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Torchwood ramblings (also a bit of Agents of SHIELD)
Thinking about Torchwood (as one does) ... I think one thing about this show that makes it so satisfying for me is that it doesn't hesitate to commit. Whether or not it makes narrative sense. And I was thinking about Owen's condemned man's walk in "Dead Man Walking" in light of that.
That scene in the middle of "Dead Man Walking" when he's walking to his execution is such an absolutely gorgeous scene - the way it's staged and shot, the facial expressions, the subtleties of his unspoken goodbyes with his teammates. Some parts of that scene are the ones that stick with me most from the episode - especially running his hand up the railing next to Ianto's (there's something so intimate about it, for all that they don't touch each other), but also Gwen's spontaneous, clinging hug, and the way that he walks into the Hub, for what he thinks is the last time.
It's also, in some sense, absolutely unnecessary, from a big-picture narrative standpoint. It's staged as a huge dramatic thing - but he not only doesn't die, but the plot veers off in a completely different direction a few minutes later. It's a scene that's set up like a climax or a major game-changer in an episode in which it's not actually that, a scene that would almost certainly be cut down to its basic elements in a show that was trying to keep the plot "tight" and cut or combine any scenes that aren't narratively necessary.
But it's gorgeous! It's an absolutely glorious scene that is part of what makes the entire episode feel as emotionally indulgent as it does. Do we need Owen slowly running his hand up the railing next to Ianto's hand? Not really! But ... we also kind of do.
if you think about it, that scene is focused on his farewells with the teammates who aren't the ones he has his closest connections with. He has big dramatic moments with Tosh and with Jack elsewhere in the episode, but that particular scene is focused on saying goodbye to Gwen and Ianto. As far as any of the characters knows, these are his last moments to say anything to anyone. But one thing this episode does really well is spreading out the big emotional moments between the characters, and across the entire span of the episode. If he had goodbyes with Tosh and Jack here too, the scene would be crowded and it would essentially just repeat emotional beats that we get elsewhere. So instead, the emotional weight of this scene is focused almost entirely on his connections to Ianto and Gwen. In addition to the moments mentioned earlier, I love that bit where they flank him like a sort of honor guard. Tosh is the nearly-girlfriend and perhaps his best friend; Jack is his boss and mentor and the emotional fulcrum of his life at Torchwood; and Ianto and Gwen are his comrades in arms, which is very solidly conveyed here with the two of them being the ones who are basically his honor guard and pallbearers while he's still (sort of) alive. All of this is in contrast to earlier, in the autopsy goodbye scene, when it was, instead, Tosh and Jack who carried the emotional weight there.
But the general effect is to give heft and weight and uniqueness to each of his different relationships with his teammates. When confronted with what they think are their final moments with Owen, Tosh confesses her love (and refuses to leave him later; he has to trick her to get her to go), Gwen hugs him, Ianto offers wordless support, and Jack is - well, Jack is Jack, with a little of all of it, really. And we get all of that in a single episode, spread out enough that each of his goodbye scenes with his teammates gets its own flavor and stands alone enough to be memorable and have its own emotional heft. And it goes ahead and carries into the next episode, where we get unique and individual scenes with all of Owen's various relationships yet again (with the addition of more with Martha that time around) - also maybe "A Day in the Death" didn't develop Owen and Gwen quite as much? But there was a lot going on, and it managed to get in strong individual scenes with all of the others, plus the frame story with Owen and Maggie.
And I just really appreciate that the show went out of its way to do this. This was actually a problem I had with Agents of SHIELD this season - spoilers for AoS season 7 follow:
Agents of SHIELD incorporates Daniel Sousa (from Agent Carter) into the team in season 7, but also ... it kind of doesn't? I really enjoyed the first couple of Daniel episodes, and my interest slipped with each succeeding one, because the only relationship they really built in any detail was with Daisy, whose love interest he was. It would have been so easy to give him some individual and distinct relationships with the other teammates, but he just doesn't really ever have that. I think AoS in general has a problem with this - they have one or two major relationships per teammate, and they rarely develop the team beyond that, which I think is one of the reasons why - while I like the show, mostly - they never really turned into one of those found-family ensembles that I'm ride-or-die for.
But it's not just having emotional scenes with the characters, it's also providing enough additional touchstones with them to suggest that it matters. One show that used to drive me absolutely bonkers with its lack of this sort of follow-through was Lost, which would start to develop some kind of character relationship, and then just drop it - you'd get a single episode of two characters bonding, and then they'd never share an important scene again. W
With Torchwood though, you don't get a lot of future scenes with any given duo from the episode, but you get enough (Owen going to the theater with Ianto and Gwen, say, or dancing with Tosh, or the little shoulder-touch in “Fragments”) to suggest that this episode's emotional pivot-points actually did anchor something important.
And ... in a way, you don't even have to do this intentionally, if you commit to enough emotionally meaningful scenes with the characters; narratively necessary or not, throw in enough heartfelt touchstones and real feelings fall out. (Claremont's X-Men did this too - structurally it was a mess, but if you stick in enough relatively contiguous scenes of characters Having Feelings at each other, even if the overall plot is wandering in a million directions, you do tend to get something genuinely emotional out of it.)
That scene in the middle of "Dead Man Walking" when he's walking to his execution is such an absolutely gorgeous scene - the way it's staged and shot, the facial expressions, the subtleties of his unspoken goodbyes with his teammates. Some parts of that scene are the ones that stick with me most from the episode - especially running his hand up the railing next to Ianto's (there's something so intimate about it, for all that they don't touch each other), but also Gwen's spontaneous, clinging hug, and the way that he walks into the Hub, for what he thinks is the last time.
It's also, in some sense, absolutely unnecessary, from a big-picture narrative standpoint. It's staged as a huge dramatic thing - but he not only doesn't die, but the plot veers off in a completely different direction a few minutes later. It's a scene that's set up like a climax or a major game-changer in an episode in which it's not actually that, a scene that would almost certainly be cut down to its basic elements in a show that was trying to keep the plot "tight" and cut or combine any scenes that aren't narratively necessary.
But it's gorgeous! It's an absolutely glorious scene that is part of what makes the entire episode feel as emotionally indulgent as it does. Do we need Owen slowly running his hand up the railing next to Ianto's hand? Not really! But ... we also kind of do.
if you think about it, that scene is focused on his farewells with the teammates who aren't the ones he has his closest connections with. He has big dramatic moments with Tosh and with Jack elsewhere in the episode, but that particular scene is focused on saying goodbye to Gwen and Ianto. As far as any of the characters knows, these are his last moments to say anything to anyone. But one thing this episode does really well is spreading out the big emotional moments between the characters, and across the entire span of the episode. If he had goodbyes with Tosh and Jack here too, the scene would be crowded and it would essentially just repeat emotional beats that we get elsewhere. So instead, the emotional weight of this scene is focused almost entirely on his connections to Ianto and Gwen. In addition to the moments mentioned earlier, I love that bit where they flank him like a sort of honor guard. Tosh is the nearly-girlfriend and perhaps his best friend; Jack is his boss and mentor and the emotional fulcrum of his life at Torchwood; and Ianto and Gwen are his comrades in arms, which is very solidly conveyed here with the two of them being the ones who are basically his honor guard and pallbearers while he's still (sort of) alive. All of this is in contrast to earlier, in the autopsy goodbye scene, when it was, instead, Tosh and Jack who carried the emotional weight there.
But the general effect is to give heft and weight and uniqueness to each of his different relationships with his teammates. When confronted with what they think are their final moments with Owen, Tosh confesses her love (and refuses to leave him later; he has to trick her to get her to go), Gwen hugs him, Ianto offers wordless support, and Jack is - well, Jack is Jack, with a little of all of it, really. And we get all of that in a single episode, spread out enough that each of his goodbye scenes with his teammates gets its own flavor and stands alone enough to be memorable and have its own emotional heft. And it goes ahead and carries into the next episode, where we get unique and individual scenes with all of Owen's various relationships yet again (with the addition of more with Martha that time around) - also maybe "A Day in the Death" didn't develop Owen and Gwen quite as much? But there was a lot going on, and it managed to get in strong individual scenes with all of the others, plus the frame story with Owen and Maggie.
And I just really appreciate that the show went out of its way to do this. This was actually a problem I had with Agents of SHIELD this season - spoilers for AoS season 7 follow:
Agents of SHIELD incorporates Daniel Sousa (from Agent Carter) into the team in season 7, but also ... it kind of doesn't? I really enjoyed the first couple of Daniel episodes, and my interest slipped with each succeeding one, because the only relationship they really built in any detail was with Daisy, whose love interest he was. It would have been so easy to give him some individual and distinct relationships with the other teammates, but he just doesn't really ever have that. I think AoS in general has a problem with this - they have one or two major relationships per teammate, and they rarely develop the team beyond that, which I think is one of the reasons why - while I like the show, mostly - they never really turned into one of those found-family ensembles that I'm ride-or-die for.
But it's not just having emotional scenes with the characters, it's also providing enough additional touchstones with them to suggest that it matters. One show that used to drive me absolutely bonkers with its lack of this sort of follow-through was Lost, which would start to develop some kind of character relationship, and then just drop it - you'd get a single episode of two characters bonding, and then they'd never share an important scene again. W
With Torchwood though, you don't get a lot of future scenes with any given duo from the episode, but you get enough (Owen going to the theater with Ianto and Gwen, say, or dancing with Tosh, or the little shoulder-touch in “Fragments”) to suggest that this episode's emotional pivot-points actually did anchor something important.
And ... in a way, you don't even have to do this intentionally, if you commit to enough emotionally meaningful scenes with the characters; narratively necessary or not, throw in enough heartfelt touchstones and real feelings fall out. (Claremont's X-Men did this too - structurally it was a mess, but if you stick in enough relatively contiguous scenes of characters Having Feelings at each other, even if the overall plot is wandering in a million directions, you do tend to get something genuinely emotional out of it.)
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