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So, they are back, in an episode where the BBC 2 continuity announcer promised more of... practically everything, really. Certainly the first episode of the new Torchwood walked with a lighter step than the first series. There was less introspection, but most of the time that's been a good thing; and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang was probably the wittiest and (I suspect) best-constructed script Chris Chibnall has contributed to the post-2005 Doctor Who family.
As was beginning to be noticed at the end of the last series, but now with more confidence because the first series had been on air and been dissected, the scripts have now assimilated the perception that the team is, well, a bit rubbish - but it's their flaws and humanity that make them win through, because they face enemies who don't understand love and loyalty. Captain John has lust, but his love for Jack is principally self-regarding.
The playing out of the Gwen-Jack relationship in the first series was ambiguous; set up in the early episodes as the core of the series, it then dropped out of focus as we were confronted with Gwen/Owen and then on the disintegration of Gwen's relationship with Rhys. The latter evidently carried on its upward course and we now have a Torchwood wedding episode to look forward to later in the series. The relationship between Jack and Gwen, however, has been rewritten to emphasise its more romantic aspects over the purely sympathetic.
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the_marquis says, much of the programme is happily cheesy, because self-referentialism and arch dialogue are what the Upper Boat team think they do best. The confrontation-reacquaintance scene between Jack and John revels in somewhat stagey man-on-man mouth suction between John and Jack. The name John Hart is a bit obvious, but then it's a pseudonym chosen for an operation where the sentimentality of the Torchwoodites is going to be exploited; and John Hart may have had more foreknowledge about Jack's operation in the twenty-first century than he lets on, as he had some tie (which I didn't quite catch) with the Blowfish, in a pleasant tieing in of the opening tag scene.
Just as the last episode of Torchwood suggested that the TARDIS had briefly materialised inside the Hub, only for Doctor Who to pick up the storyline by having Jack race for the TARDIS from Torchwood's back exit, it looks as though Jack has been elsewhere since he ran away from the Doctor and Martha in the Roald Dahl Plas. Perhaps he was waiting for the team to get back from the Himalayas, though we hear nothing of that excursion here. It seems to have been several weeks, or months, since Jack deserted his colleagues so he could travel with the Doctor again. The episode has fun with Jack's loyalty for "that team of mine", suggesting that Jack's wholehearted wish to rejoin the gang is bundled up with his pining for Ianto. The mumbled asking out on a date scene helped in lending warmth to Jack who was too cold, too often, in the first series. Yet we are left to wonder whether it would have been Gwen he'd asked out if she wasn't wearing that engagement ring. The Jack of The Empty Child would have had fewer scruples, and not bothered with the hesitant negotiation of asking someone out for dinner. He's lived a few centuries since then. As for Gwen, it's Jack she has a message for as she prepares to jump into the Rift. More angst down the line, then.
The corny self-awareness - "You're good on roofs" - might serve to sever this series from its predecessor, which sometimes didn't seem to be able to decide how it should be played. The early bar scene didn't quite work the way I felt it ought to have done - more camera angles, more technique, more pace, were needed, so the tension between the two captains didn't really sizzle. Captain John seemed more dangerous as he picked off the team, one by one; Gwen's mobile phone call, of course, served to highlight that Torchwood's employees are normal people not utterly focused on alien technology, and have (or hope to have) lives outside. Torchwood is better at exteriors, making the most of a medium-sized city's urban streetscape.
Long-term Doctor Who fans will recognise the similarities presented between the John|Jack and the Master|Doctor relationship. The Master would often suggest to the Doctor that they join forces, wishing (seemingly genuinely) that the Doctor would put aside his foolish moral scruples and join him in ruling the universe. Captain John Hart - and Captain Hart was a character in The Sea Devils, of course - wants Jack to join him as together they could make a lot of money, causing death and injury on their way with no cares. He thinks he has the measure of Jack, though, and James Marsters's best moment in the episode is his portrayal of how disconcerted John Hart is by the resurrected Jack turning up in the Hub.
Jasmes Marsters's character bears a number of similarities to Spike, but this is a more brutal figure. Vampires in the Buffyverse had lost their sense of responsibility, but John Hart is perhaps understood as a Spike who, having regained his soul, decided to carry on regardless.
Enough blethering. My spirits were lifted by this episode, ultimately. Humanity was celebrated, in the end. Torchwood is going to much more sure of its explorations of love, sex and aliens this time round, I think. I'm not quite sure what they are putting forward yet but they are going to put their case forward more confidently. John Hart could be rejected absolutely without killing him, which was good. Pity about the Blowfish, though, who might have been a B-rate thug who inflicts dangerous wounds on people just to attract his pursuers' attention, but deserved better than to be stylishly dispatched by Captain Jack.
As was beginning to be noticed at the end of the last series, but now with more confidence because the first series had been on air and been dissected, the scripts have now assimilated the perception that the team is, well, a bit rubbish - but it's their flaws and humanity that make them win through, because they face enemies who don't understand love and loyalty. Captain John has lust, but his love for Jack is principally self-regarding.
The playing out of the Gwen-Jack relationship in the first series was ambiguous; set up in the early episodes as the core of the series, it then dropped out of focus as we were confronted with Gwen/Owen and then on the disintegration of Gwen's relationship with Rhys. The latter evidently carried on its upward course and we now have a Torchwood wedding episode to look forward to later in the series. The relationship between Jack and Gwen, however, has been rewritten to emphasise its more romantic aspects over the purely sympathetic.
As
the_marquis says, much of the programme is happily cheesy, because self-referentialism and arch dialogue are what the Upper Boat team think they do best. The confrontation-reacquaintance scene between Jack and John revels in somewhat stagey man-on-man mouth suction between John and Jack. The name John Hart is a bit obvious, but then it's a pseudonym chosen for an operation where the sentimentality of the Torchwoodites is going to be exploited; and John Hart may have had more foreknowledge about Jack's operation in the twenty-first century than he lets on, as he had some tie (which I didn't quite catch) with the Blowfish, in a pleasant tieing in of the opening tag scene.Just as the last episode of Torchwood suggested that the TARDIS had briefly materialised inside the Hub, only for Doctor Who to pick up the storyline by having Jack race for the TARDIS from Torchwood's back exit, it looks as though Jack has been elsewhere since he ran away from the Doctor and Martha in the Roald Dahl Plas. Perhaps he was waiting for the team to get back from the Himalayas, though we hear nothing of that excursion here. It seems to have been several weeks, or months, since Jack deserted his colleagues so he could travel with the Doctor again. The episode has fun with Jack's loyalty for "that team of mine", suggesting that Jack's wholehearted wish to rejoin the gang is bundled up with his pining for Ianto. The mumbled asking out on a date scene helped in lending warmth to Jack who was too cold, too often, in the first series. Yet we are left to wonder whether it would have been Gwen he'd asked out if she wasn't wearing that engagement ring. The Jack of The Empty Child would have had fewer scruples, and not bothered with the hesitant negotiation of asking someone out for dinner. He's lived a few centuries since then. As for Gwen, it's Jack she has a message for as she prepares to jump into the Rift. More angst down the line, then.
The corny self-awareness - "You're good on roofs" - might serve to sever this series from its predecessor, which sometimes didn't seem to be able to decide how it should be played. The early bar scene didn't quite work the way I felt it ought to have done - more camera angles, more technique, more pace, were needed, so the tension between the two captains didn't really sizzle. Captain John seemed more dangerous as he picked off the team, one by one; Gwen's mobile phone call, of course, served to highlight that Torchwood's employees are normal people not utterly focused on alien technology, and have (or hope to have) lives outside. Torchwood is better at exteriors, making the most of a medium-sized city's urban streetscape.
Long-term Doctor Who fans will recognise the similarities presented between the John|Jack and the Master|Doctor relationship. The Master would often suggest to the Doctor that they join forces, wishing (seemingly genuinely) that the Doctor would put aside his foolish moral scruples and join him in ruling the universe. Captain John Hart - and Captain Hart was a character in The Sea Devils, of course - wants Jack to join him as together they could make a lot of money, causing death and injury on their way with no cares. He thinks he has the measure of Jack, though, and James Marsters's best moment in the episode is his portrayal of how disconcerted John Hart is by the resurrected Jack turning up in the Hub.
Jasmes Marsters's character bears a number of similarities to Spike, but this is a more brutal figure. Vampires in the Buffyverse had lost their sense of responsibility, but John Hart is perhaps understood as a Spike who, having regained his soul, decided to carry on regardless.
Enough blethering. My spirits were lifted by this episode, ultimately. Humanity was celebrated, in the end. Torchwood is going to much more sure of its explorations of love, sex and aliens this time round, I think. I'm not quite sure what they are putting forward yet but they are going to put their case forward more confidently. John Hart could be rejected absolutely without killing him, which was good. Pity about the Blowfish, though, who might have been a B-rate thug who inflicts dangerous wounds on people just to attract his pursuers' attention, but deserved better than to be stylishly dispatched by Captain Jack.
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