Blog: Articles from July 2009

Major spoilers ahead.

Torchwood Day Two was even better than Day One, and so far Day Three has topped both of those combined. Davies successfully manages to raise the stakes in each successive episode, which can only mean a massive climax on Friday night. I can’t wait!

Day Two was definitely Gwen and Ianto’s moment to shine. Jack blew up at the end of Day One, so with him (temporarily) out of the picture, Gwen and Ianto are on their own and on the run. Gwen and her husband, Rhys, stowaway on a potato truck on its way to London. There, they meet up with Lois Habiba, a new girl in the Home Office who’s starting to wonder for which side she’s working. With a little help from her, they go off to rescue Captain Jack, only to find that he’s been imprisoned in a block of concrete.

Cue Ianto! He decides to steal the entire concrete cell with some heavy machinery conveniently left behind by the people who poured the concrete. Oh, and Gwen blows up the concrete mixer to cover their escape. They toss the concrete block off a cliff, and Jack emerges … naked, of course.

We get to see Ianto and Gwen out of their element; Gwen in particular steps up and becomes an action hero. I loved every moment of it. And we learn more about the nature of the 456—such as their atmospheric gas requirements, how romantic—but not much about what they want. The scientist—I forget his name—supervising the construction of the atmospheric tank for the 456 is very creepy; he has a very amoral attitude toward this whole situation and is more excited by the prospect of these aliens coming than the implications of their arrival for Earth and its children. We learn more about these implications in …

… Day Three. In which Gwen uses her knowledge from her days as a police officer to teach Ianto, Jack, and Rhys how to steal. In addition to stealing a nice car, Jack, who evidently feels that track pants are not for him, steals clothes identical to his trademark clothing (or maybe he has secret clothing caches hidden around London?). I love the idea that by forcing Torchwood underground, the Home Office has forced them to become criminals as well. The moment where Jack walks back into their comfy warehouse digs wearing his comfy digs was poignant: as he said it, he’s back. And it’s time to kick some ass.

Frobisher discovers that Jack has a daughter and grandchild and orders them brought in. This continues to emphasize the idea that he’s the villain, but it soon becomes clear he’s just as uncomfortable in what he’s doing as his subordinate, Lois, who continues to help the Torchwood team. Eventually we discover that Frobisher and Jack share complicity in whatever happened in 1965, the first time the 456 visited Earth.

This appearance of the 456 was sublime. The moment where we get to stare into the tank and see just the slightest hint of something in the fog was like a scene from a good suspense—not horror—film. The somewhat hesitant nature of the 456’s communications only adds to the creepy atmosphere their lack of appearance evokes.

Then there’s the twist at the very end, and you realize everything you believed is now suddenly so much more complicated. The somewhat insane Clem McDonald, a child present for the 1965 appearance of the 456, has been referring to the impending return of “the man,” whom we naturally assume is some sort of alien. But no, it’s Jack, and the moral ambiguity quotient gets ratcheted up….

As much as I am in love with the technological achievement that is the Amazon Kindle, I have to chastise Amazon and the producers of other eBook readers for what I see as a step backward.

You may have heard last week about Amazon deleting books off Kindles. This is worrisome because—as Jonathan Zittrain explains—it emphasizes how much you don’t own what you “buy” from Amazon or any other company that digs its claws into you by selling you tethered goods. We sacrifice our freedom to keep what we purchase in return for a little convenience in the purchasing.

That’s not all though. Barnes and Noble, bookstore rival to Amazon, plans on launching its own eReader from Plastic Logic. Now, I’m all for competing eReader devices and competing eBook stores. Competition breeds innovation. But what I don’t like is this:

At this point, B&N’s plan becomes clear—the books will be tied to the B&N e-reader, and not downloadable by Kindle or Sony Reader owners. Essentially B&N is trying to set up a closed ecosystem that’s a direct rival to Amazon’s, and that’s based from its bricks and mortar stores and a website, versus Amazon’s 100% cloud-based solution.

A synonym for “closed ecosystem” would be “proprietary network.” This harkens back to the early days of the World Wide Web, when the Web consisted of disparate service providers like CompuServe and Prodigy. Rather than buying the eReader right for me and then buying books from various online sources, I’m going to be locked into a single provider for my content—and apparently they have the right to veto my access to that content, even if I‘ve paid for it.

(To the credit of Barnes and Noble, their eBooks will not be restricted just to their Plastic Logic eReader. According to the Fast Company article to which I linked above, they will also have software available for the BlackBerry, PC, and of course, the notoriously proprietary iPhone. This is one step up from Amazon’s strategy with Kindle eBooks, I suppose.)

I understand why stores like Amazon and Barnes & Noble are doing this. They’re just trying to make a profit. And part of me wants to say, “OK, try it your way, and see if this works.” Yet I worry that such an attitude will do more harm than good, especially for authors and publishers. I sincerely doubt publishers will ever make much money on eBooks. The role of eBooks is in publicity, in attracting new fans and moving physical versions of the book—because rest assured, physical books aren’t going to disappear as eBooks gain popularity. Give the digital copy away for free, then charge for the hard copy.

Critics contend that this model is unrealistic: after all, then everyone with an Internet connection will just download the free copy and the publishers and authors would lose money! I somehow doubt that. Firstly, I much prefer reading books in hard copy, and most readers share this sentiment. Even improvements to eReaders to make reading more comfortable (such as the e-ink screen on this generation of eReaders) will never equal the feel of a bound paper volume in my hands. Secondly—and I‘m sure you’ve noticed this yourself—having easy access doesn’t automatically mean I’ll take advantage of it. I currently have easy access to 30,000 free books from Project Gutenberg. Guess what I‘m doing right now? That’s right, I‘m not reading a single one. Because I’m lazy. On the other hand, if I‘ve got a physical copy of a book on my shelf, I have an impetus to read it.

But hey, maybe I’m just a dreamer. It’s not my job to come up with new revenue models, just to shoot down existing ones!

Incidentally, if you’re looking for more information on this subject, check out Jonathan Zittrain’s The Future of the Internet—And How to Stop It, available for free download under a Creative Commons license. And if you like the book, buy the hard copy version.

Monday signalled the beginning of a week of mass mayhem, Scotland versus England humour, and alien threats to the security of our planet. Yes, I‘m talking about the American and Canadian premiere of season 3 of Torchwood, aka Torchwood: Children of the Earth. If you’ve been living under a rock for the past year, this is a five-part miniseries format change to accompany Torchwood’s move to BBC One.

For those of you in Canada who missed the broadcast or who don’t get Space, you’re in luck! You can watch Torchwood online for up to seven days after it airs on television. Now, the CBC has also been good about making its television shows available online; they‘ve shafted Doctor Who and Torchwood over and over, however, so I’m happy to see them finding a new home on Space. Space will also be showing the Easter Doctor Who special, Planet of the Dead, this Saturday.

I must confess that I‘m not in love with Torchwood the way I’m in love with Doctor Who. I watched the first two seasons sporadically. The only character who really fascinates me is Captain Jack, with his TARDIS-conferred immortality. Beyond that, the storytelling was inconsistent—just like the storytelling on Doctor Who, but without the compelling character of the Doctor to pull you along anyway. And the set for Torchwood looks like a melange of steampunk and James Bond villain base of doom.

That being said, Children of the Earth “Day One” was pretty good. Not awesome, but satisfactory television. Russell T. Davies has worked in his usual humour—you know things are bad when the main characters begin making jokes, and things are worse when they stop making jokes because they’re running for their lives. My favourite line was probably when Gwen has to run back inside the Torchwood complex after talking to a new potential member of Torchwood. He asks, “What’s in there?” and she replies, “A science fiction superbase … seriously.”

People who are unfamiliar with Torchwood in general will miss a lot of the subtext, particularly when it comes to Jack and Ianto’s relationship. There’s a couple of new twists that address Jack’s immortality, one from a characterization point of view that shows why it sucks, and one from a plot point of view that shows why it makes him vulnerable. However, there’s still plenty of a self-contained story to keep viewers interested. When all of the children on Earth (hence the title) just completely stop for several minutes and begin speaking in a weird alien voice … well, that may just be suspicious enough for Torchwood to investigate.

I get the idea that we aren’t supposed to like the people at the Home Office. In addition to the fact that Mr. Frobisher orders government officials to kill Captain Jack (because, you know, that’s going to work…), they’re pretty useless. The Prime Minister is even more useless, refusing to get involved in a threat to international security and instead saying, “You never told me this” and telling Mr. Frobisher to deal with it.

I like how as an organization Torchwood has become a non-secret and fairly run down. Considering Davies killed off its three other main characters last season, it’s a good symbol for what has happened to the show too—always a bit experimental, Torchwood has taken risks that didn’t pay off (and some that did). I’m just glad it’s not on Fox; they would have stuck it in a Friday night time-slot and then cancelled it for poor ratings….

In related news, io9 has plenty of photos of the new Doctor’s look and the redesigned exterior of the TARDIS (no word on what the interior looks like yet). Also a tip about who will be coming back to guest star. Fun fun! Be careful when browsing the site though, since they have some Torchwood-related spoiler articles.

Two weeks ago to this day, I broke my favourite mug. I was heartbroken.

I don’t like calling myself a materialist, but we all place sentimental value on certain items when they become important to us. Up until two years or so ago, I rotated among three or four different mugs for my tea—yes, mugs. “Cups” are for prats and amateurs. Hardcore tea-drinkers drink tea by the mug, and the really hardcore tea enthusiasts (I am not) drink it by the bowl in elaborate Japanese tea ceremonies. There’s literature about this sort of thing. But I digress.

Then I started using only one mug. My mug. It just felt comfortable: perfect shape, an attractive colour and calm design on the outside, and a handle that didn’t hurt my fingers. It held a good amount of tea. I’d use it for every single cup, rinsing it, washing it out with baking soda every couple of days. I treated that mug like royalty. But ultimately, I failed it.

We were sitting outside; I was reading and Mug was relaxing on the table next to me, holding some tea. I went to take a sip and was pleased to discover that Mug had allowed it to radiate just enough heat that the tea was now cool enough to drink but not so cool as to be unpleasant. I went to replace Mug on the table … and that’s when it happened. I missed the table, and when my hand released its grasp on Mug, it plummeted to the cement stones beneath us, cleaving cleaning in two.

I was in shock.

My first reaction, of course, was denial. It couldn’t have happened. Anything but this. People in Iran were protesting about the relection of Ahmadinejad, and all I could think about was, “No way, no way, that’s my favourite mug.” Shallow, yes. But it had a certain immediacy that cast a spell over me. I knew that nothing I could do would make it better. I needed a montage, one of those sappy ones where Mug is sitting on a swing and I‘m pushing it back and forth. That kind of thing.

Yes, it was a fairly clean break, but not a perfect one. My brother has glued it back together for me, and now it sits on my desk, a facade of wholeness. I may use it to hold pens or something. Yet never again will I taste tea from its lips.

After rushing inside and pondering how I could fix the situation, I determined I had only one viable option: find a replacement. Now, I realize that this isn’t a healthy response when losing a loved one. You can’t go around replacing children after all, and I can never truly replace Mug. However, I had to find a … successor.

For all I loved Mug, it was completely anonymous. It bore no identifying marks, not even a “Made in China” label (even though it probably was). I can’t remember where I acquired it, or how, or even what company made it. Without any of this information, all I could do was search eBay for “blue mug” and hope for the best.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find an identical match to Mug in any of the fourteen pages of search results. It was a long shot at best. However, I did find a mug of a similar size with a picture of Eeyore on it, and that was the next best thing.

Today, my Eeyore mug arrived. I have already consumed several cups of tea from it; it’s the beginning of a beautiful new relationship. Although it can never truly replace my favourite Mug, in time my wound will hurt less, scab over, and I’ll have all those fond memories of Mug and myself, together with tea. Until then, I can only drink more tea to assuage my pain, and stare at my smiling Eeyore (made in Taiwan).

This post is dedicated to the memory of Mug, 2006-2009. Everything a tea-drinker could ask for, and then more.