Wow.
Other than a post on Monday night, after the first episode, I’ve been avoiding writing anything else on the topic here (on my Twitter on the other hand), saving it for the finale but it’s only Friday morning right now and I have to start my finale post early, as there’s so much to say! (I’ll save this post and only publish after the finale has been shown tonight).
I have absolutely loved this storyline, it has felt like the most ‘real’ depiction of what would happen if aliens invaded, that I’ve seen on TV or film, in a long time. The government has been busy trying to cover their backsides (inbetween fiddling their expenses probably), our heroes have been pretty much powerless but still fighting back, smilies, chopping boards an’ all, the alien actually looks and behaves like an alien, not just some guy in a rubber suit or a spot of CGI and finally people die. That’s what’s actually prompted me to start writing this post early, because I’m sure after I’ve seen the finale tonight, I’ll be blown away by such an epic ending I’ll loose all power of reasoned thought. I’ve just been reading the comments on James Moran’s blog (writer of episode 3) and I gather from his twitter feed he’s been getting some abuse over twitter to, regarding episode 4 and what is rumoured to happen in episode 5 and I emphasise this, he wrote episode 3 people! Basically a large chunk of the internet is not happy Ianto has been killed off, yes it’s sad, he was a great character, I loved how he persisted on saving the world in an immaculate three piece suit, complete with stripy tie and it’s always good to see positive gay characters on TV but he’s FICTIONAL people! People have been moaning that the writers’ were leading them on by intensifying the relationship between Jack and Ianto in the lead up to his death, of course they would, because that makes the final scene even more meaningful! And even then they were dropping subtle hints, with repeated references from a variety of characters, along the lines of “Nobody retires from Torchwood”, “It’s rare in Torchwood to die a natural death,” etc. etc. What I can’t stand is people behaving like they own the plot, they don’t, the people who conjured them up from the emptiness of the blank computer screen do. I also can’t stand the presumption, it hasn’t seemed to occur to any of the whingers I’ve read, that the guy who plays Ianto may have wanted to leave? Maybe he’s got other projects? Wasn’t he after all meant to have died in the previous series and only at the last minute they decided to kill off Owen instead? I can imagine it now, have no idea if this is true by the way, it’s just a hypothesis
Russell T Davies: Hi guy who plays Ianto, I know you want to leave in this series, but we’ve got a killer of a storyline for the next series, how about you stay round for that and we’ll kill you off then?
Guy who plays Ianto: Ok then.
So, anyway, anyone loads abuse at a poor writer, whose been kind enough to open himself up for comments via having a blog and being available on Twitter, it’s not on. No wonder Russell T Davies doesn’t blog or twitter (which is a shame, I’d love to know what’s going on in his mind). I am, for the record, as a viewer, absolutely grateful to the writers of this series for a week of providing top class entertainment and as someone who wants to one day be a writer, extremely grateful for an opportunity to be shown what is possible with some damn fine writing. Roll on tonight.
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Double wow.
So, I’ve watched the finale now, that was some seriously uncomfortable (for a parent) yet gripping viewing, so well done, this definitely deserves some awards. And forget the druggy aliens, the real bad guys in this piece were the politicians. The final scenes with Froebisher the civil servant, you felt his pain.
I loved as well the acknowledgement at the beginning of the episode, why the Doctor wasn’t there, the character Gwen had it down so right.
So, will there be more Torchwood? I think there will, there were enough strong characters alone introduced in these five episodes to replace Ianto, Owen and Tosh and I think Jack will be back, as Gwen said “You can’t run away”.
