Torchwood, Cyberwoman, Ianto
Apr. 8th, 2012 03:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethSince I decided to go to the Hub next weekend I've started rewatching Torchwood. I've only got the first two seasons on DVD but that's because I'd only want to watch the first two seasons, so that works out.
The subtitles are quite a bit wrong on Cyberwoman. I'm not sure about the others, but I've done a transcript from the TV version for Cyberwoman and I know which version I believe. And it's character changing stuff, not just trivia. Very irritating.
Also my discs keep doing that thing where it freezes for a second and then picks up again, and I don't know if it misses a second or three around there or if it just be slow.
But: Cyberwoman.
That is a beautiful bit of TV.
I keep noticing the camera, but in a good way. Lots of technique gone into it. From starting in close up so we're in Ianto's point of view, through lots of wonky or shaky and that moment Jack pulls back in intensity and the camera pulls back physically. I've been watching early silent cinema where the camera hadn't learned half this stuff and it's way beautiful this way.
Even if there are a few moments of 'look at our set isn't it giant lalala pretty', they pretty much work because they're about restoring order and security to it, so mostly you just get a tour of th eHub and see where the money went without noticing.
Granted, the cyberwoman costume do make it hard to take serious, but it works fine within the story if you figure she's a deliberate trojan horse made by beings that don't understand love isn't about what you look like.
At the end when she's done the brain transplant, that last line when she says they can upgrade together, I go back and forth about if that line is really necessary. Because with it they're executing a cyberman, but without it, it leaves it more open if what they're firing at is as human as the rest of us, just done something dire from a dire need. Killing someone to plant your brain in them is extreme and obviously wrong, but possibly only obviously to someone that hasn't been holding on to humanity by bare will while in excrutiating agony for months.
There's obvious swings in Lisa's portrayal, most obviously read as swings between Lisa and the cyberwoman.
Interesting to read that last transplant as Lisa's attempt to escape the cyberwoman, having seen what it does, to the team and to Ianto.
But the upgrade line is absolutely necessary, if you're going to keep Ianto.
Because he's wrecked by then, he's absolutely wrecked, knowing what he's done. He's been apologising for it, owning his responsibility, all the way through, but it's only after the brain transplant he sees the woman he's been holding on to isn't the one standing in front of him. The bit where he hugs her and then points the gun at her, and he still can't... he's got her literal blood on his hands, but he can't end it, even though he can see how wrong it has gone.
If they'd just shot her then, he'd never have quite been able to let go.
Or he'd never have been the man he knew, if he could do it.
So there's that last unequivocal line, where she's 100% physically human (as far as we know), but mentally still cyber.
And then they end it.
I've said before that Ianto falling for Jack isn't despite that, it's including and to some extent because of it. Because he just called the man a monster but he saved not just his life but his soul. Saved him from a mistake so absolute it shook the foundations of his world more thoroughly than Gwen is being shaken by finding out about these aliens. Because Ianto was acting like he's in the kind of world where love conquers all, but instead, Jack was right. So after this, Jack is the Captain. And falling in love, while kind of fucked up, also makes perfect sense.
There was unexpected painful watching this. The moment Jack and Ianto are lying there next to each other, both likely dead... ouch.
... yes, Ianto might have been just unconscious, but there's interesting ambiguity in Jack's having so much life he's giving it away, and then waking Ianto with a kiss. So he might have been.
But if he was, it's not a reliable magic.
So, anyway, I'm skipping the one with the fairies because I can't remember anything particularly shiny about it. So now I'm trying to decide watch or skip with Countrycide. On the one hand, another strong episode, plenty of character stuff. On the other, it always creeps me out. I need my layer of distance, and F&SF metaphor is it. Creepy things humans actually do are a whole genre I try and avoid.
*ponders*
Also today I have read an entire book on The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. Granted, it was a BFI Film Classics book and really tiny, but I totally read it. What I mostly learned from it is there's a big argue about the film and who thought of doing what and when and who kept the rights after. So any other book that has one coherent version of what happened has picked and chosen its sources. Which is useful to know, but doesn't tell me much about who to believe. Still, it's interesting to read.
... now I'm imagining a DVD commentary track from these people. It don't sound like you could have got more than three of them in the same room at a time without a bust up. Possibly only two. If that.
Modern texts have a whole ton of interesting extras. But the more I study texts people have thoroughly poked the behind the scenes story of, the more I am sure the whole story never can get told, because everyone has different ones and they evolve. Is interesting.
The subtitles are quite a bit wrong on Cyberwoman. I'm not sure about the others, but I've done a transcript from the TV version for Cyberwoman and I know which version I believe. And it's character changing stuff, not just trivia. Very irritating.
Also my discs keep doing that thing where it freezes for a second and then picks up again, and I don't know if it misses a second or three around there or if it just be slow.
But: Cyberwoman.
That is a beautiful bit of TV.
I keep noticing the camera, but in a good way. Lots of technique gone into it. From starting in close up so we're in Ianto's point of view, through lots of wonky or shaky and that moment Jack pulls back in intensity and the camera pulls back physically. I've been watching early silent cinema where the camera hadn't learned half this stuff and it's way beautiful this way.
Even if there are a few moments of 'look at our set isn't it giant lalala pretty', they pretty much work because they're about restoring order and security to it, so mostly you just get a tour of th eHub and see where the money went without noticing.
Granted, the cyberwoman costume do make it hard to take serious, but it works fine within the story if you figure she's a deliberate trojan horse made by beings that don't understand love isn't about what you look like.
At the end when she's done the brain transplant, that last line when she says they can upgrade together, I go back and forth about if that line is really necessary. Because with it they're executing a cyberman, but without it, it leaves it more open if what they're firing at is as human as the rest of us, just done something dire from a dire need. Killing someone to plant your brain in them is extreme and obviously wrong, but possibly only obviously to someone that hasn't been holding on to humanity by bare will while in excrutiating agony for months.
There's obvious swings in Lisa's portrayal, most obviously read as swings between Lisa and the cyberwoman.
Interesting to read that last transplant as Lisa's attempt to escape the cyberwoman, having seen what it does, to the team and to Ianto.
But the upgrade line is absolutely necessary, if you're going to keep Ianto.
Because he's wrecked by then, he's absolutely wrecked, knowing what he's done. He's been apologising for it, owning his responsibility, all the way through, but it's only after the brain transplant he sees the woman he's been holding on to isn't the one standing in front of him. The bit where he hugs her and then points the gun at her, and he still can't... he's got her literal blood on his hands, but he can't end it, even though he can see how wrong it has gone.
If they'd just shot her then, he'd never have quite been able to let go.
Or he'd never have been the man he knew, if he could do it.
So there's that last unequivocal line, where she's 100% physically human (as far as we know), but mentally still cyber.
And then they end it.
I've said before that Ianto falling for Jack isn't despite that, it's including and to some extent because of it. Because he just called the man a monster but he saved not just his life but his soul. Saved him from a mistake so absolute it shook the foundations of his world more thoroughly than Gwen is being shaken by finding out about these aliens. Because Ianto was acting like he's in the kind of world where love conquers all, but instead, Jack was right. So after this, Jack is the Captain. And falling in love, while kind of fucked up, also makes perfect sense.
There was unexpected painful watching this. The moment Jack and Ianto are lying there next to each other, both likely dead... ouch.
... yes, Ianto might have been just unconscious, but there's interesting ambiguity in Jack's having so much life he's giving it away, and then waking Ianto with a kiss. So he might have been.
But if he was, it's not a reliable magic.
So, anyway, I'm skipping the one with the fairies because I can't remember anything particularly shiny about it. So now I'm trying to decide watch or skip with Countrycide. On the one hand, another strong episode, plenty of character stuff. On the other, it always creeps me out. I need my layer of distance, and F&SF metaphor is it. Creepy things humans actually do are a whole genre I try and avoid.
*ponders*
Also today I have read an entire book on The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. Granted, it was a BFI Film Classics book and really tiny, but I totally read it. What I mostly learned from it is there's a big argue about the film and who thought of doing what and when and who kept the rights after. So any other book that has one coherent version of what happened has picked and chosen its sources. Which is useful to know, but doesn't tell me much about who to believe. Still, it's interesting to read.
... now I'm imagining a DVD commentary track from these people. It don't sound like you could have got more than three of them in the same room at a time without a bust up. Possibly only two. If that.
Modern texts have a whole ton of interesting extras. But the more I study texts people have thoroughly poked the behind the scenes story of, the more I am sure the whole story never can get told, because everyone has different ones and they evolve. Is interesting.