Torchwood: Fragments

[purplecat]

I feel about this episode much like I feel about the first in the season, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. It was nicely done, there is nothing much wrong with it from a logical perspective (beyond the implausibility of everyone surviving) but in the end it all added up to a big "meh" for me. I can't even work up the energy to get upset about the portrayal of UNIT which I gather is exciting much of the rest of fandom, but which doesn't actually seem that offensive to me unless you get offended by criticism of the modern approach to counter-terrorism in general (though I do wonder why a) UNIT is involved in terrestrial counter-terrorism (there was no suggestion of anything extra-terrestrial or paranormal in the secrets Tosh stole), b) why Tosh's theft was considered so particularly egregious that she was to be made an example of and c) what the point of making an example is if it has to be a secret example since UNIT's powers are presumably not public knowledge)... I see that now I'm actually writing this I'm starting to note logical flaws after all).

Flashback episodes, especially origin flashback episodes, are the staple of many TV series but, in my opinion, they work best when the flashbacks are restricted to exploring just one character's past allowing that character to actually get fleshed out a bit and work even better when the content of the flashback is relevant in some way to the framing story. Neither is the case here. As such it worked out as four mini-Torchwood episodes and I suspect the lack of internal inconsistencies derives in part because its harder to lose track of plot and character logic in a 10 minute story than it is in a 45 minute one. It does suffer from Torchwood's overall lack of consistency. Tosh and Owen's stories should have been pre-figured in Adam, at the very least, if not in the season 1 finale.

This is an episode of Torchwood where they get very little wrong but, at the end of the day, they don't get a great deal right either.

Comments

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

Torchwood really, inside its soul, wants to be a US series with a 22-episode run. Ideally, we would have had separate episodes dealing with the backgrounds for Tosh, Owen, Ianto and Jack. As it is, though I found Fragments great viewing on its first run, I found that I didn't want to sit through it all again when it was shown again on Friday. The Captain Jack sequences were the most interesting, because I found they fleshed out the Torchwood universe more than the others.

[purplecat]

A Torchwood through the ages story, well-handled, could be really good but I didn't feel we got that here (and now I'm thinking about it closely some logical flaws are cropping up in that segment too, so I'll stop thinking too closely about it). An episode each would have been a better idea, I think, but even a US series wouldn't give you all four in one season and one hopes a US series would have the sense not to just make up important background details that should really, really, have been in the character outlines all along (but which presumably weren't, otherwise we'd have heard at least hints of them before now).

Goodness, Tosh's story, would have packed much more of a punch if we'd all been wondering why she seemed to have such a problem with Martha and if a few comments had been scattered through past stories about how she had no choice but to work for Jack and so forth.

[(Anonymous)]

one hopes a US series would have the sense not to just make up important background details

Actually I suspect they would: for just one example, there's the character of Barlett on The West Wing where his best friend insults economists to his face before the episode revealling that Bartlett is a prize-winning economist, the MS thing which was as far as I am aware invented for a particular episode halfway through the first season (and which later become a major plot, but which was not present in the character from the beginning) and the relationship with his father, which was not hinted at (because it wasn't decided) until the writer decided to do a flashback episode with the father.

Indeed, I think I have read something by the writer where he specifically advises against putting much detail in the original character outlines, using the father thing as an example. If Bartlett's relationship with his father had been in the character outline and referred to on screen before, it would have been harder to then rewrite it when he had the idea for the flashback episode, which is one of the high points of the whole run. Whereas having not mentioned it at all meant he had a blank canvas to paint on in the flashback episode.

I'm not sure I agree with that position wholeheartedly, but it does show that at least a major player (well... someone who was once a major player; we should wait and see what happens to him now) in the US TV scene is very much of the 'just make up important background details' school. And based on veiwing of series like Ally McBeal I suspect David Kelly works the same way, starting with a knowledge of the character's voice and writing that and only filling in background details as and when he comes up with them, which is usually in conjunction with coming up with the story for a particular episode. And he definitely is still a major player.

For example if Toshiko's background had been in the character outline and referenced in series one, then it would have been harder for them to do her segment of 'Fragments' tying in to the heavy hints being dropped about the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (as it shall always be properly called, and shame on the BBC for bowing to pressure to try to change it) being a darker presence in the next series of Doctor Who. So they presumably left it blank, in order that if they came up with a good idea later on that tied into a story they were doing they could fill it in then (and then they didn't come up with any good ideas so they did the nonsensical bit in 'Fragments' instead).

(Oh, also: The West Wing also did do all the 'how they met' stories in one (admittedly two-part) episode at the beginning of series two).

S.

[purplecat]

OK, so it looks like I'm going to have to retract that remark.

I can forgive most of this stuff not being brought up in series one but it is extremely inelegant of Torchwood to do an entire episode based around the links between memory and personality (Adam) within the same season as Fragments without making sure the two are telling a consistent story. Similarly if you are going to give Tosh this sort of back story then you would expect her, within the same season, to display some sort of reaction to the appearance of a UNIT officer.

I'm not sure why it is, but Torchwood does seem to lurch around like this, though this is an extreme example. lil_shepherd would probably say its because the editorial staff can't be bothered to make this sort of thing consistent. Judging by things RTD has said it may be because they are afraid of alienating casual viewers (though I would have thought some sort of subtle foreshadowing of these kinds of revelations would be exactly the sort of low-key linking you would look for if you are aiming both to please your long-term viewers without alienating your casual ones). Whatever the cause Torchwood seems to explicitly fail to reward long term viewers.

[(Anonymous)]

You won't find me defending the elegance of 'Torchwood'!

Given the lack of care they take about consistency within stories, I think I might tend towards the 'can't be bothered to make this kind of thing consistent' argument: or more precisely, they deliberately are aiming for an audience that doesn't care about consistency. My parents watch every episode of Torchwood and wouldn't even begin to notice whether Tosh reacted to a UNIT officer in episode blahdy blah as you might have expected her to given the revelation umpty episodes later (and I know 'cause I watched'Fragments' with them).

And there's more people like my parents than those that would notice.