Torchwood: Sleeper

[purplecat]

I didn't really watch Sleeper with my full attention but with sort of half an eye while I sorted some stuff out on my laptop. So I spent some time thinking there was a reason why Beth kept her identity after the other sleepers lost theirs. Perusal of the internet today suggests I hadn't missed anything after all.

So, my not paying full attention impression, was that finally the Torchwood team had met a threat that was even more rubbish than they were. Given that the sleeper's plan was to blow up Cardiff, it wasn't clear why they bothered with all the Kill the Councillor/blow up the roads stuff - with the added idiocy of blowing themselves up at the same time. So, the aliens were rubbish tacticians unless... its all a cleverly foreshadowed plot.

Of course the upside of this was that for pretty much the first time ever the Torchwood team came across really well. The mind probe scenes showed them unafraid to disagree with Jack, but prepared to obey him nevertheless. Gwen's role as the "heart of the team" was finally put to good use whereas, in the past, I've felt we were told a lot in publicity about how "human" she was, but in the show this most appeared to involve getting taken in by people like Suzie (I could say the same for Rose, actually, much was made in the pre-publicity about her humanizing the Doctor and teaching him things like compassion, but I never really felt we saw much of that in the show itself). No one was conspicuously stupid, mutinous or ineffectual - which I think is a first for the show.

Now all they have to do is actually engage my interest a little more...

Comments

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I had much the same experience as you (I was trying to put the chapters of a novel length fanfic I wrote and published 12 years ago in Wordpro into order so I can send an rtf file to a lady in Oz who has just discovered this particular fandom and is desperate for fic). I watched the cut version tonight, which lost nothing by the removal of the graphic slaughter, much of which was gratuitious - and, as usual, the plot made no sense. The inefficiency of the soldiers was awe inspiring too. It was all emotion and no logic.

That said, my tolerance of Gwen is much higher than it used to be...

[purplecat]

I obviously view things through different filters to many. There was graphic violence? My memory is that there was a lot implied but relatively little actually shown - didn't we see arms moving a lot but not entry and exit of the blade in the body? - or was I just looking away at the wrong moments?

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I was very disappointed. Not one person cried out "Oh no! Not the mind probe!"

[bunn.livejournal.com]

... I think I can explain the identity thing. When they de-activated her the first time to put her in the freezer, they also zapped her with the zappy thing that was supposed to turn off 1) armour 2) network 3) internal hardware.

3) didn't work, but she did go offline and lose her magic armour thing. Therefore, when the others lost their identity, she didn't because she wasn't online. I was assuming that her going offline was what triggered the rest of them, though I don't think that was explicit.

I thought it was fun.

[purplecat]

Oh! that makes sense, the zappy thing was one of the bits I didn't take in properly because I wasn't paying attention.

I know I didn't give this episode a fair crack at the whip since I did other things at the same time so, for the record, I should probably say that so far I think this season of Torchwood has been a good deal better than last. It lost a lot of good will last year though, and its going to have to do better than this before I approach it with any real sense of enthusiasm. Unfair, yes, but life's short.

[earlybird42.livejournal.com]

philmophlegm, Tosh did in fact say in this episode "I thought we weren't allowed to use that anymore".

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

It's not the same...