So, a mostly spoiler-free, parenthetical-filled and brief(ish) comment: upon further review, that was cracktastic fun!
Understand: I'm not saying that it was good, exactly; I'm saying that it was fun. Not in the "let's pick apart everything they did wrong" way, but in the "they have seen the enemy's horrible tacky awfulness, and it is them, and they have embraced it" sort of way.
Here's the weird thing, though: for all that it was pretty much the producers and writers saying, "Why are we writing pretty men kissing? Because. We. CAN! We are the biggest fanboys de todos! We don't care if it's good, we just want boys kissing!" it was kind of ... shockingly tightly plotted. That terribly silly beginning also signalled that things have changed dramatically; there aren't as many secrets as there once were. (And the original opening after every first season episode's credits, where Jack declaims the purpose of Torchwood from the top of the Millennium Centre is gone, which is good.) One scene between Gwen and Jack was solidly in the "WTF? What planet did that sail in from?" realm -- there was really nothing in season one to set it up, and certainly nothing earlier in this episode -- but even that scene served to impart some character information that would otherwise have been hard to work in. (And I'll bet what was implied never gets mentioned again, either.) Everyone even had something more or less useful to do in the story, plus Owen Comedy Rapist was kept to a minimum. (I really do think they hamstrung the character with the way he started the series; they just plain didn't think about how playing Alien Pheromone Roofie Rape for Fun would come across. Unfortunately, he's stuck with it. Add to that the fact that the character's written prickly and somewhat dislikeable, and ... well, as I said, he's stuck with it.) If they can alternate, say, a well done horror episode -- and the horror was the stuff that mostly landed last season -- with fun (if periodically violent and gory) stuff like this, then that'll be about a perfect season. And judging from the press release about the first five episodes, the fanboy crack levels will be impressive this season. About the only thing missing was the producers saying, "Oh, and we'll be making sure that all of our men show up naked at least once each this season." Though if Owen will kindly keep his clothes on, I'll gladly foresake seeing everyone else naked. (Last season's Naked Rhys was cute, though ... What? What? He was.)
Also, judging from this episode and the "coming this season" bit, Ianto gets all the fun lines.
There's still a mild structural problem that there's nothing they can do with -- there's no good reason for Toshiko or Ianto to ever be out in the field, and Ianto's role within Torchwood remains profoundly undefined. I think he's supposed to primarily be the operations manager, but by definition, your operations manager stays behind to coordinate your operations, which severely limits what they can do with him dramatically. Thus, he goes out into the field for no good reason.
I will note that the only bit that stuck out as Really Terribly Stupid was that thing with the blood at the end. And, while it would have gotten your average earth human Extremely and Unpleasantly Dead, I'm willing to give that the "alien biology works different" handwave. I'm a bit less willing to believe that a device that had been clamped on that long could be confused so easily by so little, but again ... whatever. Not enough to ruin the fun.
Really, the only thing that would have made this episode any more fun is if they'd played out Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang over the end. (No, of course it wouldn't have made any sense. That's not the point.)
Understand: I'm not saying that it was good, exactly; I'm saying that it was fun. Not in the "let's pick apart everything they did wrong" way, but in the "they have seen the enemy's horrible tacky awfulness, and it is them, and they have embraced it" sort of way.
Here's the weird thing, though: for all that it was pretty much the producers and writers saying, "Why are we writing pretty men kissing? Because. We. CAN! We are the biggest fanboys de todos! We don't care if it's good, we just want boys kissing!" it was kind of ... shockingly tightly plotted. That terribly silly beginning also signalled that things have changed dramatically; there aren't as many secrets as there once were. (And the original opening after every first season episode's credits, where Jack declaims the purpose of Torchwood from the top of the Millennium Centre is gone, which is good.) One scene between Gwen and Jack was solidly in the "WTF? What planet did that sail in from?" realm -- there was really nothing in season one to set it up, and certainly nothing earlier in this episode -- but even that scene served to impart some character information that would otherwise have been hard to work in. (And I'll bet what was implied never gets mentioned again, either.) Everyone even had something more or less useful to do in the story, plus Owen Comedy Rapist was kept to a minimum. (I really do think they hamstrung the character with the way he started the series; they just plain didn't think about how playing Alien Pheromone Roofie Rape for Fun would come across. Unfortunately, he's stuck with it. Add to that the fact that the character's written prickly and somewhat dislikeable, and ... well, as I said, he's stuck with it.) If they can alternate, say, a well done horror episode -- and the horror was the stuff that mostly landed last season -- with fun (if periodically violent and gory) stuff like this, then that'll be about a perfect season. And judging from the press release about the first five episodes, the fanboy crack levels will be impressive this season. About the only thing missing was the producers saying, "Oh, and we'll be making sure that all of our men show up naked at least once each this season." Though if Owen will kindly keep his clothes on, I'll gladly foresake seeing everyone else naked. (Last season's Naked Rhys was cute, though ... What? What? He was.)
Also, judging from this episode and the "coming this season" bit, Ianto gets all the fun lines.
There's still a mild structural problem that there's nothing they can do with -- there's no good reason for Toshiko or Ianto to ever be out in the field, and Ianto's role within Torchwood remains profoundly undefined. I think he's supposed to primarily be the operations manager, but by definition, your operations manager stays behind to coordinate your operations, which severely limits what they can do with him dramatically. Thus, he goes out into the field for no good reason.
I will note that the only bit that stuck out as Really Terribly Stupid was that thing with the blood at the end. And, while it would have gotten your average earth human Extremely and Unpleasantly Dead, I'm willing to give that the "alien biology works different" handwave. I'm a bit less willing to believe that a device that had been clamped on that long could be confused so easily by so little, but again ... whatever. Not enough to ruin the fun.
Really, the only thing that would have made this episode any more fun is if they'd played out Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang over the end. (No, of course it wouldn't have made any sense. That's not the point.)
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though i did like the fact that all of the male and female characters were bisexual-curious. that was awesome.