God, how I hate Gwen. I hope this helps me hate her less. Torchwood has, historically, been good at making me hate characters less. Then, they get killed off. The only one I never really wanted to punch in the face was Ianto. (I take that back. I wanted to punch him whenever he said, "Lisa.")
This looks good, though.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
No Export for me Doesn't work in Canada.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Doesn't work in TnT either.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
I'm curious Olivet why you hate Gwen so much? To me, she's always seemed like the most likable person at Torchwood (which isn't saying much I know).
Posted by Bella Bee (Member # 7027) on :
I hated Gwen quite a lot in the first season, mostly because she was cheating on Rhys (AKA The sweetest man in Wales) with Owen.
She grew on me quite a bit in Children of Earth, though.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Yeah it bothered me a great deal when she was sleeping with Owen, but she got better with time.
In retrospect, I think it was reasonable character development. During the first season she was going through "shock" after suddenly finding herself hunting aliens and the trauma of being unable to share that with anyone outside Torchwood. I'm glad they resolved that by having her eventually insist on sharing the secrets with Rhys rather than having her become as psychologically damaged as the other members of Torchwood.
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
I think I agree with Bella that she was worse the first season, but I never really grew to like her. She was always making bad decisions for emotional reasons that made little sense to me.
She was supposed to be the character by which the audience was introduced to Torchwood, the one we were supposed to identify with most, and I never did. I disliked her less in Children of Earth, but almost every episode before that there was at least one moment in which I wanted to slap her in the face with a fish.
I'm teh first to admit I have issues with weepy, emo female characters, especially ones whose motives do not compute to me. This happens more often in British shows, so it might be a cultural thing. (Maybe not. Even though I loved Buffy the show, Buffy the character annoyed the heck out of me sometimes. I think it might hang on the 'bad romantic decisions' thing. Those always make women look weak and stupid to me.)
Toshiko annoyed me because of her lack of confidence, because in my experience, female geek confidence rises with competence, and she was very competent.
But, you're right, none of them were very likable and she was probably the best of a bad lot. I'm just annoyed by the "I'm not very bright but I'm valuable to the team because I have heart" characterization. The Mary Sue-ness of it. I always felt they had to stretch the narrative to accommodate her weakness. And, well, all the unnecessary alien sex monsters.
But *shrug* that's Torchwood for you. She was much more competent in CoE, and will probably be awesome in this. I'm just still harboring a bad Gwen aftertaste from early on, I guess.
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Doesn't work in Canada.