Musings

[kribu]

I'm noticing I'm not very good with subjects. *points above* Meh.

Anyway, Torchwood. No spoilers, but I have to wonder why they didn't call the show Angel in Cardiff or something like that. Apart from because it doesn't have a vampire called Angel, and there's more sunlight, and people speak with a Welsh accent, but hm... RTD seems to be a Joss Whedon fan, yes. (And I know this comment is highly unoriginal, but I can hardly be faulted for arriving at the same thought independently when viewing the first episode that probably half the people who watched it arrived at as well, can I?)

I must say I preferred the first episode to the second, but as a whole, I rather like it. (It's a good thing I liked Angel, I suppose!) Definitely enjoyed both episodes (yes, even the second) more than the second series of the mother show... well, good new Doctor Who has still been better than this so far, but then, it has only been two episodes - I'm sure the best of Torchwood is yet to come. Plenty there to intrigue, and I like the characters (hm, not sure I like Owen, but for a creep, he's so far been interesting too.) Interesting to see how things are in the new Who universe though... I'm sure I'm not the only one who felt that Rose was often more central to Who than the Doctor, and in the first two episodes, Gwen has absolutely been more important to Torchwood than Jack, although I certainly expected a Jack show. (I assume it will shift slightly, but it's pretty obvious Gwen and Jack will be the "main" characters and the others have a more supporting role.)

In other musings, whose bloody brilliant idea was it to give the tram lane over to cars as well? I spent one and a half hours on getting home from work today, and that's all in various forms of transport, that was (supposedly) moving. The tram's great from Kalev to Kosmos, and then from Kosmos the cars get to share the lane, and it took half an hour (yes, 30 minutes) from Kosmos to Viru... two stops. Bleh. It would have taken me less to walk that distance, except it was raining too hard and I still wanted to get a bit further. Maybe I should just take the bus from work straight to home, but then it's being stuck in traffic not just between Kosmos and Viru but between work and Kadriorg, and that thought is not that much more pleasant really.

Comments

[elen-ancalima.livejournal.com]

So I finally got around to watching the first two epsidoes of Torchwood, and I basically liked it. A few things didn't gel for me, and I certainly didn't click with the show the way I did with Doctor Who, but it looks promissing enough. I did notice the Angel parallels, but they didn't bother me all that much. I was a bit afraid at the beginning of the second episode that the plot would follow the Angel episode too closely (one of the really early ones, have forgotten the name), but it turned out different enough (and oh my, the security guy thingy was scary visual place *shudder*).

I liked the characters for the most part. I really like Gwen - I think she and Jack have an intersting rapport. I wasn't quite as convinced by Jack though, I must say. I liked him in Doctor Who, and he fit in really well with the Ninth Doctor and Rose, but it seems like he still needs to find his footing in his own show (or at least that's how it seems to me). I'm not sure how good he is when it comes to the more emotional stuff. I do like the fact that even the others at Torchwood have no idea where he's from etc - I like the scene where they all start pumping Gwen for info. As it stands now, Gwen is the newbie and yet she seems to know Jack more than the others.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who felt that Rose was often more central to Who than the Doctor, and in the first two episodes, Gwen has absolutely been more important to Torchwood than Jack, although I certainly expected a Jack show.

That was my impression too. In a way the first episode was similar to "Rose" - the audience learns about Torchwood through her point of view, just as we meet the Doctor through Rose.

I'm curious how the various relationships of the ensemble are going to turn out.

Hmm - this ended up a bit more rambly and incoherrent than I expected. Need new brain ...

[kribu.livejournal.com]

A few things didn't gel for me, and I certainly didn't click with the show the way I did with Doctor Who, but it looks promissing enough.

Yeah... that's the way I feel about it too.

It's standing at about the same level for me right now as Lost or BSG right now, i.e. certainly interesting and entertaining enough, and definitely enough to keep watching, but not making the kind of impression either of those shows did in their first season. (And neither of them made the kind of impression that Buffy or Doctor Who or B5 for example did for me, leading me to search out fandom, getting into spin-offs in other media, etc.)

The nice thing is that the characters (even Owen in his yucky creepy deeply disgusting way) all look interesting and promising enough, which is always a good thing for a show to build on - one can be sure that even if some particular single episode/story isn't all that great, having a good team of characters there is often just the thing that still makes it worthwhile to keep watching.

As for Jack, I really do hope that him being sort of left hanging around is just a beginning thing and the writers *will* figure out what to do with him in upcoming episodes. He was far too good a character in Who to be virtually ignored the way he was in the first two Torchwood episodes. I think John Barrowman's decent enough as an actor, certainly more than just a pretty face, even if he maybe isn't the greatest character actor ever, so I'd certainly blame the writers at this point for Jack coming off so... almost ineffectual and bland, instead of cool and mysterious, which, I assume, must have been the actual intent. (Also, based on those two episodes, I don't think Barrowman has the on-screen physical presence to carry the character when he's not given anything to work with, but then, not that many actors do, and that's more a physical thing than a skill, IMHO. It is something that writers/producers ought to realise though.)