This is something that I wanted to do that is new to this site for quite some time. I wanted to make some editorials, only because I do have some interesting topics that I would like to share with you. They have been some things that have loomed over my mind, and they are kind of interesting if you think about it. They are going to be more of pop culture topics, as well as a mixture of geek cultural subjects and such. But keep in mind, this is just an experimental article, so don’t get use to this as a long-lasting thing. And what better topic to start off with than….. Spongebob Squarepants?
I know that this an odd thing to start off Some Editorials, but believe me, I do have a lot to say about this. When I first saw Il Neige’s crossover review with Spazmaster on The Spongebob Squarepants Movie (which is a must watch for those of you who haven’t seen it yet), there was a part in their review that they shed light on how Spongebob Squarepants only makes children stupid and destroying how they will turn out in the future. They not only show us how the movie turned out to be one of the smartest kids movies ever made in the 2000s, but it also showed me the problem with what I think people are reading too much on something that I don’t think is there. That problem is that parents think that it made a huge crisis on that it makes kids stupid.
I would be lying if I said I can never see where they’re coming from, because I can see why. Believe it or not, I did come up more problems with this as I’m trying to write this article, so I will delve into this issue a little bit longer as I originally planned. First of all, Spongebob Squarepants was never an educational show. It’s a comedy for children first, and it only wants the kids to laugh. Its how you do comedy. Which brings me to my next problem with the whole “Spongebob is making kids stupid!” The show is a comedy! I have nothing against shows teaching children lessons, but this was just entertainment. You don’t watch comedies to learn or get smart. And don’t try to blame it on the humor style of the show either, because, as long as it’s appropriate (which I know this show wasn’t at times), then it will be passable. Yes, I do know this show wasn’t always for kids, and even I can post some moments to prove it. However, this also meant that Spongebob Squarepants was more of a show for everyone if the humor style was more all over the place on it’s maturity. Well, at least it was until the second half of the show AFTER the movie came out. I don’t know how that happened, but that is neither here or there.
So, no. It wasn’t smart, and I really don’t see a hidden agenda to make anyone dumb. but What I do see what the show did, and I think this really better answers my question on the title of this topic, is that its humor and what it was was something that just so happened to come out at the right time. In 1999, many people were going crazy about the Y2K, thinking that the world is going to blow up when we hit the 21st century. Even after we entered into the new decade without any radiation sickness, we then entered into the darkest moment in US history, which was 9/11. And then we continued on with the War on Terror, Hurricane Katrina, the rise of gas prices, 7/7 bombing, and the recession and housing crisis. But when you look into all of this tragic and controversial moments that happened to us here in America, you got to ask yourself, “was there any light moments around those times?” Don’t get me wrong, what happened in those moments in the 2000s was horrible, and I do respect those who went through it. So don’t take this as if I just trashed the people who were involved with our nation’s tragedies.
This is my reason for why I think that Spongebob Squarepants came out at the right time. It was running at a moment when we needed children to lighten up and have fun at a time when they needed. I’m not saying that they should live in denial, thinking that there’s nothing bad that can ever happen. But I am saying that children do need happiness and laughter. Spongebob Squarepants did do that for a decade, which is sort of impressive if you think about. It managed to stay relevant as long as it took, and its still relevant today!
But the one thing that I never realized until I saw Il Neige’s reveiw of the Spongebob Squarepants Movie was that there were college students at the time of the first season who were watching the show. I’m not going to explain why or how that came to be, because I do believe that’s a topic for another day. But not since Ren and Stimpy did we ever have a show that did that. This show really did have things for everyone, and most of the humor and its style did come from Ren and Stimpy. Who knew that Spongebob was able to get an even broader audience at the time, especially at a point when they knew how bad the politics and the economy was getting. They actually had something to enjoy.
So in conclusion, I can say that this show did give me something to love in a decade that I always hated. It helped many people try to find something that they can laugh at and not put kids in a panic mode most of the time. It put many in a good mood when we needed it, and we did need it. Sure, there are times when we need to take our lives serious, and I even parts in my life when I need to. I you ever get to know me well enough, I do take myself seriously at times. But sometimes we do need a good balance of both seriousness and joy in life. Spongebob Squarepants did that, and that’s why I think it came out on the right time!
Now that Steven Moffat is finally going to end his reign of terror- I mean his run on Doctor Who, the next man who will be in charge of being the new show runner is Chris Chibnall. Chris Chibnall is the writer of Broadchurch and……….oddly enough, Gracepoint, which was the American version, that also starred David Tennant, but that time starred Skylar White as the female protagonist. Whatever. The female protagonist in Broadchurch was in both Doctor Who and Hot Fuzz. How many people from Edgar Wright’s movies were in Doctor Who? Anyway, now that we have over a year until Chibnall takes over, I think its best that I start to review as many of his episodes that he has written in the Doctor Who universe, starting in Torchwood.
Oh Torchwood. The show that is named as an anagram for Doctor Who, specifically made and geared towards the mature audience, and then later on sprouted The Sarah Jane Adventures for the children that in some ways was kind of better, and even Diamanda Hagan, the number one David Tennant/New Who hater in the world, would agree. Yeah, Torchwood wasn’t that great of a show, but its that kind of show that I would watch when nothing is on. It’s fine. I started watching this before I ever watched Doctor Who, and that was because I found about this show before I found out about the other, and when I did see the commercials for the other, it had this image burnt in my mind:
Right when I saw that clip from New Earth, I shouted to myself “EVEN N64 GRAPHICS LOOK BETTER THAN THIS!!!!!!!!” And even today I still think the same thing. So, as the ignorant teenager that I was, I avoided Doctor Who for nearly five years, mocking it’s existence whenever I tried to see it, got confused as to why Captain Jack was in Doctor Who, and watched, uuuhhhhhhh, *shrugs* ….the first four episodes of Torchwood. Yeah, my interest for this show died very quickly. But you know what? I have to start watching this show again, but I know it will be harmless. Its like eating the fruits and vegetables that you see outside of a grocery store that will expire within less than a day. It may not be a pleasant thought, but at least you won’t get sick from it.
Our episode begins with Gwen bowling with her fiance on their date night, until they see a meteor crashing down in a park. Gwen is called by Jack to get to work with Torchwood. My opinion on Captain Jack Hartness is that he is a very entertaining guy, and very cool! He is so cool, that the TARDIS wasn’t cool enough to keep him in for long! Okay, I made that part up, but he’s still a cool guy! …………in Doctor Who, at least. Okay, in the first few episodes of this show, he’s at least cool. That kind of dies away, and then it tries to die away really badly in Torchwood: Miracle Day, figuratively and literally. The team excavates the meteor, and Owen, being the womanizer that he usually is, tries to call Gwen to do something by calling her names that ticks her off. Very smooth, Owen! This then makes Gwen throw a chisel for Owen to use, but she appears to throw it so hard that it punctures into the meteor really hard!
I apologize if what I said sounded inappropriate. The chisel in the meteor then makes a pinkish purple fart smoke come right out and then flies away.
If Rose Tyler farted this girly-colored smoke to make her room look ridiculously pink in Rose, I would buy it.
Anyway, the girly version of the smoke monster from Lost flies away, and possess a woman named Carys, who is messaging her boyfriend to say that she wants to break up with him the old fashion way that my grandma still does it. By talking instead of texting on a flip phone. Let me remind you that this episode is going to be 10 years old very soon. so the possessed woman has an ability with the girly smoke monster on that she can get whatever she wants by kissing someone on the lips, and that she does to go back into the night club she came out of. And then she also has another ability where she uses on a guy in the mildly-interested-type-of-acting night club with loud music, by having sex with someone. This is what I mean about Torchwood being aimed at a mature audience. When it comes to Doctor Who, you still need to have the show being made as a family show, meaning it’s a show for everyone. And even though it’s a show for everyone, that means it needs a lot of restrictions. These restrictions are avoiding religion to stay away from any controversy, toning down the violence, no vulgarity, and having any sexual content. That’s why Torchwood was made. Getting away with using as much cursing as you want, and………….killing people by having sex. I never said it was good either, and seeing that this was the first thing Chris Chibnal wrote for this universe shows that he wasn’t off to a good start.
Torchwood then gets some news from Ianto that there was a murder in the night club where the girly smoke monster was at. How was anyone able to figure that one out with the remains of the dead corpse looking like this?
Here’s your answer: they installed cameras inside of the restrooms for perverts to look after! I don’t know how the rules of the CCTV cameras in the UK work, but don’t tell me that installing cameras in the restrooms is allowed. Okay, it wasn’t put in there by the government, but that may make it worse for the men to masturbate over!
But Gwen still goes in a whole “I’m sorry” phase, and Jack tries to give her some relief that stuff like that happens. But probably could of happened anyway if she stick with the process, so her going around her guilt trip is still pointless. And then she tries to get more character development- I mean get to know her new crew in her new job, while Captain Jack tries to find out what planet the girly smoke monster came from. They even try to use footage from the CCTV cameras to get a match from the civilians that the other cameras that they saved from. Re-watching this show ten years later is really making me question it’s political beliefs. But Gwen, who was concerned about gathering people’s personal data in Torchwood, uses the gathered personal data from the civilians, and finds the girly smoke monster trying to have sex with a mail man. But Torchwood shows up in time to save the mail man, and Owen traps Carys in what reminds me of the cone of silence from Get Smart.
After bringing in girly smoke monster into Torchwood as prisoner, Gwen tries to get answers from the alien, but ends up having sex with her that gets both Jack and Owen aroused. Just remember folks, these are the best that the whole earth got when the Doctor is too busy with going to different parts of time and space without knowing his location like Bugs Bunny! OUR HEROES EVERYBODY!!! But Gwen was able to get out of that situation, because the alien needs to have sex with a man. I’m going to avoid any possible controversial argument here, so I’m just going to skip ahead to the part where they have Chinese food with Gwen automatically feeling better with laughter. And then they go back to the girly smoke monster, because they have a TV screen in the dining room that screens prisoners who are under surveillance.
What an odd thing to do.
Jack says its to record any kind of data they can gather from her being surveillance, but why have that being part of the dinner table? You have a separate room with computers that can already do this. This is like if a bunch of security guards looks up prisoners who they don’t like, have a room full of monitors that can, and are, recording every single one of their actions, and have a big screen TV for them to see someone go through torture in Guantanamo Bay while eating ice cream cake. Because of this, Gwen tries to find more info on Carys that impresses Jack, and then Toshiko finds out that the girly smoke monster is living off of sex pheromones. I swear, I feel rather embarrassed talking about this episode. And what happens next doesn’t help on the fact that the girly smoke monster seduced Owen by taking off his clothes and got away, and then leads him to Gwen making sexual innuendos of him!
No, I will not post the image of naked Owen! I can’t believe that Chibnall is going to replace Moffat.
So, the girly smoke monster tried and succeeded to escape Jack by fighting him, and got away with it by throwing the Doctor’s severed hand from The Christmas Invasion. And now this is the part where I have to explain the controversy of the Doctor’s severed hand. The Doctor’s hand was taken and watched by Captain Jack up until he meet up with the Doctor again in Utopia. I don’t know why, but Captain Jack took the severed hand with him, and the Doctor kept his hand with him in the end of Last of the Timelords. The hand was then being of some use and resolved in a critically controversial moment in the two part-er The Stolen Earth and Journey’s End when the Doctor was in the process of regenerating and then poured his regeneration into the hand to sprout another Doctor. For those of you who never seen that episode, I’m not even making that up. What made it MORE complicated was that that regeneration counted when Steven Moffat tried to work that out in Time of the Doctor. To me, I’m in favor for it, but many fans are still in raged over Moffat making that cannon to the series.
Owen then explains the problem with the alien being in a living body for too long by experimenting it with a hamster. Now Owen’s character in this show kind of brings in a sort of confusion for me, as well as those who have noticed this from after watching Doctor Who. You see here, Owen in this show is a doctor for Torchwood, but in Aliens in London (aka, what use to be the WORST EPISODE IN DOCTOR WHO HISTORY!!!!!!), Toshiko was a doctor, but is now a computer expert for Torchwood. If you ask me, I would of prefer if their professions were swapped, since I can see Owen being more of a computer expert and Toshiko as a doctor. Now, you may make a simple argument that the character in Aliens in London and here are different, but even in Naoko Mori’s filmography shows that she is still playing the same character.
But I digress. Owen says that if the girly smoke monster stops having sex, Carys will blow up! That bit of info then brings us to a montage of Carys looking around Cardiff to images of partially nude people all around in desperation for sex. And then she goes on to her ex, who looks like if Daniel Radcliffe gained some weight.
Harry Potter really let himself go.
The girly smoke monster kills Fatty Potter, and Torchwood tries out Carys’ job to find her. She does end at her workplace, and kills one man at a time. Torchwood’s plan is to try to force the girly smoke monster out of Carys by forcing it to die. When they get to Carys, they found a bunch of cremated men that if they show us all of the men she had sex with. I will never say this ever again, since I’m not a prune, but Carys must have a lot of stamina to kill that many men from doing sex. But she’s finally stopped, and the alien says that she needs one more man to get laid so the alien could get stronger and be more alive. I’m not even sure what any of that is suppose to mean. I think it means that the girly smoke monster will become Carys or something. I-I don’t know. I got less than 7 minutes of run time left in this episode.
Captain Jack tries to kiss her that results Carys’ body to glow, and then stops?
Even I’m Gwen on this, and she’s only new to this job.
Gwen says that she wants to take the girly smoke monster, and the girly smoke monster does just that by first getting out of Carys, and then tries to travel into Gwen’s body. But Jack gives the alien the cone of silence, trapping the alien to its death. The girly smoke then becomes……..into ash?
How does that even work?!
Whatever, the day is saved, thanks to Torchwood!
This episode was not a good one. It was both weird and stupid, raises a lot of questions, and you don’t really get to know about the alien’s point of origin or what its suppose to be, which is why I kept calling it the girly smoke monster. The plot is ridiculous, revolving around an alien who could of been a plot for a porno. Half of the time, the characters would turn out to be incapable of their job, making you wonder how on earth Torchwood even still exists with these group of people to begin with. Sure, they were able to get the job done, but seeing what they went through was not even good enough. I don’t think that this episode was terrible, but it wasn’t good enough to be alright either.
So far, we’re not off to a good start with Chris Chibnall here. I do try to be as optimistic as I can with all of this, and I am hoping to see more of his strengths. However, we do have to plow through his next episode, which happens to be, according to the fans, one of the worst episodes in Torchwood. Yeah, this might be one of the worst, but we’re only out of the frying-pan, into the fire. I’m not going to say what it is, but most of you can already guess what episode I’m talking about.
Some Review Site 