Author: Eugene Glover

Greek Bearing Gifts
by Toby Whithouse

Having just obtained a personality last week, this week it’s Toshiko’s turn to screw up.

Synopsis
In 1812, a prostitute, Mary, and a Redcoat have an unexpected experience with a mysterious life form in the woods. 194 years later the “crime scene” is uncovered, along with some alien technology. Torchwood is called in. Unbeknownst to them a remarkably well preserved Mary is watching them.

Back at base, Toshiko is finding Owen and Gwen’s suddenly frisky camaraderie annoying and when it is obvious they don’t care about her work, either, she stops at the bar for a drink. Mary intercepts her there and introduced herself as one of a group of people who scavenge alien technology. She presents Toshiko with a pendant that allows her to read minds. Toshiko says she’ll have to turn this over to Torchwood, but Mary assures her that she won’t.

Returning to base, she uses the pendant to read Gwen and Owen’s minds. No only does that reveal that they are having an affair, it also further emphasizes just what they think of her. She is unable to tell them about the pendant.

Mary uses Toshiko’s vulnerability and seduces her. Her ultimate goal is to get into Torchwood and retrieve the alien artifact, which she claims is a transporter that can return her home.

Meanwhile, Owen’s research on the dead body reveals a series of crimes going back to 1812. The victims have all had their hearts ripped out.

Toshiko takes Mary into Torchwood and there’s a standoff. Mary is revealed to be an alien criminal and Jack tricks her into using her transporter device, which he has reprogrammed to take her to the heart of the sun.

Analysis
While there’s nothing particularly wrong with this story, the plot is a little shallow on the ground. It’s more about character development rather than melodrama.

The mind reading device isn’t really used to good effect except to make Toshiko more vulnerable to seduction in a science fictionish way rather than just overhearing a conversation or two by accident. It’s certainly the weakest entry in the series so far.

The most obvious feature of this story is the same-sex seduction of Toshiko. For once, finally, the use of sex in Torchwood is integrated into the plot in an effective and plausible way. The fact that it was a same-sex seduction of a character that we know to be interested in the opposite sex could have rendered this story even more striking. Unfortunately, since some of the more ham-fisted writers on the series have previously managed to get every last major character into same-sex kissing (at the least), what could have been a dramatic and thought-provoking plot device becomes another, “Oh, no not again!” moment. (Please, RTD, go back to beating us over the head with “Bad Wolf” or something.)

Since this is what the story is entirely about, it was completely undermined by what had been done before on the show.

It is revealed (if it wasn’t obvious last week) that Toshiko’s got a school girl crush on Owen. She also has an opportunity to see into Ianto’s mind, and he’s revealed to be mostly a zombie mourning the loss of his girlfriend back in Cyberwoman. Considering that Toshiko now knows about Gwen and Owen, what pain Ianto is in and the “pairing” of Toshiko and Ianto in last week’s episode, it’s not too hard to imagine that they’ll be getting closer as the series progresses. Hopefully not as early as next week – that would be really too clumsy.

Captain Jack mystery puzzle piece of the week: Jack’s mind couldn’t be read unless he wanted it to be and he could sense Toshiko trying to read it.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Review, Torchwood

Torchwood
Countrycide by Chris Chibnall

I must admit that as each episode of Torchwood opens, a sense of dread overcomes me every time I see Chris Chibnall’s name as the writer.

It’s not so much that he’s a bad writer, because he isn’t. The sense of dread comes because he is the writer who has apparently been “tasked” with forcing gratuitous sex into the program, whether it is important to the plot nor not. He is the chief hand crafting the episodes to fit what I can only call a juvenile’s idea of “adult” television. I can actually picture Beavis and Butthead at a Torchwood writer’s meeting giving advice on how to make the show adult.

Beavis: Then the scientist fondles the cyberchick’s tit.
Butthead: heh heh heh heh heh He said “tit” heh heh heh heh heh heh

And on that note, Countrycide opens…

Synopsis

Somewhere in the Welsh countryside, people are disappearing without a trace and Capt. Jack brings the Torchwood team to investigate.

They setup camp (yes, camp) in the area and rather than investigate, they play a round of who’d you snog last. Luckily for Ianto, Capt. Jack wiggles out of answering the question, but it turns out all the ladies snogged Owen last, and that doesn’t sit well with Toshi.

They’re drawn out into the woods where Owen aggressively attempts to sex up Gwen, who doesn’t resist much. Before it goes too far, they discover a badly mutilated body, which turns out to be a diversionary tactic to steal their Torchwood-mobile. The entire team follow the vehicle’s tracker signal, on foot, to a deserted inn in a tiny community.

Inside the inn, the mutilated bodies are practically falling from the cupboards. Toshi and Ianto are captured and placed in a larder of human parts. Whatever has captured them has a taste for human flesh.

Gwen is shot by a survivor who has been holding off the human eaters and Owen (a doctor, by the way) saves her life. Pumped full of pain killers and buckshot, she still manages a bit of hair caressing on Owen. Where could this be going?

One by one, the team are captured and the villains are revealed to be… wait for it… deranged country folk who just like to eat people every ten years.

Everyone is on the menu except for Jack, who bursts in with a hail of bullets and shoots everybody. The police come to haul everybody off.

Gwen is distraught that she can’t talk about this with her boyfriend, so she goes and screws Owen.

Analysis

As a horror episode, this episode generally delivers well. It’s creepy, frightening and atmospheric. It’s also a moment when you can cheer as Capt. Jack comes in, kicks butt and takes names.

On the other hand, unless this episode is meant as a prelude to a future episode, the basic premise doesn’t hold up well. So, there have been several mysterious disappearances in the area. So what? Why is this a job for Torchwood and not the police? Admittedly, the local cop is one of the cannibals, but with so many people missing, surely a team of cops would have been working on the case – perhaps even cops trained in missing person investigations.

The cannibals appeared to be none-too-bright, so why weren’t they found out already? They’re leaving bodies and witnesses lying around all over their homes, for crying out loud! For that matter, why were they not discovered 10 years ago, or 20, since this has apparently been going on for some time – “harvesting people every 10 years”, they said.

“Harvesting” is an odd word, too. Harvest implies reaping what you sow. The word was either misused, or there’s more to this story. (Yes, I’m basing my theory that this episode might be a precursor for something else on exactly one word.)

For the first time, we get to see a bit of personality for Toshi – that’s bad. Like Ianto, when he finally exhibited personality he screwed up big time. Looks like Toshi is next. Keeping characters without personality until you need them is a rather ham-fisted writing technique. In this case, Toshi’s “personality” is jealousy and a sense of not being appreciated. If that isn’t a recipe for disaster, I don’t know what is.

Meanwhile they’ve been setting up Gwen and Owen’s sexual attraction for one another, and placing Gwen in the vulnerable position of not being able to “open up” and share with her boyfriend. Fair enough, there’s no doubt that keeping secrets like that is a stress on a relationship, but… why couldn’t she talk about this case with her boyfriend? It didn’t involve aliens. Everyone on the planet seems to have heard of Torchwood. The cops came and cleaned up a whole village of cannibals – like that won’t be on the evening news? There’s nothing for her to hide. For once she actually could have thrown him a bone and talked to him about her work. Perhaps he wouldn’t like it, but after their place was ransacked last week, he should have figured out her work might be dangerous.

Capt. Jack mystery puzzle piece of the week: Once he was a torturer.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Review, Torchwood

James Bond is back.

There’s no more fitting way to describe this film. It’s the highest praise I can give it. It certainly wipes the bad taste left by Die Another Day out of the mouth and shows that the “new” (since 1995) production team of Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli have finally gotten their act together and caught the Bond spirit. Every film in their reign (Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day) has, to one degree or another, felt off-kilter.

This one is absolutely on the mark.

The worst thing I can say about this film is that the titles are absolutely naff and have no naked women cavorting around.

As pointed out in my earlier post, the novel Casino Royale is a flawed book, with the action out-of-balance, and the plot being very short. The movie does an admirable job of following the book but, to flesh it out to an admittedly, butt-numbing two and a half hours, they’ve embellished the original story in several ways and improved it in every way.

In the original novel, M receives a memo outlining Le Chiffre’s financial difficulties and his high stakes baccarat game at Casino Royale to win back the money has already been setup. Bond is assigned simply because he is the best card player in the service.

In the film, the first hour concentrates on Bond’s efforts to stop first one, then a second hired bomber from causing financial turmoil and, not coincidentally, a financial windfall for Le Chiffre – who only puts in token appearances in the early part of the film.

The casino sequences have been embellished with action between breaks in the gaming, which is now poker rather than baccarat, presumably because baccarat has never been a popular game in the US and poker is currently experiencing an unfathomable popularity as a spectator sport.

The movie then follows the spirit of the book quite closely. (Easily the closest adaptation since On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.) Vesper and Bond are kidnapped, Bond is tortured and hen the principal baddie is killed by an unknown assassin while Bond is still tied in his torture chair and the movie still has a good 30 or 40 minutes to go.

Apart from the title sequence, my main secondary complaint would be that the movie might follow the book a little too closely and the story slows into the final act of Bond and Vesper falling in love. Unlike the book’s final act which ends with a complete fizzle, the writers have thankfully ended this film with an exciting Bond finale.

Then when you’re sure it’s finally over and you think you’ll finally be able to go empty your bladder, they throw a final twist in that makes you clinch up and prepare for some more chair time.

This is not a movie at which to buy the 44oz soda at the concessions counter.

The movie is a little disjointed, feeling more like 4 (or more) different, yet related, short stories following one after the next. The final segment, like the book, rings a bit untrue, as the developing love between Bond and Vesper really manfests itself only after the mission is over. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service tells a better Bond love story because you can see the love develop over the film, and it makes Bond’s desire to marry more credible. While OHMSS’s love story is superior, Craig’s performance leaves Lazenby’s far, far behind.

Director Martin Campbell redeems himself after mangling Goldeneye and does a journeyman job. (Only complaint: during the final fight sequence, there are times when it is difficult to tell which stunt man is supposed to be Bond.)

As I’ve mentioned earlier, the score is not one of my favorites when listened to by itself, but in the context of the film does well and compliments the movie nicely. The theme song, which I dislike does have a nice melody and I found myself humming it after the film. It’s apparently the vocal performer that fails for me on this one.

Finally
A lot of ire was tossed at Daniel Craig prior to the release of this film, and I certainly had my doubts about him. His “look” is still not what I expect, and when he’s dressed up in his dinner jacket, he looks in desperate need of someone to comb his hair. With that and his features, he looks more like a bouncer than a secret agent.

That notwithstanding, he turns in a great performance. No complaints, not one. His Bond is smart, resourceful, arrogant and rather humorless.

Prior to the release of the film, the film is hyped as Bond’s first adventure and how he becomes the agent we all know. Frankly, that’s just hype. While it is true that this film depicts Bond’s promotion to 007, the script really just plays lip service to the concept. Bond is every bit the agent he’ll be in the end from the beginning of the film to the end. Character “growth” really isn’t there.

So there it is, a superior Bond film. Go see it. Bring a comfy cushion, have an empty bladder.

One other thing…
I almost loath giving these guys a link, but I’m going to. You may know that there was a vocal anti-Craig movement, based largely on his looks. One of the most visible manifestations of it is the Daniel Craig is Not Bond website. They’ve been urging a boycott of the film and the return of Pierce Brosnan. Having once been in the “I’m not sure he’s a good choice” category, I was curious to see if they’d changed their tune – or better yet, taken down their website completely and replaced it with the I’m-Eating-Crow website.

Nope, they’re still sponsoring a boycott of the film (their loss) and have even posted a few “honest and reliable” reviews (presumably from people who didn’t go along with the boycott). I’m going to link to them here because they are so wrong they’re funny. They’re kind of like the conspiracy nuts who think we never landed on the moon.

Don’t let someone else make up your mind for you, go see it for yourself.

Technorati Tags: 007, Blog, Movies, Review