Well hump me sideways, another improvement - I was fully expecting the pattern of “alright-bad-alright-bad” to make a return this week (with the expected “bad”), but no such misfortunes have occurred.
So, first things first - last week got 500+ complaints on account of the gay love scene. The complainant groups are insisting that it’s nothing to do with fact that the scenes were homosexual in nature, but that they weren’t “suitable for children” and “Not essential to the story”.
On the first point; this is a post-watershed program with a sexual content warning before it starts, Of course it’s not suitable for children! That’s the point of putting it after the watershed and saying “this isn’t suitable for children” before it starts. If you don’t think sex scenes are appropriate for children, how about getting the children to leave the room, when you’re warned about them or change the channel or turn the television off.
I get so fucking sick of people who think that the BBC has some sort of responsibility to impose morality on people and make programs ‘safe’ for all ages. This group of people, as summed up by the parody in the Simpsons can be referred to as the ‘think of the children’ group and they are some of the most logically flawed people in the world. They are a group of people seemingly motivated by the idea that they are not responsible for ensuring that their children develop healthy morals, instead believing that wider parts of society and media entertainment should take on the burden. Their constant motto of ‘think of children’ can be countered by a simple turn in the phrase, along the lines of ‘why don’t YOU think of YOUR children.’ It is not the BBC’s (or any other channels) responsibility to make a program designed for adults safe for children. Warning is given and the program is aired after the watershed - so anyone who shares the not suitable for children line, should go ahead and take a look at the fact that the BBC said it wasn’t suitable for children. If they let their children watch it, it’s their own fault not the BBC’s.
On the other point - not essential to the story? Could the same story have been told without the sex scene? Possibly, but it would have been harder and taken a lot longer to get through. When you’re writing a love story for television, depicting sex is frequently the fastest method of establishing the extent of a relationship. Plus, the element of sex cropping up in this case actually makes the love story far more believable. The majority of relationships begin with attraction (the minority being arranged marriages and such) and part, if not all, of that attraction is sexual. The presence of sex makes the relationship between Jack and Anjelo a hell of a lot more plausible than for example the “relationship” between Rose and the Doctor – and I’m not saying that there should have been sex in Doctor Who, just that the relationship between Rose and the Doctor was completely devoid of any kind of sexual attraction, which made it seem contrived.
But here I am yelling about sex and such and everybody who hasn’t stopped reading already is probably wondering what I thought of this episode. It was pretty good; so for anyone keeping score, in the last six days we’ve had a pretty damn good episode of Doctor Who and a pretty damn good episode of Torchwood, meaning the table now reads: Moffat – 6, Davies – 1.
The strength of this episode comes from the fact that it starts acting like Torchwood again. For the past few weeks we’ve had a CIA/outlaw thriller intersected by random rip-offs from popular American shows. Now, we’ve got a shiny piece of alien technology doing what alien technology does best in Torchwood, setting up the plot of the episode. The ‘null field’ is a nice reminder that this series is a relative of Doctor Who and the way that Jack protects it brings back memories of the good old days when Torchwood ran the show.
Incidentally, there is a great performance by John de Lancie as a high up CIA agent. Anyone who ever watched Star Trek: The Next Generation will recognise parts of his arrogance as that of “Q” and might accuse him of playing basically the same character as he did opposite Patrick Stewart, but hey Q was a pretty damn entertaining character in that show and if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
We finally see Oswald Danes crack and get some sense that things are starting to move against him - It was starting to get ridiculous having a paedophile running around amassing followers with no one trying to get him thrown back in prison or kill him.
There was one thing I didn’t like and that was Gwen, When De Lancie’s character gets tired of her and orders her deportation, she effectively has a strop, knocking stuff on the floor as she goes and yelling at people. So as well as being liable to turn into terrorist, given the right stimuli, apparently, when provoked, Gwen will also turn into a fourteen year old, if John de Lancie tells her she’s been misbehaving. Look, I like Gwen, she’s a good character and I’m sure she’s instrumental in teaching mainstream America that Wales exists, but I’d just like this kind of behaviour to be toned down. It’s immature and kind of strips the character of all dignity, more than anything else she’s starting to remind me of an angry football hooligan.
Her reaction gives off the impression that de Lancie was right to deport her; I wouldn’t want to work with someone whose going to keep crucial bits of information from me and then have a tantrum when I come up punishment for trying to sabotage my investigation. And to be fair, Gwen acts like a child for most of this episode and really pisses me off. “No I’m not English and no I’m not a girl” – well don’t act like a fucking little girl then.
But this does raise one good question. Is there a narrative reason that Gwen’s being sent back to Wales? We know that Anjelo salvaged the null thingy from the Torchwood hub in Cardiff - is there any more alien tech knocking about in the Welsh capital? Does the hub have some sort of TARDIS like ability to repair itself, so it can play a role? Is the Cardiff rift involved in the miracle?
Oh and I was wrong about Jack’s blood, but I’m happy about that - if it was that easy to make an immortal, then the old Torchwood would have had Jack hooked up to a blood harvester the second they figured it out.
We have two more episodes left and to be honest, I’m excited about them. As far as this one goes, it’s good - alien tech, solid story and good tense ending.
Oh and preview thoughts - “corner of your eye” – anyone else thinking a perception filter has some role to play?
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