A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

I first watched this last year because I was so enchanted by the charmingly pansexual rogue Captain Jack Harkness. A show all about him sounded like a great idea. And then I actually started watching Torchwood, in which Captain Jack and a crew of sociopathic losers theoretically mop up alien incursions in Cardiff, though as far as I could tell their interventions mostly made matters worse.

To give some context, I watched the first two episodes and the evil fairy episode in entirety, plus about ten minutes of the mad slasher episode and the bronze bikini Cyberwoman episode before turning off the TV in disgust.

Jack probably was intended to be traumatized and angsty, but came across as wooden and charmless. Toshiko had no personality. Gwen was OK but not compelling. I liked Ianto but he was underused. And Owen was scum. I would not mind this if the writers noticed that he was scum, but they seemed to think that roofie rapist = charming rogue. Let me repeat: one of the heroes is a rapist.

I was also irate at the flashback to India, in which Jack is command of a troop of British evil colonialist oppressors soldiers. One of them gets drunk and runs over a little girl and kills her. Does Jack care? Does he punish the soldier for killing a little girl? No! He merrily lets him merrily continue along his way, and then is very very sad when supernatural revenge kills the little-girl murderer along with lots of collateral damage to the rest of the soldiers. However, since none of the other soldiers care one bit that one of them is a little-girl-killer, I felt that they all deserved what they got.

I think the last time I such massive moral issues with a TV show was when I stopped watching 24 because it turned into pro-torture agitprop. Oh, and it was also kind of boring. I metaphorically flung the whole shebang against the wall.

But then last night I remembered that telophase had said that this one episode, "Out of Time," was really good, and I watched it, and it was really good. Even though it made out like Owen the rapist was some kind of good guy.

Plus branna and klwilliams said that in season two, Jack and Ianto make out. I have no moral leg to stand on here, but I really want to see that.

Season Two: Is it better artistically? Does Jack's acting improve? Does Ianto get more screentime, and was the fact that I liked him before just because he hadn't been onscreen long enough to be a loathsome rapist little-girl-murderer-approving scumbag? And, um, in which episodes do they make out, in case I only want to watch those?