Hana Chan

This is precisely why having such a huge majority of the vocal performances allotted to the same two singers (Lea and Darren) is part of the reason that completely killed Glee. Not everyone loves their voices or thinks that they are so spectacular. Some people do like Amber's voice better than Lea's (or Naya's). Some people prefer Chris and Kevin over Darren. It's a matter of personal taste. The problem is that if you're not a Lea or Darren fan, you're pretty much screwed as a viewer. Glee's vocal performances were much better in the earlier seasons when there was a better distribution. Some singers like Lea did get more songs than others, but you didn't have complete shutouts over long stretches. It is ridiculous that in season 5 Chris got a grand total of one solo the entire season (and not only did we have to wait until nearly the end of the season, but the song was so badly butchered in editing that it was impossible to appreciate). It is ridiculous now that when you've got a core cast of six performers, all of which are at least passable singers, that it's the same two voices all the fucking time. Despite what some might think, in my opinion Glee was never meant to be the Rachel Berry show. Yes, she's a major character, but this was always an ensemble program. Lea's character might be the keystone, but that doesn't negate the fact that the stories and aspirations of the other characters are equally valid and need to be told properly. And on Glee, song performances have always been a big part of their story telling method. Unfortunately the writing is on the wall that we're going to be overwhelmed with Rachel and Blaine focus this season so if you're not a fan of those characters, you're fucked.

It would be the height of irony that Blaine - the guy who was so hot to get married in order to make some kind of political statement that he not only proposed marriage while still in high school but literally three minutes after he reconciled with his ex after a long estrangement over infidelity - to be the one to get cold feet. If course Glee will go there, since all Klaine stories over the past two and a half seasons have centered entirely about Blaine, Blaine's feelings and Blaine's needs (with Kurt as little more than an accessory in his own relationship). But it would make much more sense for Kurt to be the one expressing doubts about getting married at this point, at the stage in his life when his career might be getting traction and starting to consider the difference between building a life with Blaine (which has never been shown to be a bed of roses for Kurt) and the gauzy Come What May fantasy that he'd always had about getting married. What a slam would it be for the Klaine stans (who have gone out of their way to torture anyone who disagreed with their ship) for the boys to mutually decide that they just aren't ready to be married at this point and that they are moving apart from one another. High school and college relationships often fail once they are out of school so presenting the possibility that Kurt and Blaine might not have a happily ever after with one another isn't exactly unrealistic. Especially if Blaine has a continued connection to the Warblers (which would require time in Ohio) while Kurt should be focused on building his career in NY. Knowing this show, however, Kurt will nobly sacrifice his career aspirations in order for Blaine to relive his high school glory days wth the Warblers. Because seriously... when was the last time that Kurt's aspirations were given any kind of importance in relation to Blaine (or Rachel)?

I've been struggling to find some kind of logic and rational with this awful Blaine/Kurofsky spoiler (because I'm apparently a glutton for punishment who can't help from banging my head into a brick wall). The fact is that they want to give Blaine some kind of romantic complication (whether or not it's an actual relationship is very much up in the air) and they are no going to have the budget to bring in a new character just for him. The gay jock that they're writing is going to be jail bait so that won't work, so they have to use one of the few already established gay male characters. The one that would have made sense would have been Sebastian, as he has a history with Blaine and expressed interest in him. But Grant has moved on and is unavailable. So that leaves Dave Karofsky.There's no storyline foundation for this (not that this ever stopped the writers). Dave's interest had been on Kurt and this was something established all the way back in season two and continued through season four. Blaine has had minimal interactions with Karofsky (a grand total of two times - the first in Never Been Kissed and the second in Night of Neglect - and both were antagonistic interactions). Max has had a lot of work in the past few years outside of Glee but if he's in between projects, there's no issue with him doing a few weeks work on Glee (and getting paid for it - actors want to work). So it's going to end up being Dave by default - basically because the actor is available at the moment. I don't think that it's going to be a real "relationship" (in that Blaine falls in love with Dave) so here are my theories (and mind you - I'm operating on the basis that that the writers have three rational brain cells to split between them). All start off with the basis that Kurt and Blaine have called off their engagement (I highly doubt they are married because there is no way that Ryan Murphy would allow his big Kledding to happen off screen). 1) Blaine is using Dave in order to try to make Kurt jealous (which would be a totally shitty thing to do given that Dave has a history of emotional vulnerability, but not beyond Blaine). 2) Kurt has a new boyfriend (in NY who we will never see) and Blaine is trying to make Kurt jealous. Dave is going into this in order to help Blaine because he thinks this will make help make Kurt happy in the end (whether to sabotage Blaine's efforts or to actually help reconcile them remains to be seen). 3) Dave goes into this with the intention of trying to split Kurt and Blaine up permanently by flattering Blaine and playing on his weakness (the need for attention), so he can try to win Kurt for himself. Either way it plays out, it's going to end up being like Blaine's crush on Sam did - a lot of lip service about how Kurt is Blaine's soulmate but actually having little (if anything) to actually do with Kurt. And it continues to hit me right in my sore spot - that Chris works hard to develop storylines for Kurt, and the writers just transfer everything to Darren and Blaine (who will win everything that Kurt is not allowed to). Chris had great chemistry working with Max, and Darren apparently is only capable of chemistry with himself so this is going to be a complete mess. Chris wanted Kurt to have a real relationship outside of Blaine (even if he accepted an inevitable Klaine reconciliation), but the relationship with Adam was killed off early in order to force a Klaine engagement. Now Blaine will get the boyfriend storyline while Kurt gets...?

This is exactly what I was talking about - how Lea uses vocal "tricks" to imply emotion that's not actually coming out in her voice. This, for me, is a big performance weakness. I don't know if it's a result of spending so many years doing Broadway shows, when you need to exaggerate the inflections in order to communicate to the audience in the cheap seats and she hasn't been able to make the transition to tv and the intimacy of the recording studio, but it's a real problem. I don't think that the direction she's getting on Glee is helping, in that she's being encouraged to overload on the belting, even in numbers that it seems very out of place in (like The Scientist where it really stood out unpleasantly when compared to the other singers). I think that the show is so caught up with the idea of showcasing Lea as "the voice of a generation" that they're actually degrading the quality of her performances. I found her singing much more engaging in season one and two than I did in season five. I don't know if I buy the rational that Lea being a "human juke box" is the reason that she often fails to find the emotional core of a song because she's always sung a lot on the show. I'll agree that if the songs don't fit in with Rachel's storyline that she might have an issue in trying to translate an emotional message, but it doesn't explain the total absence of any emotion in her renditions of The Rose or Glitter in the Air. Even if all she was doing was copying the originals (and the arrangement for both was the same as the original recordings) there should have been something there. But there wasn't. It was just singing notes. I've heard Lea in a few performances outside of Glee and she hasn't impressed me with her ability to give genuinely emotive performances, but I'll admit that I haven't seen everything (and therefore can't make a blanket judgment). If this is a conscious acting choice on Lea's part in how she approaches songs for Rachel (that Rachel is more focused on impressing an audience with her technique and quality of voice rather than giving really emotionally powerful performances), I would find it an odd choice given that Rachel is supposed to be such a phenomenal talent that no one can touch her (or to have none of her vocal teachers over the years calling her on this flaw). There have been just too many times when Lea (on Glee) needs to give those emotionally powerful performances and it ends up falling flat.

The Diva Off was a great contrast in Lea's/Rachel's style vs Chris's/Kurt's. "Bring Him Home" is a difficult song because the whole song is staged around a deeply emotional moment of this particular character. Lea's version was more about showing off the scope and strength of her voice, while Chris's was more conscious of the song's deeper meaning and place in the musical. I think that Lea's approach would have been pretty interchangeable with any song, while Chris's was more specific to this particular song. And while Lea might have been technically "better" (a point that I would debate since showing the emotion of the song is a part of Broadway technique), Chris's was the better, more emotionally respectful performance. I have no dispute with Lea getting so many songs, as she is the "lead" (or as much as a lead we can have in an ensemble show). It's that because she is missing that instinctive ability to show the emotional qualities of a song without resorting to stage faces and vocal tricks (like the scooping that Glorifindel identified). It ends up feeling like artifice rather than a performance that hits me viscerally. Lea too often substitutes her vocal strength and technique for a real emotional connection to the material, and I've never seen her able to manipulate the emotional quality of a song the way some of the other singers on Glee could. Her songs have to seamlessly match the emotional part of the storyline to be effective. Think her rendition of "Cry" after Rachel's botched NYADA audition compared to Chris's rendition of "I Want To Hold Your Hand" or "As If We Never Said Goodbye". Chris took the bones of those songs and was able to emotionally translate them for Kurt's story. Again, this is not to say that Lea's not a tremendous singer and doesn't have a huge amount of talent, but it's what separates her as more a technician vs the artistic singer that Chris (and Naya and Jenna) are. And I'll agree that Lea is her best when she sings with others because she either is forced to dial back the power of her voice (like her "I Feel Pretty/Unpretty" duet with Diana) or she has the other singer provide the emotional underpinning to support her performances (like her duets with Chris).

Jenna would have sounded glorious doing "The Rose" - I think that she's much more naturally emotive performer than Lea, and it would have worked with her storyline since she was dealing with a long line of heartache and disappointment. Unfortunately I think this was another case of just tossing a song to the lead because someone BTS had a jones to see Lea perform an iconic song rather than determining if Lea was the right singer for that song or if it fit Rachel's storyline. I want to clarify something - my criticisms on Lea's singing is not meant to be a slam against her. She is an astonishingly talented performer and there were times when she really impressed me. But I think that too often, especially in the past three seasons, her focus has been too much on showing off technique rather than just singing and letting the song breathe. It becomes more about showing off what her voice is capable of in a "look at me" manner than showcasing the material. It, unfortunately, makes a lot of her performances pretty to listen to, but emotionally inert. And it's especially noticeable when compared to two other very talented singers (Naya and Chris) who are less technically perfect, but are able to tap into the meaning of a song and really expand upon the emotional message. If Lea asks me to just listen and admire, Chris and Naya invite me to feel. Lea is a technician as a singer, so it does come across as being a bit mechanical and affected, while Naya and Chris are more elemental. And unfortunately I've started to lose my awe of Lea's technical abilities. It's been a very long time since she's been able to surprise or impress me with her song performances.

There are so many songs that I do indeed feel got "wasted" because they were either used poorly, had the wrong singer and just made no sense in the context of the episode. One that immediately comes to mind was "Glitter In The Air". It is one of the most gorgeous, emotionally vulnerable songs about throwing caution to the wind and embracing love and Lea's version basically hit the notes without capturing any of the song's raw emotion. Then we have the context - using the song to try to convince the writer for her prospective tv pilot about the importance of music and joy. It just didn't work there for me. It would have made far more sense for the song to have been assigned to Kurt's storyline, as he was in the position of having to choose listening to his heart vs his head when it came to his relationship to Blaine. Using it in Rachel's storyline was pointless. The same with "The Rose". They could have picked any song for Rachel's failed LA audition, but again they chose one of the most beautifully written songs about heartbreak and wasted it as a throwaway solo that had no context in the scene or the character's story. And again, Lea failed to find the song's heart and it was just a pretty but superficial rendition that immediately could be forgotten the instant she finished singing. And I would be remiss if I failed to include "Against All Odds" in the wrong singer/wrong context listing. Darren could not handle the song's emotional heft (so we got the contorted faces to try to infuse the feeling that should have come out in his voice) and the inclusion of the song ended up making Blaine's crush on Sam carry far more emotional weight than it should have (given that Blaine was supposed to be focused on winning Kurt back). Using the ultimate song of unrequited love over a fleeting crush was a major miscue that just served to make Blaine's character appear even more emotionally fickle.

I do like Matt a lot. He's got a great tone to his voice and I haven't disliked anything he's done on Glee. Unfortunately he's been limited to mostly showtunes and pop songs that don't really let me see his emotional range as a singer. I certainly think that he's capable of it - we just weren't given a chance to see much of it on Glee.

My biggest issue with the "big voiced" girls on the show (Lea & Amber) is that more often than not, more emphasis is paid to showing of their vocal technique and strength and not enough of real emotion. This is especially problematic with Lea - it's been a very long time since I've heard her sing anything where I actually got a visceral emotional reaction. It is more a case of just being asked to admire how strong a singer she is and her ability to project rather than actually get any sincere emotion from Lea. Her performances now usually leave me petty cold. She's a great technician, but it's all surface - she uses power as a substitute for getting to the real emotion of a song. With Amber, she's a more soulful performer and I do get more emotion from her than Lea, but I still feel like the musical directors ocus too much on the power in her voice and it makes her look like she has only one real mode of performing. The last time she or Lea really got to me in a vocal performance was when they sang "How Will I Know?" when they sang with Naya and Chris, but even here Lea stood out (not in a good way) for being more about belting and less about the real heart of the song. My favorite singers on the show don't have Lea's and Amber's raw power and may not have perfect technique, but when they sing I actually feel something. Naya has a lot of Amber's soulfulness, but she's able to dial her power back to that quiet place and let the emotion pour out. Chris has grown in his technical prowess and projection power, but he hasn't lost his ability to tap into the emotion of a song and has a remarkable ability to act and tell stories through his vocal performances. He never substitutes power for emotion (which was very apparent in the diva off with "Bring Him Home"). Jenna has such a sweet and pure tone to her voice and when she has good material really can tell stories with her voice. And then we have Kevin who has all of Amber's soulfulness, but is a more naturally emotive performer. And the less said about Darren (the beast that ate Glee), the better. He's pleasant (at best) when he's got material that sits right in his range and generally needs a lot of backing to sound good (which is way I've found his best performances were with the Warblers). And I don't get any real emotion from his singing - just a lot of mugging and using volume to make up for his lack of range and emotion. Why he's given so many songs on Glee and so many songs that he has no business trying to touch is beyond me.

I blame the show for making me actually want to see Rachel fail. They've not only made her professional successes so numerous and so easy, they've made her completely ungrateful for the opportunities she was given and blind to just how remarkable it was that she achieved even the most modest of her goals. It would be interesting to see Rachel trying to maintain the illusion that she's some kind of big deal while in Lima, knowing that outside of McKinley that she's barely able to get work and that she's blacklisted from Broadway. And for one of her admiring students to use that newfangled thing called the internet and actually see that Rachel can barely get work as a walk on extra because her reputation turned so toxic. Because that would give Rachel the chance to finally start owing her shit and growing up. She was always best when given real challenges (all the way back in season one), and having to face her failures and find the determination to rebuild the career that she so carelessly destroyed would be something I could cheer for. Sure it would be, but Rachel didn't leave Lima to get that one role and then to vanish. She left to be a big star and while those who don't know Rachel would be impressed that she got her big shot, those who really know Rachel and her grandiose dreams know that she failed. I think that it would be easy for Rachel to get sucked into the comfort of having the new noobs sitting there and being oh so impressed, but all it would take would be talking to any of her former classmates who are moving forward in their careers to show what a sham that is. But it would at least be more interesting to watch then see Rachel win another outlandish prize.

The show actually laid a lot of groundwork for Rachel to have a huge fall - they just never pulled the trigger on the gun. First she quits NYADA in a very aggressive manner and gets a clear warning from Ms. Tibideaux that she lacked the grounding for a long career and that she didn't see herself as part of the theater community (instead seeing the show's purpose as showcasing her while she had no sense of obligation to the show and her cast mates). This continued when she ditched her show to audition in LA and got read the riot act by her producer as to what would happen if she pulled a stunt like that again. She then makes the decision to quit Funny Girl to rush off to LA for this pilot development. If the pilot flops (or worse, isn't picked up by the network), it's easy to fill in whatever the time jump requires. With Rachel effectively blacklisted from Broadway and having burned her bridges at NYADA, she could be in LA trying to find a new opportunity for herself and not having an easy time of it. She can get some small parts here and there, but nothing that's going to launch her as a film/tv star. I can certainly see her pulling an April and showing up in Lima like she's some kind of a huge deal when in reality she's there because she's not making it the way she expected to. But given that the writers have been totally incapable of giving Rachel the slightest hiccup on her path to stardom, we'll get another implausible reason for her to have weeks/months of free time available right when she's needed at McKinley and gets to stride in as the conquering hero. And I'll find myself yelling "BULLSHIT!" at my tv every five minutes.

I'm glad that I'm not the only one who expects/hopes that Rachel's tv show is a big flaming flop. The way they've basically just handed her win after win over the past two years has been absolutely ridiculous and there's a mean part of me that wants to see her knocked down a peg. But I also think that it's necessary if the show insists on this idiocy of dragging everyone back into Lima for the final season. Let's be realistic here... if Rachel's career was doing well and she was getting loads of jobs and opportunities, would she actually be selfless enough to give up potential work in order to rebuild New Directions? I know that New Directions meant a lot to her (at least in being the foundation that launched her career), but Rachel doesn't have a selfless bone in her petite little body. I just cannot see her sacrificing her career in any small way to head back to Lima.

I don't think the move to McKinley is something that FOX wanted. Not with the way the network was actively pushing for the focus to shift to the NY storyline. I think that right now, it's more a case of the network just not giving a fuck any longer. Glee has its budget and if they want to blow it on hiring a bunch of new noobs, so be it. FOX has no interest in trying to salvage Glee in any capacity so they're not going to spend any effort in trying to steer the direction of the show. Any interesting in trying to extend Glee beyond it's expiration date is on RIB's parts. As far as FOX is concerned, the DNR order has been signed. Glee is a dead show walking. There is nothing that the show can do at this point to change that

I'm going to agree with those who think that the rational behind the introduction of so many new characters this late in the game is in the very slim hope of the Glee franchise surviving in some capacity post-season 6. Possibly as a spin off on a cable network. They know that after season 6, they're going to lose Lea, Chris, Matt and Jane (as their contracts will be voided after FOX closes out this season). They might be able to hang onto Darren and Chord (since neither of them are exactly swimming in post-Glee prospects), but the big guns will be gone. If there is some tiny chance of Glee surviving, new bodies will be needed. The new characters also will be needed to give the illusion that regardless of how the storylines of the old characters are closed out, that the "story" of Glee continues (even if only off screen). That New Directions will go on, even if we - the audience - doesn't see it. It fits in what Ryan Murphy envisions when blathering about the important of the arts in education. But there was no need to do that. There was no need to disband ND in the first place. The show could easily have closed out the McKinley storyline without closing down the choir. ND could have easily carried on off screen so that the focus could have shifted to the NY storyline. But Glee has a scorched earth mentality where you have to salt the ground behind you before you move forward. Now we're getting scorched earth again - the focus has to shift because the writers have made it impossible for the main character (Rachel) to remain in NY. Because they not only had Rachel drop out of NYADA (after mouthing off to Ms. Tibideaux) and then make herself unemployable on Broadway by quitting her first show at the start of her run, there is no way for Rachel's story to work in NY. And without Rachel as the anchor, the show isn't going to spend time on the secondary characters building their lives and careers there. Kurt may well end up as a successful actor in New York, but the show isn't going to show it. The lack of any coherency in building the storylines is really shocking given that this is a professionally produced show. The writing comes across like they're just throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks and then for no reason just ripping everything up and starting from scratch repeatedly. Glee was badly crippled by the time the focus shifted to New York late in season 5 and it wasn't helped with Rachel's insta-Star storyline, but there was the foundation for some good storytelling there with the other characters. Kurt and Blaine were dealing with new challenges in their personal relationship and having real challenges in their aspirations. Artie's adventures at film school was a blank slate that could have easily produced some interesting stories, as would Santana figuring out just what she wanted to do with her life. Hell, even seeing Rachel having to deal with the consequences of her overreaching and having to fight to rebuild her career and professional reputation could have been fun to watch. Scrapping all that potential just to go back to more of the same old, same old that ended up killing Glee is beyond pointless. .

Netflix is making waves by producing high quality shows like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. Why would they want FOX's castoffs? Especially a show that has declined in quality as badly as Glee has?

Absolutely amazing... I'm going into season sux with absolutely nil in the way of expectations and Ryan Murphy still manages to disappoint me. It's a gift, I guess... Totally agree here. With absolutely no spoilers for Kurt or Artie (the last of the "regulars" not accounted for), I highly doubt that either of them will have any kind of storyline that happens on screen. Kurt will just be an accessory for the dreaded Klaine wedding in the finale. On the upside, there's a lot less chance for their characters to get ruined. Too much attention certainly didn't do Blaine and Sam any good, and it utterly destroyed Rachel. So maybe falling out of favor is not necessarily a bad thing. Ah well... I'm just going to have fun watching the complete and total train wreak that this season will be. The explosions should be entertaining.

They've already done that and his name is Blaine Anderson. This is just more recycling since RIB apparently don't have a single original idea left in their empty skulls.

And yet another helping of the "right" kind of gay character that no one messes with. What a way to keep insulting the original gay character on the show who spent much of his time at McKinely being harassed, abused and ignored because he was capital G Gay (and it continued in NY where Blaine gets all the goodies while Kurt gets the crumbs).

The focus on Gwen's POV rather that Jack's really makes reading these scenes difficult because we can't really be sure if Jack really is that attached to Gwen in a romantic/sexual tension sense or if that's merely how Gwen sees things. Because as I've said previously, Jack could have easily had Gwen if he really wanted to. I may be reading this wrong (and if I am, someone please correct me), but I always felt that Gwen (and to a far lesser degree Ianto) were trying to hold a 51st century man who developed under a very difficult culture and set of experiences to 21st century mores. Jack chuckled about their "quaint labels" but I think that there is a lot of validity to that disconnect. For someone like Jack, there might very well be no conflict between loving Ianto and loving Gwen, each in their own ways. If Jack came from a culture where polyamory was the norm, then he would see no problem with loving more than one person at a time. And because Jack was immortal and even under the very best of circumstances would only be with Gwen and Ianto for a very, very brief period of time (in comparison to his expected life expectancy), then it would make even more sense for Jack to be able to form multiple attachments because losing those he had deep feelings would be devastating, as losing Ianto proved.

I think the fact that Ianto worked for Torchwood as an archivist long before he met Jack really put him in a position to have a stronger understanding and open mindedness to the weirdness that goes hand in hand with being around Jack. Then we had him having a front row seat to witnessing (and surviving) the Battle of Canary Warf and likely seeing The Doctor saving the day. Unlike the rest of Torchwood 3, Ianto arrived already well versed in a lot of the complexities of the greater universe and the "timey whimey" confusion. He simply would have had accesses to pretty much every scrap of knowledge that Torchwood had available regarding the Doctor, time theory and all the alien species that have had contact with Earth in the past century or so. Even if a large percentage of that information was speculation or theory, it still would have given him an understanding that was really unique among the rest of the Torchwood 3 personnel. Another thing that makes Ianto stand out - everyone else in the group (Owen, Tosh & Gwen) join Torchwood basically by being in the wrong place at the wrong time and stumbling into something (or in Owen's case, having an alien experience impact his life unexpectedly). Ianto would have had to take some proactive action in seeing out Torchwood and actively seeking employment (whereas Owen and Tosh were more or less drafted).

I think that the network has absolutely nil in the way of expectation for the last season. It's going to air at a dead time basically to fill whatever gap needs filling. Glee is basically a zombie of a tv show - rightfully should be in its grave but is still tottering about until someone cuts off it's head and then salts and burns the corpse. What's sadder is the die hard fans who've stuck by the show from the very start (of which I am one of the few remaining) have no expectations. Well, we expect the worst. Rather than seeing our favorite characters moving on with their adult lives and showing their hard won victories as adults (and I'm not talking about Rachel's magic carpet ride to stardom), we're going to watch them dragged kicking and screaming back to Lima because Ryan Murphy can't get out of the fucking choir room. To see Rachel and Kurt set one foot in Lima after fighting tooth and nail to escape is an insult to their characters.

If I remember right, Zhang Ziyi who starred in the original had no marital arts training and like Harry, was a dancer. The combat scenes are so heavily choreographed that dancers actually handle them very well and outside of really good martial artists, are the best at these types of scenes. Don't think that Harry will have any problem.

I had brought up in the Gwen thread my belief that the sexual tension between Jack and Gwen was decidedly overplayed in the show, given that Gwen would have been on her back in a heartbeat if Jack had given her the word. If he was holding back out of respect for her relationship with Rhys, then he was wasting his consideration as Gwen had already shown that she was not above cheating (and the judicious use of retcon to cover her ass). It's a shame that so little time in the show was actually spent on Jack's relationship with Ianto, which would have been easily as fascinating to play out properly. For Ianto to go from mourning Lisa to sleeping with Jack to actually being in love with Jack needed a lot more than the few seconds of screen time it was afforded here and there. I think that made Ianto and Jack work was that Ianto wasn't operating under any illusions when it came to Jack. This was someone who had survived some of the worst that Torchwood had seen in his own right and was about as much an equal as Jack would find in this day and age. There wasn't blind hero worship and he didn't expect Jack to meet his standards. He accepted Jack, and even though it hurt, he accepted the limitations that naturally came with loving someone that was immortal. And we still saw that Ianto was willing to risk being hurt in order to keep Jack in his life. Jack's feelings are a bit harder to read since they had so much of his focus on Gwen, but I think that he did love Ianto as much as he is capable of loving another person. He knew that he would lose Ianto one day and when he did, it was enough for him to do the unthinkable in the aftermath. It's always been the great tragedy for me that he never told Ianto that he loved him while Ianto was alive (out of self-preservation, IMO) and we only find out after Ianto is gone that Jack did indeed love him.

The sad thing is that I really hate it when I seriously dislike the female lead of a show because I think that there's usually a built in bias against female characters in favor of male characters. With Gwen, her behavior was difficult enough that I became seriously irked with how she was treated often as the greatest thing to come into Torchwood evah! And I seriously disliked how her relationship with Jack was portrayed (we seriously need a Gwack thread for suitable bitching). I can totally get why Gwen would want Jack - the man is amazingly sexy and there's the whole hero worship thing she had going on (when she wasn't treating him like an idiot because he disagreed with her). The question for me is what Jack saw in Gwen. That a man who had probably slept with some of the most amazing beings in the universe would be so completely turned around by a Welsh ex-police woman who could barely tie her own shoes. Gwen was hardly a paragon of virtue, given that she had cheated on her boyfriend with one of her coworkers, retconned Rhys after she confessed her infidelity and continued to pant after Jack with their "uncontrollable" UST. It was pretty idiotic that they kept dancing around one another given that Jack could have had Gwen with just a word if he really wanted her (as she had already shown that she wasn't above cheating on Rhys). The final straw, for me, was Meat when she berated the rest of the team for not being so understanding of how hard it was for her to maintain an outside relationship while the rest of them didn't have anyone. Conveniently ignoring that Owen lost his fiancée, Ianto lost Lisa and Tosh lost Mary. But poor Gwen had it so hard. Sorry... didn't mean to let my venom come out to play.

Late to the party, but here's my two cents. I found it very hard to like Gwen. For the life of me, I could not see her bringing any special skill set to Torchwood that would warrant the huge amount of leeway she was given and how as the person with the least amount of seniority and experience got elevated to Jack's second (and took over leadership while he was off with The Doctor during The Year That Never Was). And with her repeated defiance (such as revealing Torchwood to Rhys and then refusing to have him retconned), I just kept seeing her as a liability more than an asset. Everyone else in the group had a clear role and a clear skill set (Tosh their technical expert, Owen for science and medicine and Ianto with organization from his Torchwood one experience), but Gwen was a relatively inexperienced police officer who besides having a resistance to retcon didn't bring anything valuable. And I really hated this whole "heart of Torchwood" bullshit. Just another way of saying "special snowflake" and to justify why someone who should never have gotten through the hub's front door suddenly became in 5 minutes the most important person there (and in the end, the last one standing).