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

[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."