solitary_summer | (no subject) (Reply)

Doctor Who 4.07 The Wasp and the Unicorn

Parts of it I really liked (mostly the whole Agatha Christie homage mystery part; the scene where they all tell the Doctor their (non-)alibis was really funny and I loved the actress who played Christie), and parts that didn't really work for me (specifically the Giant Alien Wasp thing, which was just a tad too cracktastic for my taste, and made it impossible to sympathise with the vicar's predicament, as far as I'm concerned; I don't have a phobia or anything, I don't kill wasps, but with giant insects that behave almost entirely like insects my ability to empathise stops.), and ultimately as an episode it fell rather flat.

And it's kind of sad that I was not at all surprised that the Indian house keeper didn't make it, or Roger, although at least in his case I'd been hoping against all hope. OTOH maybe I've just been reading too many discussions on race and gender via

metafandom, so that I just can't not see this kind of thing any more. ::sigh::

Torchwood 1.11 Combat

# Another episode that I liked better than I remembered.

# Would Gwen have come up with the idea of retconning Rhys if Jack hadn't done it to her in the first episode? Although admittedly it's a bit graver doing this to someone you're in a relationship with and who trusts you. Gwen and Jack are alike in a lot of ways; they both have this controlling streak of believing they know what's best for someone without actually giving that person a chance to agree or disagree, and putting their emotional needs first without even entirely realising that this is what they're doing, which sometimes makes them cross lines that shouldn't be crossed. (Not Jack rescuing Owen from the weevil, which was the obvious and natural reaction, but Jack resurrecting Owen in S2.) And Jack dragging her from her dinner with her boyfriend and then chiding her for not taking care of her life is more than a bit hypocritical.

# Interesting thing about Jack's priorities. He'll save Owen, because Owen is his responsibility (and unlike with John in Out of Time [And btw, TW. Names. As in, variety thereof. For a moment there, copying this from my notes I thought John? What John? In S1? Hu?], Owen's death wish isn't up for discussion, even if Jack does looks a bit stricken. Just 'Want you back in work tomorrow.'), but he won't shoot a Weevil to save someone like Mark from himself. Jack doesn't want them to go on abusing the Weevils for their amusement, if you can call it that ('These creatures are to be left alone. Go back to your lives.'), but despite or because he himself struggles with the meaning and purpose of his life, he has no sympathy for those men who take the easy way out.

#

I read through the Jack/Ianto post I wrote after S1, and apart from the fact that there's surprisingly really little to add even with the additional information of S2 and rewatching really carefully, something I said then which is still true for me is that in S1 until the last ten minutes or so of EoD I've seen more of a connection between characters who were (presumed/supposed to be) straight in canon and had (intentional or unintentional) subtext at best, than between these two.

And Jack's posture there with the arms crossed in front of his chest his chest (which is mirrored in EoD, once again Jack with his arms crossed and Ianto with his hands in his pockets)... I'm not going back through ten episodes again to make a study of Jack's body language, but from the last three episodes it's clear that Jack doesn't do this only with Ianto, but it certainly doesn't change around him either, quite the opposite. There's this one moment at the beginning of Combat when Ianto is standing just outside Jack's office and tells Jack, who is crossing the Hub coming towards him, about the cases of possible Weevil-related injuries, and the moment Jack stops and turns toward him his arms start to cross in front of his chest and he only uncrosses them again almost immediately because he isn't Zaphod Beeblebrox and needs a free hand to take the file that Ianto's handing him with. Which is a rather defensive, closed-off body-language in the company of someone he's sleeping with, where, if anything one might expect Jack to relax and open up a bit.

And I'm not making a study of JB's body language either, but (feel free to correct me, though) this seems to me to be more of a Jack thing than a Barrowman thing.

Is it overinterpreting to suggest that Jack is at this point (at least on a subconscious level) feeling more than a bit conflicted about how close he let Ianto get in too many respects?

# Random (mini) picture spam that is not actually trying to prove anything.