Torchwood 03.01 Cyberwoman

[dreamer_easy]

Just rewatched this episode, with the commentary. Despite the embarrassment of the chainmail bikini, it's still a ripper - fast-paced, strongly motivated, passionate, acted with conviction by all, and full of the characters getting the crap kicked out of them. V. interesting from a writerly technical point of view to hear Mr Chibnall pointing out glitches in the writing, both in the commentary and in his recent interview - notably Ianto's line about watching Jack suffer and die, which was never paid off. The commentary is hilarious, with references to the "escalating insanity" of the story, GDL's dip in the filthy Hub water, and the missing coleslaw. :-)

Comments

[jblum.livejournal.com]

...I just want it noted that there is some dissent on the "strongly motivated" and "acted with conviction" front. :-)

It's the ending which most annoys me on the motivation front. Why do they forgive Ianto for all this, why does Ianto decide to keep working for the boss who just pulled a gun on him and the bastards who just killed his girlfriend, and most basically, WHY IS HIDING YOUR KILLER ROBOT GIRLFRIEND IN THE BASEMENT NOT A SACKABLE OFFENCE? What exactly is Torchwood's Human Resources policy when it comes to dismissing employees, if that doesn't seem to qualify?

Even if they've consciously decided to forgive Ianto, and he's decided to stay on rather than getting as far away as possible from the whole Torchwood thing, why is there not a big scene where they actually communicate how they get to that point to the viewer? Even Chibnall thinks they blew that one, it seems...

This episode's heart is in the right place, it's doing a lot of the right sort of things, but I can't get past the big points which are just not there...

[vindaloo-vixen.livejournal.com]

I actually quite like it too. The first time I watched I actually found Lisa's story quite horrific. I guess I was kind of going from the words and concepts and not being put off by the visuals, which I realise for Lisa were clunky (metal heels got me more than metal bikini - maybe the Cyberman who converted her had a glitch and didn't know they weren't part of her feet, so he armoured over them?) the second time.

The frustrating thing was that with the visiting scientist and pizza-deliverer, they showed they could do some brilliantly grotesque effects, so why not apply some of them to Lisa?

(And does Ianto shave Lisa's legs? I guess he might well as he cares for her in her metal chair, but it must be dead fiddly getting underneath all those bits of metal that weren't quite touching her. Maybe they have super-duper alien depilatories at the Hub.)

I was actually really freaked out, both times I watched, by the pizza-deliverer's fate. Apart from finding body horror quite chilling to start with, it's just creepy that this poor woman only stopped in to deliver pizza, and Lisa not only killed her but started walking around in her corpse. Brrr.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

The lack of payoff for Ianto's threat to Jack annoyed me. I spent all season waiting for that, dammit!