No. That's a fairly accurate response. That and barfing.

See, I've just been assuming that Gray is a caretaker as they hired a boy to play young Jack early in the filming and pictures of the filming were available online back in October or so. And I'm assuming something happened to him when young that ripped Gray away from him, hence why he later signed up for the Time Agency. ETA – From what I can tell also, it’s very Star Wars Ep 1ish, in that it’s a young boy on a very desert-like planet. And we’ve already had a Star Wars reference in KKBB.<--

Oh! I completely forgot about that. And I even saw pictures of the episode shoot and everything. UK SPOILER-->I know that Jack's dad is also in that episode. And now that I recall the costumes that they were wearing, I'm going to assume that the Boeshane Peninsula is near Tatooine. :wink:

Sauty, that's exactly why I speculated that. ETA - US Reaction to Torchwood S2 Us Yanks definitely have a Puritan heritage.

AfterElton's recap is hilarious! I also don't understand why Gwen was leading the team in Jack's absence, except that she is the most outspoken and I guess I can see why her personality would be more inclined to take the reins. But I think in the actual hierachy, isn't Owen next in command? I don't know how this is determined but I remember him saying that right before Ianto shot him to prevent him from opening the Rift last season. But more likely, she's been the team leader during Jack's absence simply because she's the main character of the show, aside from Captain Jack, she has more screen time than anyone else and I think she is a bit of a Mary Sue in that we are supposed to experience Torchwood through her eyes. Nevertheless, I'm not a Gwen hater. I think she's an interesting character and I like the actress Eve Myles. She's not my favorite character, but I think she's doing well with what she's been given. I also agree about the Jack/Gwen romance that keeps popping up here and there. I don't see it ever happening, after she decides to be faithful to Rhys and wear the engagement ring. So why is this allusion to romance between them still looming up now and again? It's just totally implausible. Obviously they do have a connection and they care about each other, but why not just leave it at a mentor/mentee relationship which makes more sense? Instead, in KKBB, it seems like Gwen is only marrying Rhys because she can't have Jack. At the same time, in other episodes, she acts like Rhys is her everything. So which is it? Of course, my grousing is mostly based on the fact that I think Jack and Ianto belong together and Ianto is more than Jack's 'piece of tart on the side' as he's been described. I know that Jack's supposed to be an incorrigible flirt and/or promiscious, though we haven't actually seen much evidence of that on Torchwood. He flirts, but Ianto's the only one he's actually slept with (going by the infamous stopwatch conversation of 'They Keep Killing Suzie.'), at least, in the Torchwood timeline. Jack seemed more promiscious in the Doctor Who episodes where he blatantly flirted with everyone though of course, they didn't show anything more than PGish innuendo. But Ianto is always there for him, obviously cares about him deeply (remember him crying into Jack's coat when he was killed by Abaddon?). At least it seems as if Jack is finally realizing that Ianto is devoted to him and I do hope something real evolves from their relationship (and hoping that 'part-time shag' can evolve into romance on Torchwood, since it doesn't usually work that way in real life). On a totally different note, I have completely failed to get any of my friends and family interested in watching Torchwood with me. They all think it's too gay and especially after 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.' Straight male friend, whom I never figured was homophobe, was literally disgusted by the gay kiss. My mom doesn't want to see two men kissing - she has gay friends, does she look away when they kiss? And my gay friend doesn't like sci-fi and oddly enough, doesn't want to see two men kissing either, guess he's a bit of a prude. I just think it's rather sad; I am sure all three of my acquaintances would have had no problem with last season's lesbian kisses but because we happened to watch 'Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang,' that was a deal-breaker for everyone. Has anyone else had this experience of friends or family turned off by the gayness of Torchwood? And why are people so much more bothered by homosexuality than lesbianism, that seems like a double standard to me (I'm not just talking about straight men but straight women too) I will just have to watch Torchwood all by my lonesome but at least I can squee uncontrollably with no-one around to hear.

They all think it's too gay... MissViolet, you should check out the article I linked to above as they discuss this very thing. US audiences are perceiving it the same way as your friends and family. Even then, it's the reason I didn't try to watch it with family - my parents are both very homophobic. And you are more than welcome to squee here.

I never even considered my friends and family to be homophobes, after all, they've always been perfectly nice and civil to my gay friends and as I mentioned, my mom has gay friends of her own. I think, with my straight male friend in particular, they just don't like to be reminded of what gay men do together, even though the kissing on Torchwood seems pretty mild in my book. Okay, so there was a passionate kiss between the two captains (I practically wore out the remote re-watching it and noticed a lot of panting and grunting on the part of James Marsters; for his first time kissing a man onscreen, I'd have to give him an A for effort!) But we really haven't seen anything that would warrant even a R-rating if the kisses were heterosexual kisses. I just think that gay romance gets the short end of the stick in entertainment - hetereo romance is fine, lesbian romances raises some eyebrows but is basically tolerated, but two men kissing causes men and women alike to be aghast. I am not expecting everyone to be as gung-ho about Teh Gay as I am, as I clearly have a typical fangirly slash fetish, but at least I was expecting a little more tolerance of scenes that I don't consider particularly explicit. I do kind of agree with that comment on the Torchwood TV site, though, as it seems like Gwen and Owen were lining up to be a couple - I remember the one episode where they first hooked up and the voice over was something like "Now you have someone to talk to," and then you see half-naked Owen appear over Gwen's shoulder. It didn't seem like it was just a casual shag but something a little more meaningful. At the same time, despite all the flirtation, Ianto's hatred of Jack for killing Cyberwoman Lisa seemed pretty intense, I think he said something like, "I want to watch you suffer and die." Though obviously Ianto was a little off his rocker, no matter how much you love someone, after they go ballistic and murder two people, you really can't blame others for wanting to step in and exterminate her. So I can understand that person's confusion but he or she is kind of clueless about the whole backstory with Ianto and Jack and the Doctor and so forth. Ianto was never described as exclusively heterosexual and merely having had a girlfriend whom he loved does not make him so. I think that interpretation is due to a widespread misconception about bisexuals being incapable of long-term monogamous relationships. I guess the thing that surprised me about the reaction of my friends and family is that they were okay with Jack in Doctor Who, in which he is way more flirtatious and very obviously interested in men, women, and 'anything with a post code,' and that went over just fine, but Torchwood's showing actual gay kissing is unacceptable? I guess it makes people uncomfortable. Well, I don't want to be too hard on my friends and family; my mom and my straight male friend are both a lot older than I am and I guess there is still something strange and unfamiliar about gayness that is a little more mundane to me, having gone to college in the 90s in New York City, that's a world away from the early 60s when my mom and my friend were college-age. And thanks, arizonamyrie, I am glad to have a place to squee, as the Torchwood UK forum seems to be populated with 12-year-old British schoolgirls and I've been feeling a little out of place there.

Are you saying you have a problem with 12-year-old schoolgirls who like Torchwood? ;) (I'm just kidding) Homophobic Americans(oh hell, homophobic anyones) annoy me to no end. (Probably because loads of het relationships in my family have died, but the gay and lesbian ones seem to stick for ever and ever. Which is cool.)

My head is spinning from having plowed through all those pages at TWoP. Good grief, I'm just going to wait til the eps air.

The Other Place's Torchwood thread is making me dizzy. Too many black bars! I'm listening to the bar fight song right now. :D

Yeah, I got the album now too with that song on it. I lived through that era - played in pep band even - and never knew the name of that song. Topic? Oh yeah, Torchwood rocks! Actually, it's kind of cool to hear Ben Foster's score underneath the action in KKBB. Murray Gold has one style - a "theme song for the character" style, whereas Foster seems to just use the music to highlight the mood of the scene.

A funny mention of Torchwood in Neil Gaiman's blog: When I'm not writing the novel I feel guilty. And even though blogworthy things turn up (I could write about the thaw right now, and the sunshine and the bees; three days ago a really funny entry on what to do when your assistant hands you twenty pounds of whole and uncut cow liver for your dog that she was given at the local meat packing plant didn't get written, and yesterday I composed an entire thing in my head I didn't write down about Why The People in Torchwood Season One Are All Too Stupid To Live -- including the astonishingly puzzling incident where someone in 1941 has written something down on paper with black ink (a medium that will last legibly for centuries if kept out of the sun), and, unaccountably worried that ink on paper will fade and become unreadable in time, first she takes a prototype Polaroid photo of it, and then writes some of it in blood and puts it in a coffee can in a damp cellar, because these media will still be readable seventy years later. Why she didn't make a model of it out of chocolate as well, I will never know.) http://journal.neilgaiman.com/

They make a good point, though.

As much as I adore Captain Jack, sometimes I think Barrowman is a bit of a himbo! Eccleston may not be a loudmouth who enjoys fart jokes, but that doesn't mean he's angry. Introverts are so misunderstood!