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Nov. 10th, 2006 11:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
llywelaBoss arrived in work this morning and told me I still don't look well, so I suggested maybe I should take the afternoon off...
Well, given that she's only been in the office for 25 minutes this week before today, I think that's fair enough!
Babysat Small after work last night for a couple of hours while our parents went off to meet the teachers at the high school she'll be going to next year. Scary thought. Where did the last ten years go? Babysitting meant feeding her, which is easier said than done given that our Mam spent halfterm teaching her how to cook. So she wanted to help, producing her little cookbook for kids and finding a page with a diagram of how to chop veg as evidence to support her argument. So...we cooked. And she did okay. Just...messy.
She's staying over with me again this weekend. If she continues insisting on helping to cook, it could be a looooong weekend. She wants to go shopping for a Christmas present for Mum, and already knows what she wants to get. This means she also wants me to pay for it for her.
Oh, and it occurs to me that I should get some thoughts down about last week's Torchwood before the next episode airs and before my skatty memory loses such thoughts as I had entirely.
Well, I said I wanted to see more of Ianto, and I got my wish. In one swift bound he's become the team member whose past we know most about – whose present we know most about. And he started out well in this episode. In his first scenes with his half-Cybered girlfriend when he was still trying to be stoic and stiff-upper-lipped, I really felt for him. Later on, as he descended into a blubbering mess, my sympathy waned, although his reaction was very human.
Again with the plot holes you could drive a truck through, like…how exactly did Ianto get Cyber!Lisa into Torchwood Cardiff and keep her hidden for so long, with the amount of Cyber technology necessary to keep her alive?
But once the main body of the episode kicked in I stopped caring about all that, since it fast developed into classic Who-style running-around-in-abject-terror, and it worked. It worked because the reactions of the team to the presence of Cyber technology, to the presence of a partially converted Cyberman in their midst sold it. They know that this is what brought down Torchwood London, the death and destruction caused there, and when they find that same menace here in their safe little haven, they are terrified.
They've never explained the pterodactyl, have they?
Gwen's boyfriend Rhys felt a bit shoehorned in there for his one brief scene, but having that tiny scene provided the sharp contrast between Gwen's home life and her new work life – continuing the theme of Gwen's development. On the one hand she has her safe normal home life, comfortable and familiar. But on the other hand she has this exciting and dangerous new life with her work at Torchwood. And the two don't mesh very well, as she's increasingly finding, and if she can't find a way to balance the two, something will eventually have to give – and at the moment, it looks likely to be the relationship with Rhys.
Jack remains as enigmatic as ever. He takes the lead well in a crisis, but there are so many question marks hanging over him, in his own head as much as anyone else's. Who and what is he, really? How far would he be willing to go? Just where do his moral and ethical standards lie, really?
Oh, and I was delighted to see that little pool of water in the Hub, the one Ianto landed in when Lisa threw him. See, I said they'd have serious issues with the water table and rising damp! Their fault for building under a disused dock right on the waterfront. Speaking of which, virtually this entire episode took place down in the Hub, so no location spotting for me this week.
Trying to remember any other thoughts I had, and coming up a blank, so that'll have to do for now.
Well, given that she's only been in the office for 25 minutes this week before today, I think that's fair enough!
Babysat Small after work last night for a couple of hours while our parents went off to meet the teachers at the high school she'll be going to next year. Scary thought. Where did the last ten years go? Babysitting meant feeding her, which is easier said than done given that our Mam spent halfterm teaching her how to cook. So she wanted to help, producing her little cookbook for kids and finding a page with a diagram of how to chop veg as evidence to support her argument. So...we cooked. And she did okay. Just...messy.
She's staying over with me again this weekend. If she continues insisting on helping to cook, it could be a looooong weekend. She wants to go shopping for a Christmas present for Mum, and already knows what she wants to get. This means she also wants me to pay for it for her.
Oh, and it occurs to me that I should get some thoughts down about last week's Torchwood before the next episode airs and before my skatty memory loses such thoughts as I had entirely.
Well, I said I wanted to see more of Ianto, and I got my wish. In one swift bound he's become the team member whose past we know most about – whose present we know most about. And he started out well in this episode. In his first scenes with his half-Cybered girlfriend when he was still trying to be stoic and stiff-upper-lipped, I really felt for him. Later on, as he descended into a blubbering mess, my sympathy waned, although his reaction was very human.
Again with the plot holes you could drive a truck through, like…how exactly did Ianto get Cyber!Lisa into Torchwood Cardiff and keep her hidden for so long, with the amount of Cyber technology necessary to keep her alive?
But once the main body of the episode kicked in I stopped caring about all that, since it fast developed into classic Who-style running-around-in-abject-terror, and it worked. It worked because the reactions of the team to the presence of Cyber technology, to the presence of a partially converted Cyberman in their midst sold it. They know that this is what brought down Torchwood London, the death and destruction caused there, and when they find that same menace here in their safe little haven, they are terrified.
They've never explained the pterodactyl, have they?
Gwen's boyfriend Rhys felt a bit shoehorned in there for his one brief scene, but having that tiny scene provided the sharp contrast between Gwen's home life and her new work life – continuing the theme of Gwen's development. On the one hand she has her safe normal home life, comfortable and familiar. But on the other hand she has this exciting and dangerous new life with her work at Torchwood. And the two don't mesh very well, as she's increasingly finding, and if she can't find a way to balance the two, something will eventually have to give – and at the moment, it looks likely to be the relationship with Rhys.
Jack remains as enigmatic as ever. He takes the lead well in a crisis, but there are so many question marks hanging over him, in his own head as much as anyone else's. Who and what is he, really? How far would he be willing to go? Just where do his moral and ethical standards lie, really?
Oh, and I was delighted to see that little pool of water in the Hub, the one Ianto landed in when Lisa threw him. See, I said they'd have serious issues with the water table and rising damp! Their fault for building under a disused dock right on the waterfront. Speaking of which, virtually this entire episode took place down in the Hub, so no location spotting for me this week.
Trying to remember any other thoughts I had, and coming up a blank, so that'll have to do for now.
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 12:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 12:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 12:48 pm (UTC)Um, dunno... I think I was referring to my surprise that I enjoyed something :) But it's probably like you said - it was classic Who, and more about good vs evil which is what I prefer.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 01:49 pm (UTC)Aww. I'm messy and don't do well at cooking, so looks like Small is better than me at it. *g* How is she right now? Does she talking about her birth mom?
no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 01:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 02:02 pm (UTC)Small's doing okay. She seems to be blanking out all the stuff about her birth mother's death again now. It's just one of those things that's going to come back time and time again, as she grows up and thinks about it or stuff happens that reminds her.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 02:14 pm (UTC)Small seems a little wilful, but I'm sure cooking can be turned into a fun activity with the both of you? :) And can Small be convinced to make mum's present a shared present between the two of you? I'm sure that would do at least a TINY bit more good for that bank balance.