Torchwood: Season One final verdict

Heroes is back on air, an in celebration of watching the first new episode (A breather after the frantic highs of the end of last year, but in a way that involves bringing prople together and setting up something else)... I'm going to burble about Torchwood.

I decided during the holidays I'm a bad person. Heroes is actually quality drama, not bumpless, but certainly doing its best to pay off the things it promises. Torchwood is a wildly indecisive show with a schizophrenic tone. The New Doctor Who is more consistent in tone, but... well, that leaves a lot of room before we get to actually consistant. It seems unaware of its own biggest moral issues, it cheers on a god complex. I don't mind a supremely powerful hero being pumped full of hubris at his own supremely powerfulness, I don';t even mind it when he's the person we're supposed to be cheering. But the show seems to lack awareness that this is the character's *flaw*, even, if we go Greek, his fatal flaw.

So you can guess which shows I kept having stronger cravings for over the Christmas break. Doctor Who and Torchwood. Thus, I'm a bad person.

As I said, both are inconsistent (Doctor Who reaches for a serious low in the episode called Love and Monsters.) But Torchwood is inconsistent within episodes. There are few I can point to and say are without serious aggravating flaws. And few I can say definitively have no merits at all.

SO:

( Ep-by-Ep Comments )

Final verdict: Tosh was good, Ianto had some potential. Jack was really good, though better when they de-emphasized his "specialness". Gwen started with a good idea they themselves undermined, by taking away any right she had to be a moral compass or a connection to ordinary life -- not made much better by the actress’s dependence on her big eyes to get her through most emotional scenes. Owen was a jerk all along. So guess which two they spent the most time on?

And they should make up their mind about whether they want sex and violence or plot and character. I vote for the latter two. They did their best when they focused on these.

Also note:
Cath Tregenna wrote Out of Time and Captain Jack Harkness.
Chris Chiball, Co-producer and listed as head writer, wrote Day One, Cyberwoman, Countrycide, and End of Days, 4 of the 5 lowest scores I gave.

I vote more from her and less from him. Let him produce. Let her be head writer.

Torchwood: Season One final verdict

Heroes is back on air, an in celebration of watching the first new episode (A breather after the frantic highs of the end of last year, but in a way that involves bringing prople together and setting up something else)... I'm going to burble about Torchwood.

I decided during the holidays I'm a bad person. Heroes is actually quality drama, not bumpless, but certainly doing its best to pay off the things it promises. Torchwood is a wildly indecisive show with a schizophrenic tone. The New Doctor Who is more consistent in tone, but... well, that leaves a lot of room before we get to actually consistant. It seems unaware of its own biggest moral issues, it cheers on a god complex. I don't mind a supremely powerful hero being pumped full of hubris at his own supremely powerfulness, I don';t even mind it when he's the person we're supposed to be cheering. But the show seems to lack awareness that this is the character's *flaw*, even, if we go Greek, his fatal flaw.

So you can guess which shows I kept having stronger cravings for over the Christmas break. Doctor Who and Torchwood. Thus, I'm a bad person.

As I said, both are inconsistent (Doctor Who reaches for a serious low in the episode called Love and Monsters.) But Torchwood is inconsistent within episodes. There are few I can point to and say are without serious aggravating flaws. And few I can say definitively have no merits at all.

SO:

( Ep-by-Ep Comments )

Final verdict: Tosh was good, Ianto had some potential. Jack was really good, though better when they de-emphasized his "specialness". Gwen started with a good idea they themselves undermined, by taking away any right she had to be a moral compass or a connection to ordinary life -- not made much better by the actress’s dependence on her big eyes to get her through most emotional scenes. Owen was a jerk all along. So guess which two they spent the most time on?

And they should make up their mind about whether they want sex and violence or plot and character. I vote for the latter two. They did their best when they focused on these.

Also note:
Cath Tregenna wrote Out of Time and Captain Jack Harkness.
Chris Chiball, Co-producer and listed as head writer, wrote Day One, Cyberwoman, Countrycide, and End of Days, 4 of the 5 lowest scores I gave.

I vote more from her and less from him. Let him produce. Let her be head writer.