beccaelizabeth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccaelizabeth) wrote2023-04-10 12:06 am
beccaelizabeth) wrote2023-04-10 12:06 am
Torchwood Skypoint
A reread again, but since I dont think I've read it since it came out, all news to me again.
If I think of this as an Owen story it has a solid character arc, a lot of action, and a satisfying conclusion.
The problem is it started out as a team book and just sort of dropped everyone else as it went.
The rest of the team just get captured or distracted, contributing basically nothing after about half way through the book.
Toshiko spends a long time tied to a chair waiting to be resvued, because she did something deeply stupid, and I do not see why.
Jack and Gwen get attacked by fear gas in a way that ties to nothing else in the plot, and all they see is weevils, which is... very unimaginative of them.
But see this as an Owen story that has to carry the others around because Torchwood had a format, and it do work.
Owen spends the whole book being angsty about being dead, and you can kind of see the people he meets in Skypoint as all being experiences he's upset he wont have. Sex and drugs and newlyweds and parents. Also he spends a lot of time missing sleep, but then finds out he can become unconscious... and it feels exactly like dying all over again.
Owen angst dialled up to 11 even by the standards of the recently deceased.
It's just feeling poorly structured because it starts off being a Gwen and Rhys bit, and then just leaves it behind? But I guess that's the contrast to Owen and Toshiko, undercover as married.
... I dont get why some people write that trope. I mean, all it does in this story is have them accidentally see each other naked, and yeah, they fancy each other, we knew that, what else does this situation show us?
Also also it is a story that seems to think jealousy is a good thing.
*sigh*
As for the bad guy that kicks the whole thing off... honestly? Boring.
The human one anyway, doing human crime for human reasons. I'm reading Torchwood, that bit can be gone.
The bad *thing* was proper creepy but also not especially interesting in the end.
I guess I feel like there's the parts for a better story here if it didnt have to cram the whole team in.
As an Owen story it's good.
If I think of this as an Owen story it has a solid character arc, a lot of action, and a satisfying conclusion.
The problem is it started out as a team book and just sort of dropped everyone else as it went.
The rest of the team just get captured or distracted, contributing basically nothing after about half way through the book.
Toshiko spends a long time tied to a chair waiting to be resvued, because she did something deeply stupid, and I do not see why.
Jack and Gwen get attacked by fear gas in a way that ties to nothing else in the plot, and all they see is weevils, which is... very unimaginative of them.
But see this as an Owen story that has to carry the others around because Torchwood had a format, and it do work.
Owen spends the whole book being angsty about being dead, and you can kind of see the people he meets in Skypoint as all being experiences he's upset he wont have. Sex and drugs and newlyweds and parents. Also he spends a lot of time missing sleep, but then finds out he can become unconscious... and it feels exactly like dying all over again.
Owen angst dialled up to 11 even by the standards of the recently deceased.
It's just feeling poorly structured because it starts off being a Gwen and Rhys bit, and then just leaves it behind? But I guess that's the contrast to Owen and Toshiko, undercover as married.
... I dont get why some people write that trope. I mean, all it does in this story is have them accidentally see each other naked, and yeah, they fancy each other, we knew that, what else does this situation show us?
Also also it is a story that seems to think jealousy is a good thing.
*sigh*
As for the bad guy that kicks the whole thing off... honestly? Boring.
The human one anyway, doing human crime for human reasons. I'm reading Torchwood, that bit can be gone.
The bad *thing* was proper creepy but also not especially interesting in the end.
I guess I feel like there's the parts for a better story here if it didnt have to cram the whole team in.
As an Owen story it's good.