knew where One got it - wide ranging patents and corporate investments, owning whole companies, they're a financial powerhouse. But if Three cut ties in 2000... where is *Three* getting it's money? And is that why there's only 5 employees? They're living off Jack's savings???
So Jack's flashback lasted from about the founding of Torchwood through to 2000.
Next was Toshiko's, in roughly 2003, yes? 5 years ago. Which is interesting because Jack's offer was for a 5 year indenture in exchange for her freedom.
Now what I don't like about this fragment is that in one fell swoop it eliminates any difference between UNIT and Torchwood. Holding Tosh indefinitely without charge in a nasty little concrete box. Er, did it have a toilet? Or a bucket even? That don't really work if it don't. ANYway... Up until this fragment, UNIT has meant the Brigadier, shiny well funded technology, military but with all that old school honor. Yes? No? I don't know, I haven't watched *all* of it, but it was certainly prettier and shinier than this. And then Torchwood was a contrast, gone twisted and power mad.
Now?
Five years ago we can't blame anyone but humans. Human policy changes. Which reflect RL attitudes to terrorists. But UNIT? Went dark. And Tosh has no rights once she's caught.
I like that we saw her mother with the exact same cut on her head that was there in the vision in 1-13. We got an explanation. Always of the good.
Tosh has only been allowed to send postcards? Just to her mother? Because she was going to a party with her grandfather in 1-12. What happened between this and that? Did the restrictions wear off fast or slow? Suddenly it's fascinating. We have new layers to Toshiko, her family, her sense of duty and honor - she'll sell out Britain to save her family, and 1-12 makes that much more sense cause she's done it before. Sorta.
I love that Toshiko is just that smart. She fixed something that didn't work and didn't even notice cause she'd understood what it was trying to do and just done it. And I love that she was just that sneaky. She didn't get caught at work. The bad guys got caught.
I don't so much love that she... no, wait, this gets interesting. She didn't do the smart thing, realise that once she worked for them she'd never get off the hook, and go to her bosses. Maybe she didn't trust them, maybe she didn't think they were any kind of use. But, she did a different set of smart and self-reliant thing. She was all mousy!Tosh, with the clothes and glasses and body language, but she was still kick arse and getting things done.
Up to when she got caught.
Then she got locked up, and we get a different spin on 1-06, Toshiko's confidence she could get herself out of that cellar. Because she doesn't get herself out of that room. Or even try. She sits there in nice montage of time passing (with lovely echoes in Owen's bit later) but she's all immobile and stopped. So some time after that... she decided to never be that helpless again and studied up.
... either that or 1-06 was pure bravado.
Given that we find Tosh has been there longest of the surviving team, maybe she was just looking after the baby-bro Ianto. Cheering him up.
But I believed her confidence, so I think she studied up.
We also get an interesting sense of how Jack chooses his recruits, more of why Owen got away with so much in 1-12, and why Ianto wasn't on the street after 1-04. This is the second chance club, and Jack's *already* taking a chance on the lot of them. Toshiko most of all. And weren't we all thinking Tosh was the nice one? She's the one who did spying already! Which, actually, adds interest to 1-12.
I *love* this episode. They aren't just random flashbacks, they're flashbacks that put new layers on what we already knew and give us surprising extras and... I love it.
The one thing I don't as much love? Once again, Ianto's life only goes back to Canary Wharf! Which gives us the least new data about him... so we got a slightly lighter hearted section. Jack's and Ianto's had more dark humour LOLs, alternating with Tosh and Owen's gutpunch of unfun.
So... the first time Jack laid eyes on Ianto.
"Jones, Ianto Jones".
Yes, he was having a Bond moment.
While wearing tight jeans, dark jacket, and was that a studded belt I saw?
I was too busy having sort of *facepalm* LOLs at the whole thing, which came off a bit BtVS-Andrew-world in some ways, a bit trying too hard.
So we go through that whole section of Ianto begging for a job, and bringing Jack coffee in the morning, and volunteering to be a Butler. And Myfanwy wrangling with chocolate. And then that funny/gorgeous/hot moment with them lying on top of each other, sexual tension like woah.
And then just when we're grinning and all... the look on his face when he walks away.
Because we know why he's desperate. Why he's courting Jack so hard. And it has nothing to do with 51st century pheremones.
Girlfriend, deceased... he says.
... Damn.
Lines I liked? Jack saying "You are not my responsibility." Because I've always thought that was a complicated truth/lie that's important to why Jack/Ianto happened at all. Jack didn't get him into this, not like the others, and that counts for something in some twisty way.
And... Jack mentioned the 51st century when he didn't even know him?!?
... fun.
And, pheremones. Are we going to have fun with that? Yes we are. Because that's sex gas alien territory. Jack has chemistry. Big time.
Hello ethics?
So the Ianto section was funny and yet with more going on in there.
And I want to go back through it for aftermath-of-battle stuff, and relation-to-TW1... or lack thereof.
But then... Owen.
And right away we get a complete inversion of what we thought we knew. Because here's the lad, the guy who's introduced to us first episode as out on the pull and not really wanting to put the work in, the guy who seemed so surprised that he could feel anything for Diane... and people were figuring it's because he hadn't been in love before. And that fit, one way around.
New data. Reconfigures everything.
They're talking about the wedding plans.
And how much of even recent episodes does that echo through oddly?
And... I only just thought, he gave Rhys the opportunity to save his new wife's life. Maybe that's what he said, not confident in the off hand... or maybe it's the one thing he'd have most wanted.
Because another thing we never would have expected of season 1 Owen - he's marrying her, he's going ahead with it, and she's... ill. Losing herself. Early onset Alzheimers, brain tumour, they're looking for a cause, but the bit I want to pause on and zoom right in on is he's ready to make a commitment to staying with her anyway. And you can't say he, a doctor, doesn't know what he's getting into. He knows how it will go. He just isn't going to *accept* that. And he wants to save her anyway.
Was there a bit in the 1-01 deleted scenes that reckoned Owen cried the first time he saw an alien? Because this would give it a whole different set of reasons.
4 years ago. After Tosh. And, er, buggering up our timeline calculations once again... when did he do the MD thing again?
ANYway... the whole thing, the stubborn persistence, the caring for her... it's this great mix of stuff that fits canon and stuff that completely flips the view of it. And I rather love it.
I've got to say though - Torchwood season 2 has moved so far from season 1, from the characters and situation and basic moral setup, that it's pretty much a different show. And I miss the first show. And it fits together rather oddly. They've rehabilitated Owen to a rather large degree here... without making him not have done those other things we kind of wanted to kill him for. It's... something that needs more thinking about.
But all these pieces, this episode? I really, really love it. We're going to be polishing these fragments and fitting them in all through the gap between seasons.
Excellent.
... now the only bad thing: Two weeks before the next new episode. And it's the last.
Blast.