vanyel writes, After having watched 5 episodes, I have some thoughts:
I’ve moved those thoughts below to avoid some spoilers for those not watching.
vanyel continues,
1. I have to say “I rest my case” to those who thought there was a lot of “gay content” in the show. We’ve gotten 1 drug induced gay snog, 1 drug induced lesbian snog and 1 reference to the fact that Cap’n Jack will “shag anything good looking”. When it comes to anything important, it’s straight: the love of his life from the past and the clear attraction to Gwen now. The latter is understandable, given the majority of the audience, but the former is just simply selling out.
2. It’s a lot darker than I was expecting, and in fact, to be believable should be even darker: after that stunt, Ianto should be history. Given the emotional angst over the decision that had to be made, there is no way any of them could go back to business as usual the next day. Although I like the show, they’re going to need to lighten up a bit or it won’t be watchable on an ongoing basis.
The 5th episode
After 5 It has been promoted from "OK" to "good" but not "<bill and ted>Excellent!</bill and ted>
The end of the 5th Episode is quite logical. They had to surrender to the demands of all-powerful and all-time beings. The human race for one individual, then they take the one they wanted anyway, or just let the willing victim sacrifice him/herself. Hell, maybe being a faerie is fun? The big victim is the mom I guess. Loss of a husband and child.
I love the word "snog." In American English you "make out", tha’s a verb. The act of "making out" isn’t a "make" and "out" or a "make out". We lack a noun for the act of shoving your tongue <censored>. You can snog<verb>. You can have a good snog<noun>. I love it.
Ianto’s career prospects
Yeah, there were several points during that ep I found myself yelling at Jack "Just shoot him!"
Seriously, how bad does someone have to screw up to get fired from Torchwood, anyway?
Re: Ianto’s career prospects
Given the losses sustained in the battle of Canary Wharf, there probably aren’t enough experienced people left to even contemplate firing anyone. Most of those not already working for Torchwood were probably victimes of the Slitheen.
Mind you, the makeup of the Cardiff office is all wrong. It’s like having Teal’c not only leading SG1 but also being General Hammond. There ought to be more backroom analysts and a couple more field teams, and they ought to get a bit further from Cardiff now and again. Even if there’s some presence in London still to take care of the south east, they should be covering Wales and the south west and north to where Glasgow takes over.
Re: Ianto’s career prospects
You’ve apparently missed the fact that they’re in Cardiff because there is a rift there. Presumably, the rift causes a markedly higher incidence of oddness. It would not be surprising to find out that other outfits like UNIT or the Doctor or what have you are keeping much of the non-rift oddness under control.
Re: Ianto’s career prospects
Ianto isn’t exactly demonstrating a lot of unique skills, on the other hand, essentially being Bruce Wayne’s "Alfred" for the team is a pretty valuable service. And I do like the character, despite the major lapse of judgement.
BTW, FWIW, google earth 51.464539, -3.164286
I don’t see any sign of the big copper roofed building, or even those white girders, that Jack likes to pose for the cameras on, but those may be recent additions or even cgi (though they look real to me)…
Re: Ianto’s career prospects
Look here.
I’ve put up a still from the show (Episode 1 where it pans out from Jack being on top of the building to show some of the city.) The buildings in the frame are given a matching red mark to correspond to the same building on the map. For example a building has a cross on it in the freeze frame. It also has a cross on it from the aerial view.
The large white building Jack is on most definitely does not show on the aerial view.
The copper roofed building is in a different part of town.
Look here.
It looks like the Google photos predate the construction. Marked up the location of features to make it clear.
Re: Ianto’s career prospects
That’s where I thought the copper roofed building was, but I couldn’t remember for sure. Thanks! Does it look like a large beetle of some sort to anyone else? ;-)
Re: Ianto’s career prospects
Is that a Linux user I see?
Re: Ianto’s career prospects
Who me? Nope, that’s Mplayer for XP and firefox 2.0 for XP as well. I used to have a linux box for HTPC work until the power supply in that machine fried the MO-BO and HDDs.
And then we have the 6th episode.
Ianto isn’t going anywhere. Despite his betrayal, they need him. He cleans up after them. The bodies, the evidence (remember, he’s the one that hacked Gwen’s computer when she was trying to write everything down) and is the ooze that makes smooths everything else out.
And yeah, we get out of Cardiff for this episode.
What happens with Gwen and Owen at the end is… jarring. Yes, it was set up, but I was expecting at least one more episode before that became consumated.
And if there was every somebody that needed to be shot that wasn’t shot, the 6th episode has it.
I don’t know how they are going to lighten it, it seems to be getting even darker. That’s not a problem for me, but some others it might be.
Re: And then we have the 6th episode.
They can darken it by having jack strangle ianto, I’m still hoping.