Inorganic Comparisons - a TW/H50 Meta
Aug. 11th, 2011 04:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eumeliaIn lieu of writing the exam I said I would do today (because I got the dates wrong) and the fic I said I would start, I've decided to write meta.
Meta about Torchwood and Hawaii Five-0.
It's been a long time coming, because this is the first time in about three years that a television show has captured my imagination.
What happened three years ago, you ask? Well, back in 2009 Torchwood changed itself from that show I considered my Queer Best Friend into something else entirely.
I loved Children of Earth and am ambivalent about Miracle Day, but these two incarnations, while living in the same universe as Series 1 & 2, do not share the characteristics of what made me love it so much (yes, more than Doctor Who).
So, while Hawaii Five-0 in not as innovative as Torchwood was, it is in fact, a very conservative show, as only American Network Television can be, there are certain things in it that draw me in the same way that Torchwood did at the time.
The thing about Torchwood, for me, was that it was primarily a show about relationships with the backdrop of action and aliens - Sci-Fi and Human relationship on tv, who would have thought. Sure, it's nothing new, in a way, it plays on the clichés and historical tropes of all Sci-Fi that came before it it, but the way the relationship, the dynamics of the team and just, you know, the love that was portrayed on Torchwood blew me away.
It was queer, not because it had same-sex relationships that were portrayed as natural and organic as opposite-sex relationships, but because of the queer standpoint of every one of the characters.
Torchwood 3, the organisation, as the tag-line was "Outside the government, beyond the police" and that situated it as outside and beyond mainstream ethical and moral conduct - making it extremely violent, ethically dubious and questionable - the good guys weren't always so good.
It was glorious.
And ever since CoE, which I really did love, but which broke me in a way that I find hard to explain (I haven't changed my desktop background since the summer of 2009, it is a wallpaper of Ianto Jones) I haven't found a television show that grabbed me in the same way, so I've been focusing on film.
Inception took over 2010 and ever since I saw X-Men: First Class I have been taken over again.
Movies offer a limited canon, they are self-contained, and the meta and fiction that comes from them can be extraordinary if they explode like Inception and X-Men: First Class did.
So, when a friend, told me about the re-imagined Hawaii Five-0 with a Zero, rather than an "O", I hemmed and hawed and was like "Really, a cop-show, really? And a re-make to boot?"
And she was all, "It's awesome, look pretty people! Look-look! Subtext!"
I gave her the virtual side-eye, but her not-very-sneaky manipulation did its work and I watched the the first few episodes and was intrigued. As the show went on, I was pretty much hooked. Before I even finished mainlining the season I was reading fic, I was looking for meta, I wanted to talk to everyone about this show and here's why:
Like Torchwood, Hawaii Five-0 is situated in a geographical place that is outside the common areas we usually see on television - not London, but Cardiff. Not Los Angeles, but Honolulu. While Honolulu was big, back in the late 60's all the way to the mid 80's when it came to police crime-drama on US television, its presence petered out when shows like Law and Order and LA Law and other crime-dramas gained popularity for being shot in the mainland urban centres.
So, as of now, Honolulu is a place far away and very different from the mainland USA, just like Cardiff, situated beyond the Severn is far away and very different from London.
In Hawaii Five-0 it's more physical distance than conceptually like in Torchwood, but the pattern holds when you consider the role of the Five-0 task force in Honolulu and what Torchwood 3 does is Cardiff.
They take of business and are accountable to no one. Until that bites them in the ass. Hard. But on that at a later time.
The construct of the two teams, because they're both very much a team-show, despite the nucleus of the main guy, it's about team dynamics, are very very similar. Not one-to-one, but enough for me to be able (with the help of the aforementioned friend) to put all the similarities on the table.
Captain Jack Harkness, who is Torchwood 3, without him as the keystone of the organisation it pretty much falls apart into, sure at the start of Series 2 we see the team do what they've always done as Torchwood 3, but the show is about Jack and the people who surround him.
This works the same way with Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett, who has a military rank and is given a task force that works with immunity and means (that is, they get to practice police brutality that would have disturbed me a whole lot more if I didn't consider it about as plausible as the things that happen on Torchwood.
Like Jack, Steve is personable and ruthless. Not as big on the charming smiles, but just as tall, dark and manipulative. Seriously, there are our heroes.
And another thing about him that is like Jack, he may not have a coat, but boy does he have a military fetish with a gun that goes with it!
As to other members of the team, there is a chick, who was gender-flipped from the original show and now Kono Kalakaua is a kick-ass rookie, who is treated with a whole lot respect by the other characters (not so much the show, alas, who don't seem to be able to figure out what to do with a surfer-girl with an attitude and who is also smart and a police officer). In this, she kind of reminds me of Owen, who was doctor-cum-medical-examiner for Torchwood 3, in that he had an attitude and a self-esteem problem as wide as the Big Island (watch the show, you'll know what I mean).
Yeah, not a one-to-one comparison, but when it comes to who Kono and Owen are in the group dynamic, they fit. Jack treated Owen like a son, Steve treats Kono like a little sister (which has to do with his own relationship with his actual sister on the show, it is fascinating what we do in order to create a family for ourselves).
In the role of Techie with a dark past we have Tosh and Chin Ho. Chin Ho is lonely. Tosh is lonely. They were both very miserable until they were recruited by that crazy military guy who has a super-special computer!
And here's where it breaks down. Unlike Torchwood, Hawaii Five-0 are not a Five Man Band. The comparison doesn't work all the way through, and that's a good thing, I'd hate to watch a copy of a copy of a show.
But in the role of Gwen and Ianto, we have Detective Danny "Danno" (yes that Danno) Williams, who acts as both the "heart" (don't tell him that!) and the common sense (he's say he's the only one with any sense, thank you very much!) of the task force.
Gwen, much as I loved her and still do, had the annoying habit of not really thinking ahead, much like Jack, at times, which them both very volatile and extremely annoying because more often than not you wanted to grab both of them and scream "This required slightly more thinking!"
Danny does that in spades. You want consequences; Danny will tell you all about it. You need a pair of fresh eyes to asses the situation, you got it.
You need someone to comfort you, but because you're a laconic and not-quite-expressive emotionally as you should be Nazy SEAL, well, Danny is your man.
Ianto was the go-to-guy when it came to common-sense and hard-to-come-by information, not to mention a snarker of above average capacity. Danny is much of this as well, not so much hard-to-come-by information, but he covers his bases in a way the rest of the team does not. Despite Chin Ho being a former cop, he was burned, Kono never got a chance to be proper police before she was scooped up by the Five-0 and Steve… well, Steve is military, he's Navy, actual policing is for when you don't have the privileges of immunity and means.
This drives Danny up the wall.
But it is so much fun to watch them compromise and get the job done.
Unlike Torchwood, Hawaii Five-0 is very conservative and traditional in structure and scheme, not to mention theme. The arch of the season is quite clear, if a tad, um, over the top, which doesn't actually fit with how serisously the show takes itself as only American Television can, which isn't to say Torchwood didn't take itself seriously, but the camp was there deliberately, unlike in Hawaii Five-0 where every camp moment is a thing to savour.
One of the truly great things about Hawaii Five-0 and which hooked me from the start is that unlike other shows in which there are two male protagonists who interact with each other, there is very little, next to no, misogyny. Yes, the show objectifies Kono (Grace Park is oh, so, gorgeous), but more often than not you'll see Steve sans shirt as well – and of course, the difference between male and female objectification notwithstanding, this is a show made in a state that is mainly beach.
But feminity and women are not vilified. They are their own people, with their own motivations. Danny's ex-wife, Rachel, who in the first episodes where we only hear about her from him could have been nothing more than the stereotypical ex-wife who went out of her way to punish her husband through the divorce and lo and behold she's an amazing character all on her own, and they have a very complicated relationship.
Colour me amazed! And intrigued! And wanting more!
That's one of the things that are handled very well, gender and gender presentation. It's rare to see such masculinity portrayed without depending on femininity being treated as inferior. It isn't. Every single woman portrayed: Governor Jameson, Agent Jenna Kaye, Lieutenant Catherin Rollins, Kono, Rachel and Mary, Steve's sister, has her own story, her own motivations, moves the plot beyond being an object of the male protagonists or antagonists for that matter.
That, in itself, is something that just doesn't happen in a mainstream oriented cop-show.
A less positive note and something that Torchwood did very badly, is the portrayal of racial minorities. The two main characters are white men, the scene is set in a majority-minority state, the Governor is a white woman. So the executive power is the hands of white people, in a place where white people are actually a minority.
That is problematic.
Despite the fact that the two main characters on this show are white men, Chin Ho and Kono are as three dimensional and complex as Steve and Danny. Hawaii, as mentioned, is a majority-minority state, i.e. there are less white people than non-white people and that shows in the extras and various guest appearances throughout. They're hiring locally.
And it shows.
As I said, the comparison isn't one-to-one, but the things that drew me to Torchwood, the team work, the love between team mates, the family of choice, are there is spades within Hawaii Five-0 as well.
And I've missed that, so much.
Meta about Torchwood and Hawaii Five-0.
It's been a long time coming, because this is the first time in about three years that a television show has captured my imagination.
What happened three years ago, you ask? Well, back in 2009 Torchwood changed itself from that show I considered my Queer Best Friend into something else entirely.
I loved Children of Earth and am ambivalent about Miracle Day, but these two incarnations, while living in the same universe as Series 1 & 2, do not share the characteristics of what made me love it so much (yes, more than Doctor Who).
So, while Hawaii Five-0 in not as innovative as Torchwood was, it is in fact, a very conservative show, as only American Network Television can be, there are certain things in it that draw me in the same way that Torchwood did at the time.
The thing about Torchwood, for me, was that it was primarily a show about relationships with the backdrop of action and aliens - Sci-Fi and Human relationship on tv, who would have thought. Sure, it's nothing new, in a way, it plays on the clichés and historical tropes of all Sci-Fi that came before it it, but the way the relationship, the dynamics of the team and just, you know, the love that was portrayed on Torchwood blew me away.
It was queer, not because it had same-sex relationships that were portrayed as natural and organic as opposite-sex relationships, but because of the queer standpoint of every one of the characters.
Torchwood 3, the organisation, as the tag-line was "Outside the government, beyond the police" and that situated it as outside and beyond mainstream ethical and moral conduct - making it extremely violent, ethically dubious and questionable - the good guys weren't always so good.
It was glorious.
And ever since CoE, which I really did love, but which broke me in a way that I find hard to explain (I haven't changed my desktop background since the summer of 2009, it is a wallpaper of Ianto Jones) I haven't found a television show that grabbed me in the same way, so I've been focusing on film.
Inception took over 2010 and ever since I saw X-Men: First Class I have been taken over again.
Movies offer a limited canon, they are self-contained, and the meta and fiction that comes from them can be extraordinary if they explode like Inception and X-Men: First Class did.
So, when a friend, told me about the re-imagined Hawaii Five-0 with a Zero, rather than an "O", I hemmed and hawed and was like "Really, a cop-show, really? And a re-make to boot?"
And she was all, "It's awesome, look pretty people! Look-look! Subtext!"
I gave her the virtual side-eye, but her not-very-sneaky manipulation did its work and I watched the the first few episodes and was intrigued. As the show went on, I was pretty much hooked. Before I even finished mainlining the season I was reading fic, I was looking for meta, I wanted to talk to everyone about this show and here's why:
Like Torchwood, Hawaii Five-0 is situated in a geographical place that is outside the common areas we usually see on television - not London, but Cardiff. Not Los Angeles, but Honolulu. While Honolulu was big, back in the late 60's all the way to the mid 80's when it came to police crime-drama on US television, its presence petered out when shows like Law and Order and LA Law and other crime-dramas gained popularity for being shot in the mainland urban centres.
So, as of now, Honolulu is a place far away and very different from the mainland USA, just like Cardiff, situated beyond the Severn is far away and very different from London.
In Hawaii Five-0 it's more physical distance than conceptually like in Torchwood, but the pattern holds when you consider the role of the Five-0 task force in Honolulu and what Torchwood 3 does is Cardiff.
They take of business and are accountable to no one. Until that bites them in the ass. Hard. But on that at a later time.
The construct of the two teams, because they're both very much a team-show, despite the nucleus of the main guy, it's about team dynamics, are very very similar. Not one-to-one, but enough for me to be able (with the help of the aforementioned friend) to put all the similarities on the table.
Captain Jack Harkness, who is Torchwood 3, without him as the keystone of the organisation it pretty much falls apart into, sure at the start of Series 2 we see the team do what they've always done as Torchwood 3, but the show is about Jack and the people who surround him.
This works the same way with Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett, who has a military rank and is given a task force that works with immunity and means (that is, they get to practice police brutality that would have disturbed me a whole lot more if I didn't consider it about as plausible as the things that happen on Torchwood.
Like Jack, Steve is personable and ruthless. Not as big on the charming smiles, but just as tall, dark and manipulative. Seriously, there are our heroes.
And another thing about him that is like Jack, he may not have a coat, but boy does he have a military fetish with a gun that goes with it!
As to other members of the team, there is a chick, who was gender-flipped from the original show and now Kono Kalakaua is a kick-ass rookie, who is treated with a whole lot respect by the other characters (not so much the show, alas, who don't seem to be able to figure out what to do with a surfer-girl with an attitude and who is also smart and a police officer). In this, she kind of reminds me of Owen, who was doctor-cum-medical-examiner for Torchwood 3, in that he had an attitude and a self-esteem problem as wide as the Big Island (watch the show, you'll know what I mean).
Yeah, not a one-to-one comparison, but when it comes to who Kono and Owen are in the group dynamic, they fit. Jack treated Owen like a son, Steve treats Kono like a little sister (which has to do with his own relationship with his actual sister on the show, it is fascinating what we do in order to create a family for ourselves).
In the role of Techie with a dark past we have Tosh and Chin Ho. Chin Ho is lonely. Tosh is lonely. They were both very miserable until they were recruited by that crazy military guy who has a super-special computer!
And here's where it breaks down. Unlike Torchwood, Hawaii Five-0 are not a Five Man Band. The comparison doesn't work all the way through, and that's a good thing, I'd hate to watch a copy of a copy of a show.
But in the role of Gwen and Ianto, we have Detective Danny "Danno" (yes that Danno) Williams, who acts as both the "heart" (don't tell him that!) and the common sense (he's say he's the only one with any sense, thank you very much!) of the task force.
Gwen, much as I loved her and still do, had the annoying habit of not really thinking ahead, much like Jack, at times, which them both very volatile and extremely annoying because more often than not you wanted to grab both of them and scream "This required slightly more thinking!"
Danny does that in spades. You want consequences; Danny will tell you all about it. You need a pair of fresh eyes to asses the situation, you got it.
You need someone to comfort you, but because you're a laconic and not-quite-expressive emotionally as you should be Nazy SEAL, well, Danny is your man.
Ianto was the go-to-guy when it came to common-sense and hard-to-come-by information, not to mention a snarker of above average capacity. Danny is much of this as well, not so much hard-to-come-by information, but he covers his bases in a way the rest of the team does not. Despite Chin Ho being a former cop, he was burned, Kono never got a chance to be proper police before she was scooped up by the Five-0 and Steve… well, Steve is military, he's Navy, actual policing is for when you don't have the privileges of immunity and means.
This drives Danny up the wall.
But it is so much fun to watch them compromise and get the job done.
Unlike Torchwood, Hawaii Five-0 is very conservative and traditional in structure and scheme, not to mention theme. The arch of the season is quite clear, if a tad, um, over the top, which doesn't actually fit with how serisously the show takes itself as only American Television can, which isn't to say Torchwood didn't take itself seriously, but the camp was there deliberately, unlike in Hawaii Five-0 where every camp moment is a thing to savour.
One of the truly great things about Hawaii Five-0 and which hooked me from the start is that unlike other shows in which there are two male protagonists who interact with each other, there is very little, next to no, misogyny. Yes, the show objectifies Kono (Grace Park is oh, so, gorgeous), but more often than not you'll see Steve sans shirt as well – and of course, the difference between male and female objectification notwithstanding, this is a show made in a state that is mainly beach.
But feminity and women are not vilified. They are their own people, with their own motivations. Danny's ex-wife, Rachel, who in the first episodes where we only hear about her from him could have been nothing more than the stereotypical ex-wife who went out of her way to punish her husband through the divorce and lo and behold she's an amazing character all on her own, and they have a very complicated relationship.
Colour me amazed! And intrigued! And wanting more!
That's one of the things that are handled very well, gender and gender presentation. It's rare to see such masculinity portrayed without depending on femininity being treated as inferior. It isn't. Every single woman portrayed: Governor Jameson, Agent Jenna Kaye, Lieutenant Catherin Rollins, Kono, Rachel and Mary, Steve's sister, has her own story, her own motivations, moves the plot beyond being an object of the male protagonists or antagonists for that matter.
That, in itself, is something that just doesn't happen in a mainstream oriented cop-show.
A less positive note and something that Torchwood did very badly, is the portrayal of racial minorities. The two main characters are white men, the scene is set in a majority-minority state, the Governor is a white woman. So the executive power is the hands of white people, in a place where white people are actually a minority.
That is problematic.
Despite the fact that the two main characters on this show are white men, Chin Ho and Kono are as three dimensional and complex as Steve and Danny. Hawaii, as mentioned, is a majority-minority state, i.e. there are less white people than non-white people and that shows in the extras and various guest appearances throughout. They're hiring locally.
And it shows.
As I said, the comparison isn't one-to-one, but the things that drew me to Torchwood, the team work, the love between team mates, the family of choice, are there is spades within Hawaii Five-0 as well.
And I've missed that, so much.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-12 02:49 am (UTC)And with the new Torchwood series, the lack of team chemistry seems to be making Gwen into Action Girl rather than the Everyman that she was supposed to be.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-12 06:27 am (UTC)I honestly did not expect to love it as much as I do, I thought I was humouring a friend, not finding a new fandom :)
no subject
Date: 2011-08-12 01:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-12 01:13 pm (UTC)Grace brings out Danny's combative and combustive father instincts which spill over quite nicely to the team.
But the team have a shared attitude that comes from being a squad that does things no one else does and they're all outsiders in some way and for different reasons, just like in Torchwood, and I think that affords them the family of choice dynamic.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-12 05:28 pm (UTC)I guess I don't see the Five-0 team well-integrated into the family dynamic, past the point of "we work together and have good skills" - Danny is trying to keep Steve from going off the deep end entirely half-cocked, and Chen Ho and Kono seem to be more trying to bond with each other over lost time and the stigma that got Chen Ho thrown off the force. I don't see much crossing-over, with the exception of the one episode where Chen Ho has the explosive collar, and even then, it was more of a plot device than an organic family-bonding experience.