"Out of Time" through "End of Days" registered to me as all one arc, which if intentional is fascinating because the through-line is Owen.
It feels that way to me too, and it is really interesting, because yeah, Owen is the emotional screw that holds the last third of the season together. He doesn't come across as anywhere near that important in the first half of the season. But it does echo, to an extent, the way that Ianto fades into the background in the first three episodes, only to suddenly come into his own in "Cyberwoman," when it turns out that his invisibility was by his own design. Owen appears early on to be mainly comic relief or at least the team's shallow playboy, but then he develops the emotional gravitas that carries the show through its final arc in this season. I really enjoy that particular reversal of expectations: "you thought this wasn't important, but actually, it's the most important thing."
"Countrycide" shows off some of the best of Owen in season one, including that the beginning of his relationship with Gwen actually looks more like human comfort than screwing an irresistible bad idea all night. I mean, it is still a bad idea. But they can hold each other and know what they've been through.
Yes! I was actually VERY surprised that I ended up as sold on Gwen/Owen as I was. I mean, it's a terrible idea all around, obviously. But the episode really sells it as a mutual comfort/shared-experience kind of thing, containing its own measure of human warmth as well as being something that the characters might plausibly do.
Oh, dammit. I can see why it would have been cut, because it distracts from the rhyming bookends of Ianto going about his work with no one noticing and Ianto going about his work with all eyes on him, but it's such a beautiful little grace note.
Yeah, from a narrative standpoint I can see why they wanted to go out on the scene they went out on, and I can't even actually figure out exactly how this scene fits with that one. But as an individual scene, it's just so lovely and such a nice touchstone for a relationship that doesn't get much development otherwise.
Do you know if they were having problems with renewal? A half-TPK is such a weird thing to build a season toward and a miniseries third season—with another permanent regular death!—is an even weirder continuation.
I don't have any idea. It's possible that it could be a planned endpoint that ended up feeling extra jarring when the show veered off in a different direction and then was dragged back to the original plan, perhaps planned that way for two seasons - one could more easily see the first season ending with two characters' deaths for (mainly) shock value than the second. I still find it bizarre that they would build up the team relationships so thoroughly in season two, and especially Owen's relationships with the team, only to blow a hole through that and anything interesting that might have come out of it.
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It feels that way to me too, and it is really interesting, because yeah, Owen is the emotional screw that holds the last third of the season together. He doesn't come across as anywhere near that important in the first half of the season. But it does echo, to an extent, the way that Ianto fades into the background in the first three episodes, only to suddenly come into his own in "Cyberwoman," when it turns out that his invisibility was by his own design. Owen appears early on to be mainly comic relief or at least the team's shallow playboy, but then he develops the emotional gravitas that carries the show through its final arc in this season. I really enjoy that particular reversal of expectations: "you thought this wasn't important, but actually, it's the most important thing."
"Countrycide" shows off some of the best of Owen in season one, including that the beginning of his relationship with Gwen actually looks more like human comfort than screwing an irresistible bad idea all night. I mean, it is still a bad idea. But they can hold each other and know what they've been through.
Yes! I was actually VERY surprised that I ended up as sold on Gwen/Owen as I was. I mean, it's a terrible idea all around, obviously. But the episode really sells it as a mutual comfort/shared-experience kind of thing, containing its own measure of human warmth as well as being something that the characters might plausibly do.
Oh, dammit. I can see why it would have been cut, because it distracts from the rhyming bookends of Ianto going about his work with no one noticing and Ianto going about his work with all eyes on him, but it's such a beautiful little grace note.
Yeah, from a narrative standpoint I can see why they wanted to go out on the scene they went out on, and I can't even actually figure out exactly how this scene fits with that one. But as an individual scene, it's just so lovely and such a nice touchstone for a relationship that doesn't get much development otherwise.
Do you know if they were having problems with renewal? A half-TPK is such a weird thing to build a season toward and a miniseries third season—with another permanent regular death!—is an even weirder continuation.
I don't have any idea. It's possible that it could be a planned endpoint that ended up feeling extra jarring when the show veered off in a different direction and then was dragged back to the original plan, perhaps planned that way for two seasons - one could more easily see the first season ending with two characters' deaths for (mainly) shock value than the second. I still find it bizarre that they would build up the team relationships so thoroughly in season two, and especially Owen's relationships with the team, only to blow a hole through that and anything interesting that might have come out of it.