Top posted shorter version of Torchwood CoE reaction

[neadods]

Now that I've had a night's sleep, I'm slightly able to more distill my main objection to CoE. It's not Ianto's death. It's not the death of the Frobisher family. (I found that quite effective, actually.)

It's that after using the power of suggestion with the Frobishers, I was then asked to watch the lengthy death of a child. It's as if I went to rent an action film and found a snuff film in the box. Making me watch that makes me feel soiled.

And then I was supposed to feel for the pain of the person who killed him. Feel bad for poor widdle feelings of the man who did it, who made everyone around him feel *worse* because it was All About Him and not actually about the lover who died never hearing "I love you," the daughter forced to watch her son die instead of being mercifully knocked out, the confused and frightened boy being fried without even a quick "I'm proud of you. You're saving everybody" that might have let him go into his last moments confused but calm.

Cry me a river, Jack Harkness. They felt something too, but in your sudden and uncharacteristic monstrous selfishness, it's as if you don't realize that they're actually people too. Even Gwen and Rhys, the one consistent bright spot of CoE, get blown off because other people have nothing worth saying. It's All About You.

I miss the Jack Harkness who was admittedly shallow and selfish, but who made a point of telling the Doctor that he never, ever hurt people.

That said, I'm surprising myself by making Torchwood fic recs. Both are CoE epilogues, so spoilers for the entire miniseries.

wendymr's Seventh Circle of Hell
dark_aegis' Damaged Goods

Comments

[chickwriter.livejournal.com]

I miss the Jack Harkness who was admittedly shallow and selfish, but who made a point of telling the Doctor that he never, ever hurt people.

Ditto. I don't know what RTD was thinking when he went to this awful place with Jack--the senselessness of it.

Thanks for the recs, thought it may be a while before I can actually read them.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

They help. Especially D_E's.

[missbaxter.livejournal.com]

Amen to all of the above. I don't have a quibble with the whole thematic set-up of Jack killing Steven (it's got that awful, grimly compelling aspect to it, and I haven't watched enough of Torchwood to know whether or not it's a total character betrayal), but I do have HUGE reservations with the way it was presented. I found it to be both gratuitous and nauseating. The Frobisher family's death was tough to watch, but I at least thought that it was handled effectively and relatively sensitively in terms of violence onscreen. Steven's death was just...yeah...didn't need to see that. Really didn't need to see that. Thanks for your post, which deals with it much more coherently than I can manage.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Steven's death was just...yeah..

Gratuitous and nauseating are good words for it.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

This.

You have put your finger directly on one of the main things that was wrong with episode 5.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

And then I was supposed to feel for the pain of the person who killed him.

Basically what Orson Scott Card did with Ender Wiggin, then. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Davies is a fan.

Between Card and Whedon (another huge influence on Davies), we need to compile a list of writers who have ruined current genre storytelling (and I actually used to like Whedon, until I realized that his Emo dial has no setting lower than 11 and his much-vaunted "feminism" is actually as creepy as anything Larry Flynt could come up with).

[ladyfox7oaks.livejournal.com]

WHedon..... I should have known. >:/

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

"And then I was supposed to feel for the pain of the person who killed him. Feel bad for poor widdle feelings of the man who did it, who made everyone around him feel *worse* because it was All About Him."

Well, everything Ten does is also always about His Pain and not the consequences to anyone else, so frankly who's surprised?

[neadods.livejournal.com]

After 43 years, I'll cut the Doctor a hell of a lot more slack than Jack, although I'm still not too thrilled with what the Doctor is becoming.

[ladyfox7oaks.livejournal.com]

I still have hope that Moffat will save him.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I'm convinced that Moffat is going to go in a whole new direction. He can also do tortured - I've seen Jeckyll - but on the whole, I like his tastes more. If nothing else, he keeps the humor even in the darkness.

[fyrdrakken]

Interestingly enough, one of my thoughts after catching eps 4 and 5 last night was that Rusty had very deliberately broken the toy he'd created (Torchwood) so that Moffat or anyone else won't really be able to revamp it in the post-RTD era. Jack could still appear on DW, but since Moff created him anyway that's kind of less of an issue.

[ladyfox7oaks.livejournal.com]

Even then, it's still a broken Jack. And isn't Rusty still involved with Torchwood and SJA, even if he's leaving DW?

[neadods.livejournal.com]

He's the producer, and probably the owner. I'm assuming SJA's going to get a series-ending spike somehow too, just not such a grim one.

[ladyfox7oaks.livejournal.com]

Spike already guest starred on Torchwood...

[fyrdrakken]

I have no idea how much of a toehold in the Whoniverse Rusty is keeping -- I think there's something about him doing a DW movie later on, but I couldn't get the article to load so I'm having to guess based by the comments on the LJ post that provided the link. It would surprise me if he was expecting to remain actively working on TW and/or the SJA after handing on DW, so I'm not surprised at him killing TW and potentially SJA as well to keep himself from having to choose between keeping active in the Whoniverse and having to watch someone else playing with the toys he'd feel most possessive about.

[ladyfox7oaks.livejournal.com]

I suddenly have VERY cold shudders about what RTD might do to Sarah Jane....

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Except it's the kiddie show and he doesn't own the character, so he's not going to be able to be completely horrible to her.

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

At this point I just want whatever the Doctor's becoming in RTD's hands to be Over Now so we can start again anew. I get it, he's dark and uncompromising now. I'm bored.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

YANA.

[ladyfox7oaks.livejournal.com]

Me? I want one scene... just one! It doesn't even need to feature a whole person.

Just one hand, moving the wires together. How that would change the entire universe for the Doctor, and Jack, and everyone else.

[ladyfox7oaks.livejournal.com]

(For a point of context, "Genesis of the Daleks". Sorry- it just occurred to me that while it's on MY brain as the Key to this timeline, it probably isn't on everyone else's...)

[fyrdrakken]

The Doctor has a lot of points in his ledger on the side of "Not going for the practical solution that involves deliberately sacrificing someone else," allowing him to look nobly griefstricken when someone else saves the day with deliberate self-sacrifice. It was grimly fitting with Torchwood's massive collateral damage record that the final solution involved forcing someone to be the sacrificial lamb, but making the lamb in question be Jack's pastede-on grandson doesn't make up for his having been a part of handing over a dozen orphans forty years back.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

but making the lamb in question be Jack's pastede-on grandson doesn't make up for his having been a part of handing over a dozen orphans forty years back.

By the time you've got the guilt of what he did, and being unable to save them or Clem, and killing his own family, killing Ianto gets a little gratuitous.

[fyrdrakken]

Yeah, there's pretty much no point in doing it unless you're trying to write his character out of the universe so nothing else can be done using him.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I'm beginning to feel that the "clean slate" is really "scorched earth."

[mondyboy.livejournal.com]

Personally, I thought it was brutal and confronting. And no, I don't think you're meant to feel sympathy for Jack. I think you're meant to be angry with him. To even be disgusted by what he'd done. I think it's that sort of mixed emotions that make the mini-series work.

The idea of the anti-hero in Doctor Who isn't new though. The New Adventures played with this idea first, and there were a number of people as disgusted by the Doctor's actions in some novels as you are by Jack's action.

That doesn't make it any easier, but for one, I'm glad that RTD had the balls to actually go there. Jack is a flawed hero. Torchwood - the two previous series - have hinted at this. Now we see what Jack was and is capable of.

As for the 'snuff film' aspect of it. I think the horror of that scene worked within the tone of the previous episodes. It's not meant to be easy viewing. That said, I can see why a number of people would have found it offensive.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I'm supposed to be elsewhere, which is why I'm saving off every other comment to answer to, but this I don't want to wait on:

The New Adventures played with this idea first,

I know. There's a reason I don't read them.

It's not meant to be easy viewing. That said, I can see why a number of people would have found it offensive.

Remember that warning discussion a while back? The one about people putting their artistic vision over the sensibilities of the people reading their fic, and blaming the victims for reading things that upset them? IMO, RTD's pretty much gone there with every viewer. He didn't have to *show that* long and lovingly and in our faces and think he was being clever and edgy and it's our fault for not turning off the TV the moment Stephen was grabbed by the soldiers.

RTD wants to be like Joss? Well, congratulations, Rusty. I'm so offended by Dollhouse as "entertainment" that I won't touch another Whedon project for the rest of my life, and after RTD wraps up his other two Whoniverse shows - both aimed at younger users so I know the censors won't let him get that ugly again whether he wants to or not - he's also in my lifelong ban. Just like Joss.

[mondyboy.livejournal.com]

"I know. There's a reason I don't read them."

Fair comment. I adored them when I was at Uni and in my early 20s. It was the sort of thing that an angsty Uni Student like me, majoring in Philosophy, could get his teeth into. I think if I read them now I'd find them a lot less appealing.

"Remember that warning discussion a while back? The one about people putting their artistic vision over the sensibilities of the people reading their fic, and blaming the victims for reading things that upset them? IMO, RTD's pretty much gone there with every viewer. He didn't have to *show that* long and lovingly and in our faces and think he was being clever and edgy and it's our fault for not turning off the TV the moment Stephen was grabbed by the soldiers."

On relfecting I think that's a fair point. Which is why I'm not argue the point. All I can say is that I found that scene to be anything but RTD does kiddie torture porn. I saw it as confronting piece of TV.

That said, it's not what you're expecting. And I can see why that would have angered you. The last thing you expect to see is child graphically dying and the mother wailing over the corpse.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I think if I read them now I'd find them a lot less appealing.

I may like them more; despite what I'm ranting about now I'm more willing to tolerate dark stories than I was in college. But it's not so much the darkness as the fact that many of the ones I read were like early Torchwood - the authors were so thrilled at being beyond the censor restrictions that they forgot plot in the rush to play with sex and violence.

I saw it as confronting piece of TV.

That's how I would have classed Frobisher's storyline - at all times a man already damned trying to save what he could from the wreckage. Had this been just The Story of Frobisher, I would have adored it.

Having just typed that, I have to confront the bizarre fact that the reason I disliked the Torchwood miniseries is because it had Torchwood in it. O.o

[mondyboy.livejournal.com]

"Having just typed that, I have to confront the bizarre fact that the reason I disliked the Torchwood miniseries is because it had Torchwood in it. O.o"

Couldn't agree with you more. This story was never about Torchwood. It was always about Frobisher. And you're right, his final scene is far more affecting than the ending.

[mondyboy.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I pressed send before I finished my thought...

What I wanted to say is that storyline wibbles and wobbles everytime Torchwood appear. It's where all the plot holes and logic flaws live. And yet Frobisher's story really is a fantastic and dramatic arc.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Frobisher's story really is a fantastic and dramatic arc

Best part, IMO, which is why it would have worked best alone, with all the focus on him - the inevitable tragedy of a man who'd tried to do his best and was betrayed by everyone. Very Shakespearean. They could even have left the ambiguous ending of all the other kids being shipped off, and left the viewer to chew on that.

[ladyfox7oaks.livejournal.com]

"The last thing you expect to see is child graphically dying and the mother wailing over the corpse."

We don't NEED to see it. We can see it ANY time we want to by turning on the G*dd*mn NEWS of the Middle East! Every day brings us new headlines about how many civilians/bystanders/INNOCENTS were slaughtered today by walking/driving bombs. The news is FILLED with men and women wailing over the bodies of their loved ones, their own hearts torn out and their own souls destroyed.
We don't watch things like Doctor Who and Torchwood and Sarah Jane for more of the same Sh*t we get in real life.

I'm with Nea, Rusty's been put on my Banned for life list, and I hope he brings a rain slicker to Comic-Con, for the rotten tomatoes they'll be throwing at him.

[mondyboy.livejournal.com]

"We don't NEED to see it. We can see it ANY time we want to by turning on the G*dd*mn NEWS of the Middle East! Every day brings us new headlines about how many civilians/bystanders/INNOCENTS were slaughtered today by walking/driving bombs. The news is FILLED with men and women wailing over the bodies of their loved ones, their own hearts torn out and their own souls destroyed."

I think there's an interesting argument and debate here about the role of escapist fiction. I'm currently reviewing the SF work of Thomas Disch on my LJ, and it was quite clear from his stuff that he used SF to comment on the world - in his case Vietnam, the Cold War etc - and his feelings about life in general. His work is grim and sad and disturbing and death play a major role. Algis Burdrys and others, who believed that SF should be about hope and the future, hated his work.

Personally, I think good drama, whether it be Torchwood or Doctor Who, should, sometimes, be confronting and hard to watch. But that's me.

"and I hope he brings a rain slicker to Comic-Con, for the rotten tomatoes they'll be throwing at him."

And I hope that doesn't happen. It's one thing to ban someone, but it's another to vilify someone in public over what is, at the end of the day, a TV show. He's not George Bush, and there should be throwing of shoes.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I think good drama, whether it be Torchwood or Doctor Who, should, sometimes, be confronting and hard to watch.

I think that there is a line between drama and escapism, and that Torchwood and Who, both of which have a fairly well established reputation as escapism - sometimes with bite, but always escapism. If I wanted confronting and hard drama, I'd be watching something else.

[mondyboy.livejournal.com]

Agree with you on Who.

Torchwood I'm not so sure. But that's only because I don't think the show has ever had a steady direction. It's always been all over the place. I mean, it's not a hard stretch to think that a show that did a story on human cannibalism, or mind rape might do one which has a child dying painfully. Or maybe not.

But that's why I don't think children of Earth was actually Torchwood anyway.

(Sorry - html error first time)

[flaviarassen.livejournal.com]

I am glad that actual fans of the series feel this way.
I realize that I am no great loss to the producers, but no, I will never watch this show again.

Like the gov't guy couldn't have just put his kids in a car & driven around until after the deadline. No, the writers had to hit us over the head with a sledgehammer & have him kill his entire family instead of using a few brain cells. But that's just minor.

Like the writers - since they were pulling a last-minute "Vulcans can change time by standing on their heads & juggling" deus ex machina out of their collective rears - couldn't have come up with something less disgusting. Yes, I know that the whole episode was hammering it home that "Jack can't die, Jack needs to care, Jack needs to atone for handing over the children", but they didn't need to do this - because it didn't punish HIM - it punished everyone around him, especially his daughter & grandson. And I didn't see any real punishment for it. Maybe I'm thick. Maybe the actors weren't as good as they should have been. maybe the directing stunk. Whatever. It really masticated.

(As a side note - I remarked to The Hubby (tm) that I knew our 12 year old would throw herself in front of her little brother in a heartbeat - and once she found out what the plot was, she did say "Save [PuppyBoy] - let them take me instead." So yes, the whole "You're saving the whole world, we love you" bit would have realistically mitigated the awful writing just that much)

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[neadods.livejournal.com]

I realize that I am no great loss to the producers, but no, I will never watch this show again.

My sentiments exactly.

Actually, I liked Frobisher killing his family. (But then, I'd've really enjoyed the show if it was just about Frobisher.) At that point, there was no way out - the aliens were unopposed, his own PM had just sold him up the creek (I kept waiting for him to point out that they promised that the children of everyone at the table were safe) and even if by some miracle he did get the kids free, there were tapes of him selling out 10% of the kids and trying to keep his earlier bargain secret. No matter how it went down, the lives those kids had known was over. A bullet was at least fast.

it didn't punish HIM - it punished everyone around him

YES, EXACTLY! And yet we're supposed to feel badly for him, when it was his own series of poor choices that put him into that position in the first place and no attempt to realize how much he was hurting everyone around him all the worse.

So yes, the whole "You're saving the whole world, we love you" bit would have realistically mitigated the awful writing

It would have certainly helped me feel less that I was watching a snuff film. That and knocking out his daughter so she didn't have to watch the death of her son. A cold mercy, but still a mercy. Hell, considering the way Jack slings retcon around, I'm surprised he didn't do that to her and say he'd been one of the kids in a traffic accident.

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[flaviarassen.livejournal.com]

Of course, if Frobisher was so so worried about his future, why wasn't anyone else? Yeah, at the end, the PM realized he was done, but that was about all. And the nastiest one, the woman who narrowed it down to the "dumb kids" - she acted like she was gong to be taking over - as if she wasn't on tape acting even worse than the PM.

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[neadods.livejournal.com]

why wasn't anyone else?

Because he was the only one with a conscience?

I know someone who liked that the cold woman was taking over. I like to think that she'll be sold up the creek by the remains of Torchwood in 2 seconds flat.

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[flaviarassen.livejournal.com]

It doesn't tale conscience to know that you're screwed - the PM knew he was screwed - in the context of the story, she had to know it, too. Sloppy writing on their part.