MOAR Torchwood stuff - plus! an SF challenge!

[dreamer_easy]

OK kids, I have an SFnal challenge for you.

You'll remember controversy over Owen's use of an alien spray in the very first episode of Torchwood to seduce first a woman he fancies, then her boyfriend. Owen sprays himself with the stuff, and anger and indifference turn at once to overwhelming lust, in a parody of those Lynx ads.

Now, RTD and Julie Gardner are completely blithe about this in the DVD commentary. And it suddenly hit me: the spray doesn't affect the couple; it only affects Owen - at least, that's the intention.

Every theory I've come up with about how the spray works has assumed it somehow affected the couple - meaning this was a variety of drug rape. Even if it made Owen shoot out superpowerful pheremones or something, that's still affecting the other people rather than him.

So thinking caps on: what the heck could the spray do only to Owen that made him suddenly irresistable?

In the meantime, some links for u:

Ianto and Jack both make afterelton.com's list of Ten Best Gay and Bisexual Science Fiction Characters. "...Jack and some of the other characters in the series represent an almost “post-gay” approach to sexual themes, in which sexual identity is represented as fluid and complicated, and, more importantly, as not a big deal. It simply is what it is."

Some really terrific analysis of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang from crabby_lioness.

And some icons that are just gosh darn funny. :-)

Comments

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

I really don't think there's a way out of the Owen thing. He becomes suddenly irresistable to people who had no interest beforehand, and uses it knowing the effect it has. It's possible that "he only used it on himself" is why it slipped past the production team in terms of the implication of rape, but when you get right down to it it was a poorly-conceived joke where Owen bypassed consent.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

You could well be right - that the effect of the spray is so sudden and dramatic that there's just no way to explain it as working only on the person who gets sprayed. Still, trying to think of an Owen-only mechanism is an interesting SFnal puzzle.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

Maybe he... became magically attractive in terms of his looks?

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Oh but Nos, he already was. ;-)

[the-cockfighter.livejournal.com]

People are attracted to other people for very particular reasons. Often it has nothing to do with beauty (of some kind of absolute sense). I know some people who find me more attractive when I have a beard and others who find me more attractive when I'm beardless. Same clothes, hair, smell, personality but it can simply come down to whether they find bearded/non-bearded me more attractive.

The spray could have be a "see what you want to see".

[the-cockfighter.livejournal.com]

And further on this point I'll exploit this fact, for my own fun and games. :-)

[the-cockfighter.livejournal.com]

and even further on these points.

There are the twinks, those young men in their early 20s who don't find me attractive, mainly because they're only interested in guys around their own age. However there are also some who do find me attractive because I am at least 10 years older than they are.

[matthewwolff.livejournal.com]

And you can change your look back and forth to appear more attractive to one or the other group...

[outsdr.livejournal.com]

I vote for the beard. ;)