Torchwood: Day Five
Jul. 10th, 2009 03:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
masterofmidgetsI've followed the reaction posts very closely, so I more or less know everything that happened in Children of Earth. I'm not going to watch Day Four. I'm not going to bother downloading Day Five. Thoughts:
1. If RTD wanted to make a show about how governments and politicians are evil, he could have done that without slapping the Torchwood label on it. And really, where was Torchwood in this? They don't have the Hub, they don't have the SUV, they don't have Janet and Myfanwy, they don't even have Cardiff. This miniseries, as good as it is, has so little in common with the Torchwood I've loved it might as well have been a different show with the same actors.
2. Are they going to do a series four? I don't really give a fuck. I won't be watching it regardless, since I can't stomach the idea of the Gwen Cooper is Awesome Look How Awesome She Is Show, as much as she has kicked ass this week. She's still been written too unevenly for me to want to bother. And I'm not going to get attached to new characters when I know they'll be killed off the next time Torchwood needs to prove how GrimnDark it is. As far as I'm concerned, canon ended on Wednesday, and everything after that is a hallucination. Sons of Don can be canon instead.
3. Why is it that, in a show about sacrifice and personal loss, Gwen Cooper is the only one who never has to give anything up? There are never any consequences for what she does. When she slept with Owen she kept him as a friend even after they stopped. She got the absolution of confessing to Rhys without having any fallout because she drugged him. Her attraction to Jack doesn't stop her from getting married, and getting married doesn't stop her flirting with her boss with no repercussions. She's never the one who has to bear the emotional burden when things go bad at Torchwood; the guilt is always on Jack, or Ianto, or Owen, or Tosh. She gets to keep her baby and go back to her life at the end of CoE. She gets to live. Why?
4. Way to go on killing everything I've liked about Torchwood. Jack is unrecognizable - weak, cold, ruthless, a coward who runs away because he can't face what he did. How can he be a hero any more? Or more importantly, how can he be anything but another post-DKR Batman clone, another Grim and Gritty Hero with a dark past he can't forget? I'm so sick of that trope. I'm so sick of the hopelessness in modern media. I'm so sick of the idea that being grown-up means your show can't be happy or fun. Everyone has to die. At least series two ended with a note of hope, because even in the wreckage they could still cling to each other. But now they have nothing. I hate it.
5. Comic-Con is going to be ugly for RTD. I don't think he realizes just how much so. I'd almost feel sorry for him (and I DON'T advocate harrassment or physical violence, because NO NO NO BAD), but this series showed how much contempt he has for his fans. Not just that he killed off the favorite character of a large portion of the fanbase, but that he did it in a way that was unneccessary and contrived, making it clear the whole point was to get Ianto dead. And because for months he went on about how this series was going to be great for the Jack/Ianto shippers, it really moved the relationship in a new direction, we were going to love it - that's just cruel and mean-spirited. So yeah, Comic-Con will be bad.
In conclusion, Children of Earth was a well-written (until tonight), very well-acted, exciting, intense, gut-wrenching mini-series that I am now devoting a lot of energy to pretending never happened.
1. If RTD wanted to make a show about how governments and politicians are evil, he could have done that without slapping the Torchwood label on it. And really, where was Torchwood in this? They don't have the Hub, they don't have the SUV, they don't have Janet and Myfanwy, they don't even have Cardiff. This miniseries, as good as it is, has so little in common with the Torchwood I've loved it might as well have been a different show with the same actors.
2. Are they going to do a series four? I don't really give a fuck. I won't be watching it regardless, since I can't stomach the idea of the Gwen Cooper is Awesome Look How Awesome She Is Show, as much as she has kicked ass this week. She's still been written too unevenly for me to want to bother. And I'm not going to get attached to new characters when I know they'll be killed off the next time Torchwood needs to prove how GrimnDark it is. As far as I'm concerned, canon ended on Wednesday, and everything after that is a hallucination. Sons of Don can be canon instead.
3. Why is it that, in a show about sacrifice and personal loss, Gwen Cooper is the only one who never has to give anything up? There are never any consequences for what she does. When she slept with Owen she kept him as a friend even after they stopped. She got the absolution of confessing to Rhys without having any fallout because she drugged him. Her attraction to Jack doesn't stop her from getting married, and getting married doesn't stop her flirting with her boss with no repercussions. She's never the one who has to bear the emotional burden when things go bad at Torchwood; the guilt is always on Jack, or Ianto, or Owen, or Tosh. She gets to keep her baby and go back to her life at the end of CoE. She gets to live. Why?
4. Way to go on killing everything I've liked about Torchwood. Jack is unrecognizable - weak, cold, ruthless, a coward who runs away because he can't face what he did. How can he be a hero any more? Or more importantly, how can he be anything but another post-DKR Batman clone, another Grim and Gritty Hero with a dark past he can't forget? I'm so sick of that trope. I'm so sick of the hopelessness in modern media. I'm so sick of the idea that being grown-up means your show can't be happy or fun. Everyone has to die. At least series two ended with a note of hope, because even in the wreckage they could still cling to each other. But now they have nothing. I hate it.
5. Comic-Con is going to be ugly for RTD. I don't think he realizes just how much so. I'd almost feel sorry for him (and I DON'T advocate harrassment or physical violence, because NO NO NO BAD), but this series showed how much contempt he has for his fans. Not just that he killed off the favorite character of a large portion of the fanbase, but that he did it in a way that was unneccessary and contrived, making it clear the whole point was to get Ianto dead. And because for months he went on about how this series was going to be great for the Jack/Ianto shippers, it really moved the relationship in a new direction, we were going to love it - that's just cruel and mean-spirited. So yeah, Comic-Con will be bad.
In conclusion, Children of Earth was a well-written (until tonight), very well-acted, exciting, intense, gut-wrenching mini-series that I am now devoting a lot of energy to pretending never happened.