Torchwood Explained
Aug. 18th, 2007 10:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyficI have come up with a theory that explains Torchwood and makes it not suck quite so hard. It's simple, really. You see, Jack is a con-man. That's how he was introduced in Doctor Who, and that's what he (and, incidentally, John Barrowman) is best at. He can be heroic, but really only when he's a sidekick to a hero. Left to his own devices, he tries to sell space junk and fondles robots and things.
Now Torchwood is going on the conceit that sometime since the battle with the Daleks, Jack has learned to be less selfish and has really stepped up and become a hero in his own right. But that's not what happened.
He needs to stay near the rift to wait for the Doctor, so he's set up his own little fiefdom. At some point he conned the government into thinking he was the right guy for this job, and now he's got absolute access, lots of toys, complete discretion and he doesn't have to answer to anyone. It's perfect.
To keep this little gig going, though, he has to surround himself with idiotic, selfish, emotionally-stunted sycophants who will be easily manipulated and never question him. And voila! We have Torchwood. I mean, look at the way he leads these people. "Stop asking questions! Just do what I say!" and "When I want you to think for yourself I'll tell you!" He's just such a bad leader—he never explains himself, he fails at the mysterious I-know-what-I'm-doing mystique the Doctor has because his ideas are almost always crap.
That's why Jack reacts so personally to everything. Because to him, it is always personal. In "Cyberwoman," he gets pissed at Ianto for betraying him, not so much for endangering humanity, because in his position the only thing he really needs to worry about is mutiny. He's encouraged all of these characters to react emotionally rather than logically to everything, which makes them easier to control. Of course that means that when that emotion runs against him, he completely loses control (see "End of Days"). Jack, there are a couple of dictators who could have told you that.
That means that all of his little speeches and reminiscences and explanations don't make sense because he just pulled them out of his ass. He's just making this shit up. Half the time when he finishes one of his little shouting matches, he turns away with a smirk, like he's thinking, "phew! They bought it."
So that speech in "Ghost Machine" about the future not being for us to know? Crap. He's a fucking time-traveler; he already knows the future. I mean—what the fuck?
And his flashback in "Small Worlds" where he's talking about his troops all being killed by the fairies and goes on about how happy they all were—oh yeah, and they drunkenly ran over a small girl. Oops! But they were still happy and gay and innocent! And they died silently, even though the only person to die of that method in the episode died violently…This is all because Jack didn't think his way all the way through the story before he started talking.
See how much easier that makes everything? If you just assume that only 10% of what Jack says he actually knows and all the rest of it is bullshit, suddenly the show makes sense!
It makes me almost wish that in the inevitable Doctor Who crossover, the Doctor had come back and said, "Oh, look, Jack—you've gotten yourself a little cult." Then explained to everyone that Jack was a trickster and never knew what he was doing and they should all go on with their lives as previously scheduled.
The only drawback to this interpretation is that if Jack has set himself up in a position of false authority, that makes him a little sinister. Almost every episode he's killing someone or letting someone die or be carried off by fairies or something, and if all of that is in the pursuit of maintaining his façade, rather than from a true selfless heroism, he can't help but be a little bit evil.
Of course, there's still the bad directing (if I get another f-ing slow-mo montage with violin music I will shoot someone), bad writing and (oh my god) bad acting to deal with. It's such a tragedy that Barrowman was so good on Doctor Who and he really just sucks in this. And given the level of man-kissing in the show, you know it has to be truly terrible for me to say that.
Now Torchwood is going on the conceit that sometime since the battle with the Daleks, Jack has learned to be less selfish and has really stepped up and become a hero in his own right. But that's not what happened.
He needs to stay near the rift to wait for the Doctor, so he's set up his own little fiefdom. At some point he conned the government into thinking he was the right guy for this job, and now he's got absolute access, lots of toys, complete discretion and he doesn't have to answer to anyone. It's perfect.
To keep this little gig going, though, he has to surround himself with idiotic, selfish, emotionally-stunted sycophants who will be easily manipulated and never question him. And voila! We have Torchwood. I mean, look at the way he leads these people. "Stop asking questions! Just do what I say!" and "When I want you to think for yourself I'll tell you!" He's just such a bad leader—he never explains himself, he fails at the mysterious I-know-what-I'm-doing mystique the Doctor has because his ideas are almost always crap.
That's why Jack reacts so personally to everything. Because to him, it is always personal. In "Cyberwoman," he gets pissed at Ianto for betraying him, not so much for endangering humanity, because in his position the only thing he really needs to worry about is mutiny. He's encouraged all of these characters to react emotionally rather than logically to everything, which makes them easier to control. Of course that means that when that emotion runs against him, he completely loses control (see "End of Days"). Jack, there are a couple of dictators who could have told you that.
That means that all of his little speeches and reminiscences and explanations don't make sense because he just pulled them out of his ass. He's just making this shit up. Half the time when he finishes one of his little shouting matches, he turns away with a smirk, like he's thinking, "phew! They bought it."
So that speech in "Ghost Machine" about the future not being for us to know? Crap. He's a fucking time-traveler; he already knows the future. I mean—what the fuck?
And his flashback in "Small Worlds" where he's talking about his troops all being killed by the fairies and goes on about how happy they all were—oh yeah, and they drunkenly ran over a small girl. Oops! But they were still happy and gay and innocent! And they died silently, even though the only person to die of that method in the episode died violently…This is all because Jack didn't think his way all the way through the story before he started talking.
See how much easier that makes everything? If you just assume that only 10% of what Jack says he actually knows and all the rest of it is bullshit, suddenly the show makes sense!
It makes me almost wish that in the inevitable Doctor Who crossover, the Doctor had come back and said, "Oh, look, Jack—you've gotten yourself a little cult." Then explained to everyone that Jack was a trickster and never knew what he was doing and they should all go on with their lives as previously scheduled.
The only drawback to this interpretation is that if Jack has set himself up in a position of false authority, that makes him a little sinister. Almost every episode he's killing someone or letting someone die or be carried off by fairies or something, and if all of that is in the pursuit of maintaining his façade, rather than from a true selfless heroism, he can't help but be a little bit evil.
Of course, there's still the bad directing (if I get another f-ing slow-mo montage with violin music I will shoot someone), bad writing and (oh my god) bad acting to deal with. It's such a tragedy that Barrowman was so good on Doctor Who and he really just sucks in this. And given the level of man-kissing in the show, you know it has to be truly terrible for me to say that.
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no subject
Date: 2007-08-19 09:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-20 02:14 am (UTC)And I quite like Ianto in fic, largely because he's kind of a blank slate. Granted, I haven't seen all the episodes so far, but the only one I've seen he has any part in was Cyberwoman, aka fountain of Ianto angst. Granted, he royally sucked in that, but still. It's not like there was characterization or anything. Fandom's just created him whole-cloth.
You just know that the only reason that episode got written was the fight between the cyberwoman and the pterodactyl.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-20 02:42 am (UTC)I much prefer cheerful, carefree Jack. In other words, Doctor Who Jack. I don't mind a little angst, but they went over the top and ruined his character. I honestly think they don't know how to write him (different writers for the most part from DW) especially in this kind of situation. And I'm annoyed that the memory wipe thing has so far been dropped, they set that up right when his character was introduced and I'm still waiting for it to be important. I thought they might reference it in the finale of the series... which, have you watched it yet? There's talk of mind-wiping.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-20 03:18 am (UTC)What amazes me is that in Torchwood, they don't explain a damn thing about Jack. I mean, I knew the hand was the Doctor's because I read about it on crack_van, but if I hadn't, even though I'd watched that ep of Doctor Who, I doubt I would have figured it out. Were we just supposed to get that? I was waiting a whole series for an explanation of why he can't die and why he's on Earth and it's not until he's back on Doctor Who that we get. That seems like a vital piece of exposition not to have on the show he's starring in.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-20 04:06 am (UTC)I figured out the thing about the Doctor's hand, but then I've seen the Christmas Invasion more than once. The music in the background when Jack's holding the hand after the container breaks is also the Doctor's theme. I think the problem is that they are assuming that pretty much anyone watching Torchwood is probably also watching Doctor Who. Which is a fairly reasonable assumption, especially in the UK.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-20 03:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-20 04:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-21 05:14 am (UTC)As for surrounding himself with emotional children--how hard is that to do? You've got a bunch of advanced academics with enough basic know-how and curiosity and tenacity and you give them a bunch of toys, blanket authority (to heighten the sense of coolness), and a veil of secrecy (with lots of moth-eaten holes in it), and it's no wonder they all start to behave like juveniles at every instant. I don't think he had to try hard to get that mix.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-21 05:18 am (UTC)