rm | fandom top 5's, pt. 1

Top five things that would be different about Torchwood if [I] were the showrunner.

1. Solid chronology. I know that's insane in the Whoniverse, but I think Torchwood always suffered a lot from us never knowing when any event happened in relation to any other event. I've really just come to the conclusion that CoE takes place maybe a week after The Dead Line -- it's the only thing that makes sense, but I hate that we're all always left grasping around for these things. I know it rains a lot in Cardiff, but what fucking season is it?

2. More would have happened with "Ianto is a lying liar who lies" sooner. Cyberwoman was great, and letting that just sit for a while is smart. But we don't have hints of Ianto's dishonesties again except in: Fragments and From Out of the Rain, which actually just looked like a research error when it aired. We also get a sense Ianto might be a lying liar who lies because of the two different birthdays that exist for him, if you include tie-in material canon. I also always felt that the "master tailor" line felt wrong in my gut; I'm not sure why, maybe I've spent enough time on both sides of that equation that it just hit my antenna funny. But then, we never really get the confirmation of Ianto is lying liar who lies until the Debenham's moment. It's brilliant and completely re-opens the character for us. But I would have made sure it was seeded better and used it as a more significant plot point, especially since it's interesting that Ianto, the lying liar who lies, is also the only one who can bring the truth to the fore in Adam. I thought the show really wasted its possibilities on this front.

3. Play up Jack's alienness. Jack's first language isn't 20th century English, and his culture is not an earth culture. Sure he's been here a long time, and knows how to assimilate for all sorts of reasons, but we have Jack use all these awkward idioms ("the worst creatures you can imagine") and there are all these cracks about Jack's manners, and it would have been so easy with a line or two here and there, with an extra shot or two in any of the episodes that reference Boeshane, to really get the Jack is alien. I think reducing Jack being different down to either his sexuality or his immortality short-changes the character and the complexity of what Torchwood could be.

4. Have Euros Lyn direct everything. Really. He got much more nuanced performances out of Barrowman than anyone else who directs for Torchwood, and he was able to keep GDL's considerable skills focused and on target. His choices with sound and space were, I think, fantastic, and I wonder a lot about what he could have done for us in all those "monster of the week episodes."

5. Non-sexual love. This isn't about toning down the sex in Torchwood at all. This about the fact that the show is, in my opinion, at its finest in Jack's interaction with that guy that comes through the Rift on the plane. That serious, adult drama there in the conversation Jack has with him in the bar -- man to man, and more moving for Jack being queer and for it not being about that -- I would have really love to see that sort of love and affection explored in other places, including between the team (Tosh, we hardly knew you!) and being vocalized. Our culture is very "just friends" but often some of the hardest relationships are those that involve love without the expectation and recognition that comes with sex and family.

6. Yes, there's a six. I get a six, because six shouldn't even have to be on the list, but woah, less with the offensive South Asian portrayals/castings/plotlines. Torchwood is faily faily faily here, and that would not be happening if I ran the world or the show.

Top five peeves re. Deathly Hallows?

1. SNAKE BUBBLE TO THE HEAD. Really, it's not just that. It's that JKR took a narrative about outcasts and then made the popular kids into outcasts instead and threw out all the marvelous grey that was Snape's character by just making him a creepy stalker that couldn't get laid.

2. It wasn't ready for prime-time. It needed a tighter edit.

3. Remus. Tonks. Off-screen demise. WHUT?

4. Draco. Another chance for complexity in just a sentence or two thrown away.

5. One of the best moments in the book revolves around Kreacher, who explains that he did not die because his master told him not to. It's horrifying. It's brilliant (weirdly, I hate the house elves, and they get all the best moments in Deathly Hallows), but it's sort of thrown away in a mid-book bury and the people hearing the story don't even react to that part of it. There's no nice way to say this, but I felt like Book 7, in a series that's all about love, kinda proved everyone is actually a bigot, and not in a useful, teaching moment way.

Top Five Vehicles

Seriously? I don't even drive. This is hard work.

1. The Tardis.

2. An old-skool BSG Viper. Fuck yeah!

3. Okay, my favorite show when I was like eight, was Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. I don't remember what his ship was called, and I don't care, but it's going on this list, right here, right now.

4. That lovely little plane that comes through the Rift in Out of Time. Sweet.

5. The big triangular battleships in Star Wars (I am a bad geek, I don't know my terminology). There's a shot in one of the films in the first trilogy with two or three of them passing each other real close, like, it was was always breathtaking, so breathtaking to me.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

lefaym.livejournal.com

I know what you mean about chronology, and CoE is particularly difficult, as it seems like it was set in September 2009, which is also the best date for Lost Souls, and there was obviously a lot of time between them.

I've really just come to the conclusion that CoE takes place maybe a week after The Dead Line -- it's the only thing that makes sense

How did you work this out? Also, do you have any thoughts on when The Sin Eaters is set? I had the feeling that that was pretty close to CoE as well, since we have a reference to Rhys's new car.

Non-sexual love. This isn't about toning down the sex in Torchwood at all. This about the fact that the show is, in my opinion, at its finest in Jack's interaction with that guy that comes through the Rift on the plane. That serious, adult drama there in the conversation Jack has with him in the bar -- man to man, and more moving for Jack being queer and for it not being about that

Yes, so much this. The way that Jack and John Ellis interact is just beautiful. I wish they'd kept the deleted scene after John gets off the bus, having failed to produce the fare in the correct currency.

From:

rm.livejournal.com

I've not worked out the CoE/DeadLine timing at all, other than, the only way I can explain Ianto's "omg COUPLE" thing is if CoE happens right after The Dead Line -- so he's dealing with the fact that Jack's heard all that stuff he said, and everything seems fine, but like... does Jack not care, does Jack not take it seriously, does Jack love him? I can see The Dead Line (and also the events of the Sin Eaters, which I agree, also has to take place close by) being what sends Ianto into this whole "wait, for real? we're together?" thing. It's the only thing that makes sense to me emotionally.

From:

lefaym.livejournal.com

Yeah, I see what you mean. Though honestly, making sense of J/I in CoE emotionally is incredibly difficult, especially taking The Dead Line and The Sin Eaters into consideration. I mean, The Dead Line and The Sin Eaters make it pretty clear that Jack and Ianto sleep together most nights -- as in literally sleeping -- yet they don't know if they're a couple (and one minute Jack seems fine with "couple" and the next minute he hates that word). They've obviously spent a lot of time talking about personal stuff, if Ianto was surprised that Jack hadn't told him about 1965, and yet they sit on opposite ends of the couch in Day Three, their body language suggesting that they don't even want to be near each other. I remember when those stills came out, we all thought that they must be fighting at that point in time. I mean, I know there's the whole thing with Ianto being uncomfortable being intimate with Jack when Gwen is around from The Sin Eaters, so I can understand them not touching at that point... but why so very far apart? It's just... none of it seems to gel.

From:

rm.livejournal.com

I can, with effort, make it all work, but I sort of have to do fanfic to make it work.... But like, with the Jack and Ianto not touching thing on the couch -- since they're apparently not fighting, I have to think we've hit a point where Ianto is seriously emotionally distressed (he thought Jack was going to die for real, he's been in an explosion, he's freaked out by the 456, he had that weird interaction with his sister), and I think, if he goes to Jack.... he's going to be emotional and needy, and Ianto hates that he's like that -- so he's keeping clear, and Jack is being Jack -- a little self-absorbed, but also probably pretty used to seeing and heeding Ianto's "keep of the grass" behavior, at least when other people are around.

But it takes contortions to make it work, yeah.

From:

lefaym.livejournal.com

Yeah... there actually is a pretty strong case to be made that Ianto does distance himself when he's distressed, but still bottling, because he doesn't reach out at the end of Exit Wounds, nor does he in The Stolen Earth... but for some reason, it just feels wrong to me. It's very difficult to work around, because it's right there in the middle episode, and instead of anything that could be seen as relationship development, we just get this void.

From:

rm.livejournal.com

The only time we see him reach out to jack is in Episode 1, when jack's just had a death and Ianto gives him that awful awkward hug. But we never really see Ianto reach out to Jack on his own behalf, which is testament to just how nuts Ianto is.

Also, I think Ianto's ambiguity about the couple thing, tells us that no, they never got that weekend together that Jack mentions in The Sin Eaters.

(also, I'm dying for a fic about Jack and Ianto waking up the morning of Day 1, before they go to the hospital to deal with the hitchhiker-- just their lives ordinary, as close as they ever got).

Edited Date: 2009-08-09 01:27 am (UTC)

From:

lefaym.livejournal.com

Yeah, that hug... I remember reading in one of the TW magazines, someone who was allowed on set to watch that day of filming saying that they were told to do that take again and to "Hug like soldiers, not like lovers" -- so I'm wondering if the awkwardness was both actors attempting to do the "soldier" hug, when their initial instinct was to do the "lover" hug. Though we do see Ianto reach out again in Day Four, after Clem shoots Jack-- and in front of the others this time. But the thing is, we have no real sense of how he got from Point A to Point B there.

Honestly, it's like in Day One, Day Three, and Day Four, we see three completely different relationships portrayed by the same actors/characters. There's just very little emotional continuity there.

ETA:
(also, I'm dying for a fic about Jack and Ianto waking up the morning of Day 1, before they go to the hospital to deal with the hitchhiker-- just their lives ordinary, as close as they ever got).

It's Always Abrupt, When We--" by

lionessvalenti.

Edited Date: 2009-08-09 01:34 am (UTC)

From:

rm.livejournal.com

I sort of loved how awkward that came off, especially because Jack had this sorta "okay, wtf... oh Ianto's just weird, I'll run with it" look on his face. It cracked me up.

And yes... man, I was so so so so glad to see Ianto sitting with dead!Jack in that moment in Day 4. Again, in Ianto's mind, reaching out on Jack's behalf, not his own, although that's not actually true.

From:

lefaym.livejournal.com

I wish that they'd let John Fay write all of the J/I stuff in CoE, because I feel like he really got them, and he definitely got Ianto on his own very well in Day Two.