Angry Puppy

In my world, everyone eats mustard on pizza, prefers DS9 to any other Star Trek series and (at least) likes Torchwood.

i09 commenters destroyed two tenets of my faith this morning under a post about the article “Why Russell T. Davies Sucks” from the blog Jesus Drives an SUV.

“[...] Torchwood’s single redeeming feature [...] is that it’s efficient television for the sexually frustrated sci fi addict. It’s basically the investigating team from Angel, in the universe of Doctor Who, operating off of stolen alien technology like some renegade Welsh Stargate team, solving cases lifted from shows like The X-Files if not from Doctor Who itself, with the juvenile hyperssexuality of Lexx (though without the benefit of cruising around in a planet-destroying phallus, I’m sorry to say), all mixed together with the gender-bending intricacies of The L Word (admittedly, not sci fi, but at least there are lots of exposed breasts, which must count for something). Most of the episode plots are also recycled from other shows, and most of the characters are flat, predictable clichés, which means that instead of catching up on a dozen different shows, you can just watch Torchwood and giggle at the writing team’s crude efforts at innuendo. It’s ten shows for the cost of one! “

Now, like or don’t like the show, get or don’t get the campiness, hell, prefer Enterprise to DS9 if you want.  Though that last one hurts a lot, I am an open-minded guy.

What surprised me most was that the comments on the i09 post (at least as of 1PM today) were pretty much all anti-Torchwood.  One compared it to DS9 (aha!). Then I got to the end of the thought:

“Seriously, for me Torchwood is Dr Who’s equivalent of DS9. It was a show I tried to like, wanted to like and couldn’t.”

OK, so this commenter likes Voyager (or, god forbid) TNG more than DS9.  We are clearly different kinds of people; I’m sure he has no use for mustard. And that’s OK.

The later comments remained negative.  The show is “dull” and handles “sexuality in a very sniggery, adolescent way”.

Even the positives were back-handed.

“I like to watch it much like people watch train-wreck footage on the news.”

Though, that I appreciate.

I suppose I also think that Torchwood handles sexuality in a “sniggery, adolescent” way, but I find it fun.  If the show were about sexuality, then such treatment would be bad.  But it’s not.  It’s about saving Britain, the Earth, the universe from catastrophe, enemies and themselves.  Constantly.  The campiness just makes it more fun to watch. And as one commenter put it:

“They’re under incredible pressure to save the freaking Earth all the time! Sometimes the UNIVERSE! It’d probably make me a little randy too.”

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