A pretty late re-schedule.  And I kind of wondered about that move to Friday to start with.

So far I’m not feeling on board, particularly since learning Gugu Mbatha-Raw won’t return.  

The one constant as time passes, Jake tells us in the opening voice over, is change.  What the?  Try to wrap your mind around that conundrum, folks!  People don’t like change, Jake muses, so they cling to the illusion of stasis.  We see poor Martin, who to be fair has never really gotten any illusion of stasis to cling to, crying over a photograph of him and Jake.  When he gets a phone call, he rushes around, packing frenetically, and spills other photos of Jake as a baby and toddler on the floor (and my goodness, David Mazouz has been absolutely darling every second of his young life — every millisecond and microsecond, even).

Read the rest of my recap of Touch 1.12 - Gyre, Part 2, at HDJM!

Jake prepares to unleash his Crystal of Doom!

Now, where did that rubber ducky you used to take baths with get to?  Chances are it’s probably in the North Pacific Gyre!  Okay, not really, but there are rubber ducks in that Gyre, apparently, caught there since 1992 when a shipload of them from China spilled into the Pacific Ocean.  Jake tells us items in a gyre typically get stuck there, “doomed to travel the same path.”  But chance encounters (you know, a whale with a vendetta against rubber ducks, the bastard, or a storm disrupting the currents while those poor rubber ducks cling to each other, terrified out of their little rubber minds) can change things:  “which means it’s possible to break free…it’s possible to find the way to shore.”

Read the rest of my recap of Touch 1.11 - Gyre, Part 1, at HDJM!

Jake wants us to know that symmetry is the language of the universe, and geometrical shapes make up its characters.  “And when you speak the language, follow the logic you can predict the next step. You just have to trust in where the paths meet.”  M.C. Escher fans, rejoice!  You know where Jake’s coming from, am I right?  Or if you’re a fan of honeycombs (which are big — yeah, yeah, yeah! they’re not small — no, no, no!), go ahead and rejoice also, for not only is honey delicious, it comes from a naturally tesselated (tiled pattern repeating particular shapes) structure.

But you know, symmetry isn’t the most exciting thing.  If all the sides and patterns are perfectly proportioned and matching, there’s less complexity to experience or describe.  Symmetry can be beautiful, and it can move us greatly.  But when we strive to make things symmetrical, we sacrifice detail and surprise.  And really, in that way this episode showcases Touch‘s strengths and weaknesses pretty damn well.

Read the rest of my recap of Touch 1.10 - Tesselations over at HDJM!

Let’s see if the move to Friday night will boost Touch’s ratings.  Anyone know if we’re getting another 13-episode season, or possibly a full 22 this time?

Jake, want to use your words?  No, Jake wants to use his NUMBERS, okay, Martin?

Jake opens by complaining to us he’s never been so bored in all his life, and that all the other kids got that new Xbox game from their parents, and why can’t we just be cool like Sam’s dad?  No, no, I’m just joshing you — Jake taps into another mystical universal truism by intoning the principle that all musical elements can be translated by mathematical ratios; if all ratios could translate into sound, he posits, we’d hear the music of the spheres.  Yeah.  This kid’s always on.

Read the rest of my recap of Touch 1.09 - Music of the Spheres over at HDJM!

Seriously, I don’t yearn for Martin/Clea, but I YEARN for them to be this parenting unit with Jake.  <3 <3 <3

(Source: touchfuckyeah)

Jake tells us the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.  As I reel in shock from this (why did no one TELL ME?), he clarifies if the path gets blocked and direct connection becomes impossible, the universe will find another way.  Meanwhile, we see our Characters Whose Lives Will Be Forever Changed by Numbers and Patterns o’ the week: a cabbie, a French guy leaving his partner by slipping a note under a door, a woman breaking a mirror and Jake creating a cat’s cradle of pattern-ly significance with a red string.

A man on a bus with a ham radio under his arm unwittingly drops a part as he starts to exit.  Lucky for him, Martin Bohm is on the bus, and hands him the vacuum tube he would have left behind.  Wouldn’t it be hilarious if that was the quest for the week already done?  But no, no, this is simply the first indicator on our mystical road map.

Read the rest of my recap of Touch 1.08 - Zone of Exclusion here at HDJM!

You know what’s good about numbers? Sure, mystical magical global connections, right, of course, that’s super important — but also, WINNING AT POKER!

Jake’s latest voice-over covers how during a cataclysmic global event, computer-generated random number sequences stop being random.  “As our collective consciousness synchronizes, so do the numbers.”  Hmm.  Listen, I could nod sagely here, with my bubble pipe poised in an erudite gesture acknowledging the truthiness of this.  Or I could be honest with you and voice my real reaction to this alleged knowledge Jake’s dropping on us: the hell?

Read the rest of my recap of Touch 1.07 - Noosphere Rising over at HDJM!

Roll up for the mystical magical sequence tour! Jake’s discovered some of the same numbers Arthur Teller saw when he had an aneurysm! *pauses* This is supposed to be good.

Jake’s opening voice-over tells us that people who are lost in the Northern Hemisphere can use Polaris, the North Star, to guide them home. But if they get lost in other ways, they are just totally SoL.

No, no, do you think Jake, with his mystical connections and inner beatific understanding of the human race despite his outward disinterest in anything that’s not a bat, a car, or a sugar packet, would say such a vulgar thing? Nope, if people get lost in other ways, those whose lives intersect with theirs can also act as beacons. “The light they bring will never fade,” Jake closes.

Read the rest of my recap of Touch 1.06 - Lost and Found here!

Last night I had a dream. Same dream I’ve had for nine years. We’re in a park. Jake’s on a swing. He’s smiling, laughing and going higher and higher, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he’s just in the air, and I catch him. And his little arms go around me, and… …I can feel his breath on my neck, and…And then I just wake up.

(via fseventh)

Pity the poor busboy who has to scrub Jake’s Swirl of Syrupy Significance from the window.

Amid opening shots of our characters of the week lighting candles, creeping on girls on subways, texting friends about running away from forced marriages, and stealing and emotionally returning a German guy’s wallet (wouldn’t it be fun if those acts were all done by the same character?), Jake’s voice-over gives us a stat on the number of babies born daily.  And they might think they’re individuals (those smug babies), but really they’re composed of internal networks — just like how all people seem unique but are all connected to one another.

Read the rest of my Touch 1.05 - Entanglement recap over at HDJM!

kuoku:

Another Touch fanart I drew. I really love this show!

Nice work — interesting to have Jake smiling a bit and making eye contact, so that Martin can’t see.

(Source: shslgod)

Jake’s voice-over tells us humans are hard-wired with impulses to share our ideas and form communities, because we’re hoping for answers and connections.  “If you haven’t received a message, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been sent,” Jake intones, advising us to listen harder.  I’m going to use this piece of wisdom as an excuse to crash so many fun parties.  Hey, just because I never got an invite doesn’t mean the hosts didn’t mystically send the message in some symbolic and possibly number-signified way!

Read the rest of my recap of Touch - 1.04 Kite Strings over at HDJM!

seriesdediscoduro:

Touch es una de las series que más me han impactado en esta Mid-Season en la que nos encontramos. Con la mayoría de series que seguía terminadas, o por acabar, tenía que buscar alguna otra que llenara esos huecos en mi calendario seriéfilo. Hablaré y escribiré más sobre Touch, de eso estoy seguro.

I don’t think I’ve seen this still before; it’s a lovely one.