Torchwood: Children of Earth - Day One
Jul. 7th, 2009 02:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizbee(Haven't they already had an episode called "Day One"? Oh well, it's kind of unavoidable.)
Without spoilers: this was unexpectedly good. Like, good by the standards of normal television, not just good by Torchwood standards. It helps that English child actors are inherently scare, but no, this was actually good. Until the last five minutes, when I got the giggles. The script so far is tight, and plays to the strengths of the cast -- which is to say, John Barrowman and Gareth David Lloyd aren't required to do any heavy lifting, acting-wise. Thank heavens for Eve Myles. How I love her.
Naturally, since this is an RTD script, all the characters of colour are either evil or just not to be trusted. (cesario makes a good argument in Lois Habiba's favour, but I facepalmed a lot). And I've no faith that it won't all fall apart in the final act. But I admit, I'm enthused.
The problem with Lois Habiba is that her primary acts of competence involve bringing the tea, and using someone else's password and login to get information. (Which is -- as if any half-decent civil service secretary would share her login details like that! You're just begging for trouble.) So while Lois is on the side of the angels and all, I have a hard time liking her, or even caring about her.
On the other hand, she's still doing better than Rupesh The Dead Asian Traitor and Agent Johnson The Evil Older Asian Woman. (That's two RTD tropes in one!) So there's that.
Also, the "adopt a Filipino child to clean the chimneys" joke was ... not really cool. Not remotely.
I notice that the United Nations has reclaimed UNIT. I would be curious to know if there was any behind-the-scenes wrangling to get that, or if RTD just chucked it in. Let us now pretend that the whole "Unified Intelligence Taskforce" thing never happened.
Martha's wedding = YAY. On the one hand, I'm sorry we never got to see it on screen, because I bet Freema would look pretty in a wedding dress. On the other hand, now I get to imagine any wedding-related hijinks I want. Everything's coming up Lizbee!
Anyway, that was ... good. There were only two bits that were unintentionally hilarious -- when Alice tells Jack, "You look so young", there is an unfortunate shot where John Barrowman looks like he's made entirely of wax. And there is never going to be a day when the BOMB in Jack's STOMACH is not going to be hilarious. IT'S AN MPREG BOMB! How I laughed.
Moar please!
Without spoilers: this was unexpectedly good. Like, good by the standards of normal television, not just good by Torchwood standards. It helps that English child actors are inherently scare, but no, this was actually good. Until the last five minutes, when I got the giggles. The script so far is tight, and plays to the strengths of the cast -- which is to say, John Barrowman and Gareth David Lloyd aren't required to do any heavy lifting, acting-wise. Thank heavens for Eve Myles. How I love her.
Naturally, since this is an RTD script, all the characters of colour are either evil or just not to be trusted. (
cesario makes a good argument in Lois Habiba's favour, but I facepalmed a lot). And I've no faith that it won't all fall apart in the final act. But I admit, I'm enthused.The problem with Lois Habiba is that her primary acts of competence involve bringing the tea, and using someone else's password and login to get information. (Which is -- as if any half-decent civil service secretary would share her login details like that! You're just begging for trouble.) So while Lois is on the side of the angels and all, I have a hard time liking her, or even caring about her.
On the other hand, she's still doing better than Rupesh The Dead Asian Traitor and Agent Johnson The Evil Older Asian Woman. (That's two RTD tropes in one!) So there's that.
Also, the "adopt a Filipino child to clean the chimneys" joke was ... not really cool. Not remotely.
I notice that the United Nations has reclaimed UNIT. I would be curious to know if there was any behind-the-scenes wrangling to get that, or if RTD just chucked it in. Let us now pretend that the whole "Unified Intelligence Taskforce" thing never happened.
Martha's wedding = YAY. On the one hand, I'm sorry we never got to see it on screen, because I bet Freema would look pretty in a wedding dress. On the other hand, now I get to imagine any wedding-related hijinks I want. Everything's coming up Lizbee!
Anyway, that was ... good. There were only two bits that were unintentionally hilarious -- when Alice tells Jack, "You look so young", there is an unfortunate shot where John Barrowman looks like he's made entirely of wax. And there is never going to be a day when the BOMB in Jack's STOMACH is not going to be hilarious. IT'S AN MPREG BOMB! How I laughed.
Moar please!
