Torchwood mini reviews

[jedi_of_urth]

katesutton earlier was talking about if Torchwood was really worth watching and I said I'd be happy to say which episodes were worth watching and which belonged to the MST3K crew. Truthfully, pretty much all the episodes deserve a good deal of mocking, but here's my feelings on the episodes:


Everything Changes: Generally worth a watch, sets up the world Torchwood operates in, the world without the Doctor. Yes right from the beginning the Torchwood gang are the worst secret agents ever but hey, at least Suzie is in this one.

Day One: Well...there's an alien sex monster and the most significant appearance of The Hand. Not great, could probably be skipped.

Ghost Machine: Opinions seem divided on this one, I personally didn't care for it and it isn't vital to the story arc (such as one even exists), so I don't highly recommend this one but it's far from the worst episode of the season; which leads us to...

Cyberwoman: A contender for "So bad it's good" just for the amounts of mock it generates and has a cyberwoman fighting a pterodactyl. Awful episode, a shame for Ianto really, and I spend most of the episode wishing for a Rose mention to confirm what Jack thinks happened to her at Canary Wharf but really, this episode is good for a laugh that it takes itself so seriously.

Small Worlds: You know...this episode might work better now, since he have some knowledge of how Jack's timeline fits together which they seemed determined to keep as blurry as possible in TW and that's made me angry at this episode. Worth a watch at some point but not must see TV.

Countrycide: I love a pun-tastic title, but I do not love this episode, I don't even really like this episode, I can't even really make a big deal of it. It's rather...gross, and not a great story all around.

Greeks Bearing Gifts: I actually do rather like this one, featuring Tosh, Torchwood's least screwed up employee, as the one to get the best standalone character episode (except maybe Small Worlds but they're quite different). Sure the plot doesn't hold up under close scrutiny, but it sure doesn't suck.

They Keep Killing Suzie: This, to be honest is pretty much the Torchwood I expected. Dark themes and morally questionable decisions with no good ending and Jack's been shagging the pretty secretary. And PC Swanson gets to mock Torchwood for their incompetence, someone needed to (though no one calls them on driving around in a car with their name printed on it).

Random Shoes: If you liked 'Love and Monsters', you might enjoy this, I have a hard time saying because I didn't like L&M and this lacks Jackie's charm; and even lacking the "so bad it's fun" quality of Cyberwoman.

Out of Time: I'd also recommend this one, it's a fairly...sedate episode about people being lost in time, but I actually did care about what happened and the story was much better than average.

Combat: Weevil Fight Club (I actually had to stop to remember the real title, I always think of it as Weevil Fight Club). It's actually not a bad episode, not one of my favorites, but not bad, it's just so mockable because, like I said, Weevil Fight Club.

Captain Jack Harkness: Torchwood meets GitF and as far as I'm concerned does it much better (which is a bit underselling it as I have substantial dislike for GitF). It's a rather sad, moving, and exciting story, introducing Torchwood's second most interesting bad guy, after Suzie. And about big gay love in WW2.

End of Days: Watch it, marvel at the continuity glitches with 'Utopia', but remember that when watching it the first time it was still months before Jack came back to DW so the end was exciting. I consider this one worth a watch because, kind of like most of the show, it tries even if it fails to live up to it's potential. It's not good, but it's at least kind of important.


And that's a summery of my thoughts on Torchwood. Mostly, it isn't good, a lot of the time it is in fact bad, but it's pretty and there's some good stuff scattered in there, most of it in the second half of the season (note, once Chibnall basically stopped writing episodes until the finale). But I think it still has the potential to be good, I hope one day it lives up to that.

And thus concludes Jedi's (Current) Guide to Torchwood.

Comments

[dettiot.livejournal.com]

Is it Day One or Ghost Machine which has the scene with Jack teaching Gwen how to fire guns? Because that scene's worth a watch, because Jack + lots of guns = GUH. And I'm not a gun girl or anything like that, he's just friggin' hot in that.

[jedi_of_urth]

Ghost Machine, and yeah you're right, that bit is pretty hot. Ghost Machine is decidedly middle of the pack for me, it doesn't suck as much as a lot of the episodes, but it's not great.

If I was strictly commenting on the pretty/hot/sexy factor of the episodes the rankings might be different.

[katesutton.livejournal.com]

Oo, thanks! I kinda liked Ghost Machine(huh..that was almost good!), but it may have been in contrast to the utter meh-ness of Day One. What I really want to know at this point is whether Ianto has any discernable personality. I mean, really. He totally is the semi-hot secretary and that's it.

[jedi_of_urth]

Like I said, I don't find Ghost Machine *bad* by any means, I just don't care for it. It is kind of interesting, but I think part of my problem is I started watching this show for Jack and that episode is rather light on Jack, Day One at least has extreme hand porn. I get the need to establish the other characters, but Owen never pinged with me until Out of Time (yeah I'm susceptible to sap).

And Inato...not too much distinct personality that I've defined. It was too bad that his character episode was Cyberwoman which was much more about the cyberwoman (in heels and a metal bikini) "plot" even if it involved Ianto than Ianto himself. He's vaguely snarky, makes up silly rhyming names for alien artifacts they find, has a stopwatch fetish, and at some point decides to sex Jack (why? who knows). Mostly he's the pretty secretary so far.

Glad you got something out of my opinions.