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fandomhigh_ooc2007-07-30 04:48 pm
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Spotlight on Fandoms: Doctor Who and Torchwood
"Are you telling me I'm naked in front of millions of viewers? …Ladies, your viewing figures just went up."
-Capt. Jack Harkness
Doctor Who
Okayyyy - we are only gonna touch on Doctor Who in the briefest of brief possible ways because HOLY GOD thirty plus years of twisty non-continuity continuity and how many bloody audio adventures and books and they're all canon except not depending on who you ask and my head hurts just thinking about it.
Doctor Who & Torchwood: Who with the what where now?
Once upon a time the BBC came up with an alien named the Doctor. Because the BBC can't resist a running gag anymore than I can, his TV show was christened Doctor Who. The Doctor's a time and space travelling Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, with a habit of picking up companions to travel with him while he interferes with the universe. And then dumping them off whenever he feels like it/thinks it's best/forgets them/gets bored.
The show ran for a really long time (it's listed in Guinness as the world's longest running Sci-Fi TV show), with the Doctor changing every so often, because Time Lords have a handy dandyplot device ability to regenerate. Dying? No worries! You can do it twelve times, and wake up in a nice new body.
Then the show went off the air. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and creating of canon-but-not-but-is non-television adventures. Then, in 2005, Russel T Davies [fanboy extraordinaire, bless his little Dalek socks] slammed the Doctor into the delicious Christoper Eccleston, got the BBC tripping along to his Pied Piper's song, and the show was reborn.
YAY! [*unabashed fangirling*]
The Ninth Doctor, fresh from having wiped out his whole planet and the rest of his people for a Very Good Reason, acquired a new companion in the person of one Rose Tyler, and off they went, toddling through space and time in the TARDIS.
Around about a third of the way through his first season/season 1/season 27 [which it is depends on who you ask, and debates can get a little heated], they meet Captain Jack Harkness.
Captain Jack Harkness, omni-sexual, fifty-first century, ex-Time Agent, conning, flirting, and shagging his way through time and space. He's working a con in Blitz-torn London that backfires and threatens the entire future of the human race, is about to get blown up in his stolen time ship to save Rose and the Doctor, and is picked up (not dirty) just before it goes boom by the TARDIS.
Adventures are had, flirting is done, bonding happens, eyes are rolled (usually the Doctor's) and the Time Team go on their merry way, foiling evil and having fun, until we come to the Parting of the Ways.
…bet you can't guess what happens in that episode.
Yes, well, everyone's ways do indeed part (not dirty, though there is some snogging), Jack sacrifices himself to try and delay the Daleks so the Doctor can save the world, dies, and is resurrected by the power of the TARDIS, only to be left behind on the space station, the TARDIS disappearing right before his eyes.
Which kinda sucked.
Next up, season 2/28 with a new Doctor, and many, many references to Torchwood scattered throughout [because the series now has the go ahead from the BBC]. We learn the Torchwood Institute was created by Queen Victoria, as a response to weirdness and wackiness (in that case, werewolves from space, and it really was the Doctor's fault). It's still around in the way far future, so it's got some staying power. [I think why becomes far clearer at the end of season 3/29, but this is pure speculation].
Torchwood: the place
Torchwood as we first meet it in London 2006 is apparently Not A Nice Place and they Have Views About Aliens [all your aliens are belong to us], and their hubris leads to yet another almost destruction of the earth, and a TRULY FEARSOME Dalek vs Cybermen showdown (the Battle of Canary Wharf), which, following in the finest fictional traditions, destroys the Torchwood unit responsible for unleashing the Cybermen.
It also handily leaves Jack Harkness' Torchwood unit in Cardiff (Torchwood Three) as practically the only one functioning.
We learn later that Jack took what Torchwood had been and rebuilt it, turned it into something good, all for the Doctor, because it's what he would have wanted [everyone give me an awwwwwww, please. Thank you.].
Torchwood: The Show
"The 21st Century is when everything changes. You've gotta be ready."
-Captain Jack Harkness
Torchwood, brain child of Russell T Davies, Doctor Who spin-off, and an anagram of Doctor Who, was deliberately written as a post-watershed show, heavy on the sex and violence, and exploring far more adult themes than Doctor Who ever did.
The setup
The 21st century is when the earth changes, when humans start finding out aliens are real, and Jack knows this, wants to make sure the human race are equipped to deal with it. This is what drives him, and what makes him drive his team.
Torchwood is 'separate from the government, outside the police, and beyond the United Nations'. Their mandate: investigate alien activity, prevent alien tech from falling into the wrong hands, and scavenge what they can for their own use. Their headquarters: The Hub, located underneath Roald Dahl Plass, outside the Millenium Centre, in Cardiff.
Why Cardiff? There's a spacetime rift, running right through the middle of the city, and flotsam and jetsam from all over time and space wash through it, wreaking merry havoc. This is what the Torchwood team tries to stop, and if they can't stop it, fix it, wiping people's memories if they have to, using a handy little drug called Retcon.
They also shag. A lot. Usually other people, but there is some intra-Torchwood shagging going on.
The People
Jack Harkness: The inestimable Captain Jack Harkness, leader of Torchwood, and a mystery to pretty much all of his people. He is still the amoral conman, laughing and flirting his way through life, but he's darker, driven, highly protective of his people - and immortal. He can be injured, but he cannot die, he doesn't sleep - and he doesn't know why. He's looking for the Doctor, that's why he's in Cardiff, because he knows the Doctor will return there, and he's been waiting for a very long time.
Suzie Costello: Jack's 2IC. Suzie is obsessed with the resurrection gauntlet, a piece of alien tech that briefly brings people back from the dead. In her obsession, she's been killing people to test it. When she's found out, she tries to run and ends up very dead. This doesn't stop her from being the focal point of a later episode, when she's brought back to life by the team and her own cunning plan.
Gwen Cooper: Gwen begins as a policewoman. She witnesses the Torchwood team resurrecting the dead using the resurrection gauntlet and, dogged and relentless, eventually tracks them down in a plan cleverly involving pizza. After a confrontation with Jack, she ends up being recruited by him as a sort of police liaison. Her strong sense of social responsibility and empathy get both very irritating and her into trouble more than once, but she's the only one (at least initially) who knows about Jack's secret immortality, and arguably she's the one he's closest to. She's really the only team member with a life outside the job.
Ianto Jones: I have so much Ianto love it cannot be contained. Ianto is awesome. Torchwood's front man and office bitch, he's quiet, fussy, always impeccably dressed, brilliant, and completely doesn't understand the adrenaline rush the others get. He coined the name 'risen mitten' for the resurrection gauntlet, and 'life knife' for its corollary. We gradually see him grow and change, stepping up and taking charge when Jack's gone. He and Jack end up in a sexual relationship -- Ianto seems to almost worship Jack, at times emulating his behaviour, or trying to, while it's implied that for Jack he's merely a casual fling. The season finale would seem to counter this assumption somewhat.
Toshiko Sato: Tosh is the resident computer genius. She's pretty much socially inept, but she's got fire under the shy exterior, willing to question Jack if she thinks he's wrong, and she's very mentally agile. She's actually gets along with everybody, particularly Owen, and often takes the role of peacemaker.
Owen Harper: Torchwood's doctor, also a genius, and an arrogant little weasel. Your mileage may vary on that opinion, but he is abrasive, annoying, rude, and did I mention arrogant? He is integral, though, to the team and he is an excellent doctor. Jack hired him after he screwed up in the real world, mostly because he needed a doctor, and he's Jack's 2IC (though this becomes the source of some heated conflict between him and Ianto) after Suzie's death. Like him or loathe him, the little bugger's entertaining.
Rhys Williams: Not a member of Torchwood, but he's Gwen's long-term boyfriend, and he is wonderful. A big teddy-bear of a man, his life eventually becomes intertwined with Gwen's at Torchwood. Gwen has to keep the details of her job secret, and this leads to growing tension between them, but at the end of the first series, they're still together. Rhys is love.
Why should you watch it?
Everyone's bisexual? No, not enough reason? Okay, how about it's got alien resurrection gauntlets, a cyberwoman girlfriend living in the basement, a pterodactyl, sex monsters turning people to dust, sex and guns and an amnesia drug called Retcon [which still makes me giggle], visits to the past, visits from the past, fairies, cannibals, telepaths, random shoes and an utterly cracktastic season finale that left me staring slackjawed at the screen.
Plus, it's got Captain Jack Harkness -- seriously, it's worth it just for that.
I will admit the show is weak in places, they get lazy with explaining characterisation, and sometimes the episodes leave you scratching your head in bemusement, but for all that it's bloody good.
Season One runs for thirteen episodes and ends with Jack hearing the sound of the TARDIS, which he's been waiting for for a very long time.
Doctor Who again
…and we're back to Doctor Who for a wee bit, the end of Season 3/29, and since it only just aired in the UK, I'm going to leave it as: Stuff Happens.
Jack catches up with the TARDIS, they go to the end of time itself, Jack flirts, we find out how he got off the station where he was resurrected, what the thing on his wrist is called and what it does [thanks, RTD, you couldn't have told us that at the beginning?!], Jack flirts more, finds out what's up with the whole immortal thing, why he was abandoned on the station, and he helps save the world again, before being returned to Cardiff.
And so Jack returns to Torchwood to lead his team into another glorious season of shagging and aliens and shagging aliens. And possibly rogue Time-Agents! Season Two will air in 2008.
Where can I find out more?
Where can't you?! Torchwood is all over the 'net, but these are reliable sites:
BBC official site
Wikipedia
Transcripts
'Where can I get it?,' I hear you cry, 'Give it to me!' (not dirty)
The first two DVD sets are available from Amazon UK, as well as three novels and three audio books. It's currently showing on channel ten in Australia and is soon to show on BBC America.
The box set of DVDs is due out in August
Or there are other options. *cough*
And there we go! Sorry about it being late, though technically it's still Sunday on the West Coast of Canada! Question? Comments? Observations? The obligatory request for pie?
_____________________
I've tried to avoid explicit spoilers, but there's a lot of general ones for the last five episodes of season 1 (2005) of Doctor Who, all of Torchwood, and very minor ones for season 2 and the end of season 3 of Doctor Who.
-Capt. Jack Harkness
Doctor Who
Okayyyy - we are only gonna touch on Doctor Who in the briefest of brief possible ways because HOLY GOD thirty plus years of twisty non-continuity continuity and how many bloody audio adventures and books and they're all canon except not depending on who you ask and my head hurts just thinking about it.
Doctor Who & Torchwood: Who with the what where now?
Once upon a time the BBC came up with an alien named the Doctor. Because the BBC can't resist a running gag anymore than I can, his TV show was christened Doctor Who. The Doctor's a time and space travelling Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, with a habit of picking up companions to travel with him while he interferes with the universe. And then dumping them off whenever he feels like it/thinks it's best/forgets them/gets bored.
The show ran for a really long time (it's listed in Guinness as the world's longest running Sci-Fi TV show), with the Doctor changing every so often, because Time Lords have a handy dandy
Then the show went off the air. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and creating of canon-but-not-but-is non-television adventures. Then, in 2005, Russel T Davies [fanboy extraordinaire, bless his little Dalek socks] slammed the Doctor into the delicious Christoper Eccleston, got the BBC tripping along to his Pied Piper's song, and the show was reborn.
YAY! [*unabashed fangirling*]
The Ninth Doctor, fresh from having wiped out his whole planet and the rest of his people for a Very Good Reason, acquired a new companion in the person of one Rose Tyler, and off they went, toddling through space and time in the TARDIS.
Around about a third of the way through his first season/season 1/season 27 [which it is depends on who you ask, and debates can get a little heated], they meet Captain Jack Harkness.
Captain Jack Harkness, omni-sexual, fifty-first century, ex-Time Agent, conning, flirting, and shagging his way through time and space. He's working a con in Blitz-torn London that backfires and threatens the entire future of the human race, is about to get blown up in his stolen time ship to save Rose and the Doctor, and is picked up (not dirty) just before it goes boom by the TARDIS.
Adventures are had, flirting is done, bonding happens, eyes are rolled (usually the Doctor's) and the Time Team go on their merry way, foiling evil and having fun, until we come to the Parting of the Ways.
…bet you can't guess what happens in that episode.
Yes, well, everyone's ways do indeed part (not dirty, though there is some snogging), Jack sacrifices himself to try and delay the Daleks so the Doctor can save the world, dies, and is resurrected by the power of the TARDIS, only to be left behind on the space station, the TARDIS disappearing right before his eyes.
Which kinda sucked.
Next up, season 2/28 with a new Doctor, and many, many references to Torchwood scattered throughout [because the series now has the go ahead from the BBC]. We learn the Torchwood Institute was created by Queen Victoria, as a response to weirdness and wackiness (in that case, werewolves from space, and it really was the Doctor's fault). It's still around in the way far future, so it's got some staying power. [I think why becomes far clearer at the end of season 3/29, but this is pure speculation].
Torchwood: the place
Torchwood as we first meet it in London 2006 is apparently Not A Nice Place and they Have Views About Aliens [all your aliens are belong to us], and their hubris leads to yet another almost destruction of the earth, and a TRULY FEARSOME Dalek vs Cybermen showdown (the Battle of Canary Wharf), which, following in the finest fictional traditions, destroys the Torchwood unit responsible for unleashing the Cybermen.
It also handily leaves Jack Harkness' Torchwood unit in Cardiff (Torchwood Three) as practically the only one functioning.
We learn later that Jack took what Torchwood had been and rebuilt it, turned it into something good, all for the Doctor, because it's what he would have wanted [everyone give me an awwwwwww, please. Thank you.].
Torchwood: The Show
"The 21st Century is when everything changes. You've gotta be ready."
-Captain Jack Harkness
Torchwood, brain child of Russell T Davies, Doctor Who spin-off, and an anagram of Doctor Who, was deliberately written as a post-watershed show, heavy on the sex and violence, and exploring far more adult themes than Doctor Who ever did.
The setup
The 21st century is when the earth changes, when humans start finding out aliens are real, and Jack knows this, wants to make sure the human race are equipped to deal with it. This is what drives him, and what makes him drive his team.
Torchwood is 'separate from the government, outside the police, and beyond the United Nations'. Their mandate: investigate alien activity, prevent alien tech from falling into the wrong hands, and scavenge what they can for their own use. Their headquarters: The Hub, located underneath Roald Dahl Plass, outside the Millenium Centre, in Cardiff.
Why Cardiff? There's a spacetime rift, running right through the middle of the city, and flotsam and jetsam from all over time and space wash through it, wreaking merry havoc. This is what the Torchwood team tries to stop, and if they can't stop it, fix it, wiping people's memories if they have to, using a handy little drug called Retcon.
They also shag. A lot. Usually other people, but there is some intra-Torchwood shagging going on.
The People
Jack Harkness: The inestimable Captain Jack Harkness, leader of Torchwood, and a mystery to pretty much all of his people. He is still the amoral conman, laughing and flirting his way through life, but he's darker, driven, highly protective of his people - and immortal. He can be injured, but he cannot die, he doesn't sleep - and he doesn't know why. He's looking for the Doctor, that's why he's in Cardiff, because he knows the Doctor will return there, and he's been waiting for a very long time.
Suzie Costello: Jack's 2IC. Suzie is obsessed with the resurrection gauntlet, a piece of alien tech that briefly brings people back from the dead. In her obsession, she's been killing people to test it. When she's found out, she tries to run and ends up very dead. This doesn't stop her from being the focal point of a later episode, when she's brought back to life by the team and her own cunning plan.
Gwen Cooper: Gwen begins as a policewoman. She witnesses the Torchwood team resurrecting the dead using the resurrection gauntlet and, dogged and relentless, eventually tracks them down in a plan cleverly involving pizza. After a confrontation with Jack, she ends up being recruited by him as a sort of police liaison. Her strong sense of social responsibility and empathy get both very irritating and her into trouble more than once, but she's the only one (at least initially) who knows about Jack's secret immortality, and arguably she's the one he's closest to. She's really the only team member with a life outside the job.
Ianto Jones: I have so much Ianto love it cannot be contained. Ianto is awesome. Torchwood's front man and office bitch, he's quiet, fussy, always impeccably dressed, brilliant, and completely doesn't understand the adrenaline rush the others get. He coined the name 'risen mitten' for the resurrection gauntlet, and 'life knife' for its corollary. We gradually see him grow and change, stepping up and taking charge when Jack's gone. He and Jack end up in a sexual relationship -- Ianto seems to almost worship Jack, at times emulating his behaviour, or trying to, while it's implied that for Jack he's merely a casual fling. The season finale would seem to counter this assumption somewhat.
Toshiko Sato: Tosh is the resident computer genius. She's pretty much socially inept, but she's got fire under the shy exterior, willing to question Jack if she thinks he's wrong, and she's very mentally agile. She's actually gets along with everybody, particularly Owen, and often takes the role of peacemaker.
Owen Harper: Torchwood's doctor, also a genius, and an arrogant little weasel. Your mileage may vary on that opinion, but he is abrasive, annoying, rude, and did I mention arrogant? He is integral, though, to the team and he is an excellent doctor. Jack hired him after he screwed up in the real world, mostly because he needed a doctor, and he's Jack's 2IC (though this becomes the source of some heated conflict between him and Ianto) after Suzie's death. Like him or loathe him, the little bugger's entertaining.
Rhys Williams: Not a member of Torchwood, but he's Gwen's long-term boyfriend, and he is wonderful. A big teddy-bear of a man, his life eventually becomes intertwined with Gwen's at Torchwood. Gwen has to keep the details of her job secret, and this leads to growing tension between them, but at the end of the first series, they're still together. Rhys is love.
Why should you watch it?
Everyone's bisexual? No, not enough reason? Okay, how about it's got alien resurrection gauntlets, a cyberwoman girlfriend living in the basement, a pterodactyl, sex monsters turning people to dust, sex and guns and an amnesia drug called Retcon [which still makes me giggle], visits to the past, visits from the past, fairies, cannibals, telepaths, random shoes and an utterly cracktastic season finale that left me staring slackjawed at the screen.
Plus, it's got Captain Jack Harkness -- seriously, it's worth it just for that.
I will admit the show is weak in places, they get lazy with explaining characterisation, and sometimes the episodes leave you scratching your head in bemusement, but for all that it's bloody good.
Season One runs for thirteen episodes and ends with Jack hearing the sound of the TARDIS, which he's been waiting for for a very long time.
Doctor Who again
…and we're back to Doctor Who for a wee bit, the end of Season 3/29, and since it only just aired in the UK, I'm going to leave it as: Stuff Happens.
Jack catches up with the TARDIS, they go to the end of time itself, Jack flirts, we find out how he got off the station where he was resurrected, what the thing on his wrist is called and what it does [thanks, RTD, you couldn't have told us that at the beginning?!], Jack flirts more, finds out what's up with the whole immortal thing, why he was abandoned on the station, and he helps save the world again, before being returned to Cardiff.
And so Jack returns to Torchwood to lead his team into another glorious season of shagging and aliens and shagging aliens. And possibly rogue Time-Agents! Season Two will air in 2008.
Where can I find out more?
Where can't you?! Torchwood is all over the 'net, but these are reliable sites:
BBC official site
Wikipedia
Transcripts
'Where can I get it?,' I hear you cry, 'Give it to me!' (not dirty)
The first two DVD sets are available from Amazon UK, as well as three novels and three audio books. It's currently showing on channel ten in Australia and is soon to show on BBC America.
The box set of DVDs is due out in August
Or there are other options. *cough*
And there we go! Sorry about it being late, though technically it's still Sunday on the West Coast of Canada! Question? Comments? Observations? The obligatory request for pie?
_____________________
I've tried to avoid explicit spoilers, but there's a lot of general ones for the last five episodes of season 1 (2005) of Doctor Who, all of Torchwood, and very minor ones for season 2 and the end of season 3 of Doctor Who.