Torchwood Live Commentary @ Dragon*Con

[Anthony Williams]

Some of you already know that I spent the weekend geeking out at Dragon*Con here in Atlanta, GA.

Aside from Sylvester McCoy, one of the most enjoyable things I did all weekend was see Gareth David-Lloyd (aka Ianto Jones) do a live commentary on an old episode of Torchwood. His choice was Countrycide, that somewhat poorly received episode featuring cannibals in the Brecon Beacons.

So, what follows is, I guess, my "report" on the whole thing.

The event started with a live auction of a poster signed by Gareth David-Lloyd. He had said that he hadn't originally planned to do anything with it, and had graffiti'd it for his own entertainment (it was behind him at his Walk of Fame signing desk). The graffiti including him crossing out the "Children of Earth" subtitle and replacing it with "Series 5: Miracle Gay" [sic], and drawing Harry Potter glasses on Captain Jack, a Hitler mustache on Gwen and a huge afro on himself. Ultimately, it went for $200, with the proceeds going to getting his band's new album out.

Anyway, after that, he enquired as to how many people had seen the episode before, how many hadn't, and how many were Torchwood virgins. Those who put up their hands for the last one, he then asked "oh, did you just feel like coming to see a drunk Welshman ramble on about bad horror, then?", to giggles from most of the audience.

Eventually, we moved on to the episode. It's clear that while he loves the episode, he enjoys it purely in an ironic way. As is always the most entertaining thing with such live commentaries, he was sarcastic and scathing. He constantly referred to Ianto as "such a pussy", complained about how he didn't really do much through all of it (although cheered when he headbutted one of the cannibals), and talked about how everyone was "constantly eye-f**king each other" through the episode. Of course, he led us in the audience with raptuous laughter when Owen uttered the line to Gwen of "when was the last time you came so hard you didn't know where you are?" Much entertainment was also derived from the scene where Gwen is demanding to know why the cannibals did it, and GD-L kept yelling "BECAUSE HE'S WELSH!"

Also out of it came some nice new information, mostly about how much grander the episode should've been, had some scenes been filmed where they were originally meant to be (the final showdown was originally meant to take place in a village hall), and Ianto was pretty much but out after he gets hit on the head, because his injuries were considered to be too gory by the BBC3.

All in all, a very entertaining session

[shada pavlova]

Please tell me someone filmed it.

[Anthony Williams]

I didn't, but I really hope that someone did! It was very entertaining