| Dec. 12th, 2006 @ 09:52 pm The format-breaker |
|---|
One man's meat is another man's poison, as Vladimir Putin knows well. After Sunday's episode of Torchwood, Sean posted about why it sucked while I was thinking about posting about how it was one of the highlights of the series so far. I guess it just depends on what you're after.
Not that the flaws Sean mentions aren't there. I do like to point out the ways in which RTD likes to follow Joss Whedon's example, and here he was doing a Joss classic, the format-breaker. The trouble is "Random Shoes"1 was a bit too close to the Doctor Who format-breaker, "Love and Monsters" from Season 2. They both revisit one of the few recurring format-breakers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The reversal between the lead and supporting characters. But where "The Zeppo," "Superstar" and "Storyteller" each had a different way of approaching the theme, the two Whoniverse episodes had a bit too similar a premise (most resembling, out of the the three Buffy eps, "Storyteller.") Fortunately, writer Jacquetta May took "Random Shoes" to a different place than its predecessor.
Both stories dealt with lonely men obsessed, from the sidelines, with the show's heroes. But where Elton in "Love & Monsters" found some friendship and even a rather grotesque form of sexual relationship by the end, Eugene, Torchwood's outsider, isn't so lucky. In fact the show begins with his death by hit-and-run. But for some reason he becomes a ghost, able to haunt his secret crush, Gwen. Being a bit of an ugly duckling2 he could never dare to approach her in life, but now he gets to pretend they're a couple and follow her to Torchwood. His first view of the headquarters is one of the many moments when he seems, in death, to be having more fun than he ever did while alive (although being the least secretive secret organisation ever, it's surprising Torchwood don't hold a daily guided tour he could have gone on.)
The story follows Eugene, who can remember everything about his life except for the weeks leading up to his death, trying to find out exactly how he died, why he's sticking around, and how an alien artefact he's owned for years may be connected to both. Although she can't consciously hear him, Gwen seems able to take suggestions from him and helps by investigating what happened. This is what made the episode for me: Eugene is happier than he's ever been, pretending to be with the girl he's in love with. But it's a lie - at best, she's barely aware that his spirit may or may not be with her, and while she's determined to solve his death, she doesn't really return his feelings the way he pretends she does. I guess stories that capture unrequited love quite so brutally always have an effect on me, and brutal really does seem like the right word here. It's heartbreaking to see someone who so wants to connect with people but can't manage it in life, and tries to make up for it by living an elaborate fantasy in death.
As if Eugene's story wasn't painful enough, we come to the final twist of the knife, and if you've not seen the episode yet you may want to look away now: Eugene only had a couple of people he considered real friends, and his death was indirectly caused by their betrayal. Finding out that the alien eye was attracting large bids on eBay, they tried to rip him off and sell it for their own profit. Eugene swallowed the eye to keep it from them, and ran off - straight into oncoming traffic. The eye in his stomach caused him to get a few more days on earth as a ghost, and to try and understand why he had died. The random shoes of the title were a red herring - an irrelevance, and in his journey Eugene found (but didn't acknowledge) that although people were sad at his death, it didn't leave much of a gap in their lives.
Yes, as with so many things RTD has a hand in, the very end was a mess. The attempt at a happy ending diluted a lot of the pathos, "Danny Boy" at the funeral was unforgivable, the family getting back together was trite, and Eugene's ascent to heaven was a bit too grandly religious, and frankly just a little bit weird3. But there were things done along the way that I found really moving. Plus, at the start of the season, before I gave up trying to review every episode, I said I hoped there would be something "adult" about Torchwood beyond the swearing and shagging, and to my mind this was it. A character study of someone hiding a lot of pain, even from himself, a nice guy who comes up against the worst in human nature at every turn, willing to fabricate a relationship with the one decent person he meets. It was moving, painful and real, and stripping out every swear word wouldn't have made it something you'd show the kids.
1listed in the Radio Times as "Invisible Eugene" so I'm guessing the choice of title was a bit last-minute
2but you know, the TV version of an ugly duckling, namely the very shaggable Paul Chequer, but with bad hair
3I'm not as bothered as some people by Eugene's afterlife contradicting last week's episode on that subject, because let's face it, that episode contradicted itself: "There is no life after death.... but there's something there actually... but it's all nothingness... apart from the Bad Thing which is after Jack for some reason..." WTF? |
|  |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
nick730's journal
annoyed