dreamer_easy | MOAR Torchwood stuff - plus! an SF challenge!

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