So I’ve been watching a simply unhealthy amount of Dr. Who and Torchwood. A friend loaned me a stack of DVDs. The more Torchwood I watch, the more shocked I am at their cavalier way of doing business. Sure, Jack’s a time traveling bisexual rogue and in charge of the alien finding branch of the UK, fine, but nonetheless in the first season so far:
Susie kills Jack, some other dudes, and nearly Gwen.
Ianto keeps his half cyberman girlfriend in the basement and earth barely misses another cyber-vasion. Consequence? Jack picks him up as a boy toy.
Owen date rapes people with alien technology. Consequence? turns in the alien technology.
Owen porks a woman possessed by an alien.
Gwen stabs a guy to death, despite having seen it in the future.
Jack pretty easily gives up a kid to the pixies, and lets Estelle get bumped off.
They go to town full of cannibals, get their car stolen, immediately split up into appetizer sized groups and very nearly get eaten.
Toshiko screws yet another alien, and nearly gets them all killed-again.
Susie, despite being dead, nearly kills Gwen again, which is beginning to look a lot like carelessness on Gwen’s part. Jack kills Susie a few more times again, reminding one of the saying 'Kill me once, shame on you, kill me six or seven times, shame on me".
Owen picks up an aviatrix from the 50’s and does the horizontal mambo - no concern about acting *in loco parentis *for lost time travelers. Meanwhile, Jack helps another time traveler through the disorientation of time travel - with carbon monoxide.
So, in summary, based on less than a season, it appears these people shouldn’t be allowed out without a keeper, much less government oversight. Seriously, I hope my tax dollars aren’t being funneled to Torchwood-Winnipeg (Episode 9: Jack freezes to death again.)
And yet still a better organization than its predecessor. His Torchwood nearly caused a Cyberman invasion. The one that was honcho’ed by Yvonne (do I have the right character?) did cause a combined Dalek/Cyberman invasion. So Torchwood is getting better.
In that case, in about 10 more episodes…you’ll hear Jack say that he’s tried to remake Torchwood in the Doctor’s image, or some such thing. Naturally, that includes charging willy-nilly into ridiculously dangerous situations.
Jack’s just the worst boss in the history of time, is all. Seriously. I HOPE it’s on purpose from the writers’ viewpoint, but sometimes I get the awful feeling that they think they’re writing him as an awesome boss.
OK, so main Torchwood has just fucked up really badly. All that’s left is the Cardiff minor sub-branch mini-office for weirdos and a single strange man in Glasgow.
There’s a load of good Who stories to come, some of the best ever IMO. A bit patchiness too, but you’ll have seen that already. Just checking that your DVDs have the Christmas Specials on?
