Rock Lobster!
Down, down, DOOOWWWWWWWWWWNNNNNNNNNN!
Just in case anyone was slightly wary of this new slick, dynamic, American and basically too-good-for-BBC-Wales Torchwood: Miracle Day stuff, the BBC has kindly given us a trilogy of audio dramas which achieve two specific aims that the TW fanbase clearly need.
1) It brings back Ianto "Kamelion Got A Better Deal" Jones
2) It reminds us, basically, how ungodly shite the show was before RTD went "RUSTY SMASSHHH!!" in Children of Earth
Yes, if you find yourself yearning for the non-functionally retarded camp fest that lead to the unspeakable horrors of Something Borrowed and End of Days, then these things are the best thing to a reality check not involving me and a sawn-off-shotgun.
Submission begins so badly, with such stilted performances that had Darker Projects come up with shite of this order with Carribean Blue, both Miles and I would have been forced into a suicide pact from shame. Mein Gott, this is bad.
Gwen, Jack and Ianto are chasing a van across a bridge. The van has an alien in it and Captain Jack is so dedicated to protecting the Earth from its evil horror that he... um... mugged it. To steal its cash. Because, hell, cash is clearly more important than safeguarding the future of the human race (and, to drive this home, they use the old intro, the one that made RTD mutter "URGE TO KILL RISING!" under his breath every time he heard it). But being hard, gritty and mature sci-fi, Gwen gives Jack a plasma canon to blow up the bridge - the very important bridge connecting Wales to the UK and manifestly not blown up in The New World - so they can fling this pissed off, homicidal alien into England. Specifically because once it's over the border, Torchwood don't have to do a thing and they can let it ravage the English in a blood-drenched orgy of the damned.
Now, maybe this could have worked as a cruel parody, but it's not even acted well. If I may have slagged off the cast in previous audio outings, well, I did not know what depths they could sink. Unless the director was telling each and every one of them "no, no, no, think Chip Jamieson!" then, well, I don't want to know.
So, having blown up a bridge and put untold millions into mortal danger, our so-called heroes stupidly forget to hit the brakes and the SUV plunges into the river... but then there's some wolf howl and Jack announces that "THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE WATER!" Oh, if only...
(Note: I haven't actually read it but it would have to be written by Joshua Wynne-Cunt in Hannah Murray's blood to possibly be worse than this).Still being unable to get any single emotion or inflection in any of their performance, it turns out that this thing is global! Yes, a few SECONDS on Facebook and we've discovered that anyone with their heads in the water across the entire Earth somehow heard the howling, which is apparently a fatal siren song. Well, if you're in Thailand anyway. Droning exposition to each other, the plot unfolds while I find my thoughts drifting to the title sequence. Isn't "TORCHWOOD IS READY!!!" the sickest joke ever? They might as well have had Hitler going on about the Third Reich lasting forever...
The gang listen to a recording of the howl and dub it "creepy". They fiddle with a laptop and talk about speeds of sound in time variation and all sorts of bollocks that make you pine for K9 who was at least funny with technobbabble, and find out the noise comes from the Marianah Trench at the bottom of the sea. "You don't have to a 51st century time traveling immortal to know this is ALIEN!!" deadpans Jack and Ianto off the top of his head decides to slow the howl down and finds out the howl says "Help us!" over and over again. Jack, still regularly screaming things are "ALIEN!" more than Arnold Rimmer at a UFO convention, decides to try to do another globe-trotting adventure that they only ever do in radio episodes for some reason. Jack decides that, despite the fact they know for a fact that UNIT is all over the case, it has "Torchwood" written all over it (note: same Torchwood that want to destroy England). Luckily, Ianto has "the sexiest marine biologist" and ex-Torchwood girl who is easily dialed and convinced to join this ill-thought out expedition in less times than it took me to write this sentence.
The next scene is in Tokyo harbor where the gang plus one have taken over USS Calvin - but what about UNIT? "I mentioned the Doctor 57 times!" Jack says in bored monotone, and apparently UNIT thought they had better things to do than stay involved in this awful shitheap of a plot. Only eight minutes in. Goddamn it. Another forty to go.
Conveniently meeting the captain of the ship five seconds before they meet the trench and also another roaring howl. The crew get aboard the Octopus Rock, a bigger-on-the-inside UNIT experimental submarine named after the Sex Pistols ("Jack, if you make a joke about your sex pistol, this ends here!"), the Torchwood crew climb aboard and descend into the depths with 24 hours before they all choke to death. Oh, if only. Therein follows some boring cliched bollocks about how mankind knows more about Mars than the bottom of the ocean and how very historical this all is and squid and whales use echo-location... very educational.
I'll skip to something worthy of note.
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Christ, Gwen's surprised that the bottom of the ocean is a bit dark?
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Jack considers an undersea trench the most alien place ever? Goddamn it, Lakertya was freakier than this...
Ooh, wait! Plot. They bump into a mad old bastard sitting at the bottom of the sea (sans diving suit) who finds their exposition so annoying that he screams at them and starts to smash in the hull with his bare fists. In typical suicidal insanity, Gwen suggests they try to talk to this indestructable psychotic demon, then changes her mind because it's funny! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Witty Welsh person! So our heroes run away, even though this super-powerful UNIT sub is shittier than the bastard inbred offspring of Starbug and Scorpio. And they crash. Unfortunately, it turns out that THIS was the only sub in the world capable of going this deep, so rescue is not an option. The gang immediately become hysterical and sound even MORE emotionless and lobotomized than they did before. Jesus... this isn't even ENTERTAININGLY bad. This awful shite. I'm strongly tempted to give up.
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...WTF?! The sub is built out of dwarf star alloy? FUCK OFF!
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Anyway, it turns out that the mad old bastard who can breathe underwater is an ALIEN!!! And he's a long-lost mutant mariner whose old bathyscope is still in perfect working order after six decades next to an underwater volcano. Very likely. And the ALIEN actually can act. Sounds a bit like the Thaarn from Blake's 7. STOP REMINDING ME OF BETTER SCIENCE FICTION DAMN YOU! After five seconds of chatting with Thaarn, Gwen is on the verge of sacrificing herself for a complete stranger's ALIEN bodysnatching boyfriend (YES! A GAY ALIEN!!!) But don't worry, she would never risky her own life to save Rhys's - the stupid fucking bitch... Meanwhile, Carly the newbie ex-Torchwood ex-girlfriend of Ianto is basically spending her entire episode shrieking "KILL ME NOW! I AM EXPENDABLE FOR THE GREATER GOOD!" while Ianto whines that Jack doesn't love him. Whatever. I want you all to die horribly and end this godawful thing.
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Oh, the Thaarn's a manic-depressive self-pitying alien exile. But even so considers himself superior to Captain Jack. Well, you WOULD, wouldn't you? Ianto decides that they should kill the Thaarn in cold blood because he's dared shown greater acting ability than the rest of the cast put together. So the Thaarn smashes their salvaged bathyscope. Good. I hope they all drown. Hmm, oxygen's running out, everyone TALK AS MUCH AS THEY CAN!
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Oh wait, Carly's possessed by the Thaarn. Didn't see THAT one coming. Not. And she tries to steal Gwen's excuse for a brain, while being a ridiculous pro-Jack/Gwen shipper in order to piss off Ianto. Whatever. So Jack kills Carly and the Thaarn possessing her. "That's the price of immortality; no final act, no absolution! YOU GET TO DIE!" shouts Jack, gleefully telling Carly that she will be expelled into the blackness of oblivion and he really gets off being the last person people see before they die. Um. Ok.
Ianto gives her mouth to mouth and brings her back to life in this strange existential version of cockblocking.
Carly decides to join UNIT and get them to explore the Trench and, for SOME UNACCOUNTABLE REASON, never wants to see the Welsh retards ever again. Jack laughs evilly that he's never going to have to regret his actions because he's not mortal.
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Can someone show the working there, please?
In a token gesture, we discover that the voiceover man for the credits is even WORSE at speaking on radio than everyone else we've met.
Sweet Zarathustra, that was UNHOLY!!!!
4 comments:
I'm tired so I don't have a heap to say, other than that sounds terrible.
The dwarf star alloy thing is one that really irritates me, btw. It's been in a couple of stories and it confuses me because when it's introduced in WG the suggestion seems to be that it's among the rarest materials in the universe and isn't even a very practical material. ISTR in-story it was suggested that it was primarily useful for the operation to enslave the Tharils rather than anything else...
And... if Jack's immortal, doesn't that allow him to build up several lifetimes of regret over the consequences of his actions?
The dwarf star alloy thing is one that really irritates me, btw.
Right there with you, bud.
the suggestion seems to be that it's among the rarest materials in the universe and isn't even a very practical material.
Well, not really... There's enough of it to build fleets of spaceships and manacles for millions of slaves. Mind you, dwarf stars might be common to E-Space...
it was primarily useful for the operation to enslave the Tharils rather than anything else...
Quite right. Apparently it's "the only thing heavy enough to weigh down dreams", ie, stops someone travelling through time.
My main objection is... why build a submarine out of the heaviest substence in the universe?! It'll sink and never come up again!
And... if Jack's immortal, doesn't that allow him to build up several lifetimes of regret over the consequences of his actions?
Yeah, I totally give up on the logic of his last scene. Almost as retarded as the bit in Miracle Day where Gwen asks Jack "Why did you leave?"
JACK: Um... because I got my boyfriend killed, murdered my grandson and had a complete nervous breakdown before hitchhiking a passing UFO. You were there at the time, when I explained this to you. As was Rhys. After six months of me wallowing in self-loathing and pity. Surprised you forgot, actually.
Apparently it's "the only thing heavy enough to weigh down dreams", ie, stops someone travelling through time.
Wait, what? How could the Doctor use the TARDIS in it, then? :-S
Tut-tut, Matthew.
DSA stops an individual jumping the timelines, but not OBJECTS - else how could the slaver ship get ANYWHERE? Besides, WG shows that DSA is no obstacle for a TARDIS, which is why Biroc needs Romana, K9 and their new TARDIS to free Tharils from slavery.
So, in Day of the Moon, the Doctor could never have escaped the DSA cell on his own, but with the TARDIS? No, as they say, sweat.
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