TORCHWOOD...Episode 4...Spoilers!
Jul. 10th, 2009 02:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rabid1stHave you people ever noticed that I simply refuse to give up my perfectly good theories even after RTD has dumped cold water all over them?
And under the cut we go...
So, Ianto has died. And so has Clem and our heroes are running for their lives and the 456 can make, at least, some of their threats into real terror. I did have my doubts about Jack's (well, Ianto's) plan to just walk right in there and stand up to aliens who ride down from the heavens on a column of fire and can make kiddies speak in unison. I'm like, "Ianto, babe, I think we, at least, need a cloak of invisibility and a wheelbarrow to make this idea work."
While we were watching Episode 2 tonight, Jan asked me what the aliens were planning for Earth that could be so horrible and I said, "Well, they have that awesome power over all those children...imagine if they decided to make them all sing It's a Small World over and over and over again." :snicker:
The 456 appear to be some sort of parasitic (or symbiotic) creatures, perhaps living on the children as they "protect them" from aging. I was reminded of the children in Last of the Time Lords. Not the same scenario, true, but the same prosthetics, I think. And it is a delicate line for family television, showing people in government willing to sacrifice the under achievers. Do your homework, kids, or we will ship you off to the smelly alien ship. Poor old Albert Einstien wouldn't have made the cut for productive member of society. I wonder if Russell would have? RTD definitely comes from that working class background and he paints it in all its stupid glory. Loutish people with hearts of gold, taking their frustration out on the government vehicles. I, also, come from what would amount to "The Estates" and I am very familiar with people who have no hope of ever running the country. Sometimes those people turn out better than expected.
But, back to my theory and the cold water currently dripping off of it. Ianto fans will like it, because it means Ianto isn't really dead. He's only mostly dead. I believe that Clem was rejected, as I've said, because he has a hitchhiker onboard. I believe the hitchhikers are the natural predators for the 456...and maybe have a little of that mojo that makes kiddies live forever, too. So...as Jack and Gwen sit there, cradling each other...I fully expect Ianto to gasp and come back. Which would serve Jack right after all these times he's done it. That's what I would do anyway. I would have Ianto come back...and Gwen and Jack go...OMG! And this can MEAN something...but nobody knows what it means...until Clem also comes back. Clem, I think, could have more than just a hitchhiker onboard...he could know that the 456 don't like hitchhikers. And that will allow our heroes to defeat the bad guys.
Will Ianto simply go on with his hitchhiker? Which I feel would be very cool...especially if there is only one rejuvenation allowed or something. Or maybe the hitchhiker protected Ianto from the virus but not that soundwave and the soundwave knocked him into a near death coma.
Maybe I'm grasping at straws here...because I don't fancy a series without Ianto Jones in it. He was my favorite character in the first season of Torchwood. Rhys became my favorite in S2. I really don't care for the Torchwood people...even Jack often bores me. Like with the quoting and sometimes there is a little too much makeup and a bit too little true emotion from Jack. I like him when he's a rebel without support, though. I think it gives him a little more cockiness. With Jack...I sort of feel he deserves some of the warnings people deliver on his behalf. I only believed those from Rose when they were about the Doctor. Sarah Jane, btw, really cannot deliver those "Now you are in trouble" lines. <<--just an aside.
Personally, I want someone to deliver one of those lines about Rose. Jack would be a nice person to deliver it. Something like, "You all know me? What I can do? Well...she MADE me the way I am. You might want to avoid ticking her off."
Okay...back to the episode. I didn't find it disappointing, and I suspected I would. I really enjoyed the conference where the big shots decided who would lose their children. The expendable immigrants and the disinfranchised poor. Nobody at the table, though. This is serious peril...and a very nice turning point with Jack and Company taking charge and then being put in their place.
But I do see that given all they intend to cram into the NEXT episode...we are going to run short of narrative time and RTD will probably not be able to fit in all of those grand scenes he likes AND resolve all of this in a satisfactory manner. Such a shame I can never get my grubby fingers on his scripts before they are filmed. He really needs a light check on his reins. This set up we have here, needs about two more hours to wrap. That is, if he means to have Gwen in hiding recording desparate diaries...and then running for her life with Jack's son...and then saving the world. Not to mention giving full coverage to Forbisher's family and Jack's daughter and Ianto's neice and nephew, not to mention, mourning the fallen and such.
It's too much to cover...so, I predict we are all doomed to be disappointed. But then, I think Ianto isn't really dead...so you can't listen to me. :grin:
Rae
And under the cut we go...
So, Ianto has died. And so has Clem and our heroes are running for their lives and the 456 can make, at least, some of their threats into real terror. I did have my doubts about Jack's (well, Ianto's) plan to just walk right in there and stand up to aliens who ride down from the heavens on a column of fire and can make kiddies speak in unison. I'm like, "Ianto, babe, I think we, at least, need a cloak of invisibility and a wheelbarrow to make this idea work."
While we were watching Episode 2 tonight, Jan asked me what the aliens were planning for Earth that could be so horrible and I said, "Well, they have that awesome power over all those children...imagine if they decided to make them all sing It's a Small World over and over and over again." :snicker:
The 456 appear to be some sort of parasitic (or symbiotic) creatures, perhaps living on the children as they "protect them" from aging. I was reminded of the children in Last of the Time Lords. Not the same scenario, true, but the same prosthetics, I think. And it is a delicate line for family television, showing people in government willing to sacrifice the under achievers. Do your homework, kids, or we will ship you off to the smelly alien ship. Poor old Albert Einstien wouldn't have made the cut for productive member of society. I wonder if Russell would have? RTD definitely comes from that working class background and he paints it in all its stupid glory. Loutish people with hearts of gold, taking their frustration out on the government vehicles. I, also, come from what would amount to "The Estates" and I am very familiar with people who have no hope of ever running the country. Sometimes those people turn out better than expected.
But, back to my theory and the cold water currently dripping off of it. Ianto fans will like it, because it means Ianto isn't really dead. He's only mostly dead. I believe that Clem was rejected, as I've said, because he has a hitchhiker onboard. I believe the hitchhikers are the natural predators for the 456...and maybe have a little of that mojo that makes kiddies live forever, too. So...as Jack and Gwen sit there, cradling each other...I fully expect Ianto to gasp and come back. Which would serve Jack right after all these times he's done it. That's what I would do anyway. I would have Ianto come back...and Gwen and Jack go...OMG! And this can MEAN something...but nobody knows what it means...until Clem also comes back. Clem, I think, could have more than just a hitchhiker onboard...he could know that the 456 don't like hitchhikers. And that will allow our heroes to defeat the bad guys.
Will Ianto simply go on with his hitchhiker? Which I feel would be very cool...especially if there is only one rejuvenation allowed or something. Or maybe the hitchhiker protected Ianto from the virus but not that soundwave and the soundwave knocked him into a near death coma.
Maybe I'm grasping at straws here...because I don't fancy a series without Ianto Jones in it. He was my favorite character in the first season of Torchwood. Rhys became my favorite in S2. I really don't care for the Torchwood people...even Jack often bores me. Like with the quoting and sometimes there is a little too much makeup and a bit too little true emotion from Jack. I like him when he's a rebel without support, though. I think it gives him a little more cockiness. With Jack...I sort of feel he deserves some of the warnings people deliver on his behalf. I only believed those from Rose when they were about the Doctor. Sarah Jane, btw, really cannot deliver those "Now you are in trouble" lines. <<--just an aside.
Personally, I want someone to deliver one of those lines about Rose. Jack would be a nice person to deliver it. Something like, "You all know me? What I can do? Well...she MADE me the way I am. You might want to avoid ticking her off."
Okay...back to the episode. I didn't find it disappointing, and I suspected I would. I really enjoyed the conference where the big shots decided who would lose their children. The expendable immigrants and the disinfranchised poor. Nobody at the table, though. This is serious peril...and a very nice turning point with Jack and Company taking charge and then being put in their place.
But I do see that given all they intend to cram into the NEXT episode...we are going to run short of narrative time and RTD will probably not be able to fit in all of those grand scenes he likes AND resolve all of this in a satisfactory manner. Such a shame I can never get my grubby fingers on his scripts before they are filmed. He really needs a light check on his reins. This set up we have here, needs about two more hours to wrap. That is, if he means to have Gwen in hiding recording desparate diaries...and then running for her life with Jack's son...and then saving the world. Not to mention giving full coverage to Forbisher's family and Jack's daughter and Ianto's neice and nephew, not to mention, mourning the fallen and such.
It's too much to cover...so, I predict we are all doomed to be disappointed. But then, I think Ianto isn't really dead...so you can't listen to me. :grin:
Rae
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
I suppose it depends on how bleak it is
Date: 2009-07-10 09:13 am (UTC)I hate to be meta here...but the world can't end on Torchwood and then go on celebrating Christmas on Doctor Who later in the year.
Not that the meta necessarily means Ianto is going to come back...but...they do have to find a way to stop the 456, before the children are collected. And unless something comes flying out of left field...I believe Clem and/or the hitchhikers are our best bet outside of say...a rift shift reset or the 456 turns out to be one alien in serious need of a transplant...or...it dies of a simple cold virus...whatever.
You mention the 9/11 tragedy. And I remember just afterward, when some show tried this sort of melodramatic death. I thought about the simplemindedness of television writers...always pulling out the same stunt over and over again. There comes a time when the audience is numb to angst and tragedy. And melodrama is only entertaining to teenagers. Sure, maybe that's the demographic most television writers are trying to reach...but still...just change it up a little...allow for happy and irreverent endings as well as...oh, another sappy goodbye.
Not really disappointed in RTD...but this loss walks a very close line to the Joss Whedon record of one tragedy too many. It won't matter if Jack's heart is open or not...if nobody is watching the show. I do hope that Jack does get a chance to express some of the things the Doctor needs to hear. But...probably...RTD will be pressed for time...and so Jack will show up, shoot someone, and run away laughing.
Rae