"you're good on rooves"

[sab]

Or to quote for the millionth time this review I read, which described Torchwood as "easily the best show about a bisexual time-traveller standing on various rooftops in Wales."

So, I'm re-watching the Torchwood season premiere, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," which is the one with James Marsters.

(It's also important to note that I'm watching Torchwood because I had to stop watching David Tennant hosting the Friday Night Project, because it nearly KILLED me. Clearly it, like the Tennant Video Diaries, is the sort of thing I will only be able to watch in very very small increments, BECAUSE OF THE EXPLODING. His mouth! His hair! His...all wiggly and throwing his head back and laughing! Fanfic! Underpants! Although, to be fair, the actual late-night variety show part of FNP isn't really his milieu. I mean, he can give a monologue and record some sketches and wraparounds and whatever, but you just get the feeling he should be off doing Shakespeare somewhere instead OR NAKED IN MY HOUSE.)

Anyway, where was I? Oh, right.

Leadership.

*clears throat*

First, if they're trying to make John Barrowman look LESS queeny, setting him against James Marsters isn't really the best way to do that. Mostly you just watch Marsters snarl and cock his guns, and wait for Barrowman to burst into song.



Captain Jack wears brown shoes. I mean, for real. Someone thinks this is okay? And also I really gotta call him on the pleated pants. After two years, it's a shame a man with such snappy suspenders and such a swoopy coat shouldn't have the pants and shoes to pull it off. And then Marsters comes in in his skin-tight tee and flared drum majorette coat and cheekbones, and, IJS, no wonder Tosh flirts with him.

Elsewhere, Gareth David Lloyd does some really brilliant stuff in his reaction to Jack asking him on a date. Seriously, if you rewatch, watch him stumble after Jack asks him out, with his little "um, as long as it's not in an office" and then trying to regain it with his muttering as he turns away, "some fantasies should be kept to yourself," that whole panicked/excited/embarrassed thing, and he just nails it. OH IANTO.

I have some more things to say about this ep, and also more importantly about how Jack is helping bring back the side hair-part, which is a trend for men I encourage, especially Bryllcreem'd like the dudes on Mad Men, but it's so late it's almost earth hour already (this is exaggeration for comic effect, I am in Los Angeles where it's 3:32am, and Earth Hour's not till 8 pm tomorrow, so keep yer sox on...) and I'd really like to fall asleep soon. That and the fact that my runon sentences seem to have reached critical limits, and if I continue writing there's a good chance I'll never find the end -

Comments

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

It was especially odd because the material was so...classic. I mean, I feel that RTD genuinely appreciates the form of homosocialism/homoeroticism that we call slashiness and has no problem featuring that kind of material(see: Last of the Time Lords), so it's all the more painful that for whatever reason the actors/director couldn't pull it off.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

If one wants to be catty: could it be because Barrowman isn't that great an actor and JM gave a lazy performance, whereas David Tennant and John Simm were on top of their game?

Though to be fair: one reason why even that small moment at the end of "Utopia" with "say my name" is insanely hot is because a good deal of the viewers already knows the characters and their backstories. We know the Doctor, we know the Master, and we care because of that. Whereas why should we care about this John Hart person doing a blatant imitation of the Smashed Buffy/Spike scene with Jack? We don't know him. No emotional investment there.

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, that first point had occurred to me. Rather pointedly.

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

Copy, both of you. It's sort of a shame, because I always want Barrowman to be a good actor. One of the things I say about him is that he somehow manages to make everything look extremely difficult, and therefore gets to look heroic when he accomplishes anything. Seriously, watch him, like, lift a mug and take a sip; he puts his whole body into it and stands there victoriously when he's done.

Additionally, he pants after the slightest effort, like reading something serious on Toshiko's monitor or walking across the room. Should we be worrying about the man's health? *g*