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fangrrl_squees) wrote2006-10-30 03:41 pm
fangrrl_squees) wrote2006-10-30 03:41 pm
Entry tags:
Torchwood - Ghost Machine. Further Thoughts.
As ever, I'm probably going to miss the nuances of this one until I've watched it a couple of times. For a film-school grad, I'm surprisingly oblivious to subtleties in the form, sometimes. This probably explains why film theory classes bored me to tears most days, but never mind that.
Technically, I think that Ghost Machine was a marked improvement over the first two episodes. The pacing fit the story, the production values were good - the effects associated with the machine-de-plume were evocative and not heavy-handed. The scoring seemed more deftly done - not the usual box-o-string-section that the composer is usually fond of (was it a different musical director this time, perhaps?) and just, overall, the show seemed more polished.
The story is, as ever, a bit simple and straightforward, but it was well told and I'll take a well-told tried-and-true tale over a new story that's badly presented.
I liked the twist at the end, with Morgan using Gwen to kill himself and thus fulfilling the potential future espied by Gwen - but leaving Bernie's future still unresolved. A little bit of unresolution is good. However, I could have skipped the homily from Jack at the end. As mentioned in an earlier post, I hope this doesn't become a habit - Jack wistfully telling Gwen and the gang to be human/to make lemonade/to get ready for the big changes, etc etc.
Once again, individual characters have me chewing thoughtfully on my lower lip and - honestly - wanting to sit the actors down and ask them lots and lots of questions about their particular insights re: their character's motives.
Jack - swinging from business-minded hardass (most of the story) to raunchy flirt (gun pron!). Is one to compensate for the other? Again, there are moments where Barrowman's delivery and body-language tiptoe on the verge of campiness and, dammit, I don't know enough about the man himself to know if this is an example of excellent or lousy acting on his part. A half-smirk here, the line delivered with a casualness belying its importance, there. It's ambiguous and driving me nutty, in a slightly delicious way. Character ambiguity means I can righteously work myself into a froth of speculation, and I love that stuff as you must know by now. But, meanwhile, I want to know what is Barrowman trying for in his approach. If anyone stumbles across some nice, scholarly interviews about Barrowman's dissection of the character - although I doubt any such thing will exist before the end of season one, at the earliest - do let me know.
(I swear, one of the reasons I dig RPGs so much is that I can exercise all that nifty stuff I learned from the Method without, y'know, actually acting)
Gwen - Aww, dear sweet gal, heading for an emotional train-wreck that we can see from a mile away. One thing that really helped my opinion of this eps was the scene when Gwen used the ghost-machine in her apartment and relived positive scenes of her and Rhys, and that clearly helped her step back from the potential abyss that is flirting-with-the-boss. As the character was, essentially, sharing this eps with Owen, I've not much more to say about her, other than I think the actor overdid the histrionics a bit after Morgan's death. Still liking the character, still rooting for her to fall in bed with anyone but Jack (too obvious). I know she does fall in bed with a certain someone, but disclosing that crosses my personal line for spoilers in a public journal, sorry.
Owen - I'm sure the Owen-haters disliked this episode, or somehow managed to turn into into fuel for their bonfire. Me, I'm trying to keep an open mind about the character because there's no way that a character can be set up as so obvious a twat in the first couple of episodes and remain that way. And, lo and behold, Owen's twattishness is somewhat reduced. However, he's still playing true to form with the whole acting-too-independently/not thinking things through, and that's good - there has to be some consistency or else everything falls apart. Maybe it's a legacy of his medical training - treat the immediate symptoms, then worry about the long term stuff (ie, when someone's just lost a limb, focus on stopping the bleeding, then worry about infection afterward...). Also, the chap wasn't quite in his right mind, given the psychometric effects of the alien artifact. Suffice it to say that I felt sorry for him, although he still makes me want to throw things at the screen, occasionally. Still, it's an improvement, and I enjoyed the little twists. I'm engaged enough to wonder - and care - about what's going to happen next.
Tosh and Ianto - alas, they didn't have much to do in this one, although I enjoyed watching Tosh in C-punk-ish operator mode. I'm sure she'll have her time in the sun soon enough. Meanwhile, I've figured out what it is about Ianto that has been nagging me as familiar - his accent is very similar to the chap who played Percy on Blackadder. Honestly, it is! The same light tone (tenor?) and the same accent and there's even the same air of prissiness. Ianto's adorable, but notice how daintily he ate his donut? Prissy, prissy, prissy. But not when it came to knocking back the whiskey, I noticed - although he did it in much the same 'might as well not let it go to waste' manner I do when I'm cleaning up from a dinner party... Again, the reasoning (actor's and writers') behind Ianto's mannerisms and behaviors is another thing that has my curiosity bump itching.
I think the best moments in the episode were Owen's extended reaction to witnessing the last few minutes of Lizzie's life - not just right there under the bridge, but also when everyone was talking about it at The Hub - and Gwen watching the happy-past moments in her flat. They're both scenes that help their respective characters along at key moments. Lovely!
The gunpron scene was a personal favorite because, believe it or not, this easily-startled geekgrrl occasionally enjoys making small lead projectiles go real fast, and mixing that up with some cheerfully shameless flirtation and it's a sure-fire way to amuse me. Sure, it was a bit OTT and not entirely vital to the storyline - after all, they could have covered it with a couple of lines "How's the gun-training going, Gwen?" "Fine, thanks" - but still within tolerable limits.
(tangent: although I doubt many people would agree with me, I liked the fact that, by the end of that scene, Gwen was having fun on the firing range and not because she was getting groped by the boss - well, not entirely, at least. As I said, guns are startling things but, once you get used to 'em, target practice can be a heck of a lot of fun, too. Successfully hitting a target with anything, but especially something potentially deadly, satisfies those pre-historic hunter ganglion buried in our brains, methinks and, by god, we need more women at the gun range, dammit.)
The revelation that Jack doesn't sleep makes a bit of sense. Perhaps when Rose brought him back, his physical state has been "frozen" to what it was at that time - healthy and awake - and left him there. Rose wasn't trying to curse Jack with a Midas touch, she did what she thought was right, but - lacking much experience as a de-facto goddess - she didn't think things through all the way. I wouldn't be surprised if Jack doesn't really need to eat, either, but keeps it up because, heck, food tastes good. He certainly snarfed down that donut enthusiastically enough...
And as for why Jack is disclosing these little nubbins about himself - the immortality, etc - to Gwen and not anyone else on the time; I think it's simply because she's by far the most normal (and probably well-balanced) person to have joined up in quite some time, and/or isn't carrying any preconceptions and Torchwood in general and Jack in particular. How wise a decision that is in the long run, we'll have to wait and see. On the one hand, the hopefully-least-messed-up and least-judgmental person is the one you want to unload to. On the other hand, she's also entirely without any sort of context for this environment and could freak out completely and head for the hills, leaving one feeling just a wee bit unhappy. Or maybe he's just trying to get into Gwen's pants. Again, time will tell.
On a related note, I've a half-formed theory that Jack doesn't know that Rose had anything to do with his return to life. After all, one moment, he's facing down Daleks, ready to die with his boots on. The next thing he knows, he's alive again, the Daleks are gone and, oh dear, so's the TARDIS. There has been no indication that Jack, himself, understands what happened to him, or how. With that in mind, his being in Cardiff as the most likely place for the Doctor to arrive makes a hell of a lot more sense. After all, if anyone can find the answers to Jack's questions, it's the Doctor. The fact that the Doctor might know what happened might not have even crossed Jack's mind. It's just a matter of Jack wanting access to the person most likely to have answers.
One question, though, and it's not one that had to answered by the show, but the fact of it irritates me nonetheless: What the hell was the original purpose of the "ghost machine"? The team didn't even speculate as to why a being would want a sort of psychometric enhancer and I would have liked to hear such speculation - cos the purpose of the damn thing baffles me... Maybe for reliving positive experiences, mayhap? But surely that would be a bit hit or miss, unless there's a way to control the settings, of which we're unaware. Yeah, I suppose that could be plausible...
I enjoyed the eps more than I expected, and look forward to any number of "Squeeze gently" type gunpron icons over on the TW communities. ;)
Technically, I think that Ghost Machine was a marked improvement over the first two episodes. The pacing fit the story, the production values were good - the effects associated with the machine-de-plume were evocative and not heavy-handed. The scoring seemed more deftly done - not the usual box-o-string-section that the composer is usually fond of (was it a different musical director this time, perhaps?) and just, overall, the show seemed more polished.
The story is, as ever, a bit simple and straightforward, but it was well told and I'll take a well-told tried-and-true tale over a new story that's badly presented.
I liked the twist at the end, with Morgan using Gwen to kill himself and thus fulfilling the potential future espied by Gwen - but leaving Bernie's future still unresolved. A little bit of unresolution is good. However, I could have skipped the homily from Jack at the end. As mentioned in an earlier post, I hope this doesn't become a habit - Jack wistfully telling Gwen and the gang to be human/to make lemonade/to get ready for the big changes, etc etc.
Once again, individual characters have me chewing thoughtfully on my lower lip and - honestly - wanting to sit the actors down and ask them lots and lots of questions about their particular insights re: their character's motives.
Jack - swinging from business-minded hardass (most of the story) to raunchy flirt (gun pron!). Is one to compensate for the other? Again, there are moments where Barrowman's delivery and body-language tiptoe on the verge of campiness and, dammit, I don't know enough about the man himself to know if this is an example of excellent or lousy acting on his part. A half-smirk here, the line delivered with a casualness belying its importance, there. It's ambiguous and driving me nutty, in a slightly delicious way. Character ambiguity means I can righteously work myself into a froth of speculation, and I love that stuff as you must know by now. But, meanwhile, I want to know what is Barrowman trying for in his approach. If anyone stumbles across some nice, scholarly interviews about Barrowman's dissection of the character - although I doubt any such thing will exist before the end of season one, at the earliest - do let me know.
(I swear, one of the reasons I dig RPGs so much is that I can exercise all that nifty stuff I learned from the Method without, y'know, actually acting)
Gwen - Aww, dear sweet gal, heading for an emotional train-wreck that we can see from a mile away. One thing that really helped my opinion of this eps was the scene when Gwen used the ghost-machine in her apartment and relived positive scenes of her and Rhys, and that clearly helped her step back from the potential abyss that is flirting-with-the-boss. As the character was, essentially, sharing this eps with Owen, I've not much more to say about her, other than I think the actor overdid the histrionics a bit after Morgan's death. Still liking the character, still rooting for her to fall in bed with anyone but Jack (too obvious). I know she does fall in bed with a certain someone, but disclosing that crosses my personal line for spoilers in a public journal, sorry.
Owen - I'm sure the Owen-haters disliked this episode, or somehow managed to turn into into fuel for their bonfire. Me, I'm trying to keep an open mind about the character because there's no way that a character can be set up as so obvious a twat in the first couple of episodes and remain that way. And, lo and behold, Owen's twattishness is somewhat reduced. However, he's still playing true to form with the whole acting-too-independently/not thinking things through, and that's good - there has to be some consistency or else everything falls apart. Maybe it's a legacy of his medical training - treat the immediate symptoms, then worry about the long term stuff (ie, when someone's just lost a limb, focus on stopping the bleeding, then worry about infection afterward...). Also, the chap wasn't quite in his right mind, given the psychometric effects of the alien artifact. Suffice it to say that I felt sorry for him, although he still makes me want to throw things at the screen, occasionally. Still, it's an improvement, and I enjoyed the little twists. I'm engaged enough to wonder - and care - about what's going to happen next.
Tosh and Ianto - alas, they didn't have much to do in this one, although I enjoyed watching Tosh in C-punk-ish operator mode. I'm sure she'll have her time in the sun soon enough. Meanwhile, I've figured out what it is about Ianto that has been nagging me as familiar - his accent is very similar to the chap who played Percy on Blackadder. Honestly, it is! The same light tone (tenor?) and the same accent and there's even the same air of prissiness. Ianto's adorable, but notice how daintily he ate his donut? Prissy, prissy, prissy. But not when it came to knocking back the whiskey, I noticed - although he did it in much the same 'might as well not let it go to waste' manner I do when I'm cleaning up from a dinner party... Again, the reasoning (actor's and writers') behind Ianto's mannerisms and behaviors is another thing that has my curiosity bump itching.
I think the best moments in the episode were Owen's extended reaction to witnessing the last few minutes of Lizzie's life - not just right there under the bridge, but also when everyone was talking about it at The Hub - and Gwen watching the happy-past moments in her flat. They're both scenes that help their respective characters along at key moments. Lovely!
The gunpron scene was a personal favorite because, believe it or not, this easily-startled geekgrrl occasionally enjoys making small lead projectiles go real fast, and mixing that up with some cheerfully shameless flirtation and it's a sure-fire way to amuse me. Sure, it was a bit OTT and not entirely vital to the storyline - after all, they could have covered it with a couple of lines "How's the gun-training going, Gwen?" "Fine, thanks" - but still within tolerable limits.
(tangent: although I doubt many people would agree with me, I liked the fact that, by the end of that scene, Gwen was having fun on the firing range and not because she was getting groped by the boss - well, not entirely, at least. As I said, guns are startling things but, once you get used to 'em, target practice can be a heck of a lot of fun, too. Successfully hitting a target with anything, but especially something potentially deadly, satisfies those pre-historic hunter ganglion buried in our brains, methinks and, by god, we need more women at the gun range, dammit.)
The revelation that Jack doesn't sleep makes a bit of sense. Perhaps when Rose brought him back, his physical state has been "frozen" to what it was at that time - healthy and awake - and left him there. Rose wasn't trying to curse Jack with a Midas touch, she did what she thought was right, but - lacking much experience as a de-facto goddess - she didn't think things through all the way. I wouldn't be surprised if Jack doesn't really need to eat, either, but keeps it up because, heck, food tastes good. He certainly snarfed down that donut enthusiastically enough...
And as for why Jack is disclosing these little nubbins about himself - the immortality, etc - to Gwen and not anyone else on the time; I think it's simply because she's by far the most normal (and probably well-balanced) person to have joined up in quite some time, and/or isn't carrying any preconceptions and Torchwood in general and Jack in particular. How wise a decision that is in the long run, we'll have to wait and see. On the one hand, the hopefully-least-messed-up and least-judgmental person is the one you want to unload to. On the other hand, she's also entirely without any sort of context for this environment and could freak out completely and head for the hills, leaving one feeling just a wee bit unhappy. Or maybe he's just trying to get into Gwen's pants. Again, time will tell.
On a related note, I've a half-formed theory that Jack doesn't know that Rose had anything to do with his return to life. After all, one moment, he's facing down Daleks, ready to die with his boots on. The next thing he knows, he's alive again, the Daleks are gone and, oh dear, so's the TARDIS. There has been no indication that Jack, himself, understands what happened to him, or how. With that in mind, his being in Cardiff as the most likely place for the Doctor to arrive makes a hell of a lot more sense. After all, if anyone can find the answers to Jack's questions, it's the Doctor. The fact that the Doctor might know what happened might not have even crossed Jack's mind. It's just a matter of Jack wanting access to the person most likely to have answers.
One question, though, and it's not one that had to answered by the show, but the fact of it irritates me nonetheless: What the hell was the original purpose of the "ghost machine"? The team didn't even speculate as to why a being would want a sort of psychometric enhancer and I would have liked to hear such speculation - cos the purpose of the damn thing baffles me... Maybe for reliving positive experiences, mayhap? But surely that would be a bit hit or miss, unless there's a way to control the settings, of which we're unaware. Yeah, I suppose that could be plausible...
I enjoyed the eps more than I expected, and look forward to any number of "Squeeze gently" type gunpron icons over on the TW communities. ;)