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Torchwood: Dead Man Walking
I'm beginning to get the impression that the Torchwood production team sat down at the end of the last series and wrote a list of "Handicaps" and "Assets". Under "Handicaps" was a long list containing phrases like THEY'RE ALL USELESS and under "Assets" was written just Burn Gorman. He's certainly been handed almost consistently excellent material this season and he has risen to the challenge.
Sadly, Burn Gorman's excellent performance aside, this episode was an unwelcome throwback to season one signalled by the continuity announcer's intro "Captain Jack accidentally unleashes a primeval horror of vast power" (or words to that effect). In fact it was worse than a lot of season one; while Torchwood's plots often don't make sense in all sorts of ways I'm getting kind of used to that and although I may sigh and tut a little it doesn't affect my enjoyment too much, but Dead Man Walking just kept hitting me over the head with so much more does not make sense that this time it really did cloud my enjoyment. What a wretched waste of Martha Jones as well, side-lined for most of the episode and generally out of character in the rest.
More obvious to me, as a thirty-something telefantasy fan, than I suspect it was to most viewers was the unoriginality of much of it. "Do you think they'll put him in black contact lenses?" I said idly, followed 30 seconds later by "oh!". But I recall how effective this sort of low-budget special effect was in, for instance, Sapphire and Steel when I first saw it 15 or more years ago so it seems a bit churlish to forbid Torchwood from scaring a whole new generation of viewers with it. I also found the scene very reminiscent of Toby's possession in The Impossible Planet, also written by Matt Jones.
I have been interested, however, to contrast Owen's death with Stephen's in Primeval. In particular the fact that I found Stephen's death far less affecting despite the fact he's a far more sympathetic character. I think it boils down to unfulfilled potential. Owen appears on the verge of a new direction in his life. Stephen's story was basically over: he has discovered Helen was manipulating him; his flirtation with Abby had been completely dropped; and that's basically all we know about this hopes and aspirations. Obviously as soon as I discovered this episode's title I knew Owen wasn't really dead, though I'll confess that a secret part of me was hoping for a full on George Romero style zombie Owen, waste of Burn Gorman's talents as that would have been.
To end on a positive note, I like the fact that Torchwood is attempting a clear mini-arc here. It's something that sets it stylistically apart from its parent show in a more significant fashion than the sex and the swearing. It allows it to tell a type of story which isn't really available to Doctor Who; should compensate for Torchwood's more limited scope in terms of setting; and gives it the opportunity to be genuinely adult (i.e., expecting the audience to pick up a story from "previously on..." and to show that actions have consequences).
Sadly, Burn Gorman's excellent performance aside, this episode was an unwelcome throwback to season one signalled by the continuity announcer's intro "Captain Jack accidentally unleashes a primeval horror of vast power" (or words to that effect). In fact it was worse than a lot of season one; while Torchwood's plots often don't make sense in all sorts of ways I'm getting kind of used to that and although I may sigh and tut a little it doesn't affect my enjoyment too much, but Dead Man Walking just kept hitting me over the head with so much more does not make sense that this time it really did cloud my enjoyment. What a wretched waste of Martha Jones as well, side-lined for most of the episode and generally out of character in the rest.
More obvious to me, as a thirty-something telefantasy fan, than I suspect it was to most viewers was the unoriginality of much of it. "Do you think they'll put him in black contact lenses?" I said idly, followed 30 seconds later by "oh!". But I recall how effective this sort of low-budget special effect was in, for instance, Sapphire and Steel when I first saw it 15 or more years ago so it seems a bit churlish to forbid Torchwood from scaring a whole new generation of viewers with it. I also found the scene very reminiscent of Toby's possession in The Impossible Planet, also written by Matt Jones.
I have been interested, however, to contrast Owen's death with Stephen's in Primeval. In particular the fact that I found Stephen's death far less affecting despite the fact he's a far more sympathetic character. I think it boils down to unfulfilled potential. Owen appears on the verge of a new direction in his life. Stephen's story was basically over: he has discovered Helen was manipulating him; his flirtation with Abby had been completely dropped; and that's basically all we know about this hopes and aspirations. Obviously as soon as I discovered this episode's title I knew Owen wasn't really dead, though I'll confess that a secret part of me was hoping for a full on George Romero style zombie Owen, waste of Burn Gorman's talents as that would have been.
To end on a positive note, I like the fact that Torchwood is attempting a clear mini-arc here. It's something that sets it stylistically apart from its parent show in a more significant fashion than the sex and the swearing. It allows it to tell a type of story which isn't really available to Doctor Who; should compensate for Torchwood's more limited scope in terms of setting; and gives it the opportunity to be genuinely adult (i.e., expecting the audience to pick up a story from "previously on..." and to show that actions have consequences).
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John Barrowman's acting ability
Contractual requirement to put "lords 'n lords a shaggins" in
Contractual requirement to make plot consistent with 'Little Britain' (Dafydd is clearly the only gay in the village because the rest obviously moved to Cardiff)
Weevils (the television equivalent of rolling a random encounter in D&D and getting orcs again)
Assets:
Ability to occasionally borrow good stuff (e.g. Martha) from the parent series
Burn Gorman (you're absolutely right, and I hadn't noticed this until Bunn pointed it out to me after watching 'Adam')
Cardiff setting (a bit different, although it would be nice to see a slightly wider range of locations. How about Merthyr Tydfil?)
Special effects - the foggy Death was particularly good
Knowledge that if ever anyone is stuck for a plot, they can go and watch a random episode of Buffy or Angel and nick one.
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Pretty cast all of whom can either act well or are playing characters that clearly appeal to some segment of the audience. The only exception here is Eve Myles/Gwen, I don't think Myles' acting is bad by a long shot but its only occasionally really drawn me in and I can't off hand think of anyone I know who really identifies with the Gwen character, despite the fact she's supposed to be the viewpoint... but then most of the people I know are hardened SF fans and/or geeks of some description.
Viewing figures that made it the top show on its channel, clearly its doing something that is pulling the audience in - the trick is identifying what while trying to correct the structural flaws that were widely pointed out.
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As for the whole new generation business, I do have the feeling that Torchwood has a firm eye on that 7pm repeat slot now.
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If you didn't see BH when it was broadcast I thoroughly recommend it. Deserved every bit of the lavish praise it received.
** SPOILERS **
Other than that the whole episode was so like a bad roleplaying scenario - starting with the whole "lost gauntlet of tharg" premise - that I spontaneously yelled "flange!" at the screen when Martha 'magically' returned to youth at the end.
The attack of the twitching gaunlet was also so like the scene from The Evil Dead where Bruce Campbell is attacked by his own hand I couldn't help but laugh. Possibly not quite the reaction they were going for? - thought with Torchwood it's hard to tell.
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I actually also thought of face huggers from the Alien franchise, though that is hardly Torchwood's fault. A small girl of my acquaintance is going to be psychologically scarred when she finally sees one of the Alien films and realises the origin of one of the games we play.
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Flangy precognitive kid to provide info as needed, flangy dead guy powers, flangy monster faffing around being slow and secretive while the party work out how to defeat it, flangy weevils providing flangy tension on demand (though the situation being handled off-screen when the GM can't think of a way out for the hero isn't a roleplay thing, it would have been more RP if a flangy handily present UNIT force had broken into the church and rescued him because "they were passing" and "he looked like he needed help" and then they wandered off never to be mentioned again).
Though I have a certain fondness for flange, do you remember that time we forced Si Lloyd and Dave O'Neill to write an adventure as they went along starting with the immortal mission brief "I'm hiring you to find some... err... hideously... err... deformed... err.... things"
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For that to be really, really bad, the GM should have been rolling dice and consulting a table at every '...'.
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They placed an NPC with the party who, at a later point got to shout "Look a hideously deformed thing!" so we could identify the monster we were after.
I think we also met villages crying "oh no! we've seen hideously deformed things".
Hideously deformed things became something of a running joke for some time after that.
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Quoted for truth.