Iain J Coleman (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} iainjcoleman) wrote,@ 2006-10-23 00:32:00 |
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Torchwood
The most striking thing, to me, about Torchwood was how little it felt like a Doctor Who spinoff. I reckon it's all in the colour palette. Who is all bright, saturated colours, larger than life, a heightened reality. Torchwood has muted, washed-out colours, the visual tone of an ordinary day in Cardiff that happens to have been caught on camera. Stylistically, the first episode felt like a Welsh version of Taggart with added aliens. (And wouldn't the late Mark McManus have been the perfect choice to man Torchwood Glasgow?)
It's a more adult show, and that's signified by the swearing and shagging. What really makes it adult, though, is the mature emotional reality that the show portrays. The scene where Gwen is facing down the Torchwood employee who is pointing a gun at her is a great example. The helpless despair and desperate disappointment in her face and her body language when she realises she's about to die are just not the sort of thing you see in heroic family drama. Another example is the horror of the temporarily resurrected man when he realises that there's nothing after death. It's very, very rare for an atheist point of view to be explicitly portrayed in the popular media, and this was a very powerful way of showing it. Very adult, too, insofar as an adult is someone who has realised that they are one day going to die.
I enjoyed the second episode a bit less than the first. It seemed to have less drive - I think the pacing was a bit off, though I can't quite put my finger on why. It probably would have been more engaging if the female victim character had been a bit more sympathetic: as it was, we could agree with Gwen's efforts to save her in an abstract way, but it was hard to feel for her as a person. It was a pretty good episode nonetheless, just a bit less engaging than the first.
In a way, I wish they were less conscious of it being a Doctor Who spinoff. Some of the references to Who continuity were well done, but occasionally it got a bit clunky, especially the bit about the Cybermen and the Battle of Canary Wharf. I think I would have preferred the show to stand on its own much more, and leave the continuity stuff to the fanboys and girls.
Overall, very promising. So much better than Robin Hood it's not even funny, and superior to many episodes of the latest season of Doctor Who. That's my Sunday evenings sorted for the next few weeks.
The most striking thing, to me, about Torchwood was how little it felt like a Doctor Who spinoff. I reckon it's all in the colour palette. Who is all bright, saturated colours, larger than life, a heightened reality. Torchwood has muted, washed-out colours, the visual tone of an ordinary day in Cardiff that happens to have been caught on camera. Stylistically, the first episode felt like a Welsh version of Taggart with added aliens. (And wouldn't the late Mark McManus have been the perfect choice to man Torchwood Glasgow?)
It's a more adult show, and that's signified by the swearing and shagging. What really makes it adult, though, is the mature emotional reality that the show portrays. The scene where Gwen is facing down the Torchwood employee who is pointing a gun at her is a great example. The helpless despair and desperate disappointment in her face and her body language when she realises she's about to die are just not the sort of thing you see in heroic family drama. Another example is the horror of the temporarily resurrected man when he realises that there's nothing after death. It's very, very rare for an atheist point of view to be explicitly portrayed in the popular media, and this was a very powerful way of showing it. Very adult, too, insofar as an adult is someone who has realised that they are one day going to die.
I enjoyed the second episode a bit less than the first. It seemed to have less drive - I think the pacing was a bit off, though I can't quite put my finger on why. It probably would have been more engaging if the female victim character had been a bit more sympathetic: as it was, we could agree with Gwen's efforts to save her in an abstract way, but it was hard to feel for her as a person. It was a pretty good episode nonetheless, just a bit less engaging than the first.
In a way, I wish they were less conscious of it being a Doctor Who spinoff. Some of the references to Who continuity were well done, but occasionally it got a bit clunky, especially the bit about the Cybermen and the Battle of Canary Wharf. I think I would have preferred the show to stand on its own much more, and leave the continuity stuff to the fanboys and girls.
Overall, very promising. So much better than Robin Hood it's not even funny, and superior to many episodes of the latest season of Doctor Who. That's my Sunday evenings sorted for the next few weeks.
