S01.E05: Small Worlds

[indeed]

Jack catches up with a very old friend of his, who is investigating fairy sightings in the local wood. After having visited her, Torchwood are informed of a man's mysterious death in a prison cell. Then, Tosh uncovers a series of localised, extreme weather patterns. Nobody at the organisation is sure of these events, or how they may be connected. Except Jack, who has witnessed the creatures causing this, almost a century ago.

Estelle: Fairies are shy, you see. But I know in my heart that they're friendly, loving creatures. Thank you.

Jack: Wrong. She always gets it wrong.

[Swansong]

I know it's supposed to be a moving moment, but I always laugh when Jack is holding Estelle and Gwen says something about it wasn't your dad in the photo, was it?  Like "duh" and also  seriously give the guy a moment to grieve before you make it all about you. And do they all just walk off in the end and just leave Estelle outside on the ground?

[itsmeyousee]

I know it's supposed to be a moving moment, but I always laugh when Jack is holding Estelle and Gwen says something about it wasn't your dad in the photo, was it?  Like "duh" and also  seriously give the guy a moment to grieve before you make it all about you. And do they all just walk off in the end and just leave Estelle outside on the ground?

 

Maybe Ianto is supposed to be waiting nearby or something Swansong. I do remember thinking, who has Estelle.

 

Three things about this ep that i remember,. One i really liked the Jack and Ianto moment "strange weather patterns". It was a nice quiet way to show rebuilding between them

 

Two this was the case of the diappearing Owen one minute he is there in the Hub, then Jack, Gwen and Tosh go to the gaol and Gwen examines the dead guy, then Owen is in the SUV. What happened to Owen, the only time a Doctor was needed he wasn't in the scene ?

 

Three, it really was a case of "would you just bugger off Gwen". It just felt like she made every moment that was about Jack and his past with Estelle about her. This was the first time i found her to be absolutely selfish and self absorbed.

 

Actually Four i really wanted to hit Gwen (well through the ep) Owen and Tosh at the end. Talk about a bunch of hypocrites.

[Swansong]

So finally got around to watching the episode. It's decent enough. I really like Estelle. I like the scene at the beginning between Jack and Ianto. I agree it's a nice understated scene that shows the beginning of them re-building their relationship. Pity the rest of it pretty much happens off-screen. The dialogue makes no sense if we're supposed to believe Jack lives at the Hub since Ianto looks after Jack, though, (and no I don't just mean sexually *wink* *wink*) because even if Jack isn't expecting Ianto, Ianto shouldn't be surprised to see Jack. So is there any other canon besides what we get in this episode that suggests that Jack might live at the Hub? I can't really remember.

 

The fairies are scary until they open their mouths. So they probably should have kept them the creepy silent type.

 

Structurally I get why they have Gwen go with Jack at the beginning to see Estelle because she's the "audience surrogate" and the main character and so must be involved in everything, but it ends up feeling she's there just to be there . Especially since they seem determined to have this faux mystery around Jack and his longevity which eradicates the most obvious reason why Jack might take her along. You know because she's the one team member he doesn't have to hide the fact that he's been around a while with and so he won't have to come up with awkward excuses when she stumbles on photos of him clearly taken decades ago in the house of an old girlfriend. Except then he totally does feel the need to come up with awkward excuses when she stumbles across photos of a guy who looks exactly like him in some old ladies home that were clearly taken 50 + years ago. Because I'm Jack and I'm just oh so mysterious like that. Lol! If he feels the need to keep this secret of how long he's been around this badly, even with someone who already knows his secret,  wouldn't it have just been easier to go alone especially since the visit seems more personal than professional and Gwen serves no purpose being there except to connect some pretty obvious dots the audience can pretty much manage on their own.

 

I never really paid much attention before, but when Jack is explaining the fairies to Gwen he says something like people know nothing about fairies so they like to pretend they're happy and cute even though they're really dangerous and evil which made me chuckle since I'm pretty sure most people see fairies as happy and cute because they don't actually believe they're real not because they feel the need to fill in the blanks to  make them less evil. lol

 

JACK: (describing what fairies are to Gwen): Old moments and memories that are frozen in amongst it. Like debris spinning

around a ringed planet - tossing, turning, whirling. Then backwards and forwards through
time. 

 

I guess just saying they're creepy and really old and dangerous doesn't really cut it. 

 

I agree about Owen disappearing pretty randomly in the middle. They're called to the scene of a mysteriously dead body and so decide to leave their resident medic behind? Why? Did he have a doctor's appointment? Was he in the loo when they were getting ready to leave? 

 

Killing Estelle kind of bugs me. It feels like it's only really purpose is to give Jack some angst. Especially since all the other deaths seem pretty specifically motivated which ends up making hers feel pretty random. The fairies trashing Gwen's flat also feels pretty random since it doesn't seem motivated by anything other than it must be all about Gwen somehow. Or apparently the fairies are also in the know that Gwen is the only one with a real life outside TW. But at least it gives her an excuse for one of her it's all TW's fault moments because we can never have too many of those apparently. lol.  

 

No real explanation for why the fairies don't kill Jack on the train. I assumed initially it's because they know he can't die, but then they try to kill him at the end so clearly that's not an issue. The entire team being mad at Jack and blanking him for letting Jasmine go with the fairies is such an eye-roll moment. Gwen I can understand because she's Gwen and at least has the excuse of being new to it all, but you'd think Tosh and Owen would have a less black and white understanding of things even if they're upset about the situation.

Edited July 22, 2014 by Swansong

[itsmeyousee]

I don't know about Jack living full time at the Hub or is it just supposed to be some sort of kipping spot for when he does stay overnight. But i think and i can't remember it might be GM or DO but  an early ep ,isn't there a part when Jack and someone are in his office and Ianto comes of out the hole/entrance hodling some of Jack's shirts ? It's never really explained and if Jack does live there, then Ianto must use have used a secret entrance to get back in a take care of Lisa with Jack not noticing for months LOL But then again I think we knew less about Jack then we did Ianto in that regard at least we knew Ianto had a nice car LOL

 

Owen disappearance is out and out weird, cause he is right there but the one scene, the one scene they need a doctor in to say how this guy died, no Owen but then he pops back up again LOL

 

Gwen is over the top in this ep but also used in the wrong places all the time, it's there is a memo for all writers  Gwen is in the scene whether it makes sense or not LOL She did faires as some sort of school thing but then scoffed throughout Estelle presentation. Not something i would expect from someone who was already interested let alone talk about rude, some great heart remembering who TW is fighting for.Gwen acted how i would expect Owen to act. And the thing with Jack come on it's too much now , how can she still be surprised and why is Jack bothering with the BS story. I have no idea why they trashed Gwens flat aside to give EM another "big eyed" yelling moment, maybe the Faires didn't like her scoffing at Estelle, except they killed Estelle. Then we have Gwen in the gaol once again Owens spot doing Owens job.

 

I thought the killing of Estelle aside from here Jack have some grief was because she knew where they were exactly in the woods and was talking about it publicly. So i didn't mind that they killed her cause i thought there was a reason behind it, just weird that everyone walked off and left her there. How hard would it have been for just Jack to walk away while Owen says something like" right lets take care of this "or something.

 

I liked the idea of the ep and Jacks history shown through an old love and her dying and the mythical side instead of alien side. But way too many WTF moments and that more came from squashing Gwen into nearly every scene that made less sense than normal LOL

[Swansong]

 

I thought the killing of Estelle aside from here Jack have some grief was because she knew where they were exactly in the woods and was talking about it publicly. 

Yeah I read a bit of the episode transcript and she does say it's the first time she's managed to photograph them so I guess that's supposed to be the trigger? It was just that the episode suggested that she'd been going to the woods to try and capture them on film for a while and her supposed arguments with Jack about whether fairies are good or not gave the impression this was a long time hobby. I don't know if the lectures were a new thing, but I assumed she planned the lecture before she got the photos since she only took them a couple of nights earlier. So if none of that had been enough to mark her for death before it seemed a bit arbitrary that they suddenly decided to kill her then. I know Jack suggests they can be kind of capricious, but the episode only ever really shows them killing after very specific actions/threats by the victim. But anyway.

 

The transcript did remind me of another thing that Jack says that made me chuckle when he tells the team nothing can pick them up. But cameras can pick them up because Estelle has photos and Jasmine shows up at the end of the episode in one of them.

 

 

She did faires as some sort of school thing but then scoffed throughout Estelle presentation. Not something i would expect from someone who was already interested let alone talk about rude, some great heart remembering who TW is fighting for.Gwen acted how i would expect Owen to act.

Lol! Yeah pretty much this. Which kind of all adds to the whole pointlessness of her being there. She shows no real interest in whatever is going on, they don't exactly have her act all that professional about it, almost all her questions to Estelle are nosing into Jack's personal life so they can set up the faux mystery about Jack. And then on top of it they have Jack needlessly behaving the way he does. The audience already knows Jack can't die so there's no real tension for them with this story line. And if you're assuming your audience is adult and not say, five, I don't think Gwen is needed around to figure out the Jack in the photos is show Jack and not really his dad if they also want us to believe that Jack is this desperate to keep his past this private he'll lie needlessly to Gwen about some guy in a photo that is clearly him. We can learn this aspect of Jack's history just as effectively through Jack and Estelle interacting.

[itsmeyousee]

 

 

The transcript did remind me of another thing that Jack says that made me chuckle when he tells the team nothing can pick them up. But cameras can pick them up because Estelle has photos and Jasmine shows up at the end of the episode in one of them.

 

 

 

Is this like Ianto "with my eyes" moment ?  They seem overly reliant on tech especially alien tech. Jack and Tosh the most then surprising Gwen since she is new why she needs the tech so badly don't know and  then Owen and Ianto normally points out another way or just finds whatever  LOL. There are lots of spots especially Season 1 but even in Season 2 where they seem stumped cause their gear doesn't tell them what they need to know.

[Swansong]

I think that was more of a they are so terrifying we can't fight them with anything so give them that kid stat moment. But yes about their over reliance on tech.

A great example of this is TKKS where they don't even bother with any actual investigating before going straight to the glove.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Swansong

[itsmeyousee]

So more of a Jack is just a person no super powers to fix it, let's hate him moment.

 

I didn't remember when Jack said nothing they had could pick them up.Mainly cause Jack is sorta scared throughout the ep, cause he doesn't know how to stop them. So there was plenty of those type of convos.

[Swansong]

 

So more of a Jack is just a person no super powers to fix it, let's hate him moment.

I think the point was to show that the fairies were so other wordly that no equipment created in our world, no matter how sophisticated, could detect them. I found it amusing because this speech came right after they've been looking at the photographs from Estelle precisely because they showed the fairies. So obviously cameras and film, at least, can pick them up. It did make me wonder if they can show up on film then why can't they potentially be detected by other instruments, but I'm not exactly an expert on these matters so I probably shouldn't think too hard about it. lol. I assume the point was to make them so unstoppable that Jack has only one course of action. That seems to be a bit of a favourite trope on Torchwood. Backing Jack into a corner so singularly his only course of action is to do the one most horrible thing going.

 

 

So there was plenty of those type of convos

And quite a few of them gave me unintentional laughs.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Swansong

[itsmeyousee]

But Ianto also picked them up with the "funny weather patterns" and then Jack sorta knew what was happening, so i guess that's how TW has noticed the faires before even if it wasn't Jack himself. But thinking about it now lots of things must be able to see them if there is enough info for Gwen to study at school. I mean Gwen isn't talking about mythology is she ?  It's more like ghosts or something, nothing sceinfic but still plenty of people believe they exist or some sort of energy does.

 

This is probably where the ep gets in trouble no tech to be "Fairy Busters" with LOL. Should have concentrated more on Jack and Estelle and pushed Jack into his corner later in the ep, when no -one knew what was happening it was just happening.