Billy Joel was singing about the drug dealer in his neighborhood—and of course there’s Captain Jack Sparrow—but I’m thinking about Torchwood’s Captain Jack Harkness. I finally figured out who John Barrowman reminds me of, both in appearance and line delivery: Mark Harmon. He has a way of saying sarcastic things that is almost exactly like Gibbs does on NCIS.
Last night I watched Day One and Ghost Machine, episodes two and three of Torchwood. Both solid episodes, and both very much focused on Gwen Cooper. I really like the Welsh accent, which is something we don’t get to hear very often over here, and Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins and Tom Jones aren’t representative of that country’s dialect.
Day One shows Gwen’s first day on the job, as she wrestles with the “you” vs. “we” aspect of her new role. As first days, go, hers sucks big time, because her flip actions lead to the deaths of several unsuspecting men, and an enthusiastic display of girl-on-girl snogging and some enthusiastic bathroom sex that has an unexpected climax.
Ghost Machine is an exploration of alien technology, and though I enjoyed the arc of the episode there was a missed opportunity. I think it would have been interesting to have Gwen and Owen appear as ghosts to the people in their visions instead of invisible observers. To have the two old men remember seeing the apparitions when they were being interviewed all those years later.
It’s interesting to me that so far Captain Jack is very much in the background. He’s the spine, with a few strong scenes from time to time, but the focus is still mostly on Gwen, and to a lesser extent the other Torchwood employees. We get to see more of Owen in Ghost Machine, but only under duress and we don’t learn anything about his normal character. What we know about Jack so far (except for things learned through Doctor Who): He can’t die, he doesn’t sleep, and he’d shag anything attractive regardless of gender or species.
I skipped my morning writing session today. Decided to sleep in instead. I do that every now and then and try not to feel guilty about it.
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