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merryghoul(Spoilers for Series 2 of Torchwood and Children of Earth.)
A favorite piece of canon I greatly enjoy: the Torchwood episode "Something Borrowed."
I know the episode is not without its faults. I know it was criticized on YouTube for invoking "the mystical pregnancy" trope (a woman suddenly gets pregnant for the sake of the show, and it undermines a woman's right to choose). And I'm not going to deny that pregnancy is used as a plot device in media rather than as a decision that should be made by a woman (e.g. Blair's pregnancy in Gossip Girl). Therefore, I have to say that Gwen's alien pregnancy is a narrative device, one that's used to satirize the institution of marriage in this episode. I don't think the writers intended for the episode to have something against a woman's right to choose, but pregnant Gwen (before Children of Earth) could have been thought more thoroughly.
This episode is also one of Torchwood's silliest and cheapest. It's especially a welcome break from the arc that introduces undead Owen (and Martha Jones) to Torchwood, and it's one of the few bright spots before Owen and Tosh die. Gwen shooting up an alien with a gun hidden behind a bouquet? Tosh kicking a guy in the nuts in a cocoon device? Alien Jack almost feasting on undead Owen? EXPLODING DUMMY STAND-IN?
I'm all for it.
A favorite piece of canon I greatly enjoy: the Torchwood episode "Something Borrowed."
I know the episode is not without its faults. I know it was criticized on YouTube for invoking "the mystical pregnancy" trope (a woman suddenly gets pregnant for the sake of the show, and it undermines a woman's right to choose). And I'm not going to deny that pregnancy is used as a plot device in media rather than as a decision that should be made by a woman (e.g. Blair's pregnancy in Gossip Girl). Therefore, I have to say that Gwen's alien pregnancy is a narrative device, one that's used to satirize the institution of marriage in this episode. I don't think the writers intended for the episode to have something against a woman's right to choose, but pregnant Gwen (before Children of Earth) could have been thought more thoroughly.
This episode is also one of Torchwood's silliest and cheapest. It's especially a welcome break from the arc that introduces undead Owen (and Martha Jones) to Torchwood, and it's one of the few bright spots before Owen and Tosh die. Gwen shooting up an alien with a gun hidden behind a bouquet? Tosh kicking a guy in the nuts in a cocoon device? Alien Jack almost feasting on undead Owen? EXPLODING DUMMY STAND-IN?
I'm all for it.
