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Torchwood Meta: On CoE and Why It's Bad Drama
One of the reasons I left Star Trek fandom yea many years ago was that I was utterly bored with the arguments about “story” versus “characters.” You know, the people who would say the character has to do that action in order to advance the story versus that action is very out of character for that individual and therefore unbelievable. The two aligned along the “hard’ versus “soft” science-fiction axis, though not totally.
There seems to be a similar division in the reactions to CoE, which would be totally understandable IF THE STORY WERE A GOOD ONE. But it isn’t. Not even by television standards, which is a low bar to set indeed. And the worst part about it is that the wounds are, as they say, self-inflicted.
First, if you’re a Torchwood fan but not a Doctor Who fan, some of these things might carry less weight, but bear with me. Torchwood belongs, or did, until this series, in the Whoniverse. There are certain conventions about this Universe which are utterly disregarded in CoE. In The Christmas Invasion, the Doctor tells the Sycorax to go home and tell all other alien races to keep their paws off Earth: tell whoever you meet that the Earth is defended. Now, that doesn’t stop the aliens from trying, but… there is always a defense. Until now. I’d like to see the Doctor’s explanation when Jack calls him on it. Do you think they will make the Doctor into the kind of monster who says it was for the good of mankind? Or sorry Jack, everyone you love is expendable anyway and buck up, there'll be others? Or even worse, have the Doctor indulge in one of his tiresome pity-parties?
Another convention disregarded is the whole idea of UNIT as a warlike group that would shoot at anything that moves. In Journey’s End, Martha is sent by UNIT to use something called the Osterhagen Key, a device that would destroy the Earth by detonating nuclear warheads, rather than let it fall into the hands of the Daleks. I just watched Planet of the Dead. In this particular instance the UNIT people are called to deal with a wormhole. Their commander lines them up in front of it and says, pretty much, whatever comes through, shoot it dead. So UNIT would accept orders to capitulate without a single shot?
The biggest and best is a little something called the Shadow Proclamation. It’s a large organization which maintains order among races, including employing a set of enforcers called the Judoon. Often the Doctor would quote its treaties and conventions to emphasize that he had the right to act against beings that did not conform to its dictates. In fact in The Stolen Earth the Doctor is asked to lead the forces of the Shadow Proclamation against whoever was stealing planets. What are the odds that Jack, considering where/when he was born, an experienced Time Agent, and a Companion, wouldn’t have known about it? And, with the communications part of his wrist device thingie, call in the Judoon?
But, you say, but that can be explained away one way or the other. All right, I say, then let’s talk character in action:
Martha Jones, the woman who walked the Earth for a year and defeated a mad Time Lord in the process can’t find a way to get back to
Sarah Jane Smith, a former Companion with a supercomputer and a superintelligent mechanical dog, never even bothers to try to do anything…
Jack Harkness, a man who we are told has spent over one hundred years preparing for the moment where everything changes, doesn’t have a plan. A successful conman and thief, not to mention successful Time Agent, can’t figure out some way to deal with these aliens and flails about like a tyro, to the point that he has to be given instructions on how to steal from his least experienced agent. And even worse, the man we have been told for two series is the one who will do the bad thing, the nasty thing, no matter how bad and nasty, in order to save the Earth, has to be motivated by the death of his lover to sacrifice his grandson…
Ianto Jones, the man who keeps everything going in Torchwood by making sure everything works as it should, doesn’t lock his car well enough so thieves get to it, and forgets to pick up a gas mask even though he knows the aliens live in a poisonous atmosphere…
Everyone one in the government, except one lone temp, is a coward and a poltroon. Now, I know bureaucrats suck, but, honestly, not one to raise a ruckus?... Even in the Bourne movies there are at least two good government types…
Everyone is terrified of these aliens, who the last time they were on Earth, didn’t really threaten much, instead, they offered a vaccine in trade, a vaccine that healed millions…
Any one of us can think of three or four ways in which Ianto would still be dead but the response from the fans would be totally different. Can you imagine how different it would have been if Ianto had died saving Steven? But at bottom, the whole CoE arc is bad plotting. Which, to be honest, is not unusual in Torchwood and Doctor Who. The thing that attracts us to these two shows is the characters. All the quirky, insane, brilliant, terrible, silly people that make up the Whoniverse, and who always, until now, acted according to their character. Without them, it all falls apart.
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