2007

2007 began in a storm of rockets and gunfire, as one might expect. It was hardcore.

I would like to observe once again that bunting and the very charming Llinos were the finest hosts anyone could wish for. Balderdash is surprisingly fun and home-made Raspberry vodka (recipe: Raspberries, sugar, vodka - mix all three together, shake, leave for three months, filter and serve ) is the drink of winners.

All in all it was a very awesome New Years' Eve party and a joyous opportunity to see friends we visit far too seldom.

We preceded it with a murder mystery night at the home of nohotashes and baddynono which was also tremendous fun. It has made us effectively commuters to Wales, which has revealed that my theory that the Severn Bridge becomes more expensive every time I go over it is entirely correct - it was £4.90 on Friday night, £5.10 on Sunday night. I'm a little concerned that if I were to visit regularly I would soon make Wales a very expensive travel destination. Meantimes, the M4 is very wet and today also very slow.

Getting back home and going to feed the beasts we found our friend Liz, who had kindly dropped food off with our ponies this morning so we didn't have to rush home, still at the yard. One of the other horses there, a big and adorable Irish Draft by the name of Beau had colicked on Sunday night and, after a few vet callouts, had to be rushed to the equine hospital this afternoon. We haven't heard any conclusions yet, but when we were at the yard he was just out of emergency surgery and things didn't sound very good for him. After a very long day of helping to deal with that, Liz had found her own horse also colicking. She seemed quite bright when we were there (the horse that is, Liz was knackered) but we left the yard feeling a little bad that we had been off having a lovely time while so much trouble was going on back home.

A good start to the year for us, but dampened by everyone else's experiences.

Torchwood concluded

The last episode of Torchwood persuaded me to watch once more and it was quite interesting, having watched the start of the series and had my attention kind of lapsed after a few episodes that wandered from very average to quite good. My good friend shanks01 has the term wannabe that he applies liberally to pretty much everything and everyone from time to time. Having watched the pilot of Firefly for the first time on Friday it really brought into relief what the problem with Torchwood is that it is a wannabe show- it is trying so very hard to be cool and as everyone knows nothing is as uncool as trying to be cool.

I quite like the premise and they make Cardiff look cool, but there are a few problems with the storylines and the way they have developed over the series...

• My brother's observation: How many shots of Captain Jack thinking "Damn I'm cool" does any one show need?


• Why is every member of Torchwood sleeping with every other member at some point? It's like they think they're being cool and adult by having lots of sex in the show but they're not being cool and adult they're just making it unrealistic. No-one has a workplace like that and there is no room for subtlety or growing relationships if everyone keeps jumping into bed with everyone else.


• My imagination can conjure up scarier monsters than your CGI team. Why not work with that?


• Don't have the heroes argue the whole time. I know you think you're creating a clever dynamic and friction and all of that, but you're not, what you're doing is making your lead characters fight amongst themselves the whole time and annoy your audience.


• You could have a few scenes where the team either a) act in a professional fashion or b) are just sitting round having a cup of tea. Happened in the first episode or two, never after that. It doesn't have to just be running about.


• Have some likeable characters! This is the big one for me- there was no character I could actually like. I'm sure there are arguments for having flawed heroes but if you make all your characters just out of flaws and then don't give them any kind of positive characteristics then there is no reason for the audience to be interested in or care about what they are doing. You need a team that people will be rooting for, not a bunch of bickering non-entities who are more at risk of stabbing each other in the back than being overrun by an alien menace.


• Where are the good jokes? Watch something written by Joss Wheedon and you will notice that the characters say and do genuinely funny things. JMS managed something similar with Babylon 5. If you want your rag-tag bunch of flawed heroes to hang together so an audience cares give them some good one liners and entertaining banter. And also give them some likeable qualities. And don't just have them bicker the whole time.

I really want Torchwood to be good, I'm probably right in the target audience, I've enjoyed a lot of the Dr Who series that spawned it and I would love for it to work, but they just haven't done anything to compel me to watch it. Here's hoping they can sort it if another series happens along.