Arctic Light

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.

( And have thoughts )

I've listened to several more of the Big Finish Torchwood audiodramas over the last few weeks. I still think the first two I listened to (the Gareth David Lloyd-written ones, The Last Beacon and Dinner & a Show) are my favorites - see review here - but I've really been enjoying (most of) the others as well. Here are my favorites and not-so-favorites of the next batch.

Favorites

Moving Target (Suzie) - I didn't expect to love the Suzie ones so much, but they're among the best of the bunch! I think it's partly that Indira Varma is terrific fun to listen to (she makes the best annoyed noises) but also that Suzie is so different from the other characters; she's very ruthless, driven, and isolated from her co-workers, and she has absolutely no compunctions about shoving people under the bus if she has to (quite literally, in one case). In this one, Suzie is on the run with a civilian who is being chased by alien hunters. It's part awkward buddy-movie and part action, very funny with some dark/sad moments and good character insights, and overall very enjoyable.

Sync (Suzie) - I didn't enjoy this one as much as Moving Target, but it was still fun. It's essentially the same plot (Suzie on the run with an unwanted companion, in this case a "handcuffed together" type of situation) but I found the secondary character much less charming and the plot somewhat muddled, especially at the beginning. It was still fun, though, and I liked the end enough to redeem some of my less-favorite aspects of the rest of it.

The Hope (Owen & Andy) - This is the second in a series of audios that teams them up (see review for the first one below, which I liked, but was way too dark for me to really love). This one, though, I thoroughly enjoyed. There's a pleasantly creepy, occasionally funny, very Stephen-King-esque plot involving Owen and Andy undercover in a prison, also featuring a serial killer and zombies, and it ended on a particularly lovely note that made me think I'd like to write a tag scene, which I almost never find myself compelled to do with tie-ins.

Cascade (Tosh) - This was SO FUCKING CREEPY. But very good! Tosh is investigating a haunted torrent download that seems to be killing people, and the audio itself takes the form of a "corrupted download" that mixes up past and present and occasionally pleads with the listener to stop listening because everyone who listens to it dies. And Tosh is completely delightful.

The Office of Never Was (Ianto) - This is really good and really entertaining, very funny in places, and also horribly bleak at the end, but, well, Torchwood. Ianto's dry, sarcastic narration is great.

Didn't enjoy that much

Corpse Day (Owen & Andy) - This is the first of the audios in which they work together, and actually is very good, but it is DARK AS FUCK. Like, imagine the darkest episode in the actual show, and then multiply it by 50x and a whole lotta trigger warnings. The plot involves ( spoilery trigger warnings ) Unlike "Believe," I didn't hate it - the characters are actually in character and aren't responsible for the dark content, and it has a lot of neat moments, especially with Owen getting to be awesome and empathic and hero-y, but ... SO DARK. GOOD LORD. I enjoyed listening to it once, and will probably never want to listen to it again.

Believe (entire team) - Okay, so this one ended up being a DNF. I'll get around to the rest of it eventually ... probably ... but I hated some of the plot. Jack is a giant asshole who lies to everyone, and there is a horribly squicky subplot in which ( spoilers for the Owen & Tosh subplot ) The only part of the plot I did like was Ianto going undercover in a cult, but unfortunately that was also mixed up with the "Jack is a huge asshole who never tells his team anything" aspect. I mean, it's nice to hear the entire team interacting with each other but NOT LIKE THIS.

Tropical Beach Sounds & Other Relaxing Seascapes - The concept (a haunted relaxation tape) is more compelling than the actual execution, which bored the heck out of me. Apparently I'm mainly in it to hear the characters' voices, and the third-party second-person POV combined with the extremely soporific narration style (I mean, it IS a relaxation tape, if a homicidal one) was really not my thing.

So on the whole, a few of them have failed to land for me, but there have been a lot more hits than misses! And there are still a bunch I haven't listened to yet.

I don't normally get into browser games all that much, but a few years ago, when it got big, I was absolutely addicted to 2048. I finally managed to beat it enough times to feel like I could stop, and I never really enjoyed the fandom ones all that (I basically just loved the mechanics of the game; I found pictures of characters slightly distracting when I was trying to concentrate on the number combos) ... buuuut now I've found a Torchwood one. HELP.

So far my high score is 11556 and I've unlocked characters all the way up to Gwen. Send help.

I really appreciate the variety of characters they've got in here; it starts with Suzie and has a number of side characters before you start getting to the core team.

I also understand there's a Doctor Who one floating around somewhere.

This is such an Owen song. I've been working on this vid off and on while rewatching Torchwood, and I finally finished! Clips up to 2x12 "Fragments" only, because nothing after that exists.

Song: Die Young
Fandom: Torchwood
Artist: Kesha
Clips/spoilers: Seasons 1 & 2
Contains: Various canon Owen pairings; Owen + team; some flashing lights and sex/violence (but not especially graphic)
Summary: Let's make the most of the night like we're going to die young.

Crossposts: On AO3 | On Tumblr
Streaming: On Vimeo (pass: dieyoung) | On Youtube
Download: 186 Mb MP4 (zipped)

Embed and lyrics under cut.

( Embedded here )

( Lyrics )

Having watched the "Dead Man Walking/Day in the Death" duology (Torchwood 2x07-08), I still think this is some of the most affecting, and perhaps among the best, sci-fi TV I've ever seen -- questionable special effects and occasionally questionable writing choices aside, it's just good. I think it might be the best Came Back Wrong story I've ever seen, certainly one of the only ones that's about learning to live with the Wrong rather than treating it as a convenient source of angsty My Friend/My Enemy cannon fodder or a plot-of-the-week that's resolved by the end.

It makes me think about just how much I love "learning to live with the terrible thing" as a narrative trope. It's certainly why I like stories about characters adapting to disabilities or trauma, but it's also something I truly love in various sci-fi and fantasy incarnations, especially the "but who am I?" version in which characters have to deal with navigating being a clone, a human weapon, a robot, or otherwise having their view of themselves undermined thoroughly by revelations about their true nature and/or other people messing with them for their entire life.

It's something I am continually disappointed by, in conventional TV sci-fi that enjoys fixing things by the end of the episode or else shuffling inconvenient clones/alternate-universe selves/robot doubles/etc offscreen to never deal with them again. I still remember very vividly one of the first times I really got hit with this feeling as a child, back in the '80s, watching that one Star Trek episode in which Q becomes temporarily depowered and then gets his powers back by the end of the episode. I can't even tell you how profoundly I did not want that ending; the story I wanted was the story of being a god, thinking of other beings as disposable, and then losing it all, becoming one of them, and having to learn to live with that.

( Spoiler talk about Owen's arc in Torchwood season 2, and related tropes; discussion of suicide )

Fair warning: in the end, I really liked it. I can see why people might not, and certainly I don't mind if you disagree ... but I did.

( Spoilers for all five episodes )

Dear Torchwood Writers:

( Very big spoiler for TW 3x04 )

There is nothing I can say outside this cut that wouldn't be a spoiler. Sooo...

( Torchwood 2x13 )

Okay, the Torchwood teaser makes it official: Torchwood is slash, of the crack variety. The UTTER CHEESE of it all! I still don't know if I'm going to be watching it ... probably I'll wait a few episodes to gauge the fannish reaction and see if it's worth it.

Barnes & Noble was having a sale on DVDs (buy 2, get one free) when I went in to pick up the next two seasons of NCIS (shut up. *g*) and I got the package set of Series 1 & 2 of Red Dwarf. I'm kinda surprised how little I remember the early episodes, since I remember the later ones so well -- but I guess it's been ten or fifteen years since I watched those early ones. Still as much fun as I remembered, though. Still got a wee crush on Craig Charles. (If only he was in something other than Coronation Street now, I would be all over it.) And whatever happened to the rest of them?