Oh, my sides...

[tencrush]

Just in case you think I may have stopped following Miracle Day fandom all together (Yo, this is what I'm calling that show now, it saves typing and, you know, it makes a lot more sense this way.) I TOTALLY HAVEN'T.

Dudes, the Jane Espenson Ep 7 Jack's timeline continuity fail and her subsequent apologetic clueless twittering is the most hilarious thing to happen to this fandom since Jack made his grandson bleed out of every orifice for the sake of srs drama.

Should I watch episode 7, guys? I take it not much has happened since episode 1, so I should be good to go, yeah?

Comments

[fide-et-spe.livejournal.com]

It's so funny isn't it? Yes she's cocked up. RTD has also cocked up. Why not just leave it at that and apologise. The fact that she's then stirred fans who are desperately clinging on in the hope that this will make sense, into a frenzy of trying to make this fit into series 2 Jack's timeline, is just inept. It's clear she has no idea, and is making it up as she goes along. Even agreeing that it's an alternate timeline.

I haven't seen this episode yet, but the torture scenes sound repulsive and gratuitous, and that guy Angelo badly needs a haircut. I'm assuming you can live without seeing Barrowman naked, unless you've suddenly decided you like him, so I guess the only thing worth watching for is Jack and Gwen having a row.

I'm not sure if that's worth it or not. I was planning to watch it, but the more I read about it, the more I can't be arsed.

[tencrush]

I can definitely live without Barrowarse, yeah. Her explanations are so hilarious, though, I'm glad someone's bringing the funny back to this fandom.

[fide-et-spe.livejournal.com]

I knew his arse just wasn't your cup of tea. I feel sorry for JE because she's had a bit of twitter tourettes and now dug herself into a ditch, but on the other hand she is paid to write this crap, so how difficult is it to watch the previous shows? It beggars belief. I know it's just a job, but if I were asked to write an episode of telly I've never watched, even if I didn't like it, I'd make myself do the research, you've got to get it right, and you are paid good money to do it.

[tencrush]

Even if she didn't want to watch the whole backstory, including the relevant Who episodes, how hard is it for someone like RTD, who's in charge of this mess, to outline the relevant timlines and backstory for the characters so all the writers know what's what? Is he seriously writing with an American team now and STILL not using a show bible? It defies all logic.

[fide-et-spe.livejournal.com]

Oh yes it's his job to do that, even if he didn't want to write a bible thing, when she submits the script he can correct it, he heavily edits the scripts, so he's being lazy and inept himself here. I'm kind of ambivalent about show bibles, unless they are just a loose set of guidelines about backstory and canon, because I've seen shows where characters with no chemistry at all have been put together, and I like how changes were made in TW when they realised some things worked well, and for example GDL stood out, so they didn't kill Ianto in the first few eps, Kai Owen worked well, so Rhys survived as well. To me it was what made the show work, ditto for not killing Ianto and going with Owen. However that's kind of different, but some of the US dramas have been that rigid with their "bible", and IMO got really dull and boring. TW went off the rails as we know, but I think that's down to RTD and his "vision" more than anything else.

It just feels like he used the idea of TW, and threw a couple of characters in, but didn't actually give a toss, he just needed a Hollywood project.

[stlscape.livejournal.com]

It just feels like he used the idea of TW, and threw a couple of characters in, but didn't actually give a toss, he just needed a Hollywood project.

*gasp* How could you POSSIBLY think something like that? That's heresy! really very likely the truth.

[fide-et-spe.livejournal.com]

I know, it's feeling more and more likely to be the truth than we ever thought.

[stlscape.livejournal.com]

I haven't watched this episode yet either, but if you feel you simply *must* keep up with the show and don't feel a burning (no pun intended, but heh, get it? Burning?) urge to do so, try the AfterElton recaps. They're much less painful and headache-inducing.

[lawsontl.livejournal.com]

The AfterElton recaps are fucking hilarious.

[shighola.livejournal.com]

I haven't been watching the TW:MD crapfest at all so I have no idea what's going on but I am curious. What's the timeline continuity fail?

[tencrush]

Well, apparently a large part of the episode is a flashback to a relationship Jack had with a guy in the 1920's. Everyone's assumed this was in the 1920's when Jack was living out his time on earth at Torchwood, so after the Victorian Lesbians recruit him, only, he's wearing his RAF coat from WW2, which would imply it's after WW2 when he aquired it, AND he calls himself a "fixed point in time", which is something he doesn't know about himself until after he goes back to see the Doctor at the end of TW S2, DW S3. All of which implies he must be time travelling back to the twenties in order to have this relationship, which either puts it between TW S2 and CoE, which would be weird because he's allegedly with Ianto at that point, and has no reason to be time travelling around, or it puts it post CoE, which, again, doesn't make any sense because he claims to have been keeping an eye on Gwen all the time post CoE and anyway BOTH of those options require a working vortex manipulator and we all know that was disabled at the end of DW S3. So, in conclusion, not a single one of those possibilities is canonically possible and Jane Espenson is now tweeting around going OH MY BAD (she literally said that) and trying to come up with a plausible explanation for the whole thing and failing miserably. It's hella funny.

[lawsontl.livejournal.com]

Actually, isn't the fixed point line what the Doctor says to him while he's in that radiation room? That's after TW S1, then, not S2. I suppose a trip to the 1920's could be squeezed in after he gets off the Valiant. Maybe he hopped around a bit before rejoining the Doctor and getting dropped off in Cardiff (when the VM's travel function gets disabled again). It doesn't make much sense, but it's more plausible there than it would be after S2. He'd have had the coat at least.

But it can't be post CoE at all, unless he's managed to find a Webley and a perfect replica of his holster, since both were destroyed in the explosion. And a lot of his dialogue still wouldn't groove.

The problem is, she fucked up or RTD fucked it up after she handed it in, and now it's fucked up canon in a show that already had a pretty annoying canon to begin with.

[tencrush]

Yeah, sorry, brain freeze, I meant after TW S1 when Jack leaves to see the Doctor. Whichever way you look at it, it's proving yet again that nobody gives two flyng fucks about this show's continuity which is the most annoying thing in the world.

[lawsontl.livejournal.com]

Amen!

[stlscape.livejournal.com]

But hey! The Vortex Manipulator, in addition to being able to do everything it used to be able to do in the past before it became just a present-day blood sodium level monitor, could lift the ink from a typewriter ribbon off the paper it was impressed on, and replace it with different letters. All of which are impressed onto the paper with the same degree of clarity. Obviously it didn't occur to anyone to use a manual typewriter to do the typing (and honestly I wouldn't expect them to), but it's another nitpick on my part.

And a lot of his dialogue still wouldn't groove.

Agreed. Because Jack chats about the future to so many people he just happens to run into and screw. And falls into wun twu wuv at a snap of the fingers. Lust, fine. Twu wuv should take a bit longer than "Hey! Nice ass. Let's screw. Twice." - at least in my book it does.

and now it's fucked up canon

At least it's officially, in-canon, fucked up canon, verified by the writers. So no one can insist that there's only one true TW canon. That'll make a lot of people very happy. We can officially ignore what bits we don't like. (Fanfic writers, please start your engines. You have supportive readers waiting to support you! :-) )

[shighola.livejournal.com]

Wow. I am so glad I stayed strong in my resolve to not be a part of this "new" Torchwood.

[radiant-pip.livejournal.com]

All right, I'm going to start this off by saying I haven't actually seen this episode, but have read MANY commnents about it that made me go huh??? So, hopefully, my rant here isn't completely without merit. ;) Here goes...


It doesn't even make sense why he would need to time travel except God forbid he appears for any period of time without that frickin' coat. Anyway, if JE wanted to dig herself out of an actual continuity fail hole, all she had to do was say it was meant to be in Jack's original living through the 20th century timeline OR that maybe all of the suspicious references in episode7 are setting up something for future episodes (like Jack coming from a future re-established Torchwood)...that would at least buy her some time and get the immediate heat off of her if it wasn't true.

It doesn't fit AT ALL with what we've seen on Torchwood. Jack didn't have a working vortex manipulator at any point during his Torchwood story (only on Doctor Who and none of that jives with him popping to the '20s to find a "companion"). It could make sense if Jack is from a future Torchwood, but for some reason JE had to say it was pre-COE while trying to placate the tweeters.

Maybe, maybe that period in season 1 after Ianto betrayed Jack in Cyberwoman and before he came back to Torchwood and renewed his feelings for Ianto in KKBB could have had a 1920's Torchwood-needs-to-send-Jack-back-in-time-via-the-Rift story, but then we would've seen it in the actual show. (Jack poppping through back and forth would've been a big deal since they never showed anyone able to do that in a controlled way or for an intended mission.) After all, he thought he had no one in Captain Jack Harkness; HOWEVER, there is dialogue that doesn't add up (but could be hand-waved away). Jack going back at any point in season 2 doesn't work AT ALL with what was on the show. He had all the companionship and family he could need from this Torchwood team (including a blossoming and supposedly healthy relationship with Ianto). Plus, supposedly still can't use Rift to time travel and still no working vortex manipulator.

A pre-COE, during S1-S2 team trip to the '20's totally messes with COE and Jack's supposed reason for being able to sacrifice Steven and RTD's main excuse for why Ianto HAD to die--Jack cared about Ianto SO MUCH!!! Again, though, dialogue screws up why he couldn't have gone back in time during some period while working for Torchwood before the show started (like during Alex's time or that stretch before Tosh, Owen, and Ianto joined).

There is just no reason (that we know of so far anyway--there are still three episodes left to the wonderful and absolutely no logic fails anywhere Miracle Day) why this had to be set pre-COE, but not during the natural course of his time living through the '20s, except that they were trying to catch lightning in the bottle again by making an even more romantic/suggestive/tragic/classic episode to rival the much touted Captain Jack Harkness. So, thanks show for ruining everything that came before it and for crapping all over the Jack/Ianto relationship again. So far, in MD, Ianto is just a "friend" after all.

Ugh. And here I was actually looking forward to this episode because it was going to be (I thought innocently--ha!) flashbacks to Jack's natural Earth-bound timeline that might also actually shed some light on the three-series-long relationship that they couldn't bother to spend any real time on, but they couldn't even give me that. Well, except that Jack apparently uses the same lines on guys and falls for them in similar ways.

[tigercheetah.livejournal.com]

Should you watch episode 7?

Well, if you don't mind seeing Jack being passionate and tender towards Angelo in a way that he wasn't passionate and tender towards Ianto, go for it....If Ianto had never existed, you could view episode 7 as a new little lovestory, albet with a violent and bloody end. Virtually the entire episode centres on Jack's relationship with Angelo and also Jack and Gwen's bitchy arguement - which is quite entertaining, I have to say. There's hardly any Rex and Esther and no Oswald and Jilly.

[stlscape.livejournal.com]

There's hardly any Rex and Esther

But in what little there is, they are acting like they *should* be instead of the way they most often stupidly and ineptly do.

[beesandbrews.livejournal.com]

This whole mess has given me my first grins about MD since they announced the bloody trainwreck.

[alba17.livejournal.com]

Well, I seem to be in the minority of loving the episode. DK about the Espenson controversy. I assume Jack had to have time travelled from some time in S1 or 2, er, some how.

[tencrush]

I'm glad you're loving it, really, I'm glad it's still making someone happy and still seems like Torchwood to some people. You have to admit, Jack's personality and personal situation on S1 and 2 does make it seem a bit unlikely that he popped out and time travelled somehow in between or during episodes. In S1 if he'd been able to time travel, he'd have gone to find the Doctor. In S2, well, at least I guess it would explain why him and Ianto's date never really happened, he blew that off to go have a passionate love affair in the 1920's that ended in betrayal and torture and then he came back and did some more sex with Ianto, but was obviously suddenly reluctant to commit to anything more than that. Jane Espenson now admits she fucked up the thing about the coat and Jack knowing he was a fixed point, and her solution is that this is an AU somehow? She probably should stop tweeting, she's turning into James Moran.

[wounded-melody.livejournal.com]

You would think that RTD or the editor (if they have one) would have caught this glaring mistake!

[tigercheetah.livejournal.com]

The idea that Jack went back in time and had a passionate love affair with Angelo 'after' forming his sort-of relationship with Ianto makes me feel a bit ill and would spoil the whole episode for me - especially if the Jack/Angelo relationship happened during series 2 rather than series 1, after Jack had asked Ianto for a date in KKBB and sort-of declared his feelings for him in To the Last Man. It wouldn't make any sense for the J/A thing to have happened during series 2....

Ianto apparently gets mentioned again in episode 8 of MD and I hope it's more of a proper mention than the one he got in episode 3.

[tencrush]

It would explain why that date never materialised. But no, it makes no sense.

[nobleroman1.livejournal.com]

Oh, god, now I'm concerned. I can see Angelo ranting and raving about Jack being w/ Ianto, and Jack defending himself by saying Ianto didn't mean as much to him as Angelo did. Sigh. Can't they leave Ianto anything? It hurts my Coffee Boy loving heart to say this, but I'm glad he's not around for this mess.

[radiant-pip.livejournal.com]

At this point, I wouldn't be surprised. All of the pre-MD talk about how there would be tons of Ianto mentions and that he would be remembered respectfully and so far most of what they've given us adds up to "Nnothing special to see here, get over it or move along, Ianto fans...but not until you've watched the entire season and we have your viewership numbers--ha!".

[as1mplegirl.livejournal.com]

The radio times says that Jack does some emo scene over lost lovers that 'even mentions his boyfriend/lackey, Ianto'. So wouldn't get your hopes up.

[tigercheetah.livejournal.com]

Yeah I saw that, Ianto gets a "namecheck" whilst Jack emos about lost loves, so much for Ianto getting "lots of mentions" as RTD put it.........

Oh well, fanfic gives me all the emo I could want in the Jack/Ianto relationship.

[coldwater1010.livejournal.com]

I think like a lot of things with this show you just have to go in with the mindset that it's not going to amount to much. That way you don't raise your hopes up just to have them dashed and if by some miracle it does end up being meaningful you can be pleasantly surprised for a change.

But since most, if not all the 'respectful mentions' have basically amounted to Jack getting jiggy with someone who mentions 'loving the coat' I'd probably err on the side of not expecting too much.

[radiant-pip.livejournal.com]

Great, another list Ianto gets to be in. Is it too much to ask for Jack to lament the loss (just a teeny bit) of the one lover we've watched for THREE SERIES?? Ugh. At this point, I wish there were NO Ianto mentions at all. So much for respecting Ianto...ha!

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

IS IT TRUE that Jack is a vampire?

[tencrush]

No, I think you're confusing Jack with the Vatican vampires that tortured him in the last episode because being a fixed point in time is now apparently a thing that is carried in your blood like a virus or something.

Don't ask me, Nos, I haven't actually been watching, just skimming the fandom every once in a while.

[wounded-melody.livejournal.com]

The term "Italian gangster vampires" has been bandied about on the IMDB message boards...

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

Kay, cos I heard they were randomly retconning his immortalness to be VAMPYRE.

[radiant-pip.livejournal.com]

No, I don't think so. But wouldn't that be fun! They must've liked his Nostrovite appearance so much they decided to run with it. I wonder if he would be sparkly?

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

Does that make Ianto Bella Swan?