Army of Ghosts

[taffimai]

Watching Army of Ghosts on BBCA, and had thoughts:

1) Freema looks gorgeous in a suit with her hair pulled back. Absolutely lovely.
2) It's amazing how very different Jack's Torchwood is from Yvonne's. Clean and industrial vs. Victorian and decrepit; Yvonne's modern people skills vs. Jack's ... rather Jackesque leadership style.
3) What the hell was Jack doing during the two months of the ghost shift? I know fanon has him in Cardiff yelling and screaming at Yvonne. Except Yvonne is willing to listen to the Doctor fairly quickly, so why would she have ignored Jack? And the magnaclamps are from the base of Mount Snowdon, which would imply that Torchwood Three isn't operational (because wouldn't T3 have been doing salvage in Wales?) In The Sound of Drums Jack says that he rebuilt Torchwood after Canary Wharf in the Doctor's honor. Doesn't that imply that he wasn't part of it before?

Comments

[becky-h.livejournal.com]

I, personally, am in the minority of believing that Jack did *not* join Torchwood until around/after Canary Warf, or at least the end of the 20th century. He says he was waiting around on -a version of the Doctor that would match his own timeline, instead of a past one-. For me, that means that there was no point/potential gain in joining Torchwood that early on.

But I fully expect canon to Joss me, so it's probably not so much that I believe it as how I've cobbled it together in my head.

[dune-drd.livejournal.com]

My personal fanon has him a) boss of TW3 but trying to keep under Yvonne's radar while searching for the Doctor; or b) chained in Yvonne's basement.

[smithy161.livejournal.com]

1 - agreed. She always looks lovely, but suit = yum
2 - I love that contrast. It caught me a little off guard when I first saw Torchwood.
3 - I generally assumed that Jack and Torchwood 3 (and 2, and 4 if they are ever found) answered to Yvonne, and when Jack says he 'rebuilt' Torchwood, he meant taking command of the entire thing, rather than just Torchwood 3. My own personal canon has Jack rebuilding Canary Wharf at some point.

I'd also assume the Torchwoods share stuff, so the magnaclamps could have been found by 3 and borrowed or requisitioned by 1.

[rustydog.livejournal.com]

2) I really love the contrast they set up. The clean and industrial version was also the vastly hubristic version. T3, down in the sewers basically, is... less so, but possibly only because they're smaller, with fewer resources. Though I'd also like to think Jack keeps them small and humble because he's seen what can happen the other way.

As for 3)... to quote an icon, Jack's timeline makes my head hurt. :) Good observation about the magnaclamps. Hmm. I took the comment about rebuilding Torchwood to mean that, whether he was or wasn't part of Torchwood before, he jumped in and took charge after Canary Wharf.