Torchwood - From Out Of The Rain

[tencrush]

Now, now, now, now, now, let's not all go crazy here, maybe we can focus on the POSITIVES of this piss-poor excuse for an episode, yes?



Remember how Something Borrowed turned me into a moany grumpy guts? Let's see if, in contrast, From Out Of The Rain, can CHEER ME RIGHT UP AGAIN.

• Well... for a start Ianto's in it quite a bit. AND AND AND AND... not quite so fat? Has it passed, the pie-phase, was it really only 3 or 4 episodes? Come on, people, THIS IS A GOOD THING. FOCUS ON THE GOOD THINGS.


• ANOTHER GOOD THING: Jack and Ianto can be in a room together and TALK, and look! THEY'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT COCK! AGAIN, PEOPLE, THIS IS A GOOD THING. (Just ignore the fact that we're actually being shown the depths to which their joint depravity will sink, I mean, really... INFODUMPING ON EACH OTHER? EWWWW.) But yes, they did talking, and no double entendres in sight. Funnily enough, this is actually what I've been waiting for for about a month now, and here it is. Shame it sucked, of course, but that's another matter.


• MOAR GOOD THINGS: ...



• Nah, fuck, I've got NOTHING. This could have been SO GOOD, the story had so much promise. There were SPOOKY CARNIES in it, for fuck's sake. How did they manage to end up NOT SCARY?? Damn you!


• JACK HAS BACKSTORY! AGAIN! And yet again, PJ Hammond manages to kind of dump it on us like a big turd with no real... impact. HE KILLED HIMSELF FOR LULS AND CASH!!! How GOOD, potentially, is that as a bit of history and insight into the man, yes? No? OK, then, let's just not take it anywhere and try and talk our way through the plot again. Fuck you, Hammond!!


• IANTO HAS BACKSTORY! Lord knows he doesn't very often, and there seems to be a vague vibe hanging around him at the moment that his family are ALL DEAD, yes?? Let's see if we can take that somewhere, shall we? No? Fine. Let's not.


• Seriously, I don't know what the fuck was going on when it comes to the plot thing, it was EXACTLY like the fairies one, there were logical leaps from clifftops into chasms of absolute nonsense. It was something to with water, and there was a bottle of breaths and everyone seemed to suddenly know EXACTLY how that all fit in, and they were trapped on film and then they weren't, but then they were again because of... something? And they used to be evil and they keep people in a shed of some sort and what happened again and oh, everyone died and Ianto cries real tears because I forgot, I lied last time, each season must now contain TWO EPISODES in which Ianto cries like a girl. Because he's TWICE AS HOMEOSEXUAL now as he was last season, I forgot, and yes, I know I typed homeosexual then but I don't fucking care.

Don't let PJ Hammond near my big gay show again. That is all. Oh, and, lol, Ianto doesn't check the weather report and carry a brolly? DO ME A FAVOUR, THE BOY'S NEVER BEEN CAUGHT IN THE RAIN IN HIS LIFE. He takes his clothes far too seriously for that.

Comments

[off_coloratura]

Ianto's face when he was looking up at the cinema filled me with unspeakable joy and happy frolicking kittens.

But that was it.

I am SO MAD AT HAMMOND. Torchwood, you'd better get fucking AWESOME next week.

I ranted at length in someone else's journal.

[tencrush]

LOL. Yes. and Yes. Grrrr, that sucked.

[off_coloratura]

Maybe it was Magic Rain Out Of The Rift Carrying Freaky Carnies and thus was not in the weather report?

And maybe Ianto was so excited to get to the theater that he didn't care about a quick dash through a sudden unexpected downpour?

I like this explanation. i'm going to pretend it was in the show.

[kurthummel.livejournal.com]

Pure convulted bullshit - for shame to everyone, except GDL because of his ability to act the pants off of a piss poor script. I still have no idea what the episode was about, except I totally agree with you on all points.

But GDL is still eating pies. He has a wee bit of a muffin top in his last scene, but oh, it was a nice ass shot as well, so who's looking?

[tencrush]

The fayce has improved, though, that's all I was worried about, the precious, precious face.

Even Gareth didn't know where to go in a couple of scenes, but overall he made a good job of the dross he was given.

[off_coloratura]

Unlike Barrowman, who was SWIMMING IN CHEESINESS.

[kurthummel.livejournal.com]

Yessss, the jawline is creeping itself back in, and we are very, very appreciative of this!

Isn't it a shame that both episodes that have kinda mostly featured Ianto are the cheesiest or the most soppy? I don't know. The more I think about Cyberwoman, the more I like it, but there was no excuse for this bullshit. I think I liked Random Shoes more than this.

[rowanswhimsy.livejournal.com]

Oh, the deer-in-headlights and confuzzled look made quite a few appearances. Not that I can blame him. I was making the same faces at home.

PJ Hammond sucks.

[rowanswhimsy.livejournal.com]

I noticed the exceptionally tight pants with approval, but thought that the muffin top (which made a big appearance in SB even camoflaged with the suit jacket) was perhaps a bit smaller. Face is definitely thinner.

Anti-pie strategy must be in place and working.

[rowanswhimsy.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I've been waiting to discuss the state of pie consumption with you. Definitely not as fat; I noticed it right away. When did they film these eps? Did they do it all out of order? It makes no sense to me why dear Ianto's jaw keeps appearing and disappearing. Hair looks thinner, though. He was almost my full lovely eye candy again, so despite other things I was very happy with that. I got to see it all unobstructed by a jacket. And Jack had a waistcoat on. Yum.

What a way to take a promising plot and just make it totally fall flat. Ugh.

PJ Hammond has committed a crime against nature. HE MADE JANTO BORING. How is that even possible? The characters barely felt like themselves. It's as if he drained the life out of them. I love that Jack and Ianto had screen time, more than in like, EVER. But where was the sparkle? Owen, Gwen, and Tosh felt off as well. It's almost as if PJ Hammond barely even knows them so none of the dialogue really matched the characters.

The crying annoyed me. Please get off this overly Emo!Ianto thing, writers. It's starting to make me think that Ianto is afraid of death and only with Jack because Jack can't die. Tearing up about the little boy is fine. But why is Ianto's voice all quivery when he can't catch the last breaths? He sounded silly. I didn't even find it moving. It was like he was trying to out-Gwen Gwen. All we need was for him to make emoeyes at an insect to complete the comparison.

We had backstory about both Ianto and Jack -- with Ianto even allowed to ask Jack some questions! -- but again it was just dropped there and left to die a slow, lingering death, strangled by the life-draining plot. Maybe the writer was trying something unique where he tried to make us feel as if our last breath was being stolen by the SHOW so that we could experience the victims' fate????

Ianto didn't get an episode this season and this is the only one to feature him...and the writing sucks. It pisses me off. Whenever I look forward to an episode, it stinks. Next week we're back to the Gwen show. Please writers, at least show me the naked Janto. I doubt I'm getting much of any Janto after that.

[tencrush]

Oh, luls, he had the cutest little beergut in the last scene which I hadn't actually noticed until it was pointed out to me. Stay on the course, Gareth, don't give up now.

Yeah, I am SO PISSED that we were given the opportunity to have BOTH JACK AND IANTO give us and each other some insight into their lives and it was squandered so mercilessly by this horror of an episode. (Ianto's parents dead, yes? Surely.)

Yeah, after that it's Janto: the breakup. Watch this space.

[tencrush]

OR OR OR, they get married. I had the funniest moment when the little boy survived and all the rest of his family dies when I thought Ianto was going to ask Jack if they could keep him. Like a puppy. Srsly. I thought that's where it was going for a fleeting moment. Jack and Ianto adopt.

[erinnthered.livejournal.com]

I had the funniest moment when the little boy survived and all the rest of his family dies when I thought Ianto was going to ask Jack if they could keep him. Like a puppy.

Glad I wasn't the only one who went there. heh

Did you all notice Ianto when the nurse brought up the mental hospital? Given the horrible script I can't be sure, but I think they were trying to imply that he knew the place well. Crazy parent, maybe? And yes, I do believe his family is ALL DEAD. We had better get a good story out of that too. Damn you Torchwood!

[rowanswhimsy.livejournal.com]

Don't laugh. One of the 1918 team was raised at Torchwood after being infected by and cured of some alien thingy.

[karaokegal.livejournal.com]

I'm just dropping in to wave and not have any wankage this week. :) I thought it was rubbish, (see my own review) but not in any Soap-operatic, shippy war kind of way. (Is info dumping more or less kinky than whatever goes on with the various accoutrement Jack seems so interested in?)

[tencrush]

Funnily enough, I don't even really ship them to any great extent, I just get fed up with the inconsistent storytelling in Who and TW sometimes.

Infodumping's pretty bad. I don't care where Ianto sticks that hockey stick, or indeed which end of it, but infodumping exposition on each other I think is something they should try to do in private. The Hub isn't the place for that sort of thing, it makes a godawful mess.

[karaokegal.livejournal.com]

Well Jack lives at the Hub anyway and presumable whatever they do down in the hidey-hole gets a bit messy. *shrug* The exposition fairy was flitting her way ALL OVER this episode with far less subtlety than I've ever seen.

[meleth.livejournal.com]

ANOTHER GOOD THING: Ianto's red shirt.

MOAR GOOD THING: re: flask o'souls: "He's got it!" "I've got it!" *Ianto runs like bat out of hell*

This show makes me look frantically for tiny, tiny moments of awesome, because looking for anything else is pointless.

[tencrush]

Ianto pulled some top notch faces, that was about it.

Yeah, by Christ, he looks good in burgundy/red. More!

[meleth.livejournal.com]

And the old cinema was pretty. And the whole thing was a vague ripoff of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, but with the addition of a cinema.

[off_coloratura]

Oh, by the way, I had a martini and got slightly tipsy and rewatched this episode. Suddenly it is GENIUS.

[tencrush]

No it isn't, don't lie.

[off_coloratura]

It's.... more watchable? Better paced? Not quite so annoying?

[baby-werewolf.livejournal.com]

My "good things about this episode" list is limited to:
Lots of Ianto looking cute.
That scene with the circus man and the mermaid lady and all the candles was pretty.

On the plus side, the balance of karma-like things should mean we get a REALLY BLOODY GOOD episode next week.

[tencrush]

Don't bloody bet on it.

Though, you know... bedscene?