Written By: Peter J. Hammond
Directed By: Jonathan Fox Bassett
Air Date: 12th March, 2008
Summary: Ianto reveals himself as a closet cinema geek, and Jack is discovered to have travelled with a freak show. Well, we always had our suspicions, didn't we?
If Torchwood wants to be a supernatural series, I wish they’d just go ahead and admit it. Even Star Trek, which did fairly stretch the definition of scifi on occasion, managed to devote at least two lines of technobabble to any given crisis in order for it to stay within the realms of science fiction. My issue with Torchwood doing the supernatural is that when it’s being its scifi self the rest of the time, it’s unremittingly scifi. You have rifts in time, aliens, temporal schisms… these do give you the latitude to encompass supernatural happenings under the general umbrella of science fiction, but there’s not even a vague attempt to do that.
Case in point: “Countrycide” of series one. The reason that the villagers were eating people was given as simple twisted Human insanity. I thought it would have been more fitting within the series’ theme to have some sort of alien DNA worked into their biology, perhaps having come through the Rift, which drove them to cannibalise people on a 10 yearly schedule. It worked as a simple horror, yes, but seemed to be trying to disassociate itself with its own genre.
You have to wonder if the writers have that lingering embarrassment over science fiction that seems to be so prevalent amongst mainstream writers. It’s a bit hard to imagine why, since so many of the TW writers are Doctor Who writers as well, and that’s certain a series that manages to keep everything under the science fiction heading. Perhaps Torchwood is still suffering somewhat from a lack of firm direction. You can see this in the ways that each episode seems to address the same things in different manners. In “Meat”, Jack wants to save aliens, in “Reset” he’s happy to kill them. Character interactions are handled differently from episode to episode. Is it any wonder that fans are left a little confused and with no clear idea of where things are going? Yes, it’s a million times better than the first series, but it’s still somewhat chaotic.
However, if you look at “From Out of the Rain”, and divorce yourself from the expectations you might hold it to because of Torchwood’s “official” science fiction leanings (although, I suppose now would be a good time to mention that the BBC simply classifies Torchwood as ‘drama’), you actually have a very good episode. It’s different. It gives us some quiet character scenes. It gives a genuine sense of being creepy in some places. The solution isn’t violence, but cleverness.
It’s tragic, really, that Ianto Jones, as a character, gets so little screen time. As this episode demonstrates, he’s more than capable of holding his own. Normally, Ianto is in the Hub, and if he’s out in the field, it’s three steps behind Jack and Gwen or whoever else he’s out with.
Apart from the scenes at the beginning of the episode, Jack and Ianto share virtually every single scene they’re in with each other. An episode like this makes me almost doubt what I saw at the end of “Something Borrowed”. We see Jack blow off any detailed explanations of why he’s seen in a roll of film in front of the rest of the team, but when he’s alone with Ianto, without prompting, he freely talks about his past, while Ianto smiles and listens silently. Likewise, Jack’s plaintative “Where’s Ianto? He’d know,” at the start of the episode makes me think that these two characters do have a genuine connection. It speaks volumes louder than any hot and heavy scenes of characters kissing do.
Speaking of character development, I’m starting to think that this one episode made Ianto more rounded than any of the other characters. His nostalgic geeking out over the cinema and old film equipment will bring a smile to the face of anyone who’s ever held a hobby which gathers the sort of response that Gwen and Owen give him (fond exasperation). Does anyone know what sort of non-work things the rest of the characters like?
My point exactly.
Ianto is a very emotional character. I tend to think he feels things very deeply. For some reason a large portion of fandom has interpreted that to mean that he has some sort of telepathy/empathy thing going on, but I don’t think that’s the case (and trust me, I have a whole essay on the subject which I’ll probably wind up posting after the series finale in the hope of not getting it Jossed) and here’s why. Men are not very emotionally demonstrative, especially not in British society. In fact, we get embarrassed when women get weepy as well (you’ll never see a British Oscar winner break down in tears ala Halle Berry or Gwyneth Paltrow). I think part of this determination that Ianto has to be psychic is a way of rationalising the fact that I think he’s a character who feels thinks very deeply and finds it almost impossible to hide them. Gwen is billed as the ‘emotional’ character, but I’d say that instead she was ‘passion’, while Ianto is ‘emotion’, the ego and the id, the eros and the agape*.
I wonder if, in part, it’s a reaction to his clear depression of series one, and the way he was forced to hide Lisa. He survived the Battle of Canary Wharf (and if that doesn’t leave you with PTSD and survivor’s guilt, I don’t know what would), then was forced to carry on with a smile on his face while trying desperately to save the woman he loved, until, of course, she was shot to death in front of him. I think he’s an emotional person who’s been knocked about a bit psychologically, and finds it difficult to hide these things. You see it in “Countrycide” when he desperately asks Tosh who’s supposed to save them, looking for some sort of reassurance (which she fails to provide), and in “End of Days”, Ianto is the only one you see actively mourning (weeping) Jack (Gwen stoically sits at his side, waiting). You see it in “Adam”, where he becomes convinced he’s a monster.
Occasionally, GDL is hard to watch when portraying Ianto as emotional, on the verge of tears. This is not because he’s bad at it, on the contrary, it’s because he’s good at it. Crying is ugly and unpleasant (which probably goes to prove that Ms. Paltrow and Ms. Berry were somewhat faking it), and horribly exposing. Perhaps it’s some of my own British cultural sensitivities kicking in. As a nation, we’re liable to make excuses for other people’s emotional displays (and if you don’t believe me, read Watching The English by Kate Fox) and try our best to ignore them. Perhaps this is where the conviction that Ianto is an empath comes in. It’s ok if it’s not really his emotions, right?
This episode is really the Jack and Ianto show. The other characters run around in supporting roles, the muscle for the episode, being the backup for a change. Our two main antagonists, the Ringmaster and the Mermaid, are creepy in a subtle sort of way. They seem desperate for attention, to live on, which makes the mermaid’s declaration that the city was ‘theirs’ towards the end a rather sudden change of plans. Previously they’d shown no signs of wanting to take control of anything. They just wanted an audience.
Speaking of the Mermaid, though, I get the impression that she was the true power being the Night Travellers. They come from ‘out of the rain’ as she dances through the puddles, the silver flask has a seashell motive going on, and she’s the one who persuades the Ringmaster that the ‘others’ need to be freed as well. It’s worth noting that he didn’t look too thrilled at the prospect (or at least I didn’t think so).
The way that Jack defeats them, by filming them and then exposing the film, makes absolutely no sense. There’s no explanation of how this is supposed to work, it just does, and because Torchwood is being a fantasy show this week, that’s enough. It's also a fairly major leap of logic to suggest that filming them would defeat them, since up until that very scene, there was no indication they were still associated with film. But while the dismissal (however temporarily it’s implied to be) of the Night Travellers is inexplicable, it’s nice to see an ending where it’s not a big fight that resolves the situation.
Going in with guns blazing, defeating the enemy through force, is actually not a great tradition in British scifi (fantasy, whatever). You see this in old black and white films. It’s the scientists, the thinkers, who solve the problems. You see it in Doctor Who as well. Torchwood is very americanised in that respect. It generally solves its problems by fighting. Jack is the perfect example. I’m not sure if American audiences realise (American audiences, please enlighten me) that Jack, in many ways, is not the quintessential hero. He’s the quintessential American. He shoots first and asks questions later, he’s a hopeless flirt, he’s a bit of an arrogant and overwhelming personality, exactly the sort of sort of thing we’re not suppose to approve of (which is probably why we love him anyway). So, to see him think of a way out, and apply it without resorting to violence is something of a surprising, and welcome change.
I liked it. I liked seeing Ianto coming to centre stage. I liked seeing that maybe there is something between Jack and Ianto beyond the exchange of bodily fluids. I liked the glimpses of character. I liked the interesting storyline. I still disapprove of the apparent amnesia as far as genre is concerned, but I’ll forgive that, because this is actually a decent and well written episode.
p.s. I should probably also make note of something interesting from the BBC's ARG website, because it's relevant. We shall see what this means for the future. :3
* For reference’s sake, I take eros to mean “loving with the heart”, i.e. passion and instinct, and agape to mean “loving with the soul”, i.e. falling in love, although the strict definitions would be more along the lines of ‘sexual’ and ‘religious’.
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