Torchwood: Random Shoes

[mllelaurel]

- If all I knew of Britain was the Who-verse, I would hardly be blamed for assuming every other Brit had the last name 'Jones'. Not even 'Smith,' but Jones. Joneses, Joneses, everywhere, and not a Smith in sight. Methinks the writers could do with a phone directory book or five, just to add some spice to their naming conventions.

- Aaaaand, we have a Eugene, and he is, indeed, invisible. Episode's former title well and accounted for.

- "Stick with the team. This is Torchwood. Everything's going to be ok?" *helpless laughter* Oh, Eugene, what show have you been watching?

- Aaaand, we have revised title accounted for as well. Is our dead boy a shoe fetishist or something?

- Suuure, my teachers gave me cool alien artefacts to boost my self esteem all the time, too. Suspension of disbelief goes: creeeeaaak.

- So far, this episode's been going along the "Love and Monsters" mold, with an outside narrator. Only problem is, Elton was tons more interesting than Eugene has been so far, and I had the other LINDA members (especially Ursula) to fall in love with. *drums fingers*

- Predictably, Eugene falls for Gwen. Clearly, he's never met Suzie, or Tosh, or Sarah Jane, or... *goes on with list of Who-verse women more interesting than Gwen* I mean, sure, Gwen's all right, but the way *everyone* thinks she's the best thing since sliced cheese is just a wee bit much.

- I do like the younger brother not being at all cutesey. <3 Sullen kidlet.

- Eugene is a very, very deluded young man.

- Hand in a jar! Hey, we had to have a cameo. *g*

- I don't care what line of reasoning the author tries to feed me here. There is no way in a thousand hells Gwen'd be quallified to perform an autopsy. She may not even be particularly quallified to dissect a frog.

- I'm sorry to keep making CSI comparisons, but CSI is *much* better at making me care about the victims and the people they leave behind. Considering the victim is narrating here, it really, really shouldn't be that hard. I do like the song that's playing though. Now *that's* got a genuine emotion to it.

- OMG, I <3 Owen so much right now. He called Gwen on her b.s. but good. "Now why is it that 'only Gwen seems to have a heart'? We're all human here, but somehow the rest of us manage to get on with our lives." (paraphrased like whoa, but the point is made.) If there's one thing I really dislike about Gwen it's her 'intuition' and sainthood pretensions. The good writers never let her go there, I'll state for the record.

- On a completely different note, I was wondering when Jack would get to wear that shirt, ever since I saw it in the previews. Preeetty shirt~ Shallow? Me? Nah.

- Please, god, don't let Gwen turn out to have some kind of psychic powers. Pleeeease. (Unless a real link is established between her and Gwyneth. Now *that* would be cool.)

- We break our review for a second, while Lily lectures Eugene:

"No. No. No. You don't wait around for someone else to change your life. Not even an alien. That's just a load of passive agressive bullshite. You want a change; you make it happen. I mean, sure, you can be dissatisfied with your life, but if all you do is wait, well. You've got problems, mate."

- Mwahaha, Eugene's coworkers. "'Good luck on your new job? He's dead, you idiot. [The card's] for his mum."
"Well, can you just rub that out?"

- Ok, so Eugene's at least somewhat aware of his rut. Points for that.

- Blargh on amnesia for no good reason. Double blargh on memories coming back at opportune moments.

- Um. Gwen's talking to the invisible dead and she's not even a little bit confused? Huh?

- Bit of a leap in logic there, Jack. 'Alien eye' is not enough of a description to narrow down *anything*.

- More oh-so-convenient remembering. I can hear the two-by-fours, as they connect with my head, with a great big thud.

- "I'd trust you with my life, if, you know I still had one." Ok, that's kind of clever, if you ignore the sap and the stalker vibes.

- Gary hiking up the bids. Ok, that's actually sort of sweet. Illegal, but sweet.

- How would Gwen know it's Gary's shoes? Logic jump go whee.

- Declarations of love for someone you barely know? NOT sweet. NOT attractive. Creepy, yes, and stalkerish, hell yes, but hardly sweet. I'm supposed to be 'awwing'; instead I'm thinking of changing my locks, just in case I ever meet someone like Eugene.

- Good fucking god, I'm creeped out right now. Yes, this bears repeating. Ghost boy needs to go sleep on a chair, like now. Gah.

- Eugene is a bit thick, isn't he? Normally, I'd feel bad for him here, but after that last scene...

- So those fucking shoes I've been forced to stare at like five times in this episode had nothing to do with anything? *fumes* Red herrings are a good thing. Boring to watch red herrings, notsomuch.

- Eugene, you total nutter. Now, most of us get over the urge to swallow inedible objects by the age of, oh, five at most. But not our boy Eugene! (And this from the girl who once swallowed a serrated metal top, like the kind that goes on old-fashioned Coke bottles. I was three at the time.)

- What a coinkidink...

- Uh-uh, you do not get to waste one of my favorite folk songs on this. La la la, I can't hear you. ...I can hear the guy butchering the lyrics, however. Hey, wanker, that doesn't even rhyme! Besides, any use of "Danny Boy" is a cheap shot. The *song* can make me cry quite easily, regardless of whether or not those tears are earned.

- Blargh on cheesy pseudo-religious miracles with not so much as an attempt at a sci-fi explanation. If I wanted to watch "Touched by an Angel," I'd watch bloody "Touched by an Angel," thank you.

- And Gwen, stop kissing everyone in sight. It's not attractive.

- Cheeeesy white light special. See two points up. Also, stupid author, it is not cool to state the moral of the story at the end, just like that. Not cool at all.

And that was the life and death of a loser. Would be ok, but the connection to bloody Torchwood is peripheral and hacked-on at best. We're supposed to sympathize with Eugene, but really, he's just every fanboy who groped a boobie he had no right to at a convention, or argued a technicality to a gruesome death. (For those of you who went to Bennington - fuck, he's Owen! No relation to Dr. Harper.)

Add to that Saint!Gwen and barely cameos from the rest of the cast - including Jack, our main character. Yes, they did that in Love and Monsters, but as I already said, I actually liked Elton and co. Besides, L&M had a main character connection through Jackie.

The best performance award for this episode goes to the Hand in a Jar, by the way. It gave a masterful rendition of sitting there, being disembodied and floaty. Bravisimo.


In conclusion, that's fifty minutes of my life I'll never get back. Which, considering the cheesy moral at the end, is just plain ironic. You know what's scary? I think this was actually worse than Day One. My standards have officially been reset.

On the plus side, the MST value was quite high. It's all in how you watch the episode.

Previews: Time travel! I <3 time travel. Besides, it can't be as bad as this episode.

Comments

[yoritomo-reiko.livejournal.com]

Since I'm heading to bed soon:

Jones is a very, very common name in Wales. It's the most common last name in Wales. There was even an event held in Cardiff recently where there were 1224 people with the last name of Jones. Everybody performing and attending was named Jones and had to show ID to prove it. :)

And there's your trivia for tonight.

[mllelaurel.livejournal.com]

Mwahaha, Jones convention! I love me some good crack. Thanks!

[yoritomo-reiko.livejournal.com]

No worries. :)

I actually did like this episode. I don't think the amnesia is all that off the wall, though. People get traumatic amnesia fairly often during accidents, where they can't actually remember the accident itself or possibly five-ten minutes before. I don't think it's that much of a stretch for a ghost to have blocked out the stuff that was causing him problems before his death.

But yeah, Eugene was creepy, but honestly? I think the reason he latched on to Gwen is because she talked to him. Not that she talked much or said much to him, but it was more than any of the other Torchwood folks had said. Personally, I think Eugene would have been better off with girl he was supposedly raising the money for.

He's dumb. He let his whole life pass him by and didn't realize what he had done until it was too late.

But yes, the ending was cheesy and I rolled my eyes about it. But I still got teary, so I'm probably just weird.

[mllelaurel.livejournal.com]

Maybe the amnesia thing could be made to work, but it was far from the only logic leap found here, and I was given no reason to think about this episode more than I absolutely had to.

Having met at least one guy like Eugene, I'm inclined to believe he's better off with *no one*, thank you. I actually liked the office girl ok. Wouldn't want to inflict him on her.

As for Gwen being the only Torchwood member to talk to him, hey the others were being somewhat less rubbish about their *security*. Not exactly a point in Gwen's favor. Mind, Torchwood is still Britain's worst-kept secret. But at least the others make an effort.

[nevacaruso.livejournal.com]

On the plus side, the MST value was quite high.

I'll bring the popcorn!

[mllelaurel.livejournal.com]

Cheesy popcorn! It'd be thematically appropriate.