Torchwood 1.01 "Everything Changes"
Apr. 25th, 2008 03:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
julesjonesHaving bought the boxed set of Torchwood season one, I'm now working my way through it. My rambling about episode 1, "Everything Changes", under the cut.
I was living in the US when the first season of Torchwood was broadcast, so I got well and truly spoilered for the Big Surprise in the first episode. And then I went to the UK for Christmas, so the first episode I actually saw was episode 9, Random Shoes. Not only that, I saw season 1 of Torchwood before I saw the episodes of Doctor Who in which Captain Jack is first introduced. (And I still haven't seen Jack's first episode, only the Confidential, thank you KTEH for putting that episode on an hour early without bothering to tell us the week before you were doing so.)
So my first experience of Everything Changes was somewhat different to most people's. Nevertheless, I think it is a stunning example of how to introduce viewers to a new show. It's fast, it's funny, it's exciting, and it shows you the characters and their world with a minimum of "as you know, Bob" info-dumping. The viewpoint character who stumbles into this secret world of alien-hunting is of course a blatant info-dumping device, but in this episode Gwen is used stylishly and well to tell the viewers the things they need to know about Torchwood. The episode is beautifully constructed to build a sense of wonder and curiosity.
It starts with something that looks like the opening of an ordinary police procedural, introducing Gwen, viewer identification character and ordinary Cardiff cop attending another ordinary murder case. A minute or two later we get a fast introduction to the Torchwood field team (four humans and a greatcoat, apparently), and the first clue that something rather odd is going on -- and that whatever the Torchwood leader might be, one thing he certainly isn't is 21st century Earth human. This is nicely done, with quick in-cluing for those who haven't already met Jack in Doctor Who, and a joke for those who have. Then it's straight back to police procedural for the next fifteen minutes. Not quite a normal police procedural, because there's something nasty in the hospital that the viewer will recognise as a Who Monster. But *Gwen* doesn't, because the setting is firmly grounded in the real world, and a what-if that's not so very far away from our own reality.
And then, as the title says, everything changes. Gwen find an underground world where there are far stranger things than alligators roaming the sewers, and her life will never be the same again. She solves the murder by the end of the episode, but that's not really the point. There will be more murder cases for her to solve, but the cases she'll be involved in from now on will be ones that will never go to a court of law. And right there in that first episode is a warning of how Torchwood changes, even corrupts, the people who work for it.
The script's good, but it's backed up by excellent direction. A lot of it is completely over the top, but it's over the top in a good way -- that flamboyant helicopter shot of Jack standing on top of a building looking out over the city is silly and OTT and absolutely right for the character and the show. The whole damn episode is a love letter from RTD to Cardiff, and that shot says it all. The music enhances the story rather than getting in the way, and the Hub set is a wonderful piece of world-building in itself, with what it implies about Torchwood Cardiff and its past and present.
It works well on the first run through, but there's stuff you only really notice the second time you watch it. It's clearly been put together by people who are thinking about how to give people a good time both when they first see it on tv, and when they buy the DVD.
Speaking of which, the DVD commentary on the episode is well worth listening to if you like hearing the background information about making a show. This one's got a lot of interesting detail, such as the discussion about the problems with the original set of high definition camera kit, which explained some things I'd noticed on watching the episode. Commentaries can often be complete fluff with the commentators struggling to find something to say, but this one has good stuff right the way through.
I love this episode. There's a hell of a lot I could nit-pick if I sat down to do so, but when I'm in the middle of watching it, I don't notice and I don't care. And there are so many small things to cherish, lovely little bits of character interaction.
***
Random comments:
It's an odd experience, watching it again after seeing two years' worth of building on the foundation laid in that first episode. You can see the seeds of a lot of later developments, some of them clearly planted from the beginning with the intent of using them in a future episode, and others a later expansion of what was only implied.
Some are both, such as the "looks good in a suit" flirtation between Jack and Ianto. Ianto's in the show for a reason, but it wasn't originally as a long-term love interest for Jack. (Quite apart from what the actor has said about the character originally being slated to die in first season, there's the ongoing shipper war between the show's writers in second season...) When I first saw the episode, I enjoyed it for obvious reasons; nice bit of m/m flirting, plus it suggested a comfortable relationship within the team. I never read it as more than light flirting, although I know some people see it as evidence that they're in a sexual relationship at that point. To me it felt like Jack flirts with everything, and Ianto doesn't mind and acknowledges it as flirting, with a touch of flirting back; feeling attraction, but not doing anything about it. Later it looked to me as if that scene was essentially part of the set-up for Cyberwoman, with the chemistry between the two actors enhancing the feeling of genuine attraction between the characters. I still see it that way, and I think it's pretty clear that when they got to Fragments at the end of the second season, Chibnall simply picked up the implications of the interaction shown in Everything Changes and the new view you got of it in Cyberwoman, and ran with it, rather than it being pre-planned as a future story. And he did a brilliant job, because rewatching that exchange in Everything Changes in the light of the later episodes -- *ouch*.
Owen really is a skeeve in this episode. It didn't hit me as strongly, because I originally watched the series as a marathon and skipped episode 2, so I went straight from watching this to "Ghost Machine", where he redeems himself. But on re-watching I can see why people reacted so badly to him in this one. I think they pushed too far in making him unlikeable here, as it's hard to pull back from that later.
All but one of the team taking alien tech out of the Hub and taking it home to play with, against standing orders. What they choose reflects their personality. That one of them chooses not to reflects his, and of course we find out later that this is multi-layered, because *he's* been bringing alien tech from home into the Hub... It's a nice example right in the first episode of the way things make sense in the episode story, but turn out to have another layer of meaning in the context of the series arc. This is a show without a reset button, where actions have consequences down the line.
Jack showing off his toys to Gwen, and no, I'm not talking about body parts. His sheer delight when he shows her the invisible lift, and the way he offers her his elbow to hold, dropping for a moment back into his 1941 persona -- he's very likeable in that scene.
ETA a couple more items:
What happened to Suzie obviously tore Jack up, but that hurts even more in the light of Fragments, and how Torchwood Cardiff came to be Jack's undisputed territory. No wonder he locks the glove up under a "do not use" order.
Ianto alone in the Hub, late at night, closing down Gwen's computer. Cleaning up their shit, no questions asked, while the others go home to play with their stolen toys. Maybe they should have asked why he was so wiling to stay late...
Heroes in shades of grey, right from the start. Oh, *yes*. Thank you, RTD; I'll forgive you all the dud episodes and all the plotholes, for this one and a few more.
I was living in the US when the first season of Torchwood was broadcast, so I got well and truly spoilered for the Big Surprise in the first episode. And then I went to the UK for Christmas, so the first episode I actually saw was episode 9, Random Shoes. Not only that, I saw season 1 of Torchwood before I saw the episodes of Doctor Who in which Captain Jack is first introduced. (And I still haven't seen Jack's first episode, only the Confidential, thank you KTEH for putting that episode on an hour early without bothering to tell us the week before you were doing so.)
So my first experience of Everything Changes was somewhat different to most people's. Nevertheless, I think it is a stunning example of how to introduce viewers to a new show. It's fast, it's funny, it's exciting, and it shows you the characters and their world with a minimum of "as you know, Bob" info-dumping. The viewpoint character who stumbles into this secret world of alien-hunting is of course a blatant info-dumping device, but in this episode Gwen is used stylishly and well to tell the viewers the things they need to know about Torchwood. The episode is beautifully constructed to build a sense of wonder and curiosity.
It starts with something that looks like the opening of an ordinary police procedural, introducing Gwen, viewer identification character and ordinary Cardiff cop attending another ordinary murder case. A minute or two later we get a fast introduction to the Torchwood field team (four humans and a greatcoat, apparently), and the first clue that something rather odd is going on -- and that whatever the Torchwood leader might be, one thing he certainly isn't is 21st century Earth human. This is nicely done, with quick in-cluing for those who haven't already met Jack in Doctor Who, and a joke for those who have. Then it's straight back to police procedural for the next fifteen minutes. Not quite a normal police procedural, because there's something nasty in the hospital that the viewer will recognise as a Who Monster. But *Gwen* doesn't, because the setting is firmly grounded in the real world, and a what-if that's not so very far away from our own reality.
And then, as the title says, everything changes. Gwen find an underground world where there are far stranger things than alligators roaming the sewers, and her life will never be the same again. She solves the murder by the end of the episode, but that's not really the point. There will be more murder cases for her to solve, but the cases she'll be involved in from now on will be ones that will never go to a court of law. And right there in that first episode is a warning of how Torchwood changes, even corrupts, the people who work for it.
The script's good, but it's backed up by excellent direction. A lot of it is completely over the top, but it's over the top in a good way -- that flamboyant helicopter shot of Jack standing on top of a building looking out over the city is silly and OTT and absolutely right for the character and the show. The whole damn episode is a love letter from RTD to Cardiff, and that shot says it all. The music enhances the story rather than getting in the way, and the Hub set is a wonderful piece of world-building in itself, with what it implies about Torchwood Cardiff and its past and present.
It works well on the first run through, but there's stuff you only really notice the second time you watch it. It's clearly been put together by people who are thinking about how to give people a good time both when they first see it on tv, and when they buy the DVD.
Speaking of which, the DVD commentary on the episode is well worth listening to if you like hearing the background information about making a show. This one's got a lot of interesting detail, such as the discussion about the problems with the original set of high definition camera kit, which explained some things I'd noticed on watching the episode. Commentaries can often be complete fluff with the commentators struggling to find something to say, but this one has good stuff right the way through.
I love this episode. There's a hell of a lot I could nit-pick if I sat down to do so, but when I'm in the middle of watching it, I don't notice and I don't care. And there are so many small things to cherish, lovely little bits of character interaction.
***
Random comments:
It's an odd experience, watching it again after seeing two years' worth of building on the foundation laid in that first episode. You can see the seeds of a lot of later developments, some of them clearly planted from the beginning with the intent of using them in a future episode, and others a later expansion of what was only implied.
Some are both, such as the "looks good in a suit" flirtation between Jack and Ianto. Ianto's in the show for a reason, but it wasn't originally as a long-term love interest for Jack. (Quite apart from what the actor has said about the character originally being slated to die in first season, there's the ongoing shipper war between the show's writers in second season...) When I first saw the episode, I enjoyed it for obvious reasons; nice bit of m/m flirting, plus it suggested a comfortable relationship within the team. I never read it as more than light flirting, although I know some people see it as evidence that they're in a sexual relationship at that point. To me it felt like Jack flirts with everything, and Ianto doesn't mind and acknowledges it as flirting, with a touch of flirting back; feeling attraction, but not doing anything about it. Later it looked to me as if that scene was essentially part of the set-up for Cyberwoman, with the chemistry between the two actors enhancing the feeling of genuine attraction between the characters. I still see it that way, and I think it's pretty clear that when they got to Fragments at the end of the second season, Chibnall simply picked up the implications of the interaction shown in Everything Changes and the new view you got of it in Cyberwoman, and ran with it, rather than it being pre-planned as a future story. And he did a brilliant job, because rewatching that exchange in Everything Changes in the light of the later episodes -- *ouch*.
Owen really is a skeeve in this episode. It didn't hit me as strongly, because I originally watched the series as a marathon and skipped episode 2, so I went straight from watching this to "Ghost Machine", where he redeems himself. But on re-watching I can see why people reacted so badly to him in this one. I think they pushed too far in making him unlikeable here, as it's hard to pull back from that later.
All but one of the team taking alien tech out of the Hub and taking it home to play with, against standing orders. What they choose reflects their personality. That one of them chooses not to reflects his, and of course we find out later that this is multi-layered, because *he's* been bringing alien tech from home into the Hub... It's a nice example right in the first episode of the way things make sense in the episode story, but turn out to have another layer of meaning in the context of the series arc. This is a show without a reset button, where actions have consequences down the line.
Jack showing off his toys to Gwen, and no, I'm not talking about body parts. His sheer delight when he shows her the invisible lift, and the way he offers her his elbow to hold, dropping for a moment back into his 1941 persona -- he's very likeable in that scene.
ETA a couple more items:
What happened to Suzie obviously tore Jack up, but that hurts even more in the light of Fragments, and how Torchwood Cardiff came to be Jack's undisputed territory. No wonder he locks the glove up under a "do not use" order.
Ianto alone in the Hub, late at night, closing down Gwen's computer. Cleaning up their shit, no questions asked, while the others go home to play with their stolen toys. Maybe they should have asked why he was so wiling to stay late...
Heroes in shades of grey, right from the start. Oh, *yes*. Thank you, RTD; I'll forgive you all the dud episodes and all the plotholes, for this one and a few more.