Nope, still can't sleep. angry.
Jul. 12th, 2009 04:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethSpoilers again.
It wasn't a Torchwood story, it was a story that happened partly to Torchwood.
It took Torchwood and systematically stripped and smashed it.
It was all about destroying everything one could possibly care about. Not just as in Hub, Team, Characters. Fundamentals - Faith, Hope, Love.
It was beautifully shot and acted, and it was poison.
Watch what moments of the story made a difference.
Watch who made them happen.
Wasn't our team.
Torchwood didn't even bloody investigate, they sat in a warehouse and watched a screen.
They made a middle episode out of repeating everything three times and having notes written in shorthand solely to give Ianto and Torchwood something to do!
They stole the SUV (and didn't do the logical thing and go find it).
They blew up the HUB.
They stripped away all the technology that could have made a difference.
They did that in Countrycide and the point was to learn what our team brought to it that was more than the tech they used, who they were as people, how they would react when it got down to just bare handed them and the bad guys.
We got a little of that here. We learn that if you break all their toys Torchwood steal more.
but what did they get to keep?
the ability to watch and record.
And then what did they do with it?
Whole lot of nothing.
Spent ages going 'I'll tell on you! ... later.'
They recorded the death scream. Illogical and stupid and the only thing that made any difference.
The more I think on this story the less of it there is left.
There was a hell of a lot of politics about characters nothing to do with Torchwood. Monologues about Frobisher. Secretaries who observe and record and turn out to be... making no difference at all.
And they didn't ever know. They didn't research, draw on knowledge in files, figure things out, make logical deductions. It wasn't like with the Slitheen and the Doctor going 'narrows it down'. Stuff just got guessed, compared by metaphor, made up without data, and then told to them by unreliable sources.
If Tosh or Owen were around the story would be very different. Because it would have actual science in it. Tosh would chase the frequency and the comm tech and the teleport tech and how they could be getting here and how to get back at them. Hack global satellites and retask them and get the Torchwood information feeds back even with the Hub gone. Owen would be figuring out alien biology, and human child biology, and what it was precisely the aliens were after, and how to approach the problem on that angle.
Ianto? Read things out. Not from records, from things other people had discovered and could have read out themselves.
Gwen? Recorded things and hugged babies.
Jack? Died a lot and then did a terrible thing.
None of that was the investigation, mystery, solution pattern that is a Torchwood story.
To make this story happen the writers had to ignore... damn near everything. So many options. So many other people. The way technology works here. Aliens have a teleport? Doctor's good with teleport! Hit the reverse button! Hack the frequency, trace it, find their ship! They've done it before they can do it again that's how it works in this 'verse.
Except this story wasn't *in* the TW 'verse.
It shut it all out to get to that ending.
Fuck the lot of them.
I'm going back to the good world.
It wasn't a Torchwood story, it was a story that happened partly to Torchwood.
It took Torchwood and systematically stripped and smashed it.
It was all about destroying everything one could possibly care about. Not just as in Hub, Team, Characters. Fundamentals - Faith, Hope, Love.
It was beautifully shot and acted, and it was poison.
Watch what moments of the story made a difference.
Watch who made them happen.
Wasn't our team.
Torchwood didn't even bloody investigate, they sat in a warehouse and watched a screen.
They made a middle episode out of repeating everything three times and having notes written in shorthand solely to give Ianto and Torchwood something to do!
They stole the SUV (and didn't do the logical thing and go find it).
They blew up the HUB.
They stripped away all the technology that could have made a difference.
They did that in Countrycide and the point was to learn what our team brought to it that was more than the tech they used, who they were as people, how they would react when it got down to just bare handed them and the bad guys.
We got a little of that here. We learn that if you break all their toys Torchwood steal more.
but what did they get to keep?
the ability to watch and record.
And then what did they do with it?
Whole lot of nothing.
Spent ages going 'I'll tell on you! ... later.'
They recorded the death scream. Illogical and stupid and the only thing that made any difference.
The more I think on this story the less of it there is left.
There was a hell of a lot of politics about characters nothing to do with Torchwood. Monologues about Frobisher. Secretaries who observe and record and turn out to be... making no difference at all.
And they didn't ever know. They didn't research, draw on knowledge in files, figure things out, make logical deductions. It wasn't like with the Slitheen and the Doctor going 'narrows it down'. Stuff just got guessed, compared by metaphor, made up without data, and then told to them by unreliable sources.
If Tosh or Owen were around the story would be very different. Because it would have actual science in it. Tosh would chase the frequency and the comm tech and the teleport tech and how they could be getting here and how to get back at them. Hack global satellites and retask them and get the Torchwood information feeds back even with the Hub gone. Owen would be figuring out alien biology, and human child biology, and what it was precisely the aliens were after, and how to approach the problem on that angle.
Ianto? Read things out. Not from records, from things other people had discovered and could have read out themselves.
Gwen? Recorded things and hugged babies.
Jack? Died a lot and then did a terrible thing.
None of that was the investigation, mystery, solution pattern that is a Torchwood story.
To make this story happen the writers had to ignore... damn near everything. So many options. So many other people. The way technology works here. Aliens have a teleport? Doctor's good with teleport! Hit the reverse button! Hack the frequency, trace it, find their ship! They've done it before they can do it again that's how it works in this 'verse.
Except this story wasn't *in* the TW 'verse.
It shut it all out to get to that ending.
Fuck the lot of them.
I'm going back to the good world.
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-13 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-13 07:14 pm (UTC)I wouldn't sue. speaking as a (hopefully) formerly depressed person there were days anything more worrying than Fraggle Rock was more than I could handle. Wouldn't want a TV channel that could only do that!
*sends cookies*