Jules Jones

(If you're reading this on the Dreamwidth journal, you'll need to go over to LJ and pick up the torchwood boxset tag to see previous installments.)


"We're talking to the wrong corpse."

The very first episode showed how Torchwood is the worst and best job in the world, with Jack's second-in-command getting a little too carried away with her job, and ending up on ice in the vaults herself. Three months later, the team have reason to find out just what she knew about the background of their current problem -- and in Torchwood, even suicide isn't always an effective way to resign from the job...

Intricately plotted, well acted, and wonderfully filmed and directed, this meditation on life and death shows just what Torchwood is capable of -- from what was originally one of the over-commission scripts which were commissioned to give the production time extra material to draw on in case of problems with the primary scripts.

Watching it for the first time is like playing with one of those Russian doll sets; every time you open up a layer, you find something else nested inside. This does sometimes give me suspension of disbelief problems on rewatching, in part because Suzie's plan is so elaborate, but on my first time through I was too mesmerised by the developing story and character interplay to care.

( They Keep Killing Suzie )

With three episodes on this disc, there are fewer extras -- only three mini-documentaries, one for each episode on the disc.

"Torchwood Out of this world"
Ghost Machine
Cyberwoman
Fairies

Five minute documentaries focusing on how they created the device/monster of the week. A lot of overlap with the material in the Declassifieds, but some new material and a different focus.

Not the teatime viewing one associates with the Whoniverse, is it? In fact, I put off watching this for a couple of weeks because the only time I had free to watch it was when I was eating, and I knew enough about the episode to know better than to do that...

This is one of the ones I had to skip for lack of time when I did my marathon catch-up on first broadcast. I've since been completely spoilered for the big surprise, of course, so I'm not going to see it in the same way as those who saw it the night of first broadcast.

That said -- it's one of the weakest episodes, in my opinion, but as seems to be the case with Torchwood, it's not a complete waste of time. And there are bits of it that look better considered as part of the long term story arc than they might on first viewing.

( Torchwood 1.06 -- Countrycide )

As usual, not really a lot in this, but worth watching once.
( Torchwood Declassified 1.03 -- Living History (Ghost Machine) )

The boxset has plenty of additional material to give people a reason to buy it, including mini-documentaries and a collection of deleted scenes. A lot of it's only worth watching once, but it's more than space-filler, and some of the deleted scenes are well worth having.

( Torchwood series 1 boxset -- special features disc 1 )

Long, long wibble about the episode "Day One" and its accompanying DVD commentary...

( 1600 words on Torchwood 1.02 -- Day One )

So, flawed episode that's still worth watching at least once, with some good bits that tie in to the long term story arc; and an interesting DVD commentary that's a short course in how to construct an episode.

Having 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.

( Everything Changes )

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.