#HOW. HOW. HOW IS IT THAT THE TORCHWOOD EPISODE IS THE ONLY ONE WHERE THE SOLUTION TO THE WHOLE THING ISNT THAT SOMEBODY HAS TO KILL THEMSEL

[doctorwhoisadhd]

you know what? i was just thinking and literally every episode with the trickster's brigade in it involves suicide somehow

whatever happened to sarah jane? (sja): andrea has to CHOOSE to die to go back on her deal with the trickster. you actually SEE her smile at sarah jane and then let go on purpose in order to fall to her death (this was a kids show)

turn left (doctor who): the right-donna has to kill herself in order to get past-donna to turn left instead of right — not only killing herself but meaning that she never existed in the first place

the temptation of sarah jane smith (sja): its quite literally basically like, yeah, sarah janes parents definitely crashed the car on purpose. and like, they never actually SAY it that obviously but they DO definitely CHOOSE to get in the car knowing they have to crash to set things right (again. this was a kids show)

the wedding of sarah jane smith (sja): again, peter dalton, like andrea, has to CHOOSE to go back on his deal with the trickster, probably the weakest example but like, he is still definitely CHOOSING to die instead of live

immortal sins (torchwood): this is actually somehow the ONLY one where the answer to "how do we beat the trickster" is NOT suicide, which is so wild considering that THIS is the gritty adult spinoff. no, the trickster they beat just fine. jack just decides to kill himself in order to (quite literally) ghost angelo with the most possible emotional torment

[kerosene-saint]

oh hey torchwood fandom I haven't seen you since *checks smudged handwritten paper in blood on vortex manipulator* approximately two and a half years

[sparrowlucero]

Instead of discourse about showrunners and lesbians and whatever, I'm gonna bring a different type of discourse...whats ur fav and least Dr Whomst monsters. Hard mode: only the practical ones.

ok so I do like all the obvious ones, I like the angels, I like the vashta nerada, I like the not-things, I like the eternals. Here's a few deeper cuts (focusing on the tv show specifically):

they peaked with these maggots. they rock. pretty sure they're made with taxidermy? really great puppetry. I really like this thing:

what a cool design for this kind of forgotten midseason episode.

this is such a fun design for a langolier-type monster. I love how their crest and tail gives them the silhouette of a grim reaper

The 60s cybermen rock. I feel like they're hesitant to use them often in the modern show because they do look very 1960s but I think there's something really uncomfortable and evocative about the cloth faces that's lost when they're cool metallic robots. The mix between looking like an old diving suit and the implication of there being a chopped up person inside is gnarly and I love it. Simple, creepy, iconic design.

My favorite design in the show is probably this:

The 456 from the spinoff series torchwood. They didn't need the puppet to emote or move a ton since it spends the entire season in a little tank obscured in mist, so they just went crazy with the design and made it really bizarre looking. Extremely top tier alien. Anyways, negative. I really don't like this satan. the satan kind of sucks. the impossible planet is great atmospheric sci fi horror; every image of build up in it is haunting and leagues ahead of the climactic scene where he meets the satan. It singlehandedly kind of kills the vibe.

Personally I would have just kept the actual appearance off screen, just have it be eyes in the dark or something. Apparently they also tossed around the idea that it would end up being a normal little girl who was chained up in the cave and I think that would have visually fit the rest of the episode better.

I'm really not big on the modern design for the sea devils (the green one on the right). I think the classic ones clearly took a lot of direct influence from real animals and generally is a pretty thoughtfully realized design, the modern ones seem like they were first and foremost using the classic ones for reference and didn't quite capture the nuance of the design. Sad, as I would really like to see design for these guys with modern puppetry.

I think this is actually a pretty contentious opinion but the work of the specific studio who headed this redesign generally wasn't my favorite. Apparently there was some sort of major, semi public falling out between the fx studio that had been working on the show since 2005 and the people who started running the show in 2018, and they were briefly replaced with a much less experienced studio. No hate to them of course (I think this was actually their first job like, ever, and a lot of the work was done in crunch time?) but the difference did stand out to me:

[sam-keeper]

Susan Twist: Word Lord?

Many* people** are wondering about the theory held by certain Doctor Who fans*** online that the actress Susan Twist in the new season of the long running franchise is playing what's known as a "Word Lord".

Now, granted, many more are wondering whether she might, in fact, be Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter. That, my friends, is exactly the kind of question a Word Lord would want you to be asking.

Lemme break this theory down for you.

Throughout this whole new season of Doctor Who, the protagonists have been haunted by the recurrence, in different roles, of a stage and character actor who happens to have the delightful name Susan Twist. Like, not in the show, in real life. According to Russel T Davies, she was the only actor they could get due to an "actor shortage", which seems like a pretty terrible and even implausible dilemma, but luckily Davies has made lemonade out of this very real production constraint! Twist popped up in every episode this season, in some form or other. That's versatile writing! No wonder they brought Rusty back as showrunner.

But perhaps there's more to the story than just the unfortunate realities of filming in a country ruled by a failed regime...

The Doctor and his companion Ruby started noticing Twist's recurring roles over the past few episodes, though the plot of each episode intervened before they could put anything definitive together. It's one of a number of nods to the metatextual content of the show--literal winks to the audience, another character (Mrs Flood) directly addressing the viewers, a whole musical number about how there's "always a twist at the end"--that suggested maybe some authorial tomfoolery was afoot, that maybe something a little tricky or tongue in cheek was happening.

But what could the explanation be? Could Susan Twist really be playing THE Susan, a relative of the Doctor's that hasn't been seen in the franchise since the 60s? That seems a little silly, surely! Or could she be playing another character, like... the Rani? or the Monk? Both of them got namedropped alongside Susan at one point. Or maybe she's the portended head of Maestro and the Toymaker's extracosmic family. I guess there's a theory this is Sutekh, the evil alien god from Pyramids of Mars? Sure, seems fun.

But no. Fuck all that noise. I know what's really going on here and it just coincidentally involves a character that I'm feral about, and that no one else has even heard of, a guy called, somewhat fittingly, Nobody No-one.

No-one shows up in just one and a quarter stories by Steven Hall for Big Finish's series of audio dramas, first as a minor opponent (in 45) and then as a much more motivated and fearsome one (in A Death in the Family). In the latter story, he manages to--no points if you worked this out from the title--kill the Seventh Doctor. How did a character with such a low profile manage such a feat? Well, Nobody No-one has powers comparable to a Time Lord: he is a Word Lord.

Word Lords are one of the most delightfully bonkers concepts to come out of the early exciting and experimental period in Big Finish's line of audio dramas. Hailing from another universe, they're the equivalent of Time Lords for a reality where narrative rather than chronology drives all existence. It's like if the Anchoring of the Thread established not linear time but, I guess, TV Tropes instead. Nobody No-one regenerates like the Doctor, and has his own equivalent to the TARDIS: the CORDIS, or Conveyance Of Repeating Dialogue In Space-time, which is a memetic construct transporting the Word Lord through repeated phrases, jokes, coincidental number recurrences, and so on. The CORDIS is heralded by the number 45 popping up, and you'd better believe I sat up and noticed how many times that number recurred in the code pattern in Dot and Bubble! In Death in the Family there's a whole military organization the Doctor's mucking around with--No, not UNIT. No, not Torchwood. A different thing, one run by a human supremacist vampire hold on we're getting off topic--and Nobody casually reveals at one point that his CORDIS was bouncing around inside their "For King And Country" mantra for years.

Nobody No-one's real fun as a villain comes from his special Bullshit Powers. He's a Word Lord, so he's basically a memetic being, right? He IS language in some sense. Like, apparently his CORDIS crashed into the alphabet after his first encounter with the Doctor, annihilating the 27th letter of the alphabet and causing the English Great Vowel Shift. This story does a ton with the concept of "what if a guy was words".

But what makes him so dangerous is a quirk of his own identity. To grasp what a Word Lord can do, you have to think linguistically, dialogically. Imagine someone haplessly says: "but, nobody could have gotten into that locked room to kill the ambassador!" What would that allow a Word Lord to do? And imagine further:

"No-one tells the sun whether or not to shine." "Nobody could survive that!" "Nobody could just kill the Doctor!"

One slip of the tongue, that's all it takes for Nobody No-one to gleefully command godlike power.

That's Nobody, though. I don't think Susan Twist is just Nobody. I mean, No-one could seriously ask you to believe that this character who appeared in an (unfairly, given its quality) obscure audio adventure, written by an author who only ever wrote those two stories for Doctor Who, with a bunch of wild over the top and no doubt difficult to write around powers, is going to suddenly come back as a major character in the third tv revival of this 60 year old franchise. Like, Nobody would expect Davies to start referencing, I don't know, the Shalka Doctor either, surely. And I wouldn't ask you to make that kind of totally absurd leap, not even if I happened to be writing some sort of tongue in cheek article.

No, what I'm--I mean, what the fans are suggesting is that this concept of a Time Lord but for stories, who comes from a Borgesian narrative dimension, appearing in one and one quarter obscure audio dramas by an author who never wrote anything else for Doctor Who... what the theory proposes is that there's a SECOND one of those guys.

Just think about it, think about it like a Word Lord. What has the fandom asked itself about this season? Surely, one of the foremost questions is simply: what about Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter? She's been name dropped a few times, the Doctor doesn't say she's definitively dead... could there be some reveal here that Susan is alive? There's got to be, right? That's what they're leading up to!

There's just got to be a Susan Twist.

That, my friends, is exactly how she snuck into this reality.

Now, maybe the "Susan Triad" slated to appear next episode isn't this Word Lord proper but a kind of, I don't know, fictionsuit or vessel or entry point. I'm also not sure what a "Susan Twist" would even want, what the grand scheme would be. Unlike Nobody No-one, there's not a lot of word games you can play with "Susan Twist" beyond the obvious. But, maybe that's part of the point. Nobody No-one was a megalomaniac, a guy who really did just want to watch the world burn. The Doctor's companion Hex accuses him of being "proper mad", and he responds, "Mad? I'm FUUURIOUS!" followed by an explosion from the grenade he had tossed into the duck pond. Nobody is a brash, arrogant, chaotic, and... probably not that bright guy, who has the advantage of his CORDIS's many tricks and his incredibly versatile name. Perhaps this new Word Lord wants something other than chaos and destruction. Maybe she simply wants what we've already seen her achieve in the show: universal ubiquity. There's always a Twist at the end.

Actually, this would weirdly parallel another beat from Death in the Family. In order to trap Nobody, the Doctor weaponizes his own narrative against the Word Lord, tapping into the universal internet and googling himself in order to build a whole proxy universe based on his own life. From another perspective, he basically uses the entire narrative of Doctor Who--all the episodes, all the Big Finish audios, all the Doctor Who Monthly comics, all the Virgin New Adventures--as an ideatic missile. This is such a cool concept I'd feel guilty about giving it away, only it happens about a fifth of the way through Death in the Family. Seriously, this audio GOES places. Anyway, the suggestion is that the Doctor is so entangled with the history of the universe, so threaded throughout all these other narratives, that his history effectively is a world unto itself that a being of narrative like Nobody might get completely lost in.

That's a kind of narrative ubiquity if there ever was one. If I was a Word Lord I'd be sorely tempted by that. Nobody is: he appears a perverse counterpart to the Doctor (and personally I think David Tennant would do a GREAT job playing him if he ever appeared in the show). I can't help but notice, incidentally, that we just got an episode where the shapeshifting Chuldur quickly became obsessed with cosplaying as the Doctor, and Wild Blue Yonder also introduced a couple of not-things trying to copy him. Could this Word Lord be seeking to build a narrative as strong and inescapable as the Doctor's?

It would be an interesting way of incorporating some of these meta elements without slipping too far into a kind of self-referential morass. It feels like Davies has been dancing right up on that line this entire season in a way that's exhilarating, but that also has been a bit nerve wracking for me. The more metatextual storytelling has exited the realm of weird independent art and entered the mainstream, the more cloying it's started to feel. Like, when you engage the audience, entreat them directly to care about the characters or write tearful paeans to the necessity of the Hero as a Symbol, the more it can start to feel like a bit of a desperate exercise in brand management. Clap if you DO believe in fairies, and all that. Doctor Who certainly has some history of guilt here--sorry, Steven Moffat, but sometimes it does get to be a bit much. And it does risk standing the purpose of literature on its head, where ironically through characters lauding the virtues of storytelling within society, the virtue of having participated in a transaction consuming art becomes the foundation of fandom, and the actual literary content is assumed, but treated as an afterthought.

Davies has thus far instead treated the meta content in two ways: as a unique physics to be solved, and as a way of exploring a particular bit of social commentary (sometimes more than one at once). Goblins use a "language of luck" and a physics of rope and knots, the Toymaker brings the world into a State of Play, and Maestro introduces a State of Musicals. To challenge these beings, the Doctor must understand their particular ontology and exploit it. As soon as the Bogeyman in Space Babies faces real peril, all the children who were afraid of it rally to its defense, which doubles as both a commentary on the "Teatime Terror for Tots" charge thrown at children's media like Doctor Who--children LIKE scary stories and creepy, gross monsters!--and reinforces Davies's acidic anger at social and political abandonment of people who are inconvenient to the bottom line. Rogue plays gleefully with fanfiction tropes, and its positioning of the Chuldur as "cosplayers" would riiight up to the edge of being a little too navel gazing about toxic fans... if not for the fact that the Doctor and Ruby are also explicitly cosplaying as Bridgerton characters, and the episode is still giving fans exactly what they want in the form of a whirlwind gay Doctor/Rogue romance. This season is concerned with these sorts of metatextual games, without being subsumed by them and becoming entirely about self-referential brand building.

A Death in the Family is also, notably, only partly about Nobody No-one and his machinations and the counter-machinations required to stop him, set into motion by the Seventh Doctor and carried out beyond his death by companions Ace and Hex. Like I said, a lot of the seismic action of the story is over within the first 25 minutes. The Word Lord is really just used as a jumping off point to talk about a bunch of other stuff: truth, lies, choices made for ourselves or made for us by others... we see multiple information-worlds built in the story, some of them more subtle than others. At one point Ace tearfully proclaims that traveling on the TARDIS with the Doctor "is the only life I've ever wanted!" The Seventh Doctor retorts, with some audible guilt and distress, "No, it's the only life you've ever HAD!" In a very real sense, the Doctor has created the notional worlds that Ace and Hex inhabit, defining the contours of Ace's life since she was a teenager, and deliberately staying silent about Hex's traumatic family history, deciding for both of them "what's best". Nobody No-one in that sense is a pretext, in the best tradition of Doctor Who, to dig into questions about power.

The metafictional is risky, but it's a narrative tool like any other, and it fits with a long history of Doctor Who as a franchise reflecting on itself and its place in culture, with everything from the Mind Robber's suggestion that the Doctor himself might be an escapee from fiction, to Vengeance on Varos and Trial of a Time Lord's dramatization of Doctor Who's conservative culture war critics, to the Last Great Time War as metaphor for the show's cancellation. In a sense, behaving as though cosplay or fandom or whatever don't exist and couldn't possibly be the idiom through which characters--even weird alien characters--interpret their reality and act upon it might equally alienate the show from being about any wider culture beyond itself, endlessly, the same dalek and cybermen and Master stories recycling forever. My hope is just that as Davies barrels into the finale at full speed, it's this sense of a meaning for Doctor Who beyond its own lore driving him. The anger we've seen from him about social issues, the commitment to changing the show where it needs to grow, and the willingness to take big swings at continuity all give me some reason to feel confident.

Confident, of course, that he has seen the wisdom and logic of building his arc around Susan Twist being a Word Lord. What? That's what this article is about, remember? That didn't stop being a thing. Anyway, I'm excited for friday, when all of us pulling for this theory will be proven indisputably right, and you will all, in deference, subscribe to my Patreon.

* alleged ** hypothetical *** me, specifically

[gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

does all the information on here have actual sources or is some of it ur own creation?

Does all the information here have sources?

Yep! Nothing is pulled out of thin air; it’s all rooted in genuine Doctor Who lore. Some of it is speculative with some creative license because it has to be, but everything is firmly based on established canon. I always prioritise canonical responses and specify when I’m being more theoretical.

🧠 How each area is approached ...

🗣️Language: The Gallifreyan language is a conlang, but whenever there’s a real word or concept in Doctor Who lore, I'll provide that first. I always specify when I have to default to the conlang if I can't provide canonical answers.

📅 Friday Facts: These are always hard, real facts, and I always provide a source.

🧬 Biology: I work in medicine, so this is my special interest. It's more comprehensively constructed than any other area. It bases itself on almost every mention of Gallifreyan and Time Lord biology in any medium, supported by anatomical textbooks, online medical databases, and multiple learning resources. All sources are cross-referenced and analysed, ensuring that the biological systems are both true to Doctor Who lore and scientifically rationalised.

💭 Hypothetical Questions: For random questions like "How do Gallifreyans view balloon animals?" or "Do Gallifreyans wear Speedos?" where there's literally no information at all in lore and probably never will be, I use known facts about Gallifreyan society and biology to create the most plausible answers (and before you ask, it's a personal preference for Speedos and balloon animals are just plain weird not matter what planet you're on).

📚 The sources used include ...

My Brain

Rassilon, Omega, and That Other Guy x (information found here is located in the original source and checked)

TARDIS Wiki x (information found here is located in the original source and checked)

Tardis Technical Index x

Parkin, L. and Pearson, L., 2018. Ahistory: An Unauthorized History of the Doctor Who Universe. Volumes 1-3. 4th ed. Mad Norwegian Press. x x x

Reference Guide x

Discontinuity Guide x

Chrissie’s Transcripts x

Standring, S. 2020. Gray’s Anatomy: The Anatomical Basis of Clinical Practice. Gray’s Anatomy. x

Tortora, G. and Derrickson, B., 2017. Tortora's Principles of anatomy & physiology. 15th ed. Wiley. x

Waugh, A. and Grant, A., 2018. Ross & Wilson anatomy and physiology in health and illness. 13th ed. Edinburgh: Elsevier. x

BMJ Best Practice x

British National Formulary (BNF) x

ClinicalKey x

NICE x

Skills for Health x

Osmosis from Elsevier x

Oxford Medical Handbooks x

Patient for Medical Professional x

You can find the source list for canonical references at the bottom of every post, including this one.

It's currently moving along with the anatomy guide, so right now, it's only focused on biology and is a WIP. This source list extracts and examines the relevant information in the DW EU directly from the primary source to help support anatomical concepts. Each extract is contextually checked. It's all ridiculously academic.

🔍 Then there's the evidence hierarchy ...

Because Doctor Who is such a ridiculous universe with a million conflicting sources, I use an evidence hierarchy to harmonise and prioritise information. The highest priority is at the top:

TV Show: Classic and New series are of joint importance, including animations and info on lost episodes. Any conflicts are sorted on a case-by-case basis.

Spin-offs and Extended Broadcast Media: Full spin-off series (Torchwood, SJA, Class, etc.), BBC-produced minisodes, animations, cartoons, trailers, and charity broadcasts.

BBC Books/Audio: BBC-produced main book ranges, audios, and comics.

Big Finish: Main ranges, crossovers, spin-offs. Excludes alternate universe stories like Doctor Who Unbound and Death Comes to Time.

Other BBC-Licensed Material: Books, audios, comics, and board games. Includes Virgin New Adventures, IDW and Titan ranges, and other BBC-licensed content, plus anything that got deleted from above.

Proximal Sources: Production team comments and other relevant but less reliable sources.

At any point, the answers I give could be invalidated by new releases, but at the time of posting, they’re the most likely and detailed responses you could get. I would absolutely detail every source on Tumblr if I could, but I just don't have the time because unfortunately, this isn’t my full-time job 😭 However, the Anatomy and Physiology Guide will be fully referenced when released.

🎉 So, what's GIL all about?

Essentially, GIL is designed to be a kind of information point where you can ask the weirdest, dumbest, and most intriguing questions and I'll try my best to provide accurate and comprehensive answers that align most with established lore. As mentioned, I specialise particularly in Gallifreyan biology, but I'll take pretty much anything.

Why? I have no idea. Help me.

Any purple text is educated guesswork or theoretical. More content ... →📫Got a question? | 📚Complete list of Q+A and factoids →😆Jokes |🩻Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts →🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (pending) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine Guides →📝Source list (WIP) →📜Masterpost If you're finding your happy place in this part of the internet, feel free to buy a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious. She works full-time in medicine and is so very tired 😴

[croh3]

i really like how torchwood, a notoriously queer show, used to air on russian television.

and, because it's russia, the guys tried to no-homo their way through via cutting out kiss scenes and changing dialogue.

but you see. there is one episode where gwen walks in on jack and ianto having gay sex. and you can't exactly cut that out, i mean, there is an important dialogue after that. but the guys in charge of making it "russian-tv presentable" didn't give up. they did what they did best. they cut out the kiss part and only left a bit of gay sex. as well as half naked jack and ianto talking to gwen afterwards. this is making me lose my shit for some reason.

[thetempleofthemasaigoddess]

I've finally started watching the eleventh season of Father Brown!!!

I think my favourite is episode five, "The Father, The Son...". While John Light is amazing as usual as Flambeau, I particularly enjoyed Ian Gelder's performance as his father.

Ian Gelder died only three weeks ago, of cancer; this was the last role of his career, that spanned more than five decades. Since his partner, Ben Daniels (another great actor!) had to stop working to take care of him, I can only imagine how painful and debilitating his illness may have been. The one on Father Brown was his only performance in the last three years - like him, his character was a gay man dying of cancer. You have to wonder if the story, or the character, appealed to him so much he decided to come of out of retirement.

I don't know exactly where I am going with this; I had seen Ian Gelder in Torchwood: Children of the Earth (as mr. Dekker), Doctor Who (as Zellin) and Game of Thrones (as Kevan Lannister) and even though I immediately recognised him and found him a capable actor I cannot say I was a fan of his or anything.

Still, I think I will remember this episode for a long time. Gelder's performance as a dying man seeking redemption and forgiveness really moved me; as far as we know he had no children -and never killed anyone...- but I hope he died in peace, surrounded by the people he loved.

It also pains me we can't hope to see the two Flambeau together again in a future episode - maybe with Marianne as well, since Flambeau told his father about her; it would have been so cool!

[jakowskis]

torchwood fanfic resources

so i'm a chronic livejournal archaeologist, and fixating on 2000s media is particularly fun for me because it means i get to go digging on lj / dw / old fanfic forums. below you'll find some of the excavations from my torchwood fixation (give it up for month 6!) it's pretty much got every comm i've ever stumbled upon and found useful, or thought others would find useful. it's largely fanfic-oriented, though there's some more generalized comms, too. i hope you guys enjoy!

i was originally going to include a link to my reclist on this post as well, but it's still a wip, so i'll just post that separately in the future.

general disclaimer: most of the content here is from 2006-2013 or so. period-typical attitudes may pop up in places. i'm not sure if most modern tw fans have witnessed the original fandom at all, but i felt a need to say this anyway, because i've seen some icky stuff. i've warned for anything notable. gwen bashing in particular may unfortunately pop up in some of these comms, especially in the comments, so tread carefully.

if you're new to probing through old lj comms, remember to always have the wayback machine on hand, because you're going to run into a lot of purged accounts and seemingly lost fics, but sometimes you get lucky and something's been archived :)

as of the date i'm posting this, all of these comms are still accessible, but if you're from the future and some have been deleted, again, go ahead and give the wayback machine a try. additionally, livejournal has a system that includes 'cross-posting' in which, if authors choose to (and the majority of them do, to get their fics more visibility), fics get posted to multiple comms at once. so chances are, even if one comm gets deleted, the contents will survive through other comms. kind of like how reblogs continue to exist even when the original blog is deleted.

finally, ctrl + f is your best friend if you have a specific ship/character/trope you're invested in, especially in comms with less than ideal tagging systems. if a comm does have a substantial tagging system, you can find all of its tags by adding '/tags' the end of the urls i've provided.

ok... let's begin :-)

assorted livejournal communities

✎ torch-wood: this is essentially a torchwood subreddit. it started before the show even aired, and one of the highlights of it is episode reaction posts (easily accessible on the right side of the lj) that document how everyone immediately reacted to the eps, which is pretty damn cool, fandom-history wise. only thing i should mention is there's quite a lot of gwen and owen bashing in the comments of some of those reaction posts, so just be wary of that if you love those two like i do, 'cuz it's a bit of a bummer.

✎ torchwood-three: this comm is an extremely cool then-daily newsletter (that still updates sometimes?!) that compiled as much fan-content as it could find into cleanly organized lists. the posts made immediately after new episodes aired contain reactions, discussions, meta, theories, new fic, fanmixes, just about everything. very very cool to go back and see the way the fandom was thinking as the show was airing and as they were getting to know the characters. here's a direct link to all posts made in late 2006, during the airing of s1.

✎ torchwood-fic: exactly what it says on the tin. desktop layout is easy to navigate, tags are all there!

✎ torchwood-fic's profile page also features a list of affiliated accounts that's pretty handy. it's worth taking a peek at, in case i've excluded anything in this post that you might be interested in.

✎ twgenrefinders: handy dandy comm where people would ask for fics of a certain variety & be treated with reclists, or hyper-specific fics... pretty cool stuff, ive got several threads bookmarked to sort through the links later. ofc, please note that some of the things people asked for might be stinky. particularly i've seen a lot of ppl requesting gwen bashing fics :/

✎ twstoryfinder: cousin to the above comm; here, people would ask for a very specific fic they'd lost. it's kind of fun to find fics through because you get someone describing memorable scenes + hyping it up, so it's different than just a standard summary. this one still gets posted on, too, which is crazyyy.

✎ tw-unpaired: for gen fics! no romance allowed! there's some good character studies + friendship fics in there. stuff's tagged by character + authors are even tagged, in case you find one whose writing you particularly enjoy. this is v useful for when someone's main journal has been deleted.

✎ torchwood-decaf: a comm where janto is BANNED. nah i'm kidding, it's not anti-janto, it was just made because janto is so huge that it overshadows everything else. pretty smart, tbh; wading through the sheer mass of janto content can be tiresome.

✎ jack-in-cuffs: for dark tw fic, or uber smutty tw fic. as a fan of dark!fic, there's some goodies in here, but of course it's not everyone's cup of tea. most of the writers included warnings, but if you go a little further back, some people weren't as courteous; navigate with caution.

✎ jack-owen: for fic featuring our captain and his (second favorite) doctor. i know this pairing's kinda divisive nowadays, but i enjoy it a lot. the comm's got a dismal tagging system and, ngl, i don't truly like any of the fics there (i'm very intrigued by jack and owen's relationship but i've never found fic that really does them justice, and i still haven't figured out how to write them myself) - but i'll include it anyway.

✎ odetojoi: for fic featuring owen in the middle of a janto sandwich, for those of us who are allergic to women (/sarcasm). there's an oddly impressive supply of fics of the three of them, and a good chunk of them can be found in this comm. (everytime i see this comm i think of a certain abbreviation found in p/rnogr/phy... but i digress)

✎ halfwee-and-tea: for ianto x owen fic. haven't gone through this one much, truthfully. i hate when comms have no tagging systems agh.

✎ owenharper-fans: a comm for the saddest undeadest bisexualest doctor around. also features a few burn appreciation posts, which is nice to see pre-pac rim era. mostly just features a shit ton of owen fic, particularly owen x ianto fic. mostly sufficiently tagged. if you need me once i post this, btw, i will be balls deep in this comm.

✎ the pro-owen alliance: another owen-focused comm - i think this one was made directly in response to owen bashing. haven't combed through this one much but it's got a fair amount of fics.

✎ house-of-cooper: a gwen comm! made in response to gwen bashing. haven't gone through it, but i'm glad it exists.

✎ torchwoodcoffee: ianto comm! this one's hugeee. the majority of it's janto, but the pairings aren't tagged, which is really frustrating. about 6k fics on there, though! just untagged. fff.

✎ tw-femficfest: a comm for fic about any and all of the torchwood ladies. tagging's cleanly done & there's some handy fic round ups, too.

✎ tw-femslash: yuri!!! wahoo!!! a comm for f/f tw ships. there's quite a lot of fic on here, but unfortunately there's no tagging whatsoever. sigh.

✎ tw-classic: a comm for 'all things series one and two of torchwood'. was made after s3 and was popular around s4 out of nostalgia for the golden age <3 good amount of fic, discussions, etc.

✎ torchwood-house: this comm is, like, letterboxd, but for torchwood fanfic. basically a group of individuals who thought of themselves as having Good Taste would read Good Fic and then go in this comm and write a post about why they recommend it. it's well-made, easy to scroll through, and sells the fics v well, and it kinda gets you more excited to read them when you get to see someone hype them up with Fancy Words. it's like a little torchwood yaoi bookclub. we're eating quiche

✎ tw100: a drabble challenge; this thing's full of 100 word drabbles. ngl i hate drabbles but i'm throwing it in here anyway

✎ touchyerwood: i love kink memes... i love kink memes less when my favorite character/pairing is unpopular. the pac rim kink meme's been a blessing bc i'm a basic ass newmann - the torchwood kink meme? not so much. it's got a fair amount of shit, though, so maybe someone else will appreciate it. this one isn't the original, that one's been wiped off the internet, to my chagrin. keep in mind before digging that people in kink memes are horny & gross. that's your warning.

✎ reel-torchwood: for any and all movie aus... ok i have a bone to pick with this comm. i'm a big movie nerd, i love film, i've seen dozens of films i've thought would make good aus - i combed through this and there is not a SINGLE fic in there that piqued my interest. NOTHING. needless to say my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined. i'm sure my experiences aren't universal though.

✎ torchwoodslash: ah, remember when we called it slash? gee whiz. i'm not big on this comm, it's not very user friendly + there's like no tags whatsoever so it's extremely hard to navigate. enter at your own risk & good luck, lol.

✎ rounds-of-kink: this isn't a torchwood-exclusive comm, but it's got a sizeable torchwood tag, which can be found here. pretty organized tagging system; makes me happy.

✎ tw-declassified: this comm was mainly used for running a 'torchwood bingo', which, i've been in other fandoms that do episode bingos and it's usually cute... this one confused me a little so i didn't bother peeking around too much, but still a cool little bit of fandom history.

✎ writerinadrawer: this was an annual torchwood writer's challenge that ran for four years... it's kinda hard to navigate but it does have some fic in it so i'm putting it here.

✎ dmarley-recs: a recs journal someone ran for compiling torchwood fic; it's got a l o t of recs on there, largely jack/ianto.

ok and straying from lj briefly for two other places to find fic...

✎ kink_bingo: this is a dreamwidth comm, and it's not torchwood-exclusive, so i've linked straight to the torchwood tag. this comm has a livejournal equivalent, but for some reason the tw tag is pretty barren on that one? not sure why. but on dw it's got a fair amount. the tagging system is rough, it tags fandom and kink but not pairing, which is irritating, and every post is hidden under a cut AND makes you go through a discretion barrier every single time (but probably only if you don't have an account? i'm not logged in) which makes navigation a pain. but i dunno, more smut, if you want it.

✎ whofic.com: this site is for doctor who fic, but it's got a very substantial amount of torchwood fic. i do not, however, like the formatting at all. i'm being overly nice; i HATE the formatting. it's very reminiscent of fanfic dot net but, like, worse. it reminds me of adultfanfiction dot org which was a NIGHTMARE to use. but! there is torchwood fic there so it's going in here.

aaaand there we go! that's all i have. i hope these prove handy! enjoy :D

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hi Steph!!

You know some fics in wich Sherlock is an alien?

The idea popped up in my head yesterday but i don't know exactly how to search it on AO3.

Thank you!

Hi Nonny!

I do! These are the only "alienlock" fics I know of, though one is John-alien:

The Kepler Problem by kinklock (E, 24,270 w., 1 Ch. || Sci-Fi AU || Alien Sherlock, Space Repairman John, Alien Biology, Horny John) – Working in uncharted space exploration was not as exciting as John had hoped, especially when it turned out to be mostly bot maintenance on uninhabited planets. However, the mystery of the repeated, unexplained malfunctions on planet BAK 2212 might turn out to be exactly the kind of adventure he'd been craving.

The Semantics of Crop Circle Formation: a case study by Sherlock Holmes [unpublished] by canolacrush (M, 41,710 w., 9 Ch. || Post-S2, Sherlock POV First Person, Aliens, Wordplay, Case Fic) – “Look at these photographs,” I said, gesturing to the wall of crop circles. “What do you observe?” “Crop circles,” John replied. “Obvious. What else?” “Are…are those intestines surrounding them?” “Yes. The majority are bovine and ovine in origin. The farmers who have acquired these crop circles in their fields have also had a tenth of their livestock murdered and arranged thus.” “Why?” John said, presumably in a rhetorical fashion. I detest rhetorical questions. “That is what I must find out, John.”

Names for the Galaxy by evadne (E, 191,101 w., 38 Ch. || Future Sci-Fi AU || First Time, Violence, Teacher/Student Dynamics, Ableism, Angst, Bigotry, Disturbing Content, Amnesia) – Sherlock Holmes is a recent arrival to 22nd century earth, and determined to find out who he is and where he comes from. John Watson has the unenviable task of teaching him how to be a normal human being.  Part 1 of the Names for the Galaxy series 

====

And these fics are "alien adjacent" in a sense:

Captain John Watson, Genetics, and Other Crazy Things by cyerus (M, 5,581 w., 1 Ch. || Torchwood Crossover ||  Humour / Crack, Jealous Sherlock, Sexual Magnet John, Captain John, UST / RST, Three Continents Watson) – The explanation for John "Three Continents" Watson? Jack Harkness is his father. Sherlock doesn't know whether he's going to die from jealousy or sexual frustration first.

The Short Tragic Death of John Watson by Calais_Reno (M, 49,681 w., 9 Ch. || Actor / TV Show AU || John “Dies”, Victor Trevor, Past Drug Abuse, POV Sherlock, Suicidal John, Implied / Referenced Abuse, Acting, Pining Sherlock, Happy Ending) – Thirteen years ago, Sherlock starred in a television series about an alien boy stranded on Earth. Now Molly has written a reunion episode and he's expected to join his old costars and recreate the role of Alex Tribble, now an adult returning to rescue his old friends from an alien threat. Having had some success since playing a teenage alien, Sherlock is reluctant to reprise the role. And there's another problem no one wants to discuss: John Watson, who played his best friend, is dead.

If He Be Worthy by AndyHood (T, 58,110 w, 18 Ch. || Avengers / MCU Crossover || Friendship, Adventure) – In the aftermath of the alien invasion of London, Coulson's team is set out to retrieve a man, a man that had picked up Thor's hammer. John Watson hadn't meant to get mixed up in the alien invasion only intending to repay a favor. He had only been surveying the damage done by the aliens when he had tripped on a hammer, he didn't know the significance of being able to pick it up.

Perdition's Flames by i_ship_an_armada (E, 63,435 w., 21 Ch. || Treklock AU, Est. Rel, Genetic Engineering, Angst & Fluff, BAMF!John) – Sherlock would do anything to save him. Risk anything. Give anything. His money, his life. His soul. What he does, though, is change both of their destinies forever. Genetic re-engineering is the only option left. It turns out researchers underestimated the life expectancy and potential abilities of genetically re-engineered subjects. The British government and what would eventually become the United Federation of Planets, however, had not. Part 1 of PF Universe

Out There by DiscordantWords (T, 131,695 w., 10 Ch. || X-Files Fusion || Past Soldier John, Panic Attacks, POV Alternating Present Tense, Anxious John, Canon Adjacent, Deductions, Obsessive Sherlock,, Travelling, Sherlock’s Family, Jealous Sherlock, Mind Palace John, Awkward Flirting, Kidnapped/Abducted John, Semi-Reverse Reichenbach, Worried/Anxious Sherlock, Hospital, Slow Burn, UST, Case Fic, Government Conspiracy, Aliens, UFOs, Mutants, Mutual Pining, First Kiss, Coma John, Forehead Touching, Hand Holding, Drinking/Bars, Past Jolto) – FBI Special Agent John Watson, medical doctor and army veteran, is assigned to assist eccentric genius Sherlock Holmes with paranormal investigations on the X-Files project.

====

And finally, I think you'll also enjoy these lists:

Science Fiction / Fantasy

Doctor Who Crossover Fics (MFLs)

If anyone has something that they would love to suggest, please do!

[sexy-sapphic-sorcerer]

asking about your piss take headcanon that merlin and dr who take place in the same universe

hell yeah!

ok so in Journey's End (4x14) the Doctor explains that Gwen from Torchwood looks exactly like Gwyneth from The Unquiet Dead (1x03) due to 'spatial genetic multiplicity'

Russell T Davies described it as the 'repetition of physical traits across a time rift'.

Oh, the time rift in Cardiff? the time rift only 16 miles away from Caerleon, where Camelot was supposedly located

which is interesting because you know who else bares a striking resemblance to Gwen and Gwyneth? Lady Helen from the first episode of Merlin

(and I think she also low key looks like that actress Eve Myles, but maybe that's just me)

if this isn't enough to convince you, need I remind you that the characters of Arthurian Legend very much exist in the whoniverse

the Doctor's involvement in King Arthur's life is incredibly convoluted and contradictory, even within DW canon. But many stories involve the Doctor intervening to ensure that things go according to Arthurian Legend and earth's history remains consistent

for instance, there is a plot in Classic Who where Arthur's body is placed in a spaceship at the bottom of the lake, in an effort to follow the legend that he is "in eternal sleep until England's greatest need", as Ace quotes. The Doctor says that Merlin must have been involved and yet the spaceship is activated by the Doctor's voice, which is "exactly the kind of thing (the Doctor) would do". Leading Ace to ask:

clearly, some of Merlin's actions are fixed points in time and the Doctor must confirm that those things come to pass at some stage in his future

so, when does the Doctor go back to intervene with Arthur's burial and various other events? is it during the Seventh Doctor's run? One story suggests that it was the Eighth Doctor

but I would argue it was the regeneration after that. The version of the Doctor who attempted to make peace during genocide against his race and was betrayed and defeated. The last of his kind, desperate and ruthless

the version of the Doctor that sounds eerily similar to Kilgharrah (and also a bit like John Hurt)

you know, Kilgharrah, who manipulates Merlin to act in accordance with an abstract fate that only he understands

"but the Doctor can't be Kilgharrah, he's a dragon!"

bet. 2 words: chameleon arch

it can modify a Time Lord's biology, turning them into a different species. Sure, usually into a human, but who's to say that it can't work for dragons?

Time Lords still retain their time sensitivity, which would explain how Kilgharrah has an innate knowledge that some events are fated and others are subject to change

and then Kilgharrah's laments about "watching civilisations rise and fall" and his vengeance against Uther are repressed memories from the Time War

maybe it was while the Doctor was a fugitive from the Time War and he decided to kill two birds with one stone and go into hiding as a dragon. and then also make sure that the Arthurian Legend timeline was in order

so, destiny doesn't exist at all, it's just the War Doctor spouting out bullshit riddles to keep the time stream straight

of course, if these characters exist in the same universe, what about Merlin/Jethro, Uther/Mr Finch, Gaius/Dr Constantine, Gwen/Katherine, Percival/Jeff, Nimueh/Lady Christina, Lady Vivian/Jenny, Will/Cline, the list goes on

I have crack theories for those too, each one more deranged than the last, but this post is long enough already

[aq2003]

i know it's only been 4 episodes in but i think. tosh is. not getting any substantial character moments. and this bothers me. like i keep thinking abt how in episode 1 they show the rest of torchwood (besides the core three ianto/gwen/jack. ianto is intentionally kept mysterious but you know we'll find out more abt him ie episode 4. the audience already knows jack pretty well from the main show. gwen is quite literally the pov character for the audience a la rose martha or donna from the main show) outside of work, what they do: owen uses that perfume to pick up a girl (and her bf) at a bar - this sets up him as The Mean Hedonistic One and having intimacy/boundary problems as all hell. susie practices with the "bringing things back to life" glove - as the rest of the episode establishes, she's someone that watched way too many people die and she lets the alien power get to her head. and tosh. she.. uses the alien tech to.. read really fast. what does this tell us about her? that she's just. likes knowing things? like ten from the main show is the same but he has very substantial traits other than that bit where he puts on his glssses and goes "books"! he's clingy, he's arrogant, he's easily frustrated/angered, he's very protective. and like for tosh we know she's good with computers, we know she ... likes reading... and that's kind of it? nothing more is done with this? and it's like. it's not like ianto where she's intentionally kept mysterious bc more will be revealed later, she's the least important side character in the show. idk maybe she gets more development but it's kind of disappointing that so much of the torchwood cast feels very 3 dimensionally written in that classic rtd flair except for her. i know it's just been 4 episodes but you'd think the whole cast would be set up well at the start

[upslapmeal]

The Three Doctors

They're comin back baybeeeeeeee

lmao Three stirring his coffee with science equipment

Liz must have been turning in her...idk office chair?

‘make yourself at home. we’re only supposed to be a top secret security establishment’

need that handshake meme for UNIT and Torchwood where the middle says ''''''''secret''''''''

‘when I tell you to run, you run’

nooo RIP Bessie 

Benton seeing the TARDIS for the first time!

‘Sergeant, aren’t you going to say that it’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside? everybody else does’ 

‘the first law of time expressly forbids him to meet himself’ guys I've got bad news for you about something that is going to happen many times

Two!!!! 

recorder!!!!

TWO!!!!!!! 

‘I can see you’ve been doing the TARDIS up a bit. I don’t like it’ there it is!!

‘you don’t mind do you’ ‘ yes’ ‘I didn’t think you would’ I love them and I’ve missed Two

‘CONTACT’ ‘CONTACT’ 

‘show me the earliest Doctor’ aaaaaaaaaaaa

One <3 <3 <3

‘oh so you’re my replacements, a dandy and a clown’

it’s quite sad how you can tell Bill is struggling but it’s so good to see him again

‘so stop dilly dallying and cross it!’

interesting seeing the Time Lords like.. actually doing a job

I mean I guess we kinda got it in the War Games but this is Desk Job Managing Time

‘where are we’ you’re in a quarry Jo

‘you’re his assistant’ ‘his WHAT??’

 ‘care for a jelly baby’ wait this started with Two??

‘e=mc^2…well there’s no doubt about that’ glad they could confirm that this character is a Scientist

‘I can boost this through the TARDIS’s communications circuit..’ *all the contents fall out* ‘..I think’ oh boy the Brig is this close to ensuring that Two regenerates early

One again!!!!!

‘who in the name of heaven was that’ ‘I’m afraid you’d never believe me’

‘he told me to and I’ve always had a great respect for his advice’

I love One being trated like the Wise Elder when he's literally the baby of the group

beyonce meme OMEGA??

‘mind over antimatter’ good to see he shares the Doctor's propensity for making bad puns

‘there’s sand everywhere!!!’ ‘oh splendid, who’s for a swim’ I genuinely think the Brig might explode

oh yikes I see why Omega wears the helmet 

I’m so glad we’re getting a bit of One each episode, I thought it was going to be a one (heh) off

‘are you sure that you and he are the same intelligence’ savage Omega 

can’t wait for Two’s recorder to end up saving the day

‘we cannot take off the mask because..’ ur too ugly

oh that’s a proper cry of anguish

‘three of them. I didn’t know when I was well off’ oh the Brig is going to need a holiday

lol the recorder actually is going to save the day

‘wonderful chap. both of him’

 ‘you young men and I’ One you realise these are older versions of you right??

‘I shudder to see what you’ll do without me’ One’s actual final words (Hurndall and Bradley you don’t count)

ahhh I love seeing all three names in the credits!

I think if I had been a kid in 1972 I would have lost my mind with excitement seeing One and Two again!! At least I know I'll be getting some more Two in the future...

[reverse-the-jellybaby]

Finally catching up on Doctor Who (I’ve been busy and only watching video essays on YouTube) and I have the following thoughts:

1. I haaaaated Space Babies. I haven’t absolutely hated a Doctor Who episode in a long time and the urge to skip was so real. I don’t know if it was the fact that I’m super childfree and have a low tolerance for content featuring children (especially babies), but this was a slog to get through and the plot was stupid. Don’t get me wrong I don’t hate kids, I just can’t stand 45 minutes of our protagonists cooing over them. The spoonfed way the doctor gives us the cliffs notes to the series like the House of Mouse thinks the audience has the attention span of a goldfish is insulting. It made me want to go Ncuti baby I’m so sorry, Millie honey I am SO sorry.

2. I can’t seem to get a read on Fifteen yet and I’m not sure how I feel about how aloof and emotionally distant he is. Like he’s so cheerful and optimistic that I’m convinced there’s something going on under there. I’ve always said I love an aloof Doctor a-la Seventh but I guess it’s early days, he might end up being even more Machiavellian 🤷🏻‍♀️ he’s kinda reminding me of early Eleven without the angry outbursts.

3. The one saving grace of Space Babies was the running gag about the nanny filter, I thought that was really funny.

4. The Devil’s Chord on the other hand was SO camp, and Jinkx Monsoon was nom nom nomming on all that scenery. You can tell she had the time of her life in this role. Please Russell we need more drag queens! Get Tia Kofi in next, she’s a whovian (she literally cosplayed as Eleven and Lisa from Torchwood on Insta)! It was such an interesting idea to explore how intrinsic music is to our world.

5. Loving that Fifteen is the doctor that’s serving fits rather than having one distinctive costume. Makes a nice change.

6. Never thought I’d hear the DOCTOR use the word “babes” frequently but I’m not mad about it, make the neckbeards cry at how queer everything is.

7. Have to say I was expecting the musical number to have an absolutely brutal out of left field twist at the end, but I can’t have everything.

8. I’ve only seen the preview for Boom and my first thought was that scene in Genesis of the Daleks where Harry has to rescue the Doctor when he’s standing on a land mine. Like, I’m not even the first person to make that comparison. But ANOTHER parallel I saw was in The Devil’s Chord - the moment the Doctor brings Ruby back to post apocalyptic 2024 reminded me a lot of when the Doctor did the same with Sarah in Pyramids of Mars. AND THATS NOT EVEN THE ONLY TIME RTD HAS WRITTEN PYRAMIDS OF MARS INTO ONE OF HIS SHOWS! He literally showed whole clips of it in Queer as Folk 😂

9. I caught that sneaky use of the surname “Colasanto” in Space Babies RTD, we love a subtle Miracle Day reference.

10. I fucking loved Ruby bluffing their way into EMI studios rather than the doctor relying on the psychic paper.

That’s about all I have for now, I’m gonna catch up on Boom and 73 Yards possibly today?? I’m actually amazed I’ve managed to dodge spoilers for this long.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Small question: in your Doctor Who rewatch so far, what do you know about Torchwood? I didn't see it in your questions list, obviously since you've discovered it in Tooth and Claw, but I assume there'd be a reference to it being ...questionable... somewhere?

Also, what's the minuteness with which you watch the episode? (For example, would you notice a mysterious graffiti reading "Bad Wolf" or a sign with "Torchwood"? Or are you going in "unaware"?)

So far, it has literally only been mentioned in Tooth and Claw, and that was the scene that just explained what it is. Or, well; how it was founded. And that's it! We shall see what comes of it. We've had a similar situation with Division, where the episode that introduced it was the one that explained entirely what it is lol.

If we see something that we know will be relevant, we add it to the list (assuming I remember). Purely because the aim of the watch order is to show how information is revealed this way, so future-relevant hints get chucked in.

This is a very stupid project.

[presidentdisastraofgallifrey]

Judging Doctor Who: Tenth Doctor

Disclaimer: This is all in good fun and I don't take fandom serious

Good episodes I like

New Earth - Cat nuns! The Doctor at his silliest! The return of Cassandra! Horrifying sentient clone people infected with every disease at once! What more could you want?

School Reunion - Sarah Jane Smith!!!!! This one does such a good job of showing the tragedy inherent to traveling with the Doctor, but how they'd all choose it anyway.

The Idiot's Lantern - another good balance of silly and creepy, and so very sad but like in a fixable way this time

Fear Her - I have heard this one is unpopular and I don't get it?? It's sad lonely children struggling to cope and accidentally hurting people. It feels very sweet and relatable and a nice filler type episode

Smith and Jones - this is SUCH a good intro for Martha with her smarts and bravery! Also! Judoon! On the moon!

Gridlock - this introduces so many cultural aspects of New Earth, I love it. Also horrifying but hopeful. I may have a type.

Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks - this felt like a very classic dalek plot but still with the obligatory new and unexpected lore, and the love story b-plot was sweet

Blink - Again, everyone loves this one for a reason. Sooooo creepy.

Partners in Crime - their dynamic is so chaotic. They enable each other. It's great.

The Fires of Pompeii - Just a very good story

Planet of the Ood - So beautiful and so sad!

The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky - I maintain the genius school bit was unnecessary, but I liked the rest of it! The horror of relying on technology until it turns on you! Sontarans are great! Also Martha is in this one!

The Doctor's Daughter - Oh the inherent tragedy of a war long outlasting living memory that started only months ago! Also the Doctor being sad about his family!

The Unicorn and the Wasp - I am a sucker for anything fitting an Agatha Christie framework, and it had a great dose of Doctor Who weirdness

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead - It's scary! It's sad! River is there and she loves him and she sacrifices herself for him the very first time he meets her and he'll know that every other time!!

Turn Left - My actual favorite genre of episode of anything is when shows create their own alternative universe of what if? Also! Donna is so so ordinary but the most important person in the universe!

The Stolen Earth/Journey's End - This was a powerful finale, and I loved seeing everyone he'd ever known come together. And also Donna's end was so beautifully tragic

The Next Doctor - This is kind of au-adjacent while still functioning in universe, and I love the all around confusion and hijinks

Bad Episodes I like

Tooth and Claw - The cult part of the plot feels a bit contrived and the episode is all over the place. But the royals are werewolves and we have Torchwood backstory!

The Girl in the Fireplace - The implied romance is forced and the story itself is flimsy, but I enjoyed the time skips and the drama was fun

Love and Monsters - sure it's silly but it's also really fun

Army of Ghosts/Doomsday - I don't think the cybermen appearing as ghosts on their way from the other universe thing makes much sense, but it's a good tragic end for Rose and has one of my favorite scenes ever of the daleks and cybermen arguing

The Runaway Bride - yes I love Donna's intro and their dynamic, but if I really think about it this plot is ridiculous

Good episodes I don't like

The Lazarus Experiment - This falls pretty firmly into being a very classic who monster of the week format, but I was bored

42 - I just really don't love the genre of story where they're trapped on a single space old station/ship with an invisible enemy

Voyage of the Damned - I couldn't think of anything strictly wrong with it, but I was bored

Midnight - This falls under the same genre as 42, just not my thing

Planet of the Dead - a little uninteresting, but a fine episode technically

The Waters of Mars - ok, this story is actually great, but I can't handle the water zombies. I've only seen it once. I will, however, be reading the novelization

Bad episodes I don't like

The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit - It was a little all over the place and I think trying to bring in the actual origin of Satan was lazy writing

The End of Time - Just, what? Apart from not liking Simm!Master anyway, this plot made no sense and the Master's plan had no apparent goal and his characterization was SO over the top (yes even for the Master) and they brought Gallifrey in but in the worst way. That said, Ten and Wilfred are a great duo

Episodes that are kind of offensive

The Christmas Invasion - It was otherwise a little wonky but fun, but I can't get over the treatment of Mickey

The Shakespeare Code - Same as above, otherwise kind of weird but alright, except for the way Martha is treated

Human Nature/The Family of Blood - I actually love this story but it is SO upsetting the way Martha gets all the responsibility, deals with a ton of period racism and sexism despite being the most educated person there, loses the only friend she makes, is constantly brushed aside by the Doctor, and basically wins the day but is NOT acknowledged for it

Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords - alright, this one is just bad for a number of reasons, but it goes here because I'll never be over brave, medically trained Martha getting her big independent heroic year which is...traveling and talking about how amazing the Doctor is while her family is held hostage

[ichangemyusertoomuch]

from your post about torchwood character analysis - do you have anything to say about owen? about his death maybe? or his dynamics with other characters?

personally I think Owen's progression is so ignored! many people really don't like him, and I think that's because they buy into his "mean guy" front too much, right from the start, when I prefer to see that as shield of some sorts.

chronologically: his childhood? sucked. in season two, episode five 'Adam', he talks about his mother, claiming that she said that she "didn't have to like him in order to love him". straight off the bat - what the hell - we see that she clearly was some form of abusive. presumably in an emotional manner, by not caring at all and being neglectful. therefore, possibly being a stem for his almost attention-seeking behavior (specifically in season one), where he acts 'mean' in order to get a reaction from others. alternatively it could suggest his self-neglect, as he doesn't actually look after himself, as shown through the means of sexual relationships without any long-term point.

the reason for this??

KATIE! his fiance. the one who literally died of an alien parasite before they could get married. in season two, episode twelve 'Fragments', we see a chunk of his backstory, before he became this 'selfish jerk'. I think that he was a really normal dude, genuinely in love. and the way that that relationship became an absolute trainwreck really mentally damaged him, the way he sees the world, the way he sees love and relationships. I think that kind of loss absolutely destroys a person and hence, as a defense mechanism to avoid the world from hurting him again: he decided to be an extremely unlikable idiot.

in 'Adam' Owen is stripped of his cool-ness and turns into - not many ways to put this - a needy geek. in a deleted scene I found on YouTube (I'll tag the series of deleted scenes below, it's somewhere in that vid), he calls his mother and tries to arrange meeting up with her. that is the only time we ever see him talk to her, and he's very much not himself: he's weaker and so he's dropped the emotion floodgates, calling his mother even though she hurt him. therefore, I feel that Owen isn't actually the jerk he pretends to be. supported by how literally just before he dies (for the final time), he reverts to being a normal person. his plain and sweet self. (which entirely heartbreaking, but I had to add that in, for his depth, my apologies everybody)

he had the affair with Gwen at the peak of the not-caring-about-anybody phase and really seemed to end up regretting it. he and Gwen (as friends) are really sweet, their vibes match so well and I love how they basically have a sibling dynamic.

as for Jack, well, Jack has this amazing power how everyone in Torchwood remains good friends no matter what. Owen shoots Jack? "I forgive you". Ianto shoots Owen? they're friends again in season two. and so I really do think that Jack and Owen are friends. they have trust. a lot of trust, but there is friction (look at the season one finale, for god's sake). Jack resurrected Owen because he emotionally wasn't ready to give him up, and that may have ended up being a selfish move because of how crushing it was on everyone involved.

the zombie arc was a massive challenge and he conquered it so incredibly. from episodes 9-13 (season two) he was fine, give or take the sarcastic comment. in season two, episode eight 'A Day in the Death', Jack provides nothing but tough love to Owen. being what he needed but didn't exactly want.

when Owen died fully in episode thirteen he was ready to stop living like he was. a walking corpse. he did not want to die, but he knew that his insanely fragile existence wasn't worth it.

in conclusion, I think Owen's progression is immaculate. he learns to drop the tough guy brick wall to the point where he has actual two way friendships. although, I do wish he'd had the date with Tosh. although I understand why it wasn't going to happen. they're destined away from each other. (maybe how Owen is destined to find anything but happiness)

thank you for reading, if you made it to here you're a real one 💪

the deleted scene: