IMS_Blog

Gawaha. So far I have tried to at least find something positive in each episode of Torchwood. They’ve at least had some good ideas even if they haven’t known how to work with them. You could always see how there was a grain of something in there that could actually be good if only they got their act together. This week though…well, if they did commission more scripts than necessary one can only wonder at the awfulness of the ones which got dropped if this got through.

It probably wasn’t a good sign that they couldn’t even decide what to call the episode. Originally billed as “Invisible Eugene” (and still that in the Radio Times I’m told) it’s name got changed to “Random Shoes” a couple of weeks ago. Who knows why. Possibly they were going for Random Shit and bottled at the last moment. Possibly they just don’t have a clue

It’s also not a good sign when a character starts to effectively talk to the viewer. I don’t care if it’s supposed to be his “internal voice” or some such bollocks but make no mistake, this was a direct communication to those who are watching. I can’t think of anything good where that that happens (well, actually, without going into whether it’s actually good or not, one of the greatest master strokes of Star Trek was the Captain’s Log to do this in a plausible manner, but never mind that…it’s almost a completely different thing). Talking to the audience makes believing in what’s going on even harder, and Torchwood is hardly the master of the believable. Never mind that though, let’s stop messing around and being nice. This episode was shit.

Where to start? The careless inconsistencies which riddle this series like woodworm (Eugene’s dad is supposed to work nights at the garage, Gwen goes to see him there during the day…). The complete disregard for anything that went before (remember the glove and the whole talk of death. Mightn’t something so intimately connected to death bring about a mention? Didn’t that episode tell us that once your dead, that’s it, no wandering about. I saw a forum post somewhere before this episode aired saying something along the lines of “I wonder if Gwen’s ability to interact with Eugene has something to do with her playing with the glove”. You see, that’s a fairly good idea. It has development, and connection. It works as part of a series. instead we yet again have this stand alone, write me a Torchwood episode idea. This isn’t a series; it’s a sequence of pilots for possible series which just happen to share characters). The sheer unbelievable leaps of belief (this uber secret organisation has yet again been found by a random member of the public. Not only that, but they do nothing to discourage that interest despite knowing he knows about them. On the connection idea, a proper series would have had Eugene turning up, harassing Gwen, in an earlier episode or two). The boyfriend situation (no mention this week, but then no mention of Gwen/Owen either). The acting (at times, particularly from the non-regular cast, pretty poor, but then, they didn’t have the best script to work with). The social interactions (I found the whole dynamic of Eugene and his “friends” unbelievable). The silly things that try to look cool but, well, your audience aren’t idiots (look, there may be copyright issues or whatever, but if your going to say something is such a well known and recognisable site as eBay then what you show really should be eBay… it’s not like we’re not familiar with it. If you can’t show it, just make eSeaAuction up or something, otherwise it just jerks out at you). Gwen’s actions (oh come on…we need something more than the vagueness we got if we’re to believe Eugene is influencing her enough to go on such a silly errand once it became clear there was nothing mysterious about the death). Torchwood’s actions (Again, with Gwen, there is a serious discipline problem that Jack needs to get to grips with. They don’t care about Eugene while he’s harassing them but care enough to barge in and remove all his belongings? And why does no member of the public ever seem to question who these people are?) An ending that makes any sort of closure or sense (oh look, another flash of light—to where given what last week taught us. Is this the blinding light Suzie specifically claimed isn’t there? Yet another attempt to force emotional impact as the lost father—there’s a surprise—sings some song; they couldn’t even pick an original song to use for that bit, and why the hell is he singing that anyway? An “explanation” that involved Eugene having swallowed the eye. So what? If he’d been blind and swallowed a normal eye would that have worked? Perhaps the eye should have given a retrospective of the contents of his stomach, it might have been more entertaining)

Oh I could go on but this was all so bad it’s difficult to deconstruct. By the last quarter of an hour I was only partly watching. Of that end the trailer for next week was the most enjoyable part.

Somewhere in the middle of my mind I have a longer ramble on a wider, more generalised view of what I think is wrong with Torchwood and how it became lost since heading off the wrong way at inception. I’m trying to save that for the end of the series but if we get another episode like this it’ll be all I have to write about.

Will I watch next week? Yes, but it might not get the undivided attention that it has been :-(