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Got some new speakers for the computer. The result is that everything sounds a thousand times better than it did before, and my music has rediscovered its bassline. It also means that the television is suddenly, violently loud, and consequently this week's episode of Torchwood did quite literally leave me reeling. Top Gear tonight should certainly be fun. :D
For now, though, Torchwood - and the end of the series. I can't believe it's gone so soon. The last thirteen weeks have just rolled by; and what a thirteen weeks. We've had Captain John; alien sleeper agents (my own least favourite of the thirteen, though it seems to be popular elsewhere); giant space whales; romance; comedy; Rhys finding out the truth about Torchwood, which should continue to be interesting in the future; tragedy; the list could go on, but that would inevitably be boring. It's been a good series, and for me it's better now than the show that spawned it. Rumours of season three are somewhat worrying, but that's all a year away anyhow. For now, "Exit Wounds"; and the end of an era.
Captain John popped up last week, to have a good giggle and show off an apparently captive Gray, the long-missing younger brother of Captain Jack. Can't say that the saga of Gray, popping up occasionally during the series as it has, has interested me all that much. It all adds colour to Jack of course, but as yet another tragedy in Jack's past, it did seem slightly shoe-horned in. Jack sends out his troops to do their stuff across the city, after Gwen gets a phonecall about odd goings-on at the police station. Then off he sets for the Hub for a meeting with destiny. Or, as it turns out, quite a lot of bondage and S&M games. Still, if "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is anything to go by, that's all a fairly normal method of conversation between Time Agents. He really does walk straight into a trap, though. I suppose he didn't have much choice, since he wanted to know what was going on, but it still seems a little bit daft. John's all edgy, though. For the viewer, who isn't suffering from Jack's temporary Gray-related blindness, it's obvious that there's something going on. John shows regret at shooting Jack, even if he does clearly enjoy tying him up and electrocuting him afterwards. :D He also shows regret later, when he blows up several large chunks of Cardiff, before whisking Jack away to 27AD. Consequently it's really only Jack who's surprised to discover that the bad guy behind all of this isn't John at all, but Gray. I wanted to feel sorry for the latter. He's had a horrible life, and he blames it all on the boy who couldn't keep hold of his hand, back when they were both children. I couldn't seem to feel any pity for him at all, though. Not sure if that was the writing or the acting, or just me. Gray is so mad; so twisted by the desire for revenge, that there's nothing else to him at all. He has a plan to bury Jack alive, and leave him underground forever. I've found it a bit hard getting my head around this bit. John gives Jack a ring, so that he will be able to find him later. So why, when Gray has released him from the bomb that was keeping him doing as he was told, does he not go back in time to rescue Jack then? Why is the poor guy left under the ground until TW3 - bondage torture lesbians! Hurrah! - rescue him in 1901? Two thousand years?! They left him underground for two thousand years?! Now I'm not going to comment on how good his clothes looked when he was dug up. His coat is clearly as super-powered as he is, and if I can accept Manimal's clothes magically reappearing after every one of his transformations, then I'm not going to worry about Jack's not falling apart. Good stories are more important than realistic tailoring. But two thousand years?! I suppose it could be another of their religious allegories. They seem rather fond of them. I just find it a bit daft, I'm afraid.
While Jack's off doing the bondage/torture/burial thing with the boyfriend and the brother, though, the rest of the TW team are scarcely having a better time. First up, a group of Weevils have murdered the top-ranking police officers in the city. Secondly, all communications are down. Thirdly, the nuclear power plant is going into meltdown; and fourthly, as Gray finishes up with Jack, and turns up to do more mischief, hordes of Weevils erupt from the sewers and rampage all over the city. Cardiff, then, is not having a good day. Owen sets off to sort out the meltdown problem, as the Weevils aren't a worry for him. Gwen, Ianto and John, however, helpfully get themselves locked up by Gray, and don't really manage to do anything. There is time for some nice rivalry between John and Ianto, though. The pair of them are rather good as a duo. Hopefully John will be returning in future, and they'll get to have some more screen time together. I like their snarking. Above them, though, as Tosh battles to find a way for Owen to save the power plant from nuclear disaster, she gets shot by Gray. From then on, the whole of the episode changes tone. Previously it was action adventure, but not anymore. As a dying Tosh fights to give her all to save Wales, and probably the rest of the UK, Jack is confronting Gray. There's a lot of criticism about John Barrowman's acting on the Net, and despite being a fan, I'll admit that he's not always the most subtle of performers. I don't get the people who are still finding fault with him after this episode, though. There's no doubt that he can do the emotive stuff. He dashes off to rescue his friends, but whilst he's doing that, things aren't going well for Project Power Station. Sealed inside the complex, Owen faces certain obliteration, and back in the Hub, Tosh is just about out of time too. There's a lovely scene between the two of them at the end. Characteristically she never tells him of her own problems, but they share a nicely reflective conversation before the end comes for Owen. Jack finds Tosh, though not in time. Poor Tosh. I really like her, and she's never had much of a share of the screen time and plots the way that the others have. It would have been nice to have seen her get more to do this season, but she did have a fabulous send off. When Ianto logs her out of the computer system later, it triggers a little goodbye message that she's left for her friends. I know most people seem to have been most moved by her more obviously emotional scenes with Owen earlier on, but I thought that that message was by far the more affecting piece. Maybe that's just me being weird, though. I don't know.
So that's that then, really. John sets off to see the world that Jack has chosen to stay behind and defend, which nicely sets him up for future visits. Gwen isn't sure that she can carry on after the losses, though it's interesting to see that Ianto doesn't express similar misgivings. He's been through it all before though of course, back at TW1. Jack's resolute, though. He's been through it all before too, and his sights are set very firmly on the future. Hopefully BBC Wales's are, too, as I'm already impatient for season three. And after the facile nonsense of last night's Doctor Who, it can't come quickly enough. On to the last Torchy pictures for a while, then; and hurry up season three. I shall miss Tosh and Owen terribly, but goodness knows they got a better exit than some.
Jack confronts the sporadically dastardly John.
Who has a very nasty surprise waiting for him.
Which, needless to say, is a surprise that John enjoys rather more than does Jack...
John and Gwen co-operate to try to find Jack.
And Jack attempts to get through to his rather-too-psycho brother.
Tosh does her last piece of techno-brilliance for the team. :(
Whilst Owen also faces the end of the road.
John and Jack say their (hopefully temporary) farewells.
The remains of TW3 find an unexpected program buried in the computer system -
Tosh's last farewell. Poor Tosh. :(
And what's left of the gang prepare to carry on.
Bye for now then, Torchwood. See you again next year, I hope. And in the meantime, here's also hoping that Jack's rumoured visit to Doctor Who later this year is handled rather better than it was last time...
For now, though, Torchwood - and the end of the series. I can't believe it's gone so soon. The last thirteen weeks have just rolled by; and what a thirteen weeks. We've had Captain John; alien sleeper agents (my own least favourite of the thirteen, though it seems to be popular elsewhere); giant space whales; romance; comedy; Rhys finding out the truth about Torchwood, which should continue to be interesting in the future; tragedy; the list could go on, but that would inevitably be boring. It's been a good series, and for me it's better now than the show that spawned it. Rumours of season three are somewhat worrying, but that's all a year away anyhow. For now, "Exit Wounds"; and the end of an era.
Captain John popped up last week, to have a good giggle and show off an apparently captive Gray, the long-missing younger brother of Captain Jack. Can't say that the saga of Gray, popping up occasionally during the series as it has, has interested me all that much. It all adds colour to Jack of course, but as yet another tragedy in Jack's past, it did seem slightly shoe-horned in. Jack sends out his troops to do their stuff across the city, after Gwen gets a phonecall about odd goings-on at the police station. Then off he sets for the Hub for a meeting with destiny. Or, as it turns out, quite a lot of bondage and S&M games. Still, if "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is anything to go by, that's all a fairly normal method of conversation between Time Agents. He really does walk straight into a trap, though. I suppose he didn't have much choice, since he wanted to know what was going on, but it still seems a little bit daft. John's all edgy, though. For the viewer, who isn't suffering from Jack's temporary Gray-related blindness, it's obvious that there's something going on. John shows regret at shooting Jack, even if he does clearly enjoy tying him up and electrocuting him afterwards. :D He also shows regret later, when he blows up several large chunks of Cardiff, before whisking Jack away to 27AD. Consequently it's really only Jack who's surprised to discover that the bad guy behind all of this isn't John at all, but Gray. I wanted to feel sorry for the latter. He's had a horrible life, and he blames it all on the boy who couldn't keep hold of his hand, back when they were both children. I couldn't seem to feel any pity for him at all, though. Not sure if that was the writing or the acting, or just me. Gray is so mad; so twisted by the desire for revenge, that there's nothing else to him at all. He has a plan to bury Jack alive, and leave him underground forever. I've found it a bit hard getting my head around this bit. John gives Jack a ring, so that he will be able to find him later. So why, when Gray has released him from the bomb that was keeping him doing as he was told, does he not go back in time to rescue Jack then? Why is the poor guy left under the ground until TW3 - bondage torture lesbians! Hurrah! - rescue him in 1901? Two thousand years?! They left him underground for two thousand years?! Now I'm not going to comment on how good his clothes looked when he was dug up. His coat is clearly as super-powered as he is, and if I can accept Manimal's clothes magically reappearing after every one of his transformations, then I'm not going to worry about Jack's not falling apart. Good stories are more important than realistic tailoring. But two thousand years?! I suppose it could be another of their religious allegories. They seem rather fond of them. I just find it a bit daft, I'm afraid.
While Jack's off doing the bondage/torture/burial thing with the boyfriend and the brother, though, the rest of the TW team are scarcely having a better time. First up, a group of Weevils have murdered the top-ranking police officers in the city. Secondly, all communications are down. Thirdly, the nuclear power plant is going into meltdown; and fourthly, as Gray finishes up with Jack, and turns up to do more mischief, hordes of Weevils erupt from the sewers and rampage all over the city. Cardiff, then, is not having a good day. Owen sets off to sort out the meltdown problem, as the Weevils aren't a worry for him. Gwen, Ianto and John, however, helpfully get themselves locked up by Gray, and don't really manage to do anything. There is time for some nice rivalry between John and Ianto, though. The pair of them are rather good as a duo. Hopefully John will be returning in future, and they'll get to have some more screen time together. I like their snarking. Above them, though, as Tosh battles to find a way for Owen to save the power plant from nuclear disaster, she gets shot by Gray. From then on, the whole of the episode changes tone. Previously it was action adventure, but not anymore. As a dying Tosh fights to give her all to save Wales, and probably the rest of the UK, Jack is confronting Gray. There's a lot of criticism about John Barrowman's acting on the Net, and despite being a fan, I'll admit that he's not always the most subtle of performers. I don't get the people who are still finding fault with him after this episode, though. There's no doubt that he can do the emotive stuff. He dashes off to rescue his friends, but whilst he's doing that, things aren't going well for Project Power Station. Sealed inside the complex, Owen faces certain obliteration, and back in the Hub, Tosh is just about out of time too. There's a lovely scene between the two of them at the end. Characteristically she never tells him of her own problems, but they share a nicely reflective conversation before the end comes for Owen. Jack finds Tosh, though not in time. Poor Tosh. I really like her, and she's never had much of a share of the screen time and plots the way that the others have. It would have been nice to have seen her get more to do this season, but she did have a fabulous send off. When Ianto logs her out of the computer system later, it triggers a little goodbye message that she's left for her friends. I know most people seem to have been most moved by her more obviously emotional scenes with Owen earlier on, but I thought that that message was by far the more affecting piece. Maybe that's just me being weird, though. I don't know.
So that's that then, really. John sets off to see the world that Jack has chosen to stay behind and defend, which nicely sets him up for future visits. Gwen isn't sure that she can carry on after the losses, though it's interesting to see that Ianto doesn't express similar misgivings. He's been through it all before though of course, back at TW1. Jack's resolute, though. He's been through it all before too, and his sights are set very firmly on the future. Hopefully BBC Wales's are, too, as I'm already impatient for season three. And after the facile nonsense of last night's Doctor Who, it can't come quickly enough. On to the last Torchy pictures for a while, then; and hurry up season three. I shall miss Tosh and Owen terribly, but goodness knows they got a better exit than some.
Jack confronts the sporadically dastardly John.
Who has a very nasty surprise waiting for him.
Which, needless to say, is a surprise that John enjoys rather more than does Jack...
John and Gwen co-operate to try to find Jack.
And Jack attempts to get through to his rather-too-psycho brother.
Tosh does her last piece of techno-brilliance for the team. :(
Whilst Owen also faces the end of the road.
John and Jack say their (hopefully temporary) farewells.
The remains of TW3 find an unexpected program buried in the computer system -
Tosh's last farewell. Poor Tosh. :(
And what's left of the gang prepare to carry on.
Bye for now then, Torchwood. See you again next year, I hope. And in the meantime, here's also hoping that Jack's rumoured visit to Doctor Who later this year is handled rather better than it was last time...
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