So, Torchwood... and other TV goodies
Mar. 12th, 2009 04:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wiseheartI watched the pilot yesterday - yeah, it finally came to German TV. It probably won't ever come to Hungarian TV, but, well, that's life.
Frist impression: I liked it. I only ever saw one episode from Dr. Who and found it... sorry, UK folks... slightly, well... stupid, but it's probably because I didn't have all that background, and I found the actor who played the Doctor (don't ask me which one it was) not likeable for my taste.
Anyway, Torchwood pilot... I liked it well enough. Sure, the plot was very meagre, the science practically nonexistent, and the ending very flat, but I still liked it. It was something profoundly different from the US-uniform CGI-based, testosterone-poisoned sci-fi with either busty blondes or painfully thin brunettes who're so ugly and untalented and wooden that if one sent them down into a mine coal would come up on its own just to avoid them. No, I won't say any names, thank you very much. I get flamed enough as it is,
So, Torchwood. I liked it how the characters were so different from the US-stereotypes... well, with the exception of the male lead who's, unfortunately, so much like Tom Cruise (visually) that it causes me physical pain. For the record, if someone hadn't noticed yet: I hate Tom Cruise as an actor and as a person, so seeing someone so much like him almost put me off the whole thing.
Still, I thought it wouldn't be fair to the poor actor, it isn't his fault, after all, and kept watching. And I liked it, despite everything. The only aspect I really didn't like how the character of Susie was used. As![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
artemis10002000 said, both she and that idiotic glove of hers only served to bring Gwen into the team. We never learned why she actually killed those people - at least I didn't understand it, but perhaps I'm way too stupid - what the hell she actually wanted besides power, and why she wanted power so much and how she meant to use said power... well, you're catching my drift, I guess.
Bringing this particular spot right in the pilot was, IMO, a tactical mistake. We haven't known Susie well enough to be surprised or shaken by her betrayal. Bringing the plot, say, around the end of the season, or as a season finale, would have been shoking, surprising, we could have felt for Jack and the others that one of their own turned to the dark side of power (sorry for the bad pun), but so... My only reaction was: yeah, so what? We haven't invested enough interest in the character yet. I didn't really care what happened to her.
Still, I looked up details about the series and I'll keep watching it, I think. It's so refreshingly different.
Speaking of which, I'm also watching the 4th season of "Stargate: Atlantis". Fortunately, RTL II brings 2 episodes each Wednesday, so we're gonna through the season in record time. Actually, it's not so bad. I won't buy it on DVD like I bought the first 3 seasons - despite the frequent appearance of Dr. Zelenka, cutest scientist in two galaxies, it's no longer the same series I've invested so much interest (and anger) in.
I've grown so indifferent that I barely hate Sheppard anymore. Which is a shame, as in "Travellers", he got beaten up so often it was a thing of beauty. And for the first time, he couldn't turn the female guest star around to become his bedwarmer and give up her goals for him. Still, I just can't make myself care. I watch it because I like Amanda Tapping as Carter and David Nykl as Zelenka, and that's basically it. Without Beckett, Grodin, Kavanagh, Bates, Miko, Stackhouse, the nameless Asian guy in the Gate room... it's just no longer SGA for me.
I can live happily without Weir(d), she was a horribly written (and really badly played) character, but even her truly annoying presence made SGA what it used to be, and what isn't anymore. So, I just watch it as any other moderately enjoyable sci-fi series and heroically deny that it has anything to do with Stargate at all.
Tele 5 cut off "Earth: Final Conflict" at the end of Season 4 - again. Now, I admit that E:FC hasn't been any good since they've killed off Boone and replaced him with Liam "Marty Stu" Kincaid, but leaving us off with a cliffhanger (erupting volcano with main hero within anyone?) is really mean. I've heard how much of a dreck Season 5 was, but I prefer to hate it on my own, okay?
Now they're running Mutant X instead. As much as I like John Shea, I just can't see him and not think "hey, what's Lex Luthor doing here?" anymore. Stupid, I know. And the young hotties around him just lack any personality. I'd prefer to keep hating the Taelons. Ah, well, it's still better than anything else.
One of the Hungarian channels restarted "Criminal Minds" this week. I'll try to watch it in the proper order. I still like the unusual concept - the focus being on the suspect, not on the crime itself - even though I find the cases way too brutal and Patinkin boring. That's a series I'll love to re-watch regularly, I think, but I'll never buy; perhaps not even record. Sadly, one can never know when a Spencer Reid scene will come, and the others just aren't interesting enough for me.
I'm currently working on my Criminal Minds/SGA x-over, in which Reid is sent to 2nd Season Atlantis, where he'll take the place of McKay in Sheppard's team, while McKay will finally act as the head of the science department, instead of being the idiot who gets shot on other planets. It has a strong Reid/Kavanagh plot string, starting with friendship and evolving into something else, for which I'll probably be lynched by the Kav-haters, but I don't really care. I enjoy writing it very much. Even if it means that now I have another multi-chapter monstrosity that is going to haunt me for the next ten years or so.
Frist impression: I liked it. I only ever saw one episode from Dr. Who and found it... sorry, UK folks... slightly, well... stupid, but it's probably because I didn't have all that background, and I found the actor who played the Doctor (don't ask me which one it was) not likeable for my taste.
Anyway, Torchwood pilot... I liked it well enough. Sure, the plot was very meagre, the science practically nonexistent, and the ending very flat, but I still liked it. It was something profoundly different from the US-uniform CGI-based, testosterone-poisoned sci-fi with either busty blondes or painfully thin brunettes who're so ugly and untalented and wooden that if one sent them down into a mine coal would come up on its own just to avoid them. No, I won't say any names, thank you very much. I get flamed enough as it is,
So, Torchwood. I liked it how the characters were so different from the US-stereotypes... well, with the exception of the male lead who's, unfortunately, so much like Tom Cruise (visually) that it causes me physical pain. For the record, if someone hadn't noticed yet: I hate Tom Cruise as an actor and as a person, so seeing someone so much like him almost put me off the whole thing.
Still, I thought it wouldn't be fair to the poor actor, it isn't his fault, after all, and kept watching. And I liked it, despite everything. The only aspect I really didn't like how the character of Susie was used. As
artemis10002000 said, both she and that idiotic glove of hers only served to bring Gwen into the team. We never learned why she actually killed those people - at least I didn't understand it, but perhaps I'm way too stupid - what the hell she actually wanted besides power, and why she wanted power so much and how she meant to use said power... well, you're catching my drift, I guess.Bringing this particular spot right in the pilot was, IMO, a tactical mistake. We haven't known Susie well enough to be surprised or shaken by her betrayal. Bringing the plot, say, around the end of the season, or as a season finale, would have been shoking, surprising, we could have felt for Jack and the others that one of their own turned to the dark side of power (sorry for the bad pun), but so... My only reaction was: yeah, so what? We haven't invested enough interest in the character yet. I didn't really care what happened to her.
Still, I looked up details about the series and I'll keep watching it, I think. It's so refreshingly different.
Speaking of which, I'm also watching the 4th season of "Stargate: Atlantis". Fortunately, RTL II brings 2 episodes each Wednesday, so we're gonna through the season in record time. Actually, it's not so bad. I won't buy it on DVD like I bought the first 3 seasons - despite the frequent appearance of Dr. Zelenka, cutest scientist in two galaxies, it's no longer the same series I've invested so much interest (and anger) in.
I've grown so indifferent that I barely hate Sheppard anymore. Which is a shame, as in "Travellers", he got beaten up so often it was a thing of beauty. And for the first time, he couldn't turn the female guest star around to become his bedwarmer and give up her goals for him. Still, I just can't make myself care. I watch it because I like Amanda Tapping as Carter and David Nykl as Zelenka, and that's basically it. Without Beckett, Grodin, Kavanagh, Bates, Miko, Stackhouse, the nameless Asian guy in the Gate room... it's just no longer SGA for me.
I can live happily without Weir(d), she was a horribly written (and really badly played) character, but even her truly annoying presence made SGA what it used to be, and what isn't anymore. So, I just watch it as any other moderately enjoyable sci-fi series and heroically deny that it has anything to do with Stargate at all.
Tele 5 cut off "Earth: Final Conflict" at the end of Season 4 - again. Now, I admit that E:FC hasn't been any good since they've killed off Boone and replaced him with Liam "Marty Stu" Kincaid, but leaving us off with a cliffhanger (erupting volcano with main hero within anyone?) is really mean. I've heard how much of a dreck Season 5 was, but I prefer to hate it on my own, okay?
Now they're running Mutant X instead. As much as I like John Shea, I just can't see him and not think "hey, what's Lex Luthor doing here?" anymore. Stupid, I know. And the young hotties around him just lack any personality. I'd prefer to keep hating the Taelons. Ah, well, it's still better than anything else.
One of the Hungarian channels restarted "Criminal Minds" this week. I'll try to watch it in the proper order. I still like the unusual concept - the focus being on the suspect, not on the crime itself - even though I find the cases way too brutal and Patinkin boring. That's a series I'll love to re-watch regularly, I think, but I'll never buy; perhaps not even record. Sadly, one can never know when a Spencer Reid scene will come, and the others just aren't interesting enough for me.
I'm currently working on my Criminal Minds/SGA x-over, in which Reid is sent to 2nd Season Atlantis, where he'll take the place of McKay in Sheppard's team, while McKay will finally act as the head of the science department, instead of being the idiot who gets shot on other planets. It has a strong Reid/Kavanagh plot string, starting with friendship and evolving into something else, for which I'll probably be lynched by the Kav-haters, but I don't really care. I enjoy writing it very much. Even if it means that now I have another multi-chapter monstrosity that is going to haunt me for the next ten years or so.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-12 06:21 pm (UTC)I think you'll find he isn't a US stereotype either ;)
It's interesting to read the reaction to Jack in Torchwood of someone who hadn't first seen him on Doctor Who, and knew his backstory. I find him a really interesting character in terms of portraying sexuality; the writers do something with him that I haven't seen on TV before.
Torchwood has lots of good stuff in it, although perhaps (unfortunately) not that many good episodes. It's worth watching, though. I hope you enjoy the rest!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-12 07:34 pm (UTC)But I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. I can be generous if I try very hard. ;))
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-12 07:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-12 07:53 pm (UTC)*snorts with laughter*
And no, I didn't understand either why Susie wanted that power. The best explanation I could come up with was that using the glove might have been addictive.
It IS refreshingly different. And best of all, no Homeland Security! I like the Homeland Security agents on 4400 well enough, but by the time the third or fourth contemporary-sci-fi series showed up with that concept it'd thoroughly lost its appeal to me. On that subject, I'm curious how they're going to work that "not held accountable by any higher power" spin.
And for a completely different matter... For some reason I can't get the idea of a SG-1/Torchwood crossover out of my head, though I know I won't write it even after I've watched enough Torchwood episodes - I'm utterly incapable of getting the atmosphere of SG-1 right. I stlll think the two Jacks meeting would make for a pretty hilarious crossover, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-12 10:05 pm (UTC)Your x-over idea is interesting. I wish you'd write it. Getting the SG-1 feeling isn't that hard, really. Let Jack O'Neill say: "Oh, for crying out loud!" every five minutes and roll his eyes in exasperation whenever Carter starts spewing technobabbly (a short outcry "Carter!" doesn't harm, either). Let Daniel have those nervous little smiles and babble completely insignificant historic or mythological stuff. Teal'c calls everyone by full name (save O'Neill) or name and rank, like MajorCarter or DanielJackson, and he says "indeed" whenever he's asked a question. Oh, and General Hammond always announces how many minutes later the inevitable debriefing will be. That's basically it. *g*
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-13 01:04 pm (UTC)Perhaps the glove empowered Susie to delete all the nekkid pics that flood the 'net since the Kamasutra movie? At least at Torchwood, she was allowed to wear clothes and didn't have to boink the boss...
*laughs* True, true. She didn't even have to worship the ground the hero walked on like pretty much every other right-hand-woman, such a lucky girl. Of course, the writers might have that fate in store for Gwen... *looks around in paranoia*
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-13 08:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-13 02:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-13 08:26 pm (UTC)