A Twist of Things to Come

First, we've got a new article up on GeekaChicas which questions certain orthodoxies concerning climate change, called Two Days Before the Day after Tomorrow.

I may be dating myself here, but I remember the early 1970's when the grown ups were all talking about how a new ice age was coming. *shrug* But when the government has just declared polar bears endangered when polar bear experts still question the population data, which may support the idea that the population is actually higher than before... well, you start to wonder if maybe we'd be better off gathering data instead of giving in to our emotional need for a crusade. Sort of like the AmazonFail debacle -- that righteous fire that inspired us all to speak out against injustice that turned out to be a programming error. For reals. (Oh! But searches for "homosexuality" still bring up mostly anti-gay books! Newsflash: They always did. "Homosexuality" is one of those clinical words that helps depersonalize the subject, and is used more frequently by the gay-bashers (at least the ones who write books). The word "gay" brings up mostly gay-friendly items, just as it always has. Sorry, no controversy there. GlAmazon remains one of the most socially liberal companies we have.) Don't feel bad, I fell for it, too.

My point is, seats on the bandwagon start to look awfully comfy after a while. I'm all for questioning orthodoxies, even the ones we really want to be true. I don't necessarily agree with either side of the issue -- I'm fairly certain I don't understand it well enough. The emotional response that arises when people dare to question it makes me leery, though.

***

In other news. OMG!!! TORCHWOOD!! Still good after three nights, though maybe not as cliffhanger-y as that first episode, still. It's tight and real, more so than the other series were. Give them lives and families, human connections, and we care. Get us emotionally invested, because only then do we have drama. This is why all the sensationalistic same-sex snogging of the first two series tended to fall flat -- there was little emotional context.

As much as I enjoyed seeing the Jack and Ianto relationship progress, it was in these last three episodes that I really got a feel for Ianto as a person. Where he came from, why he is the way he is, all stiff and proper in his smart little suits. Not just, 'Oh, that's Ianto. He's reserved.' It's clear now that he was deliberately drawing a line between where he came from (with hints of tremendous father issues) and who he wanted to be. Yet, we didn't have to be hit over the head with it to feel the emotional truth there. Bravo!

And Jack! They've taken pains to reveal his humanity, to make it clear that his cocky, abrasive extroversion is his coping mechanism. I started thinking how would I ever be able to connect with anyone, knowing that a vast river of time would eventually separate us? It's hard to feel sorry for Jack -- immortal, forever (well, nearly) young -- but they managed that, too.

I actually enjoyed Gwen and Rhys, too, now that you can see clearly how she loves him and isn't just settling for him because she can't have Jack. (I don't even want to remember Owen, though the actor did a good job of making me hate him less, once he was a zombie. Still, it's so much better without him. Owen always struck me as irredeemably skeevy.)

If you've never seen Torchwood before, I suggest you start with this series. You may miss some subtleties, but you'll be better able to deal with the uneven nature of the first two series once you're invested in the characters, which this series manages handily.