Torchwood: EPIC FAIL - Episode 1x6
Jul. 23rd, 2008 04:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadydaveTorchwood, Series One: The EPIC FAIL Project
Episode 6: "The Benders" aka "Countrycide"
First off, FAIL for puns in the episode title. It's not even a good pun, because I can tell you right now, no countries are killed in this episode. If Chris Chibnall was Katherine, he totally would have a Red Card.
Secondly, FAIL for totally ripping off the plot of an episode (or two) of SPooN. Much as I love SPooN, it's not exactly the pinnacle of television writing achievement, and at this point I think it would be much better for Torchwood if the writers would, you know, copy a REALLY GOOD show. Like BSG. Think of how much better the series would be thus far if they had been channeling the really awesome show with killer robot women and a sleazy doctor who unleashesalien robotic terror upon the unsuspecting populace of 12 DIFFERENT PLANETS!
Come to think of it, if BSG ever made it to earth, Torchwood would totally hire Baltar.
But I digress. The episode begins with a victim of the week who I think is pretty cool. She's got awesome boots, fuzzy dice, and takes a bat with her when she goes to investigate the weird thing in the middle of the road out in the middle of the country late at night. She's so cool, I even looked up her name (Ellie). Of course, she gets taken by something in the teaser and is pretty much doomed, but oh well.
Torchwood goes on a camping expedition to investigate. No, seriously. They've got tents and everything. Seems like Ellie and a bunch more people have gone missing in the same bit of country, and they think the Rift might be spreading.
WELCOME TO CAMP TORCHWOOD:
I'm kind of curious as to how all their equipment fit into the Torchwoodmobile, since as far as I know it's not bigger on the inside.
Whilst setting up camp, they have what may be my favorite conversation of hilarious FAIL:
GWEN: Oh, come on! It's just a bit of fun! Who was the last person you snogged?
OWEN: See! You even sound like an eight-year-old! Who the hell says "snog"?
GWEN: Mine was ... Rhys!
OWEN: Yeah, well, there's a surprise.
GWEN: Tosh, your go.
TOSH: It's easy for you!
GWEN: Oh, come on! Spill the beans!
TOSH: Owen.
OWEN: What?
GWEN: Really?
OWEN: Tosh, in your dreams.
TOSH: 3 am, Christmas Eve, in front of the Millennium Centre. Waiting for a cab. I had mistletoe.
OWEN: Christmas?! You've not had a snog since.
TOSH: No.
OWEN: Well. Lucky me, eh?
TOSH: So who was yours?
OWEN: Gwen, actually.
TOSH: When was this?
GWEN: It was complicated.
TOSH: ::mutters:: Didn't take you long to get your feet under the table.
GWEN: What?
TOSH: So was it just a kiss, or ...
GWEN: Tosh, leave it.
OWEN: Jack?
JACK: Are we including non-human lifeforms?
GWEN: Oh, you haven't!
OWEN: You're a sick man, Harkness. That is disgusting.
GWEN: I never know when he's joking.
IANTO: It's my turn, is it? It was Lisa.
::awkward pause::
GWEN: Ianto, I'm sorry ...
IANTO: Sorry she's dead? Or sorry you mentioned it?
GWEN: I just didn't think.
IANTO: You forgot.
::LONG, AWKWARD SILENCE::
On the one hand, they all FAIL so hard. On the other hand, this conversation wins for perfectly capturing exactly how hard they fail, so I guess they cancel each other out.
Anyways, Gwen and Owen go into the woods so Gwen can yell at Owen for sharing about their "oh-crap-we're-gonna-die-let's-make-out!" session, which morphs into their having sexual tension against a tree. Owen propositions her with the opportunity for them to have great sex, which is at least refreshingly straightforward if kinda icky coming from him, but he's cut short when they catch sight of something sneaking through the trees. They find a skinned carcass of a person and call the team to investigate. Just as they've got the whole Blair Witch thing going, someone steals the Torchwoodmobile, because Owen left the keys in the car. FAIL.
They track the Torchwoodmobile and come to a small "town", which looks more like one house to me, but whatever.
They split up: Owen, Gwen, and Jack investigate the "town", which is mysteriously empty, while Tosh and Ianto go after the car. Gwen and Jack get to practice their James Bond impressions while bursting into rooms and turning corners with their guns.
An empty house! BA-DUMP BA DAAAH!!!!!
However, they keep finding carcasses, which make Gwen throw up a lot, slightly spoiling the whole badass secret agent image. Tosh and Ianto wander around by a barn and find weird skinned animals from The Village, hear strange noises, and get disappeared. I should note that they do not find the car.
While checking out another building, Gwen accidentally gets shot by a kid babbling about "them". Owen patches her up ("Just lie back and think of Torchwood") and the four of them (Jack, Gwen, Owen, and the kid) barricade themselves in the pub until they know what they're dealing with.
Meanwhile, Tosh and Ianto wake up in a basement. They discover it's full of abandoned shoes and clothes, which is upsetting, but not as upsetting as the refrigerator filled with people meat.
A crazy lady shows up with a shotgun and tells them they have to follow her, babbling about "the harvest". They ask her whose harvest, but she doesn't answer, and leads them away.
Back at the pub, something attackswhile they are distracted by a jar of teeth, and Jack shoots someone in the cellar while the kid gets dragged away. Gwen and Owen go after him, while Jack goes down into the basement. In keeping with the episode's origin, it looks pretty much like every basement in SPooN ever.
Dean double-dares you to take a swig of this:
Jack finds that he shot a guy, and threatens to torture himwith a hot poker until he tells him what's going on.
Meanwhile, Gwen and Owen find a police officer out in the woodswho handcuffs them to a police car. Elsewhere, Tosh and Ianto are led into an abattoir-looking place filled with people meat, where crazy lady hands them over to creepy dude, and they figure out that they're not dealing with aliens, just cannibals. Ianto comes up with a cunning plan, which is to defiantly scream "I hope your apple pie is freakin' WORTH it!" smile inappropriately and headbutt creepy dude, allowing Tosh to escape.
IANTO'S CUNNING PLAN:
Step 1:
Step 2:
Creepy dude chases Tosh, who is doing pretty well with the running away thing despite having her hands tied. Just when it looks like we're getting into serious horror-movie territory, Owen, Gwen, and police officer find her -- except it turns out the police officer is in league with creepy dude! In fact, the entire town is on it! Except that as far as I can tell, there's just these three people and the guy in the basement IN the entire town, but whatever.
Torchwood: Ambushed by cannibals!
The team is reunited (sans Jack), with the slight downside of being captured by cannibals, who every ten years they have their little Harvestto please the Norse god in the apple orchard just for kicks. Creepy dude is about to turn Ianto into veal when Jack bursts through the wall on a tractor and shoots everyone in the kneecaps, accompanied by VERY DRAMATIC MUSIC.
My hero.
Anyways, after the cannibals have been subdued and the non-cannibal cops called, Gwen demands to question creepy dude. I have a note here that says "Gwen milks the giant cow", so you know there's some ACTING! involved in this part.
Jack, who has seen this episode of SPooN and knows that the appropriate response for a cop in this situation is to shoot creepy dude and not talk to him, is reluctant but gives in. Gwen questions creepy dude in a scene which would be deeply, well, creepy, if not for the fact that the dialogue is kind of hilarious:
GWEN: What sort of people are you that you wake up in the morning and think, "this is what I'm going to do"?
...
CREEPY DUDE: I'll tell you something ... if you let me whisper.
GWEN: Okay.
CREEPY DUDE: ::whispers:: 'Cause it made me happy!
This apparently shakes Gwen's faith in humanity so hard that sheshakes her head, saying "Demons I get; people are crazy" goes and sleeps with Owen, Dr. Sketchy McSleazeball himself, because only he as a member of Torchwood can understand her pain, despite the fact that since they were dealing with people and not aliens she could have told anyone about it, like Rhys, or a therapist, or The Daily Sun. Also, didn't she used to be a COP? You'd think people doing terrible things to one another would be something she would be MORE prepared to deal with than aliens. And thus the episode ends with coping mechanism FAIL.
The Fail Scale
FAIL:
- Title pun FAIL
- SPooN ripoff FAIL
- Awkward conversation FAIL
- Stolen Torchwoodmobile FAIL
- SLEEPING WITH OWEN FAIL
WIN:
- HEADBUTT!
- Awkward conversation of character flaws!
TOTAL SCORE: -3
Death by Torchwood:
Again, they don't kill or cause the death of anyone! Two episodes in a row, I think that's the new record.
Captain's Blog: Staff: Brought Ianto Jones along to get him out of the Hub, out of the city, get some relaxing time in the country with the team. May not have been the best decision I made this year.
Next Episode: LOOK, AN EPISODE THAT DOESN'T TOTALLY FAIL!
The Torchwood: EPIC FAIL Project Table o' Contents!
Episode 6: "The Benders" aka "Countrycide"
First off, FAIL for puns in the episode title. It's not even a good pun, because I can tell you right now, no countries are killed in this episode. If Chris Chibnall was Katherine, he totally would have a Red Card.
Secondly, FAIL for totally ripping off the plot of an episode (or two) of SPooN. Much as I love SPooN, it's not exactly the pinnacle of television writing achievement, and at this point I think it would be much better for Torchwood if the writers would, you know, copy a REALLY GOOD show. Like BSG. Think of how much better the series would be thus far if they had been channeling the really awesome show with killer robot women and a sleazy doctor who unleashes
Come to think of it, if BSG ever made it to earth, Torchwood would totally hire Baltar.
But I digress. The episode begins with a victim of the week who I think is pretty cool. She's got awesome boots, fuzzy dice, and takes a bat with her when she goes to investigate the weird thing in the middle of the road out in the middle of the country late at night. She's so cool, I even looked up her name (Ellie). Of course, she gets taken by something in the teaser and is pretty much doomed, but oh well.
Torchwood goes on a camping expedition to investigate. No, seriously. They've got tents and everything. Seems like Ellie and a bunch more people have gone missing in the same bit of country, and they think the Rift might be spreading.
WELCOME TO CAMP TORCHWOOD:
I'm kind of curious as to how all their equipment fit into the Torchwoodmobile, since as far as I know it's not bigger on the inside.
Whilst setting up camp, they have what may be my favorite conversation of hilarious FAIL:
GWEN: Oh, come on! It's just a bit of fun! Who was the last person you snogged?
OWEN: See! You even sound like an eight-year-old! Who the hell says "snog"?
GWEN: Mine was ... Rhys!
OWEN: Yeah, well, there's a surprise.
GWEN: Tosh, your go.
TOSH: It's easy for you!
GWEN: Oh, come on! Spill the beans!
TOSH: Owen.
OWEN: What?
GWEN: Really?
OWEN: Tosh, in your dreams.
TOSH: 3 am, Christmas Eve, in front of the Millennium Centre. Waiting for a cab. I had mistletoe.
OWEN: Christmas?! You've not had a snog since.
TOSH: No.
OWEN: Well. Lucky me, eh?
TOSH: So who was yours?
OWEN: Gwen, actually.
TOSH: When was this?
GWEN: It was complicated.
TOSH: ::mutters:: Didn't take you long to get your feet under the table.
GWEN: What?
TOSH: So was it just a kiss, or ...
GWEN: Tosh, leave it.
OWEN: Jack?
JACK: Are we including non-human lifeforms?
GWEN: Oh, you haven't!
OWEN: You're a sick man, Harkness. That is disgusting.
GWEN: I never know when he's joking.
IANTO: It's my turn, is it? It was Lisa.
::awkward pause::
GWEN: Ianto, I'm sorry ...
IANTO: Sorry she's dead? Or sorry you mentioned it?
GWEN: I just didn't think.
IANTO: You forgot.
::LONG, AWKWARD SILENCE::
On the one hand, they all FAIL so hard. On the other hand, this conversation wins for perfectly capturing exactly how hard they fail, so I guess they cancel each other out.
Anyways, Gwen and Owen go into the woods so Gwen can yell at Owen for sharing about their "oh-crap-we're-gonna-die-let's-make-out!" session, which morphs into their having sexual tension against a tree. Owen propositions her with the opportunity for them to have great sex, which is at least refreshingly straightforward if kinda icky coming from him, but he's cut short when they catch sight of something sneaking through the trees. They find a skinned carcass of a person and call the team to investigate. Just as they've got the whole Blair Witch thing going, someone steals the Torchwoodmobile, because Owen left the keys in the car. FAIL.
They track the Torchwoodmobile and come to a small "town", which looks more like one house to me, but whatever.
They split up: Owen, Gwen, and Jack investigate the "town", which is mysteriously empty, while Tosh and Ianto go after the car. Gwen and Jack get to practice their James Bond impressions while bursting into rooms and turning corners with their guns.
An empty house! BA-DUMP BA DAAAH!!!!!
However, they keep finding carcasses, which make Gwen throw up a lot, slightly spoiling the whole badass secret agent image. Tosh and Ianto wander around by a barn and find weird skinned animals from The Village, hear strange noises, and get disappeared. I should note that they do not find the car.
While checking out another building, Gwen accidentally gets shot by a kid babbling about "them". Owen patches her up ("Just lie back and think of Torchwood") and the four of them (Jack, Gwen, Owen, and the kid) barricade themselves in the pub until they know what they're dealing with.
Meanwhile, Tosh and Ianto wake up in a basement. They discover it's full of abandoned shoes and clothes, which is upsetting, but not as upsetting as the refrigerator filled with people meat.
A crazy lady shows up with a shotgun and tells them they have to follow her, babbling about "the harvest". They ask her whose harvest, but she doesn't answer, and leads them away.
Back at the pub, something attacks
Dean double-dares you to take a swig of this:
Jack finds that he shot a guy, and threatens to torture him
Meanwhile, Gwen and Owen find a police officer out in the woods
IANTO'S CUNNING PLAN:
Step 1:
Step 2:
Creepy dude chases Tosh, who is doing pretty well with the running away thing despite having her hands tied. Just when it looks like we're getting into serious horror-movie territory, Owen, Gwen, and police officer find her -- except it turns out the police officer is in league with creepy dude! In fact, the entire town is on it! Except that as far as I can tell, there's just these three people and the guy in the basement IN the entire town, but whatever.
Torchwood: Ambushed by cannibals!
The team is reunited (sans Jack), with the slight downside of being captured by cannibals, who every ten years they have their little Harvest
My hero.
Anyways, after the cannibals have been subdued and the non-cannibal cops called, Gwen demands to question creepy dude. I have a note here that says "Gwen milks the giant cow", so you know there's some ACTING! involved in this part.
Jack, who has seen this episode of SPooN and knows that the appropriate response for a cop in this situation is to shoot creepy dude and not talk to him, is reluctant but gives in. Gwen questions creepy dude in a scene which would be deeply, well, creepy, if not for the fact that the dialogue is kind of hilarious:
GWEN: What sort of people are you that you wake up in the morning and think, "this is what I'm going to do"?
...
CREEPY DUDE: I'll tell you something ... if you let me whisper.
GWEN: Okay.
CREEPY DUDE: ::whispers:: 'Cause it made me happy!
This apparently shakes Gwen's faith in humanity so hard that she
The Fail Scale
FAIL:
- Title pun FAIL
- SPooN ripoff FAIL
- Awkward conversation FAIL
- Stolen Torchwoodmobile FAIL
- SLEEPING WITH OWEN FAIL
WIN:
- HEADBUTT!
- Awkward conversation of character flaws!
TOTAL SCORE: -3
Death by Torchwood:
Again, they don't kill or cause the death of anyone! Two episodes in a row, I think that's the new record.
Captain's Blog: Staff: Brought Ianto Jones along to get him out of the Hub, out of the city, get some relaxing time in the country with the team. May not have been the best decision I made this year.
Next Episode: LOOK, AN EPISODE THAT DOESN'T TOTALLY FAIL!
The Torchwood: EPIC FAIL Project Table o' Contents!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-08-03 12:03 am (UTC)This line still makes me laugh and laugh.
TORCHWOOD: Fails at Titles!
no subject
Date: 2008-09-27 01:01 am (UTC)Fail.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-27 06:01 pm (UTC)"ARRGH! BEES! NOT THE BEES! OH MY EYES!"
no subject
Date: 2008-09-27 09:15 am (UTC)I think this deserves two FAILpoints.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-27 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-27 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-27 05:54 pm (UTC)I think that if Chris Chibnall had just decided to limit himself to ONE vital plot point from "The Benders" (backwater cannibals, alien/supernatural threat that is actually people, wanton hunting of people just for the kicks), I probably would have just shrugged it off. But when you have the EXACT same plot summary, AND you're not nearly as awesome, it just makes me wish I was watching Dean Winchester get menaced by a little girl. :D
I mostly cringed at Jack's special entrance and shooting
He's on a TRACTOR. Seriously, who looks at an old tractor and goes "Wow, that's totally badass!"?
no subject
Date: 2008-09-28 10:27 am (UTC)Obviously the writer. Although I don't don't what's worse in this scene, Jack's badass entrance, his shooting seemingly at random with a badass face, the guys being shot or the general acting. (what is he shooting with anyway? rock salt?)
And yeah, watching Dean get menaced by a creepy little girl is better. The SPN episode is loads more creepy and better. SPN is better. But I don't think they quite got the same amount of money to blow on each episode (not sure it would help too)
Thanks whatever which (who?) made that TW second season is a bit better. At least for the acting. Sometimes.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-28 04:29 pm (UTC)Chris Chibnall has some problems. At least a lot of them got better, though; some of his episodes in Series 2 hardly failed at all!
But I don't think they quite got the same amount of money to blow on each episode (not sure it would help too)
It probably wouldn't, since their main problem was writing/acting, and not their PASTEDE ON YAY! special effects (in this episode anyway).
Thanks whatever which (who?) made that TW second season is a bit better. At least for the acting. Sometimes.
Amen to that :D
no subject
Date: 2008-09-28 10:28 am (UTC)Obviously the writer. Although I don't don't what's worse in this scene, Jack's badass entrance, his shooting seemingly at random with a badass face, the guys being shot or the general acting. (what is he shooting with anyway? rock salt?)
And yeah, watching Dean get menaced by a creepy little girl is better. The SPN episode is loads more creepy and better. SPN is better. But I don't think they (TW) quite got the same amount of money (as SPN) to blow on each episode (not sure it would help too)
Thanks whatever which (who?) made that TW second season is a bit better. At least for the acting. Sometimes.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-30 12:25 am (UTC)When I rewatched this episode, I had to skip the Jack bursting in and shooting everyone bit because the slow mo makes me cringe too much to even laugh at it.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-03 10:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-30 07:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-03 10:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-14 10:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-14 11:03 pm (UTC)I do agree that Season 2 was awesome like a very awesome thing, though. :D
no subject
Date: 2008-10-14 11:15 pm (UTC)The show just keeps getting better and better, though, which is all kinds of fabulous:)