Finally, Some Kind Of Explanation

A QUICK LOOK AT SOME PUBLICITY


Whoo-hoo! They're showing it in America! And they're trying to convince everyone that it actually is a big-budget, sci-fi action spectacular! Boy, will they be disappointed!!!

Plus, where the hell's Ianto? And why is Tosh so tiny? And why has Gwen got her mouth shut? SOMETHING HAS GONE TERRIBLY AWRY WITH THIS MARKETING CAMPAIGN!!!

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Okay. So picking up on what I writed about in the last post - and if anyone out there actually bothered to read it this time around - that did pretty much sum up my feelings about Torchwood at the time. I have a weird relationship with Torchwood, and we’ll probably go into that in greater depth in later articles (when I'm not just taking the piss via the medium of random pictures) but for now I’ll mention again as I did in the sidebar that yes, I am still currently in the process of writing three Torchwood novels.

Yes. Three. You didn’t misread that and think the world had temporarily ended and everyone had gone completely insane (although it probably has done that within the realms of continuity - that happened in that Torchwood audio play about CERN and the Large Hardon Collider. Now that really did sound like an almighty disaster - but again, more on that story later).

Really I’m doing it as a creative exercise, and also because, having gone from a position of thinking the series was absolute ridiculous rubbish (with the trough of an episode, ‘Adam’ near the front of season two, where I just couldn’t stop laughing at John Barrowman’s panto acting - come on, I like the guy, but he must be the most melodramatic hammer in existence, carving his dramatic monologues out of a solid edifice of living cheddar - and something like that actually happened in the episode ‘Meat‘ if I recall correctly) to a place where I can actually see the potential of the show as a living breathing entity of sorts.

THIS IS ALREADY TAKING UP FAR TOO MUCH TIME

There’s a massive amount of potential in the setup and the basic premise of the series which the creators of the show seem to have thus far walked right past - and it is this which I’m trying to look at in the stuff I’m writing, pushing the architecture of the show into a more sophisticated and psychedelic fantasy epic kind-of place. It might also be pertinent to mention at this point that the Doctor will also be showing up at some point during proceedings, and that there will be at least one Fairly Big Thing from the annals of Doctor Who past showing up to play a major part.
That’s probably all by the by - the original idea for this blog was to chronicle my writing of these novels, but for the time being that’s on the backburner and we shall be focusing almost exclusively on televison reviews - again, mainly of Nu-series Doctor Who.

Actually, scratch that - I've contradicted myself already having discovered the wonders of screencaps (more cred to http://time-and-space.co.uk/) which allow a significant amount of leeway re serious and boring writing and plenty excuse for demented lateral thinking and abstract 'analysis.' The novels are still ongoing, so I might pop back to tell you all (yes, all of you, when you all show up) about them when they spurt kicking and screaming out into eventual daylight. As of now, avvin a larf must rate as being the primary concern.

WHO PLUS WHAT EQUALS LOTS

And, along with Torchwood, it won’t always be all about Doctor Who. In coming posts I’ll be swinging my huge analysis lens over the recent smash-hit US likes of Fringe, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Bionic Woman (okay, maybe not so much of that) and the recent spat-out-by-Who’s-success British TV offerings such as Merlin, Survivors, Primeval, Demons and Being Human.

The second big and at-least-fairly serious review will proably keep things in the Whoniverse by having a good old runaround with Sarah Jane and the Invasion Of The Bane. For the record, I still haven’t decided whether that’s a load of tosh (no, not that Tosh) or awe-inspiring genius television. We shall all find out later on.

There’s probably a chance of some printed word assessment also: several of the fairly recent Torchwood novels are still lying in a heap behind my vegetating form, so I shall be paying an at least reasonable amount of attention to them. We might also be having a reappraisal of some of the Virgin New Adventures and BBC Eighth Doctor novels also...

For those of us who really want to go back in time, the venerable lord-god-messiah Sir Russell Jesus Mohammed Gandhi T Davies’s earlier projects might also be in line for a pondering, probably starting way back in the day with the pre-Sarah Jane Adventures confection that was Dark Season. It’s better than all of Sylvester McCoy’s stories put together! Fact.

HATE IS A FOUR LETTER WORD

In case you’re getting the wrong impression here, I don’t hate Doctor Who. My basic ideas about what I’d like to see in the series as it stands today will become apparent as things go on (and believe me, they will go on, and on and on) although I might issue the disclaimer at this point that the overall tone of my criticism (yeah, let’s call it that) often veers into realms of the deliberately flippant and/or comedic. So please, if you want to leave comments by all means jump in, criticise my style and approach or offer helpful advice and pointers but if you’re one of those angry sorts who just wants to swear and insult me having missed the overall point of things, then I probably won’t dignify you with a response. Unless it's funny. There are enough idiots on the internet as it is. Me being one of them.

Despite all that, you all look like thoroughly decent people (at least from where I’m sitting) and are very welcome to join me on my little quest to go far into the furthest reaches of nowhere and anywhere and then not come back again.

So let’s begin. A start is as good as any. And this is one of them.

Bloody Torchwood (A Proper Grown-Up Review)

A WORD FROM YOUR BLOWFISH ELECT

'Hello. Is this the audition for X Factor? It's just that I've got a really unique USP. I’m a blowfish. Haven’t had many of those now, have you?

Come on, Simon? Surely you can't just smugly dismiss my utterly individual cover version of Aqua Marina, the theme from Stingray?

Now Cheryl, surely you in all your manifest WAG wisdom can see fit to vote a blowfish through to the regional finals? I'm the new minority, and we all know audiences love an underdog! Remember when you were here in my place, struggling to prove your talent to an uncaring world... you weren't just a slightly annoying child model from Newcastle, you were a f%^&ing star!

Like Barack says, we can do it, yes we can! If Geri Halliwell proved that Girl Power was a valid form of feminist protest, then I'm flying the flag for blowfish power!

And it doesn't even matter that I'm just a snappy gimmicky scene-opener for season two to hook the audience back in! Remember the struggles of Martin Luther King, Emily Pankhurst, Rosa Parks, Germaine Greer, Harvey Milk, Saint Geri Halliwell...

One day, my children, we will get to the PROMISED LAND!!!

Unless someone comes along and cruelly assassinates me. Of course that's never going to happen.

Hang on - who that dashing human in the greatcoat with the Webley? Oh bugg -'

MODERATELY SERIOUS, HE SAID

'Hey, guys, I've got a question - what do think are the chances that all of us are actually standing here together in the street and haven't just been photoshopped in from a multitude of different locations?

Oh. No one's answering me... how strange!'

ADVANCE WARNING

Right. As I said in a previous post, here’s a halfway serious appraisal of my basic feelings about Torchwood thus far. I wrote this about a week before I perhaps misguidedly decided I was going to write three Torchwood fan novels purely for a laugh. They’re all plotted out but haven’t quite spluttered into gear yet - but rest assured, they will appear at some point or another - in the meantime here’s some borderline dated opinion.

'No honest - we really were all just standing like that - that's exactly what the CCTV caught. It was another slow alien day, to be honest and since Martha was round and Owen wasn't dead yet we just thought we'd all stand around for a while posing. Honest, Guv!'

UNWANTED AMAZON BITCH-FEST, NUMBER 1

Okay - I know the boxset isn’t out yet - but I figured if Amazon is listing it, I’d better get in quick with my appraisal of the run thus far. The general impression one gets from Season Two of Torchwood is of a series still hampered by not quite knowing where to go and what to do when it gets there.

For me, Torchwood still seems to have two quite severe problems - obvious budgetary constraints and a almost cloying desire to appeal to the widest possible demographic. What makes these complaints of mine all the odder is that it seems to be these very shortcomings that are contributing to Torchwood’s huge success thus far.

Coming to the money issue, don’t get me wrong - Torchwood never looks cheap. In fact, it looks anything but - performances, scripts, lighting, music and sound design, sets and special effects… all of the above are always top-notch. The root of my problem is that the programme’s creators cautiously limit themselves in the type of series they want to make.

Many have observed that the show’s concept - a top-secret pseudo-governmental organization protecting the world from alien incursions - is perfectly sound and should, like the X-Files, provide almost limitless opportunity for exploring all manner of extraterrestrial and supernatural shenanigans - but despite this, Torchwood’s first season was already repeating itself halfway through its run.

A FUN GAME FOR FANS OF TORCHWOOD

Hey kids! See if you can figure out the name of a well-known television programme just from these two images -

Yes that's right - It's Twin Peaks!

MORE OF THE SAME

Creator Russell T. Davies has said on a few occasions that he has no intention of trying to slavishly imitate American sci-fi shows - but then, instead of doing this and introducing such crazy concepts as a wider ensemble cast, more complex and intellectually stimulating arc storylines and, crikey, some aliens wouldn’t go amiss, the showrunners instead try to make everything seem slick, movie-like, sexy and dramatic on the clearly limited resources they freely admit to, and wind up regularly shooting themselves in the foot by degenerating into Eastenders-style grim soap opera rather than anything more imaginative; leaving at times little more than a glossy surface sheen, composed of much artifice and little real substance.

The one show Torchwood seems to be content in ripping off the most in terms of general style and approach is the BBC’s own Spooks (or MI5 to you Americans out there) which has virtually the same set -up and premise as Torchwood, even down to the secret high-tech base, squabbling, unstable team-mates and a generally amoral boss deputizing his top agents out on field missions and undercover. All you have to do is replace the word ‘terrorists’ with ‘aliens‘.

ALIENS: NOT ACTUALLY HERE ALL THAT OFTEN, REVEALS TOP-SECRET WELSH ORGANIZATION

Ah, yes. Don’t mention the aliens - Torchwood did a couple of times but I think it got away with it. For an organization combating exactly these particular extraterrestrial beings, the best we’ve had so far this year has been human-looking memory stealers (not the first rebuffing of a vintage accessible science fiction cliché) human-looking alien sleeper agents (or Battlestar spooks with T-1000 knife-arms) more World War time-romance (sci-fi cliché-flogging) alien slug-munching (bizarre but boring - remember meat is murder, kids) the unfairly-shunted-out-of-Doctor-Who (is anyone bovvered?) Freema Agyeman showing up (and going swiftly away again), someone dying (and then not dying) and - surely the highpoint - him off of Buffy, still doing a silly English accent.

And Richard Briers. And alien impregation. And Jim from Neighbours being evil. So far so so-so peculiar.

HEY KIDS! MORE LARKS!

See if you can spot the differences between these two pictures of a terrifying Doctor Who monster -

A WEEVIL

CHRISTOPHER ECCLESTON

Yes that's right - there absolutely no f%^&ing difference at all! Congratulations!
One of them's a snarling, grotesque and menacing publicity-shy creature of the night, and the other one's a Weevil!

A NORMAL SHOW FOR NORMAL PEOPLE

Then there’s those flipping Weevils. Which still don’t seem to have anything useful to do except wear Christopher Eccleston’s cast-off leather jacket and snarl at people a bit. This brings me back around to my second issue; Torchwood’s clear decision to convince the world that no, this isn’t some geeky pointy-eared spaceships-and-rayguns franchise - it is, in fact, a NORMAL show, for NORMAL people! Which will only ever have one alien in it at a time, like some corner shop dictate barring unruly kids. All within is done very well, is not spectacularly - those of us out there constantly wishing for something to challenge the likes of Battlestar Galactica or the excellent new Terminator series might have to hang on a while.

Despite all this, things do take off this season. There is a greater sense of purpose to the show that at least keeps hinting bigger things are coming. Owen stops being a utter tit and starts to acquire some depth. Tosh is given fractionally more to do. And Gwen nearly stops moaning all the time...

A GAY SHOW? HOW QUEER!

And as for those people constantly complaining about the supposedly gratuitous amount of gay and/or bisexual characters and content in the series, please: stop bloody moaning. If you don’t like gay people, go watch a soap opera - no offence meant, but the year is 2008 and it’s quite normal, or at least should be, to have many more halfway realistic gay characters in popular mainstream TV shows - which is at least what Torchwood is, despite what other people might say.

It was certainly the case that the first series was often guilty of shoehorning gay references in willy-nilly (oo er missus etc) and ‘metaphorical’ same-sex interactions (usually between a member of the team and some nefarious LGBT alien - this did happen a few times so as to almost not be coincidental) as if desperately trying to attract more gay viewers or just gain some notoriety, although at least this time around nothing feels overly forced, and the ever-bubbling relationship between not-always gung-ho Captain Jack and whipping-boy Ianto finally smacks of realism rather than titillation.

But despite all my portents of doom, personally I’m becoming inclined to believe that Torchwood might just prove to have a potentially longer shelf-life than the new Doctor Who - which, judging from its tendency to just be just far too silly and childish rather than intelligent and well-written, is managing to alienate a significant portion of Who-fandom, leaving it severely hamstrung by always having to stay primarily a kids’ show.

And at least it’s not Primeval. For that alone surely we can all feel grateful. Plus; that show’s got the exact same premise as well. Just replace ‘alien’ with dinosaur and ‘rift’ with ‘badly CGI’d hole in space.’ I could go on…

STUN EXCLUSIVE: TORCHWOOD ACTRESS ADMITS WHO SPIN-OFF SHOW IS 'PROPER RUBBISH'

'I tried to deny it for so long but I was living a lie... I'm a proper actress you know, I've been in Dickens... oh and an episode of Merlin - that's at least four hundred times better than Torchwood! I shouldn't be wasting my copious talent and sexy gap-tooth-big-hair look on bollocks like Torchwood...

Oh plus John Barrowman is a total bellend. He keeps going on about how he's from Glasgow and putting on this ridiculous accent, but I'm pretty sure he's talking out of his arse. Plus he keeps showing me his cock... this has got to be sexual harrassment, surely.

Did I mention I was a proper actress and everything? I was in a play once... no one who watches Doctor Who ever saw it of course so there's virtually no point in my mentioning it here. But it did actually happen...'

A Day In The Life Of A Torchwood Photoshoot

(OR, HOW TO MAKE CARDIFF AND ITS OCCUPANTS APPEAR EVEN MORE GREY AND MISERABLE THAN THEY PROBABLY ALREADY ARE. ONLY KIDDING WELSH FOLKS! DON'T WORRY, I'LL HAVE A GO AT THE IRISH IN A MINUTE TO MAKE UP FOR IT. PROBABLY)

'YEAH, BABY! Okay, I’m thinking, dark, serious and moody! Everybody get into character now. Work it for me!

Strike those superhero poses! Especially you, Barrowman, since that’s all you'll be doing for the whole of seasons one and two! You certainly won’t be doing any actual proper acting or anything! Just looking really hawt and kewl and OMG as well as standing on top of really tall buildings for absolutely no f$%^ing reason at all and occasionally dropping some Carry-On-style innuendoes will be absolutely fine! That’s it, John - mine’s a large one, yeah baby!

COME ON everyone! Okay Eve, set hair to birds-nest - oh, it already is set to birds-nest - and cross those arms and look like you're in a right mood about something! Cos that is also something you're going to need to be prepared for! And no you don’t need to shout JAAACK or RHHYYSS or OWWENN at all for this but rest assured your mouth will be open for at least ninety two percent of the first two seasons. And you will be mostly shouting. Gwen really isn't really anything at all like that Victorian maid you played in The Unquiet Dead! She was at least a bit happy! And not a total bitch!

And Burn, give me that 'arch and sarcastic' face you do so well! Don't wear it out though, cos I don’t know if anyone's told you yet, but you'll have to keep that exact same expression on for about two years! As well as essentially being a leftover Eastenders character who oscillates wildly between being a lovely nice guy and a total f%^&ing bellend. At least until we decide to kill you for confusing reasons then kill you again by blowing you up since we didn‘t manage to get rid of you the first time. Then you'll probably want to smile lots cos then you'll finally be free of this bloody atrocious programme!

Yes, Naoko, that's it - give me quizzical! Or maybe inquisitive. One of those. Although it doesn't really matter how wonderful your acting is cos THEY'LL NEVER ACTUALLY GIVE YOU ANYTHING F%^&ING INTERESTING TO DO AT ALL! It’ll be just like being in Absolutely Fabulous again. Apart from that one where you get to have gratuitous lesbian sex with that girl out of My Family who turns out to be a gay alien jellyfish war criminal. That never happened in Absolutely Fabulous. Or the one where you get shot and killed. That one’ll be proper brilliant, Naoko, mark my words!

And Gareth - sorry, David - no, it’s Lloyd, isn’t it? Christ, what actors have three first names? Okay, you just look… oh, let’s face it, it doesn’t f$%^ing matter what you do cos you’ve only got about five lines in all of the first two seasons… How about you just look a bit miserable? That way you’ll exactly mirror the experiences of the folks watching at home! There’s a true method acting tip, you can have that for free, Gareth - take it from me, I’m a photographer!'

Okay kids, now we’re really ready to lay some magic right onto the lens. Right then, if all of you just strip completely naked…

What? What do you mean that’s not in the contract? It’s f%^&ing well in mine! What sort of thing did you think you were photographing???

What’s that? TORCHwood you say?

Bugger. I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I was hired to take photos for Touch Wood, Wales’s premier specialist magazine featuring good-looking sorts engaging in lewd acts outside prominent local landmarks under the cover of night?

Well don’t all look so f%^&ing surprised! Are you sure I can’t tempt you? There’s an autographed copy of the fourth volume in Russell T. Davies’s classic life story ‘My Life In Ripping Off Spooks And Buffy Only Making It A Little Bit More Gay And Set In Cardiff’ in it for you if you do! It’s four-hundred pages long and it’s not even in large print. Come on, people!
Oh, thank you, John. My journey hasn’t been in vain… OOH, BEHAVE!!!

Yes, that's right kids - it was Russell T. Davies taking the photos all along! The cheeky sod.

Introductions And Such

Hello all. Many thanks to Mr. Tennant for so freely and generously giving of his time to write that little introduction... My name is spiderboris and this is a blog that will mostly be about Doctor Who. Far from wanting to bore you all with my life story, the blog as it currently stands will comprise itself of mostly essay-shaped things with pictures slotted in that you might want to call reviews. Although this is only if your definition of a review is something that's had its eyes burned out with a blowtorch like that girl in Hostel and is just screaming and screaming and screaming.

And then it goes and throws itself in front of a train. That’s kind of like the sort of thing you should expect. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

And also along the way, a significant amount of piss-taking. Upon embarking upon the idea of this Who-related blog I started out writing some very verbose, serious and pseudo-intellectual reviews of specific Doctor Who episodes but very quickly realised that this would perhaps mean that I would become sucked into the terrifying vortex of having to think about and watch Doctor Who twenty-four hours a day. Cos let’s face it, if you’re reading this then you’re probably also in that dark place.

I understand your plight having been there myself but I have to say that, having moved through this particular stage of addiction and checked myself into a clinic in Arizona where, upon meeting up with Robbie Williams and developing a quite chronic espresso, Red Bull and UFO-hunting addiction, I can safely say that I have now been cured of the evils of Doctor Who and now vow to spend only ten hours a day writing complete and utter bollocks about it in this here blog. If you, gentle soul, are still trapped in that hellish half-life existence of being a hopelesss Who addict, then I can offer only these sage words of advice - never mind.

Chin up. You could have been obsessed with Star Wars! Then I would have thought you were a total tosspot!

The first big proper entry then reviews-wise will be my assassination - sorry, appraisal - of this year’s Christmas larkaround The Next Doctor, but before all of that and just to give you a taster of the sort of multifaced delights yet to come, here’s a little article I wrote sometime back in 2008 (perhaps you can be more anal than I in this instance and can date it by the episode I’m about to mention) for amazon.co.uk (a hugely obscure, cool and underground site I occasionally do some scribbling and discussing on cos I’m like, so leftfield) taking a halfway serious look at the first half of Torchwood’s second season.

Except they never published it - perhaps because it was a crap review by their standards (arguable, certainly) or maybe because it was too long and too unnecessarily negative and bitchy. And perhaps because it was supposed to be a review of the Torchwood season two boxset which wasn’t anywhere near out yet, seeing as they were only up to the episode Reset on TV at the time…

And despite that, eight or so random folks had already manhandled the episodes thus far with some kind and unkind (I think mostly positive, though) words. Why does Amazon allow you to review things that aren’t even out yet? Is there some arcane logic in this, or is it merely a waste of my time and yours worrying about it?

There isn't and it is. Here’s comes the review as I writed it with my own two fingers...

Although I’ll have to keep you all on tenterhooks for a little moment - since, thanks to the recent magic of my figuring out how to put pictures into the whole shebang (this blog would be even duller and less amusing than it is if it didn’t have any pictures in) we shall now detour into a short interlude (I fear there may be many of them coming, perhaps many more pointless picture-related interludes than actual user-generated content) where we examine the dramatic goings-on at the first big glossy Torchwood photoshoot. The excitement is so excited about this it can barely even begin itself!