Torchwood - "Small Worlds"

[iainjclark]

Well, blow me if that wasn't a decent episode of Torchwood. Maybe miracles do happen.

Okay, so there were still some over-sold moments, the music was awful and John Barrowman *really* can't do the range of emotions required for the role, but overall this successfully focused on mood and storytelling over cliched character-conflict for its own sake. The CGI was a bit on the cartoonish side but the design of the creatures worked well, and for once they took some darker plot decisions without it feeling overly forced.

The preceding episodes tried much harder than this one, without being anything like as effective. In fact the whole episode only served to highlight the vast gulf that separates making vaguely mature genre television from whatever the hell Torchwood has been doing over the past several weeks. (Largely standing around shouting "Look at me, aren't I Gritty, Sexy and Dark?")

Sadly next week's episode comes to you from the writer of "Cyberwoman" so I don't expect this to become a trend.

Comments

[lyth.livejournal.com]

Yes, it was head and shoulders above the other episodes, with a wonderfully dark and spooky atmosphere to it. My only problem is that the Torchwood team didn't really do anything, and the entire story would have unfolded exactly the same if they hadn't been involved at all. Still, some nice hints about Jack's background - has he been walking the earth for centuries, like Highlander or Angel? Or did he just do a lot of time-travelling back in the day?

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

No Torchwood didn't do much. In fact the bits that worked least well were the Torchwood bits - the van, the big music, the power walk - as they didn't really suit the tone of the episode at all. It would probably have worked better as an episode of a different show.

[abigail-n.livejournal.com]

This episode was certainly a great improvement over the last four, but I still wouldn't go so far as to call it good. There were some decent ingredients (although lyth is right to say that there was essentially no story - the characters were there to witness events, not affect them), but the execution was embarrassingly bad. The acting was almost uniformly terrible (the kid who played Jasmine gives the little girl from "Fear Her" a run for her money in the Worst Child Actor category), the effects were laughable, and the direction was sloppy.

Also, it's nice to know that the Torchwood writers' definition of 'pansexual' is 'will shag anyone conventionally good looking so long as they're within an acceptable age bracket.' The real Jack Harkness would have picked up where he and Estelle left off.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

I think there was the germ here of a genuinely great episode of... something else. (Janet reckons it was very X-Files, and Jack certainly got to spout a lot of Mulderbabble.) The times when it really worked were the times when I could glimpse that shining platonic ideal of an episode between the cracks in this one.

I didn't find the effects laughable - I thought they were quite evocative in the context of the story - but they definitely had a regrettably cartoonish quality. The episode needed something more photorealistic.

And yes, Jack is entirely open to flirting with anything that moves, as long as it's a good looking woman. In fact he's been even more sexually conventional on this show than he was on Doctor Who. I kept waiting for him to kiss Estelle on the lips - something that would even hint in that direction. But no.

[abigail-n.livejournal.com]

I didn't find the effects laughable - I thought they were quite evocative in the context of the story - but they definitely had a regrettably cartoonish quality

I wasn't talking about the CGI fairies, actually - I agree that they were decent enough. What was laughable were the practical effects - the wind and rain and the petals pouring out of peoples' mouths. In none of these cases did I believe that the characters were in actual danger (Estelle in particular seemed to just lie down and die, not drown).

[fba.livejournal.com]

Estelle in particular seemed to just lie down and die, not drown

I blame the actress - potentially it was a great part but she just wasn't very good.

[abigail-n.livejournal.com]

The actress may also be at fault, but she can't be held responsible for the fact that the effects didn't reflect the scene's premise. She was supposed to be drowning on dry land, and what she was being pelted with was barely a heavy shower.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

The petals in the mouth thing I liked. I can't say the execution looked wrong to me.

Likewise the water was certainly not heavy enough to drown someone - even someone as frail as the old lady - but it was pretty heavy. It could easily have continued to worsen between our last glimpse of it and the team's arrival.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Oh, I disagree -- I liked her, and I thought she managed to put some life into her scenes with Jack. It was the production that let down that scene.

[fba.livejournal.com]

TBH the scenes with Jack were the only time the character came alive. The rest of the time I felt she was a bit wooden. A good actor can sell you a scene, regardless of the production values.

[ajp.livejournal.com]

" (Janet reckons it was very X-Files,"

I was going to say exactly that. This episode was functionally and episode of the X Files. Jack was very Mulder, and Eve was very Scully...

"I kept waiting for him to kiss Estelle on the lips - something that would even hint in that direction. But no."

I agree with your points about his sexuality; but I can accept that he didn't do that, on the basis that it would have broken his version of his story. To Estelle, he was after all, Jack's son.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

The real Jack Harkness would have picked up where he and Estelle left off.

I dunno; as ajp suggests downthread, I got the impression that he would have loved to, but didn't because he knew he was immortal and she wasn't. (Which never actually holds up as a logical reason not to get involved, but is at least established by convention ...)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Or indeed upthread, given where the comment actually ended up.

[fba.livejournal.com]

The CGI was a bit on the cartoonish side but the design of the creatures worked well, and for once they took some darker plot decisions without it feeling overly forced.

I think these are the best monster of its type that The Mill have done so far in either show. They *are* getting better at the more naturalistic CGI monsters - these were better than the Krillitans who were in turn better than the monsters in 'Father's Day' - and they are no worse than any of the CGI monsters that Buffy produced (in fact Buffy, while excellent at the prosthetics was unformly terrible when it came to CGI monsters).

Sadly next week's episode comes to you from the writer of "Cyberwoman" so I don't expect this to become a trend.

Did you see the Torchwood Declassified for 'Cyberwoman'? Everything that was wrong with that episode was down to the fact that they wanted to make her sexy when she should have been horrific *sigh*

Chiball's previous work for the BBC seem's to be 'Born & Bred' (dull Sunday night drama) and 'Life On Mars' (which I never really understood the popularity of and I wasn't very impressed with its creator's episode in last year's Who 'Fear Her'). Unfortunately he has written an episode of Who for next season...

[ajp.livejournal.com]

The other thing that I found rather odd, was that the fact that Torchwood (a supposedly highly secretive organisation) have their name prominently painted (in at least two places) on their vehicles... :-)

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

Yes, although in episode one Gwen's colleague had heard of them, but only knew they were some kind of special ops unit. And of course the local pizza firm is well aware of them...

[ajp.livejournal.com]

Even so, knowing something exists is one thing. Writing it's name on it's vehicles is something else...


I mean, we all know that MI5 exists – but not even Spooks suggests that the have MI5 stamped onto their cars... :-)

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

No, I agree that it's ridiculous - just the kind of thing that doesn't belong in a genuinely mature genre show, as opposed to a constantly posturing show with an adolescent idea of what makes something cool.