not much to report, but I'm posting anyway

[tardis_stowaway]

Much of the country is having a heat wave.  My foggy spot of the California coast is trying to join in.  Today, it was actually warm enough for me to wear a little sundress all afternoon and into the evening!  There was sunlight and everything!  *parties* 

The molasses cookies I made last night were quite tasty, although some of them got a tad burnt on the underside.  I counteracted the excessive number of cookies in my diet by deciding to start trying to up my fitness by mixing in a bit of running with my walk.  Conclusion:  running is tiring, y'all.  I would make a lousy companion on Doctor Who.  I'd like to try building myself up so I'm not so embarrassingly unfit at anything above a moderate walking pace. We shall see if this determination lasts.

30 Days of TV, Day 23:  Most annoying character

Limiting my choices to series regulars to make the decision easier, and choosing just from shows I care about, I've gotta say Owen Harper from Torchwood.  In some ways my issues with the character go beyond annoyance.  Who the heck thought it was a good idea to introduce the character by having him use the alien pheromones or whatever that was to go out and rape people?  Using a drug to make a previously unconsenting person have sex with you is rape.  It's not charmingly rakish; it's really wrong.  Even if you're doing it to both halves of a couple!  While Owen didn't do anything else quite so sickening, he remained thoroughly annoying.  His snark was usually more obnoxious than funny.  He started an affair with Gwen, who he knew perfectly well was in a relationship.  (Admittedly it takes two for a torrid office affair, but the fact that Gwen was the one cheating doesn't free Owen from culpability.)  He had a bad attitude.  He went to fight club with weevils.  He shot Jack, not realizing that Jack was immortal. I believe I clapped when Ianto shot him in "Captain Jack Harkness."

Series 2 of Torchwood worked hard to redeem the character, with some success.  I felt pity for him when he was killed the first time and made into a zombie, which would not have been the case in S1.  The flashbacks to his recruitment helped show how he could have become like that.  However, it was never quite enough to lift Owen from the "most annoying" spot.

Among shows I don't really care about, my total annoyance at Jack Shepard was part of the reason I quit watching Lost several seasons before the end.  Even he paled in annoyance next to Shannon, but she was mercifully killed off. 

Day 23 - Most annoying character
Day 24 - Best quote
Day 25 - A show you plan on watching (old or new)
Day 26 - OMG WTF? Season finale
Day 27 - Best pilot episode
Day 28 - First t.v show obsession
Day 29 - Current t.v show obsession
Day 30 - Saddest character death

Comments

My thoughts on Owen, let me show you them

[skalja.livejournal.com]

I hated Owen more than I've hated most any other TV character for the entire first series. The second, I found myself liking Owen a lot, which created a lot of cognitive dissonance.

A year or so later I did a rewatch of the first series and tried a little thought experiment: I pretended the date rape scene never happened. Just by doing that, I found myself a lot more sympathetic to Owen and a lot more aware of the nuances in Gorman's performance. (Granted, having seen series 2 and knowing what happened to him pre-series 1 probably factored in a bit.) It's not that he wasn't being a dick, just that it was easier to see Gorman's nonverbal hints why he was being a dick, i.e. because he is broken and thinks that if he pretends he doesn't give a shit about anything then he'll be safe (emotionally). It was also a lot easier to notice those little moments where he's not being a dick.

Overall, his character just felt more cohesive. The Owen we see in 1.02-13 and all of season 2 is an asshole and a bully, but he takes being a doctor very seriously -- do no harm and all that good stuff. He's cruel to his teammates, but I think he's more oblivious to just how much harm he's causing (or even thinking that they're better off if he leaves them more cynical in his wake) than actually trying to hurt them that much. There's also a component of lashing out because he's terrified to let anyone close, especially in how he responds to Tosh.

Owen in the pilot ... just doesn't seem to fit into that, to me. If he had, say, picked up a drunk person without really thinking about whether they could consent, that would be unforgivable, but it would be consistent with his character the rest of the series. But he deliberately robbed two people of their ability to consent, and that just doesn't match up.

tl;dr I think the writers really fucked Burn Gorman over.

Your thoughts on Owen, I have read them

[tardis-stowaway.livejournal.com]

Excellent points! Yes, with the exception of 1.01 there are nuances to the character that show that his asshole behavior is largely a shield, and he has some sort of ethical system. You wrote a thoughtful mini-essay, while I merely used a meme to grumble a bit about my surface thoughts on Owen. Owen is a genuinely interesting character to analyze, especially in S2, and Burn Gorman is a fine actor (even if he does sort of resemble a toad...it's good to have a mix of facial types on TV!)

However, while acknowledging his complexities and non-evil nature (other than 1.01), I still find him annoying on the balance.

Re: Your thoughts on Owen, I have read them

[skalja.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's totally cool. We all have our pet hate characters ... I thought I didn't really hate on TV characters as a general rule, until I met Adric. *g*