Day 5: A show you hate
Jul. 27th, 2010 05:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deird1So, after a break of nearly two weeks...
Torchwood. One of the more dreadful shows of my acquaintance.
Which is a shame, because it could have been very good. A Doctor-Who-like show that stays in one location should give a lot of room for ongoing plotlines in a way that Doctor Who can't. (In a way that Angel actually did.)
But it's almost like they looked at Doctor Who, decided what made it good, and took all those parts out.
Doctor Who is a show with:
- a man who saves the world using only a screwdriver (granted, a sonic one, but still...)
- no legal authority - and if people actually realise that the Doctor is important, rather than just dismissing him, they're more likely to arrest him than anything else.
- consequences - at least in part, because if someone finds out about aliens, they're going to have to live with that knowledge, whatever it does to them.
Whereas, on Torchwood:
- they have a funky alien device for every occasion.
- they have more legal authority than anyone ever.
- they can wipe people's memories! Hooray!
It's the legal authority that bugs me, more than anything else. No-one ever tries to stop them doing ANYTHING.
And Jack? He comes up with the most ludicrous ideas known to man, that the whole team disagrees with, and yet they still obey his every whim. Why? Because it's Jack, and he's in charge... for some reason. They trust him for no reason whatsoever.
It's like the writers are trying to start with Angel season 3, without going through seasons 1 and 2.
And just to quote myself:
It's a terrible show. Avoid it.
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Master List
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Torchwood. One of the more dreadful shows of my acquaintance.
Which is a shame, because it could have been very good. A Doctor-Who-like show that stays in one location should give a lot of room for ongoing plotlines in a way that Doctor Who can't. (In a way that Angel actually did.)
But it's almost like they looked at Doctor Who, decided what made it good, and took all those parts out.
Doctor Who is a show with:
- a man who saves the world using only a screwdriver (granted, a sonic one, but still...)
- no legal authority - and if people actually realise that the Doctor is important, rather than just dismissing him, they're more likely to arrest him than anything else.
- consequences - at least in part, because if someone finds out about aliens, they're going to have to live with that knowledge, whatever it does to them.
Whereas, on Torchwood:
- they have a funky alien device for every occasion.
- they have more legal authority than anyone ever.
- they can wipe people's memories! Hooray!
It's the legal authority that bugs me, more than anything else. No-one ever tries to stop them doing ANYTHING.
And Jack? He comes up with the most ludicrous ideas known to man, that the whole team disagrees with, and yet they still obey his every whim. Why? Because it's Jack, and he's in charge... for some reason. They trust him for no reason whatsoever.
It's like the writers are trying to start with Angel season 3, without going through seasons 1 and 2.
And just to quote myself:
If you are part of a government organisation, set up by the government, funded by the government, and with official badges to show to people saying "Hi, I am part of the government, please let me into this top-secret facility"...
...then you are not "Outside the government; beyond the police". I don't care how cool it sounds.
It's a terrible show. Avoid it.
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Master List
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