John Frobisher was a good man

[the_deep_magic]

See, here's the thing: there's only one demon possession movie.  It's called The Exorcist.  Everything else is fated to be a bad copy of The Exorcist.  I don't know why this is -- most likely, the movie was so influential that our very concept of demonic possession is defined by it -- but my point is, stop making possession movies, because there already is one, and only one, and yours isn't going to be any better.

And if you do foolishly go ahead and make one, please don't advertise in such a way that I cannot look at IMDb or watch various TV shows online without forcibly being subjected to the trailer.  Okay?

Oh, and I'm about to post some Teen Wolf fic recs, but obviously I have some miscellaneous FEELINGS to get out of the way first.

I watched Children of Earth again, and I stand by my former opinion: it is the best series of Torchwood.  Yeah, it has some problems (let's storm Thames House, ultimately costing dozens if not hundreds of lives, and just argue the aliens away!) and completely lacks the humor of the first two seasons and we didn't really need all that green goo, but there were really gorgeous, painful bits that I'd forgotten.  Like Frobisher's entire subplot (brilliantly acted, BTW), or the brief monologue Gwen has about the Doctor turning away from the earth in disgust.  It might be the bleakest thing I've ever seen that I actually liked and watched more than once, because I am not generally a lover of angst, not even as catharsis.

I didn't know until long after I'd watched the whole series how much Gwen-hate there was on the internets, and having seen it again, I can understand -- she's the only one that never loses anything.  She gets a perfect restart every time.  It doesn't bother me so much, because it almost feels like someone has to or else none of what Torchwood does is worth it.  The fact that she never faced any consequences for cheating on her boyfriend, telling him about it, then retconning him to forget it while begging him to forgive her -- that bothers me, but not enough to hate her character.  Which actually kind of surprises me, but there you go.  Torchwood makes angst and infidelity okay, because gay alien sex!

And I've started watching Miracle Day, because I am a masochist.  It's a really interesting premise -- can't wait to see how they fuck it up.

Comments

[janice-lester.livejournal.com]

The thing that bothers me about Children of Earth--the only thing, really--is the technobabble solution. It's a weakness in a lot of recent Doctor Who, too, that sudden explanation in the last five minutes of how we can kill or drive away these baddies who looked so unstoppable before. (Though recent Star Trek is a far worse villain here, with the tendency to set up a perfect moral dilemma--eg OMG we must either give up Seven of Nine to an unknown fate or else these other guys will KILL US ALL!!!--and then, after all the angsting over the Hobson's choice, reveal that OMG THE CAPTAIN IS SO CLEVER THERE'S A THIRD SOLUTION!!!. Argh.) On a second viewing, you see what they were trying to set up with the old man, the "remnant", but you also see the fact that the entire Torchwood team basically ignored him the whole time, which is how things were allowed to get so bad. (Plus I still don't really see why he was a threat to them, or even why the boy was.) When the stakes are SO HIGH I really think you have to pay a lot of attention to how you resolve the plot strands. I'd have liked a little more effort here--because for the first three episodes of CoE, this is gloriously Torchwood. It's Torchwood as it should have been all along, well-paced and well-acted and well-directed and well-written all at once. I ♥ it.

The Gwen cheating on her boyfriend thing bugs me, but not enough to make me hate her. Not in comparison with what bloody Owen gets up to even in the pilot. How the writers in the DVD special features can laugh and claim bemusement as to why "no one likes Owen" I don't know. (Gwen was, of course, meant to lose Reese, only the powers that be decided they liked the actor too much or something, hence the non-sensical resurrection.)

Did you recognise Gwen in the first ep or two of Miracle Day? Or were you thinking hey, she couldn't fire a handgun when she started at Torchwood, when'd she learn to fire anti-aircraft weaponry? and also pick sophisticated electronic locks so skilfully that Jack will automatically stand back and not even offer to help?

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

The thing that bothers me about Children of Earth--the only thing, really--is the technobabble solution.

That's true -- they literally come up with a solution in the last 15 minutes that they've only kind of vaguely hinted at once. When I was watching the last episode again, I kept thinking "Okay, I know this thing ends soon. When the hell do they finally figure it out?" I guess I was just so emotionally wrung out at that point that I'd run out of fucks to give.

Not in comparison with what bloody Owen gets up to even in the pilot.

Ugh, I forgot about that. And the writers are surprised? Did they give him a single redeeming quality other than, like, a general sense of tragicness?

Gwen was, of course, meant to lose Reese, only the powers that be decided they liked the actor too much or something, hence the non-sensical resurrection.

I did not know this. Makes perfect sense now.

Did you recognise Gwen in the first ep or two of Miracle Day? Or were you thinking hey, she couldn't fire a handgun when she started at Torchwood, when'd she learn to fire anti-aircraft weaponry?

Well, she DID do quite a bit of shooting of handguns in CoE. And I just figured the rest was because they moved the production to America -- we all get handed rocket launchers when we turn 18, didn't you know? ;o)

Only on the third episode, and the thing that's driving me the MOST batshit is how they keep acting like no one from the UK knows US slang (or which side of the road to drive on, for fuck's sake) and vice versa. Except for the CIA analyst, because she's SO SMART OMG.