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Torchwood: EPIC FAIL - Episode 1x5
Torchwood, Series One: The EPIC FAIL Project
ETA: By request, now with more pictures!
Episode 5: "Clap Your Hands Three Times and DIE" aka "Small Worlds"
Dude, the title has NOTHING to do with this episode. How exactly does "Small Worlds" tie in with a summary like "Torchwood gets their asses handed to them by a bunch of fairies?"
Oh, and did I mention that this is the episode where Torchwood gets their asses handed to them by a bunch of fairies? BECAUSE THEY TOTALLY DO. So I think this episode might have to FAIL on principle, because, hello, they're FAIRIES.
Anyway, we open with an old lady taking pictures of said fairies. They look all happy and cute until she turns her back, when they suddenly transform into orcs with wings.
Ok, so this picture isn't from this part, sorry.
In addition to the terrible CGI, we can tell they are bad news because there is EVIL CELESTINA MUSIC. Did I also mention that this episode is full of musical FAIL?
We switch back to Jack, who is trying to get to sleep in a manner which best showcases his pecs while Tchaikovsky's "Sonata for Insomnia" plays helpfully.
Unfortunately for Jack, he has disturbing sepia-toned dreams of soldiers with their mouths stuffed full of petals, and so he gives up, puts a shirt on (sadly), and wanders into the Hub, because did I mention that Jack sleeps in a hole in his office floor? HOMELESS WEIRDO. He wasn't kidding about not wanting to commute.
He finds a flower petal on his desk, and then he finds Ianto, who also can't sleep. I'm guessing the flower petal is supposed to be ominous foreshadowing, but really it just makes me think Ianto is terrible at giving people bouquets.
Exhibit A: Jack's Desk
In addition, I am slightly confused about why he also has a lightsaber and gauze bandages. Kirstin points out that you'd probably need the bandages after fighting with lightsabers (especially if you're Jack), but this does not explain how anyone thought it was a good idea to give Jack a lightsaber in the first place. (However, I think this ranks up there with John Winchester's ninja stars as most sadly underused weaponry in a TV show.) Anyways, Ianto and Jack talk about the weather and have a meaningful shoulder pat.
The next day, Jasmine, a vaguely creepy little girl, has to walk home from school alone because her mom's boyfriend is a huge tool. She almost gets abducted by a pedophile, but he is driven off by INVISIBLE FAIRIES. Meanwhile, Gwen and Jack go to the old lady's presentation on "Fairies: Fact or Fiction?" because apparently the old lady and Jack are old friends. Old lady Estelle is all "Fairies are happy and shiny!" whereas Jack is all "Fairies are EVIL!!!1!" Gwen is all "Fairies WTF?", and rightly so.
The pedophile guy staggers around like a crazy man and vomits flowers before getting arrested. This probably should not be as hilarious as it is.
Jack and Gwen go to Estelle's house to check out her information on fairies. Typically, she has a cat she treats like a person. Gwen notices a picture of Jack's "dad" and Estelle from WWII, and Jack says she and his "father" were an item. This would probably be more believable if Jack wasn't wearing the exact same clothes. Jack makes Estelle promise to call him if she sees anymore fairies, and Gwen harbors the sneaking suspicion that Jack once dated a crazy cat lady. And is also remarkably well preserved for his age.
Jack gives a very deep and solemn explanation of the fairy phenomenon:
JACK: Think dangerous, think something you can only half see like a glimpse, like something out of the corner of your eye with a touch of myth, a touch of the spirit world, a touch of reality, all jumbled together. Old moments and memories that are frozen in amongst it. Like debris spinning around a ringed planet - tossing, turning, whirling. Then backwards and forwards through time. If that's them we have to find them ... before all hell breaks loose.
DUN DUN DUN.
We cut back to Jasmine. She likes to play in the garden alone with the creepy voices.
Meanwhile, Torchwood is reviewing the Cottingley fairy photographs:
IANTO: I blame it on magic mushrooms.
JACK: What you do in private is none of our business.
Jack tells everyone to watch for weird weather patterns, since none of their instruments have a setting for FAIRIES. They go and investigate the woods where Estelle took the pictures. Gwen continues to pester Jack about Estelle and his "dad" and gets stalked by a fairy.
That night, pedophile guy gets attacked by a fairy in jail, while Jasmine's mom gets upset because Jasmine keeps talking to "herself". Torchwood investigates dead pedophile guy, and find that he asphyxiated on flower petals. Estelle looks for fairies with her magic crystals, but they turn MEAN and she freaks out and calls Jack. Unfortunately, she drowns in a small localized fairy-powered rainstorm before Torchwood can get there.
Gwen decides this is the perfect moment to bring up her "OMG you dated a crazy old cat lady?" theory:
GWEN: It wasn't your dad that was in love with her all those years ago, was it? It was you.
JACK: We once made a vow. That we'd be with each other till we died.
To be fair, Jack, that's actually a pretty easy promise to keep on your part, since you tend to die a lot.
After mourning a bit, Jack says that he's seen the death-by-flowers thing before: his troop was killed in Lahore in 1909. We don't actually know WHY Jack was in Lahore in 1909 (apart from giving him nightmares relevant to the plot), but whatever.
JACK: LOLZ Lahore is a funny name
Apparently his troop ran over a little girl with a truck, and pissed off the local fairies, because the little girl was their chosen onewho would bring balance to the Force.
Later, fairies trash Gwen's apartment.
Meanwhile, the huge tool bf is mean to Jasmine, and then she goes to school, where her classmates are mean to her. This causes the fairies to raise a scary windstorm to the accompaniment of "The Lord of the Dance" as performed by The Cardiff Demonic Children's Choir. SO MUCH MUSICAL FAIL.
Jack attempts to explain more about fairies, but it doesn't really help:
JACK: All these so-called fairies were children once from different moments in time, going back millennia. Part of the lost lands.
GWEN: Lost lands? What?
I concur, Gwen. Anyways, the fairies want their chosen one (i.e. Jasmine, in case you haven't been paying attention) to come join them. Tosh notices the freak windstorm and Torchwood goes to investigate. We get a nice shot of the Torchwoodmobile, which has their name WRITTEN ON THE SIDE because they FAIL AT BEING SECRETIVE. They figure out Jasmine must be the chosen one, and rush to go save her.
Torchwoodmobile AWAY!
Meanwhile, Jasmine's mom and her boyfriend are having a party to celebrate how much they love each other. No, seriously. Jasmine freaks out when she finds out huge tool bf has fenced off the garden where the fairies are, and he freaks out and hits her, because he is a HUGE TOOL. Fairies crash the party and kill the huge tool, and Torchwood crashes the party just in time to not stop the fairies from crashing the party.
Jack and Gwen run after Jasmine. She wants to go with the fairies. The fairies want her to go with the fairies. Jack engages in a little ACTING! to convince them otherwise, but it doesn't work. The fairies offer him an ultimatum: either Jasmine goes with them, or they DESTROY THE ENTIRE WORLD. After being reassured that Jasmine won't be hurt, Jack lets her go.
Torchwood: loses arguments with fairies!
Gwen is not pleased with this strategy. Neither is Jasmine's mom. Neither is the rest of Torchwood, so they shun Jack on their way home, where we get to see that their name is also written ON THE ROOF OF THEIR SUV. I'm trying to come up with situations where the fate of the world depends on Torchwood identifying the heck out of their car, but I've got nothing. In fact, it seems to me that when your job is fighting aliens, who are perhaps renowned for having flying vehicles, labeling your car so that it's clearly visible from above seems like A REALLY TERRIBLE IDEA.
Secret Organization: YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG
Back at the Hub, the fairies recite Yeats, and Gwen investigates the Cottingley photographs. Turns out, if you blow them up really huge, you can see that one of the fairies is in fact a badly-photoshopped Jasmine.
MY FAIRY HEDE IS PASTEDE ON YAY.
THE END.
The Fail Scale
FAIL:
- Musical FAIL
- Secret organization FAIL
- FAIRIES
WIN:
- THERE IS NO WIN
TOTAL SCORE: -3
Death by Torchwood:
They actually didn't kill ANYONE in this episode! I mean, they didn't SAVE anyone either, but still, there's some progress here.
Captain's Blog:Other security issues: No alien technology removed from the Hub, no breaches, no incursions. Frankly, I'm amazed. Looks like the security presentation did the trick, or at least bored everyone into compliance.
Next episode: Previously, on Supernatural...
The Torchwood: EPIC FAIL Project Table o' Contents!
ETA: By request, now with more pictures!
Episode 5: "Clap Your Hands Three Times and DIE" aka "Small Worlds"
Dude, the title has NOTHING to do with this episode. How exactly does "Small Worlds" tie in with a summary like "Torchwood gets their asses handed to them by a bunch of fairies?"
Oh, and did I mention that this is the episode where Torchwood gets their asses handed to them by a bunch of fairies? BECAUSE THEY TOTALLY DO. So I think this episode might have to FAIL on principle, because, hello, they're FAIRIES.
Anyway, we open with an old lady taking pictures of said fairies. They look all happy and cute until she turns her back, when they suddenly transform into orcs with wings.
Ok, so this picture isn't from this part, sorry.
In addition to the terrible CGI, we can tell they are bad news because there is EVIL CELESTINA MUSIC. Did I also mention that this episode is full of musical FAIL?
We switch back to Jack, who is trying to get to sleep in a manner which best showcases his pecs while Tchaikovsky's "Sonata for Insomnia" plays helpfully.
Unfortunately for Jack, he has disturbing sepia-toned dreams of soldiers with their mouths stuffed full of petals, and so he gives up, puts a shirt on (sadly), and wanders into the Hub, because did I mention that Jack sleeps in a hole in his office floor? HOMELESS WEIRDO. He wasn't kidding about not wanting to commute.
He finds a flower petal on his desk, and then he finds Ianto, who also can't sleep. I'm guessing the flower petal is supposed to be ominous foreshadowing, but really it just makes me think Ianto is terrible at giving people bouquets.
Exhibit A: Jack's Desk
In addition, I am slightly confused about why he also has a lightsaber and gauze bandages. Kirstin points out that you'd probably need the bandages after fighting with lightsabers (especially if you're Jack), but this does not explain how anyone thought it was a good idea to give Jack a lightsaber in the first place. (However, I think this ranks up there with John Winchester's ninja stars as most sadly underused weaponry in a TV show.) Anyways, Ianto and Jack talk about the weather and have a meaningful shoulder pat.
The next day, Jasmine, a vaguely creepy little girl, has to walk home from school alone because her mom's boyfriend is a huge tool. She almost gets abducted by a pedophile, but he is driven off by INVISIBLE FAIRIES. Meanwhile, Gwen and Jack go to the old lady's presentation on "Fairies: Fact or Fiction?" because apparently the old lady and Jack are old friends. Old lady Estelle is all "Fairies are happy and shiny!" whereas Jack is all "Fairies are EVIL!!!1!" Gwen is all "Fairies WTF?", and rightly so.
The pedophile guy staggers around like a crazy man and vomits flowers before getting arrested. This probably should not be as hilarious as it is.
Jack and Gwen go to Estelle's house to check out her information on fairies. Typically, she has a cat she treats like a person. Gwen notices a picture of Jack's "dad" and Estelle from WWII, and Jack says she and his "father" were an item. This would probably be more believable if Jack wasn't wearing the exact same clothes. Jack makes Estelle promise to call him if she sees anymore fairies, and Gwen harbors the sneaking suspicion that Jack once dated a crazy cat lady. And is also remarkably well preserved for his age.
Jack gives a very deep and solemn explanation of the fairy phenomenon:
JACK: Think dangerous, think something you can only half see like a glimpse, like something out of the corner of your eye with a touch of myth, a touch of the spirit world, a touch of reality, all jumbled together. Old moments and memories that are frozen in amongst it. Like debris spinning around a ringed planet - tossing, turning, whirling. Then backwards and forwards through time. If that's them we have to find them ... before all hell breaks loose.
DUN DUN DUN.
We cut back to Jasmine. She likes to play in the garden alone with the creepy voices.
Meanwhile, Torchwood is reviewing the Cottingley fairy photographs:
IANTO: I blame it on magic mushrooms.
JACK: What you do in private is none of our business.
Jack tells everyone to watch for weird weather patterns, since none of their instruments have a setting for FAIRIES. They go and investigate the woods where Estelle took the pictures. Gwen continues to pester Jack about Estelle and his "dad" and gets stalked by a fairy.
That night, pedophile guy gets attacked by a fairy in jail, while Jasmine's mom gets upset because Jasmine keeps talking to "herself". Torchwood investigates dead pedophile guy, and find that he asphyxiated on flower petals. Estelle looks for fairies with her magic crystals, but they turn MEAN and she freaks out and calls Jack. Unfortunately, she drowns in a small localized fairy-powered rainstorm before Torchwood can get there.
Gwen decides this is the perfect moment to bring up her "OMG you dated a crazy old cat lady?" theory:
GWEN: It wasn't your dad that was in love with her all those years ago, was it? It was you.
JACK: We once made a vow. That we'd be with each other till we died.
To be fair, Jack, that's actually a pretty easy promise to keep on your part, since you tend to die a lot.
After mourning a bit, Jack says that he's seen the death-by-flowers thing before: his troop was killed in Lahore in 1909. We don't actually know WHY Jack was in Lahore in 1909 (apart from giving him nightmares relevant to the plot), but whatever.
JACK: LOLZ Lahore is a funny name
Apparently his troop ran over a little girl with a truck, and pissed off the local fairies, because the little girl was their chosen one
Later, fairies trash Gwen's apartment.
Meanwhile, the huge tool bf is mean to Jasmine, and then she goes to school, where her classmates are mean to her. This causes the fairies to raise a scary windstorm to the accompaniment of "The Lord of the Dance" as performed by The Cardiff Demonic Children's Choir. SO MUCH MUSICAL FAIL.
Jack attempts to explain more about fairies, but it doesn't really help:
JACK: All these so-called fairies were children once from different moments in time, going back millennia. Part of the lost lands.
GWEN: Lost lands? What?
I concur, Gwen. Anyways, the fairies want their chosen one (i.e. Jasmine, in case you haven't been paying attention) to come join them. Tosh notices the freak windstorm and Torchwood goes to investigate. We get a nice shot of the Torchwoodmobile, which has their name WRITTEN ON THE SIDE because they FAIL AT BEING SECRETIVE. They figure out Jasmine must be the chosen one, and rush to go save her.
Torchwoodmobile AWAY!
Meanwhile, Jasmine's mom and her boyfriend are having a party to celebrate how much they love each other. No, seriously. Jasmine freaks out when she finds out huge tool bf has fenced off the garden where the fairies are, and he freaks out and hits her, because he is a HUGE TOOL. Fairies crash the party and kill the huge tool, and Torchwood crashes the party just in time to not stop the fairies from crashing the party.
Jack and Gwen run after Jasmine. She wants to go with the fairies. The fairies want her to go with the fairies. Jack engages in a little ACTING! to convince them otherwise, but it doesn't work. The fairies offer him an ultimatum: either Jasmine goes with them, or they DESTROY THE ENTIRE WORLD. After being reassured that Jasmine won't be hurt, Jack lets her go.
Torchwood: loses arguments with fairies!
Gwen is not pleased with this strategy. Neither is Jasmine's mom. Neither is the rest of Torchwood, so they shun Jack on their way home, where we get to see that their name is also written ON THE ROOF OF THEIR SUV. I'm trying to come up with situations where the fate of the world depends on Torchwood identifying the heck out of their car, but I've got nothing. In fact, it seems to me that when your job is fighting aliens, who are perhaps renowned for having flying vehicles, labeling your car so that it's clearly visible from above seems like A REALLY TERRIBLE IDEA.
Secret Organization: YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG
Back at the Hub, the fairies recite Yeats, and Gwen investigates the Cottingley photographs. Turns out, if you blow them up really huge, you can see that one of the fairies is in fact a badly-photoshopped Jasmine.
MY FAIRY HEDE IS PASTEDE ON YAY.
THE END.
The Fail Scale
FAIL:
- Musical FAIL
- Secret organization FAIL
- FAIRIES
WIN:
- THERE IS NO WIN
TOTAL SCORE: -3
Death by Torchwood:
They actually didn't kill ANYONE in this episode! I mean, they didn't SAVE anyone either, but still, there's some progress here.
Captain's Blog:Other security issues: No alien technology removed from the Hub, no breaches, no incursions. Frankly, I'm amazed. Looks like the security presentation did the trick, or at least bored everyone into compliance.
Next episode: Previously, on Supernatural...
The Torchwood: EPIC FAIL Project Table o' Contents!
no subject
My theory on the secret organization failure is that the fact that they exist isn't a secret, so much as what it is they're supposed to be doing. Like when PC Andy pointed out the team in the first ep, thinking they must be special ops or something--people know about them, they just don't know what it is that they do. I figure that other government/law enforcement agencies need to be able to identify them (i.e. UNIT), so that they don't end up with friendly fire or anything.
no subject
The secret organization fail occurs mostly because they seem to be sending mixed messages: they don't have a registered license plate, but they do have their car carefully labeled. I feel that if you really wanted to masquerade as a secretive special ops team, it might be more effective to have it the other way around. After all, the secret service doesn't go around writing SECRET SERVICE on all of *their* sinister black SUVs.
no subject
1) Shirtless!insomniac!Jack
2) Estelle and Jack's "dad"
3) Lahore, 1909 - What?!
4) Any of the numerous examples of ACTING!
5) Estelle in a puddle
Also, why were the fairies stalking Gwen?
no subject
2) There wasn't a good screencap of this
3) Why?
4) These were all verbal; only Eve Myles succumbs to milking the giant cow, and she didn't do it in this episode
5) You are weird.
Also, why were the fairies stalking Gwen?
I DON'T EVEN KNOW.
no subject
no subject
OH NOES! DOES THAT MEAN THEY'RE GOING TO STALK ME?!
no subject
no subject
2) Alas.
3) How?
4) No ACTING faces? Alas.
5) Awesome. You fill my heart with joy.
no subject
no subject
This episode drove me nuts, because aside their kind of inexplicable killing of Estelle (inexplicable in terms of making sense. In terms of plot structure it was obviously to show them as evil), I was so very, very rooting for the fairies. Killing off Huge Tool BF and a pedophile and some random soldiers who apparently thought it was okay to mow down little native girls in the street? Who'm I supposed to be sympathizing with again?
The worst thing, though? Torchwood finds the fairy ring in the wood and walks right into it. Torchwood, you fail at BEING WELSH.
no subject
Yeah, they didn't so much illustrate that the fairies are capricious and dangerous, so much as they're vigilantes who play favorites and apparently didn't like the way Gwen arranged her apartment. Which doesn't have quite the same mythic resonance.
Torchwood, you fail at BEING WELSH.
You know, if we only went by things they totally fail at, they're quite well-rounded, really. :D
no subject
Also, I don't have a drop of Welsh/Scottish/English blood in me, and I know not to walk into a faerie ring. Did none of the team read stories when they were young?