Torchwood - SPOILERS

[Shr'eshhhhhh]

I don't have a problem with LGBT characters in television shows. A large minority of people come under that umbrella and it would be lunacy to just ignore or worse still ridicule what is a diverse and complex group of individuals.

The problem I have with the way that LGBT characters are portrayed in Torchwood and to some extent Doctor Who is that A) they are all sexual predators B) the myth of universal bi-sexuality is preached as gospel.

At no point do you find a happy monogamous gay couple or for that matter a heterosexual single who won't bend if the price, temperature, direction of the wind etc, etc, is right.

Not all gay men are in open relationships, not all gay women look like girlband rejects and not all straight people want to 'explore their sexuality'.

Even Jack's eternal love in "Small Worlds" was somewhat diminished by the fact he was boffing half the British army the time and then left to travel with the Bad Wolf Strumpet and Doctor "whoops there goes my dorsal tubercle" Who.

I actually read a post on IMDB from a teenaged male...human saying that Torchwood was good just because it had attractive girl on girl action and he was hoping that there would be more female nudity in future episodes. (Oh get a porn video...the production values will proberbly be alot better!)

And yet RTD doesn't like anything too science fictiony because only boys like sci-fi?

They should have stuck to the old Doctor Who maxim of making a point of ignoring the subject of sexuality to comedic effect (...proberbly) or they should show it as it is, instead of giving us the Maxim Magazine Wrist Workout video.

[Garibaldi's Hair]

I agree completely about the way sex is handled in Torchwood, but from my perspective it is being handled in much the same way as I imagine any of the gay men I know would handle it ... and being a director of an HIV/AIDS charity many of my fellow directors over the years have been gay men.

I am not intending to pigeonhole anyone by saying that ... especially as most of the guys I know also fit (and reinforce) the unrealistic classic camp stereotype typified by John Inman back in the 70s ... but it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that RTD might go down that particular road in that particular way.

[Shr'eshhhhhh]

Your dislike for everything RTD is obvious, but it ignores the fact that he has so far only written one episode of Torchwood.

RTD created the show, oversaw tome meetings and directed the arc ingredients even into episodes that he didn't write. ( I doubt if the Mara reference in the PJ Hammond episode came from PJ for example)

As for my hating all things RTD that isn't the case.

I enjoyed his Queer as Folk and Second Coming (mostly).

I also loved "Tooth and Claw" and the character scenes he writes into even his most dire Doctor Who stories this is something he really has a grip on.

He just doesn't understand the mechanics of a 'fantastic universe' the same way that he does with the 'real' world.

He writes Doctor Who and Torchwood like he's writing a for a bad computer game. He sticks off switches to vital life support systems of a space station on a desk top where anyone could bump into it and hides the reboot button behind lethal spinning blades. He puts a button for retracting half a space ship walkway OUTSIDE the space ship for no better reason so that the Doctor can later throw object B at it and send alien ZZZ to his doom.

He also has said he doesn't like writing anything too 'science fictiony' because science fiction has a select following of only young men.
Why put the man in charge of two science fiction shows then? Especially a BBC cashcow like Doctor Who?

There is a Russell who should be in charge of Doctor Who and that's Gary Russell who co-ordinates and writes for the Big Finish audios.

I've just finished their UNIT series and I'm a third of a way through their Sarah Jane Adventures and they are doing everything Torchwood should be doing but aren't.

Major story arcs (not just people suddenly doing things out of character), sexuality dealt with in an adult way (not stories written by middle aged teenagers), strong female characters (who aren't written like men in frocks) and real cutting edge contemporary storylines.

Their Doctor Who and Gallifrey titles (though there are some duds) are on the whole vastly superior to their current tv cousins.
______

[Lunan]

Your dislike for everything RTD is obvious, but it ignores the fact that he has so far only written one episode of Torchwood.

it has been announced that Jack will apear in 3 of the final 4 eps of season 3(new) doector who

[Garibaldi's Hair]

Your dislike for everything RTD is obvious, but it ignores the fact that he has so far only written one episode of Torchwood.

[Shr'eshhhhhh]

Another rip-off episode.

Two classic Whedon episodes mangled to death plus yet another 'round about' date rape only the get out is that this time it's alien girl on asian girl action.

The only sequence that seemed to approach freshness was the scene from the would be killer dad's point of view.

I don't know why I'm rubber necking this car crash of a series.

Maybe RTD is putting something in the water.

[Lunan]

I noticed the reference to UNIT. They could return.

we saw unit in the first ep jack called them "amatuers"

jack is always using that damned universal cuff thingie, i still have the nastiest feeling that the doctor will show up for like 10 min in the final ep. just to give jack a major headache.

my other interesting thought is that we don't see another surviving time lord in Doctor Who (yet) but that we get one in Torchwood.

on a sidenote if you were offered a place working for torchwood would you take it?

oh yeah the ep. Tosh becomes telepatic and is nearly driven insane, she also has a lesbian love affair and we find out she has a crush on owen(why can't i meet women that interesting) oh and jack doesn't sexually harass anyone

[Andrew_Swallow]

I noticed the reference to UNIT. They could return.

[Garibaldi's Hair]

That very thought struck me watching last night's episode, which again I enjoyed but seemed to all come to a conclusion too quickly. I think 45 minutes is just too short to play out the stories ... and 13 eps is too short to subtley build an arc in the background.

Having said that, it is still certainly one of the best Brit "SF" shows we have seen in a long time. IMO.

[Lunan]

its the most damning thing about a 13 ep season, you have to move too fast on any arc issue and there MUST be references to the arc in almost EVERY ep

how is this weeks ep?

[Shr'eshhhhhh]

Although I enjoyed the latest episode for what it was I still think the series would be stronger if instead of being a catalogue of cliche' it turned the conventions of the various genres it dips into on their feet and made them run for their lives.

As a bit of modern Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyll-llantysiliogogogothic it would have been great to see the rednecks of the valleys have to confront their 'local' habits rather than just display them.

Rural types are always being portrayed as inbred sickopaths, it would have been fun if they had moved from the city to set up their dream comunity in the country(ahem)cide.

Or maybe Gwen could have shot during the type 40 mexican stand off scene and made Mrs Offaleater consume her beloved husband. Jack turning up at the end would really be spun around to find his team force feeding the local yocals their own instead of (yawn) saving the day with his lightning reflexes.

This series suffers as it's parent does from season too short to pull the sort of rabbit out like the Owen and Glen thing.

When Whedon or JMS does this sort of thing you'd have had forty odd episodes to build up the shock instead of the six in this show.

Perhaps I'm primed for too much but with RTD connected to the piece I guess I should have known better.

[Joe Nazzaro]

I have to say, I've been completely underwhelmed by what I've seen so far, but I'm also wondering how much of the show's uneven-ness is due to intereference from the BBC. So far, the edgy adult content-type show we were promised seems to be largely absent, and I know at least one person on the production who told me that certain elements had to be removed because the powers-that-be got cold feet. Could it be that they're getting buyer's remorse in the sense that they're now less interested in an edgy adults-only show, as opposed to Doctor Who II in a sense, where they could transfer the Who viewership, including the young kids? I guess the proof will be in the pudding, as we get closer to episode 13, where they would have had more opportunity to offer- ahem- input as to what they want to see. And if anybody thinks BBC executives can't have a major influence on content, all they have to do is dangle the second-season pick-up in front of the producers. Just something to think about.

[frulad]

I liked it. It played with the idea that some monsters don't have to come from outerspace/the rift/wherever.

[Andrew_Swallow]

Plot something is going around killing and eating people.

Lots of gore.

Review - forget it.

[Lunan]

i always seem to screw up the time diffrence