2000 AD Online Forum

OK I've seen the trailers, perused the moody website and scoffed at the All black wearing, darkly brooding homepage.

But is it going to be cool or crap?

When I watch the trailer I do feel a tad sci-fi fatigued by the intensity and Hollywood style / spooks atmosphere and my eyes glaze over with a 'seen it all before' feeling, and I try to show interest and will watch it - but I'm thinking maybe it's a flash product with little substance. I hope not.

My expectations are not very high and I'm hoping to be surprised.

Link: Torchwood

Having seen the trailers, my housemate and I have concluded that it will be either:

1. A sci-fi series with the things that makes Spooks enjoyable
2. A sci-fi series with the things that makes Spooks a hackneyed piece of w*nk

We're hoping it's the former.

We are slightly p*ssed off though about the fact it's only being shown on BBC3, since we neither have nor can receive Freeview. B*stards.

Will watch it if I'm in, but I'm not particularly looking forward to it. The new Dr Who hasn't done much for me and I thought Captain Jack was more of a comedy character so it's strange to see him getting his own series.

Oh yeah and the other thing was that it's on at the same time as the second half of Prime Suspect, which inho is a mistake by the beeb.

Damn yes, double bill this sunday from 9pm 'ave it

It's being repeated the following Wednesday on BBC2, for those of us without digital, cable or satellite.

davidbishop

Ah right, thanks for that David - a mention of that by the BBC wouldn't have gone amiss ...

since we neither have nor can receive Freeview.

Have you tried putting a signal booster on your aerial? That worked for us - although you do get picture distortion every time a motorbike goes past the house or someone turns a light on...

Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Maxview-Highgain-Digital-Signal-Booster/dp/B000FIH80M/sr=8-4/qid=1161097556/ref=sr_1_4/026-3635231-0260458?ie=UTF8&s=electronics

When's it on?

Not overly hopeful, personally.  There's an article about it in this week's Radio Times and Russell T Davis is quoted as saying, regarding his inspiration for the show "I'd been watching shows like Buffy and Angel, and I said, 'why don't we make a series like that?'".  

There's also a quick summary of the main characters, listing their role, their special skills and (seriously) who each character fancies.

I'm am so fucking stoked it's not even funny.

Some of you Brits must be jaded, you don't seem too know how good you've got it TV wise.

"I'd been watching shows like Buffy and Angel, and I said, 'why don't we make a series like that?'"

I thought that's what he'd done with Doctor Who, and the shadow of Buffy hanging over it was the main reason I didn't really enjoy Doctor Who.

It's all about family and emotions and a blonde girl...

Not looking forward to it, but I'll give it a go.  My own view is that like Doctor Who the writers will be stifled by the overbearing presence of RTD and his mawkish shite.

I think there are two episodes on Sunday.

"I'd been watching shows like Buffy and Angel, and I said, 'why don't we make a series like that?'"

I thought that's what he'd done with Doctor Who, and the shadow of Buffy hanging over it was the main reason I didn't really enjoy Doctor Who.

It's all about family and emotions and a blonde girl...

Not looking forward to it, but I'll give it a go.  My own view is that like Doctor Who the writers will be stifled by the overbearing presence of RTD and his mawkish shite.

I think there are two episodes on Sunday.

Sunday 9pm, BBC three

Repeated on the following Wed on BBC2 at 9pm...
Episode 1 and 2 together for a feature length opener...

MILD SPOILERS










From Radio Times:
Episodes 1 and 2 of this new science-fiction and crime drama series. A brutal murder leads WPC Gwen Cooper to Torchwood, a journey that will change her life forever. Plus, Torchwood must stop a sex addicted alien as it leaves a trail of gruesome deaths in its wake.

Invasion of the Bummers!

I've got a ticket going spare for a preview showing at The Quay in Glasgow tonight if anyone's interested.

Problem is, it's at 6:15 and they say you need photo ID, although I'm guessing a beard would be proof of age.

Post back here by half five if you want to go.

"Some of you Brits must be jaded, you don't seem too know how good you've got it TV wise."

You are right. We lead the field in quality entertainment. This week alone we have Celebrity Circus, Celebrity Beauty therepist and Celebrity Taxi driver.

Possible spoilers.

Two pictures from the Torchwood set via a friend of a friend. Second one, obviously, may just be left over bits from Doctor Who that happened to be left in the corner.

++Very minor spoilers. If any.++

Well, it was alright. Disappointingly we only got to see the first episode which was, naturally, mostly set up. The basic premise is pure Buffy, but there are some quite interesting ideas which may or may not be explored further as the series progresses.

My biggest problem with it is that the incidental music is intrusively loud. At times it was drowning out the dialogue, but this might just be because I was watching it in the pictures rather than on telly.

Basically, I'll watch it if I'm in, but I won't make a point of being in to watch it.

For the record, that is their car, but I didn't see any Daleks.

It seems to have been one of the complaints about the new Who that the music was way too loud.

There was some bollocks explanation about it being mixed for surround or something, but it's always sounded too overwhelming whatever I piped it through.

Sounds like Torchwood is going to be the same - I don't know what it is about the BBC, they like to drown out everything with music, but then when there is music without dialogue at the end of the programme the continuity announcers will witter over that.

- Steve

BBC press release really winds me up - the whole adult spin off for Dr Who is pretty wrongheaded to my mind, but what really grates are the hollow RTD bleatings as follows...

(the following carries a PVS rating - do not read PVS, for the sake of your blood pressure)

"He (RTD) said he ensured there was some swearing early in the first episode to make it clear the show was not meant for children, though he expected some would watch.

He said: "I did that very deliberately so that you cannot get confused about what you are watching.

"It's saying very clearly, if you are watching with a child, get out of the room."

Despite closely following the characters' love lives, Davies said he did not think "there's anything there to upset people".

Each of the Torchwood characters "get the chance to shine" as the series progresses, he said, with the aliens including a cyberman/woman, "psychotic fairies" and a "big, big" monster.

Barrowman said: "There's sexuality in the show. It's people showing their sexuality as people do in everyday life."

Although Doctor Who inspired Torchwood, no storylines cross over between the two series. "


So there's no cross over, except the main character (who has been and will be again in Who), some other characters, a cyberman, Torchwood, the rift in Cardiff... and thats just what we know about so far

And who is RTD saying should leave the room - sounds like the parents, and I can't help but suspect that's exactly what he means!

Of course kids will want to watch this.  If they'd done an adult Harry Sullivan spin off (STOP IT!) back in 76, I'd have been mortified if I couldnt have watched it.

The concept of a Who spin off that kids cant see is pretty poor, but even worse are these weasel words...  Gah!

Don't look in the box, PVS!

Too late...

To be honest, it's all I expect from him, and I have very low expectations.

I think he's got himself a lot of attention my resurrecting a national institution that everyone loved, and hopefully he'll bugger off and give it a chance before people decide they've had enough.  Otherwise he'll take all the reflected glory and none of the blame.

Gah...

:: There was some bollocks explanation about
:: it being mixed for surround or something

If that's true, that's totally idiotic. Most people don't have surround, and most of those that do don't have it set up optimally anyway. To me, Who was just mixed really, really badly.

Not looking good...

"If Buffy was a kids show that appealed to adults, then Torchwood comes over like an adult show that will appeal to kids."

Link: Guardian Review

So you can add a guest appearance by the Doctors hand to the list... and a few other references to "previously on Dr Who" apparently.  But no crossing over storylines, so that's OK.

SPOILER... of sorts...


"All that CSI bollocks," mutters one copper. "I'd like to see CSI Cardiff - they'd be measuring the velocity of a kebab."

Hilarious.  Give the man a Bafta.

Interesting the reviewer mentioned Ultraviolet.  I'd rather that had come back.  I'm utterly depressed and Torchwood hasn't even started yet.

SFX reviews and comments:

Link: I think they liked it mostly

You know, me and some housemates watched the trailer with raised eyebrows all the way through until the bit with Jack standing on top of a tall building and a camera revolving around him.

Then the three of us yelled: Garth Marenghi!

Finn Sin

Fun and hi-jinks at the Torchwood press conference -

Dateline: 18 October, 2006, The St David's Hotel & Spa, Cardiff. Russell T Davies and Chris Chibnall are hosting a Q&A session, following a press screening of episode one of Torchwood.

IAN LEVINE (for it is he) : Russell, if Captain Jack is coming back to the last three episodes of season three of Doctor Who, what happens when â?¦

RUSSELL T DAVIES: [Cutting him off] This is a Doctor Who question.

IAN LEVINE: It's not about Doctor Who! It's a Torchwood question! What happens if you go to Torchwood series two - which I hope you will - and he's in Doctor Who?

RUSSELL T DAVIES: I can't tell you that now! [Laughs] You'd wouldn't ask Agatha fucking Christie whodunnit! Next question!

IAN LEVINE: But in Torchwood series two â?¦

RUSSELL T DAVIES: Ian, no offence, you're not a journalist, so fuck off.

I know Ian Levine gets a lot of flak, and he's a bit of a character who winds people up the wrong way, but even so - RTD finds new and interesting ways to fall lower still in my estimations...

And yeah, Russell, its a Dr Who question cos you've made a fucking Dr Who spin off - hence the "Captain Jacks back" headline on the Radio Times cover - back from where, you insufferable fool?

Who is Ian Levine?

Ian Levine is the guy who saved lots of the old episodes of Dr Who back in the 70s, when he went down and famously (in Who circles) kicked up a fuss that resulted in the Beeb holding fire on their destruction of eps (IIRC, the first Dalek story was lined up for the skip that very day).

He became a continuity advisor on the show in the 80s, when continuity was big, and was the chap who, at the first cancellation crisis, put a hammer through 'his' TV as a publicity stunt.

He turned his back on the production team when Lanmgford turned up, i think...

Also a record producer and owner of huge collection of DC comics.

Wikipedia probably does it better than me...

Link: much better than i could do methinks....

Actually, I was thinking the opposite. RTD is hardly gonna tell everyone what happens at the end of both this series of Torchwood, and the 3rd Who series, just to appease some fanboy who's worried about continuity, is he? We get enough program's spoiled by the press as it is, without the actual makers doing so.

Oh, and Jack's back from the future, and back on our screens! Seems pretty obvious to me!  ;)

Alan!

>We get enough program's spoiled by the press as it
is, without the actual makers doing so.

like in the Guardian this morning... though they did make me want to watch it to see if it's going to be as silly as it sounds...

Link: here be spoilers...

Tbh, I think that rather than demanding spoilers, Levine was asking how they were going to handle the character crossing over in both series in general. RTD, as usual, proves himself to be a grade-A wanker yet again.

How far can one man be up his own arse?

I just don't see that he does. Why tell everyone what's going to happen with Jack. Let's just wait and see.

Alan!

And to be fair, if this is the same Ian Levine that I remember, then he was apparently a right chimpy cock, so I would've thought that telling him to 'fuck off' would be the wisest course of action one could take.

Levine is a childish, self-important prick & a prime example of the very worst of Who fandom. His contribution to preserving the show's history should be recognised, but it doesn't make him any less of an arsehole.

Having said that, I think Davies' response to him was damn unprofessional. Obviously he won't want to reveal whatever plans he has for future seasons of Who or Torchwood, but telling the questioner to fuck off is pretty low - and I suspect he wouldn't have done it if it had been a member of the press, so it feels almost bullying to do it to Levine.

I think we should just agree that, by way of equality, he should've told both Levine *and* the distinguished members of the press to fuck off. That way everyone's happy.

I suspect he was playing to the gallery and told him to fuck off in his smug, faux-humerous, style

Turns out I'd won tickets to the Manchester screening, but didn't notice the email, as it was obscured by the tide of spam that's currently blighting my inbox.

Bah...

Ah. I wasn't aware of Levine's background and just went on the strength of that transcript.

RTD *is* still full of his own shit, though.

"RTD *is* still full of his own shit, though."

To be fair, some of that shit does belong to Joss Wheadon.

RTD *is* still full of his own shit, though

Yeah, I'm beginning to feel that way too. Really interesting watching the interviews with cast & crew on the Classic Who DVDs & comparing them to RTD's performances on Confidential etc...

Spin-off frenzy!

Didn't know about this.

"You've dumped me for a fucking brat, mistress."

I dunno - Levine is pretty obsessive, and he's opinionated, and seems to have a way of winding people up but I have yet to see a story of him being in any way malicious - he slagged off JNT, which seemed to have been the start fo the ire against him.  TBH, I think fandom at that time was right to turn on JNT - I'd long lost interest in the show, and JNT was the reason (though I didnt know that at the time).

If anyone can tell me or point me to the root of Levines demonization, maybe I'd agree, but other than the roasting he gave the production team in the late 80s, I'm not sure what he's done wrong (and I personally wouldnt hold that against him - quite the opposite)!

As someone who never entered Who fandom, it just looks to me like theres an old guard of Hippy/Pre-JNT fans and a new guard of Punk/McCoy loving fans, and theyre both as bad as each other - thought the punks should know better, so I'm siding with the hippies! ;)  

Well that Russell Grant fella's writing it, so it shouldn't be a complete bunch or arse. I hope. On the other hand, it could be, which would be a shame. Dunno really. Sorry - what was the question again?

JNT wasn't entirely responsible for the bad shit of the 80's. If anything I'd blame Eric Saward more. If JNT hadn't had to stop on as producer and left with Peter Davison or after Colin Bakers first run he'd be much better remembered. The man had his failings but when he avoided his own ego he could do his job.

Saward didnt seem right for the job, I'll agree, but ultimately, I think the blame lies with the guy who hires the guy whos doing it wrong.  Especially if that guy is too busy swanning around the US convention circuit to sort out the guys who are not up to scratch.

Saw the Tochwood trailer after Omen 2 (I can quite happily wait *another* 20-odd years before I watch that again), and it looked, well...sort of...shit.

Gary'll like it, though, 'cos there's obvious lezzing-up in it. ;)

The current ish of RadioTimes carries a Torchwood cover and a behind-the-scenes sneaky peek article on the inside.
Whilst the babe quotient does look particularly encouraging and is as good a reason as I need to tune in tonight, I'm uncertain as to what the actual lezz potential will be; certainly none of the major female characters appear to be of that particular persuasion (damn). Knowing RTD's own proclivities, and allusions to Cap'n Jack's AC/DC tendencies in his first series of Who, the only other example of possible hurmasex action will be being provided by the new character of Ianto Jones (played by Gareth David-Lloyd), who the RT describes as "hiding a secret from the Torchwood team..." and "there's definitely an attraction there, for Jack."

Anyhoo, back to the chicks...

The cutest by far is Toshiko 'Tosh' Sato, played by Naoko Mori (who reprises the role she played briefly in the Who Series One story Aliens of London.) That's her on the cover stood arms folded on Cap'n Jack's left, looking all business-like and domineering.... Oh Gooooood.
Of course, my personal addiction to Japanese bukkake videos may be influencing my decision in this regard...

If anyone can tell me or point me to the root of Levines demonization, maybe I'd agree,

His internet presence has been more than enough for me to loose whatever respect I had for him.

He was also responsible for unleashing Take That upon an unsuspecting world...

"JNT wasn't entirely responsible for the bad shit of the 80's. If anything I'd blame Eric Saward more"

Saward still managed to script-edit a handful of classics under his watch and wrote one too. Unlike...

...the next guy. Under Cartmel we had 3 years of plotless stories which were just a handful of set pieces randomly thrown together. He also totally re-wrote the Doctor's character in contradiction to the previous 23 years. Casting the Doctor as a brooding, amoral, cosmic manipulator was not only the wrong move for the series, but was pretty unconvincing when the actor portraying this was Sylvester McCoy who chose to play the character as... a twat.

Whatever the failings of JNT, Eric Saward or RTD none of them have produced anything as godawful as the Sylvester McCoy years.

- Huey

I disagree. Pretty much any of the Colin Baker stories are much worse than pretty much any of the McCoy run.

Submitted without comment...

I still think that's a neat idea.

In reply I offer this

Link: More enjoyable than the actual episode

Y'know, one day there's going to be a Doctor Who related thread posted on the internet somewhere that doesn't eventually become a 'Sylvester McCoy was crap / no he wasn't / he was / wasn't / was' fight...

"Pretty much any of the Colin Baker stories are much worse than pretty much any of the McCoy run."

Colin Baker's Doctor never decided to climb over an ice cliff for no reason whatsoever, then hang there like a lost dildo, just so the show could end on a 'cliffhanger'.

And what was all that shite about the cats at the end?

But then there was that Colin Baker episode where they turned Troughton into a munchkin.  Was there nobody on set that day brave enough to speak up and put an end to what was essentially a holiday in a crap part of spain at the license payers expense?  It made Eldorado look like the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Which is better?  On balance I'd have to say it's a mute argument as it was all toss.  

Hopefully my brain can only hold the memories of so much shite TV and Torchwood will either dislodge some of the bad memories already there, or even better, not take hold as my brain is too full of this sci-wank.

Hmmm choices, choices... the annoying doctor, or the really annoying doctor.

It was only Peri that kept me watching.

Ho-hum...

Not entirely sure about it so far. Lots of wankery - endless swirling aerial shots, naff dialogue, too-bright-too-shiny sets, a replay of the Doctor/Rose setup from series 1 of New Who, stuffed with genre cliches - but I'm a bit of a sucker for the basic idea, and I'm happy to give it a little longer.

Anyway, ep 2 is starting...

So, would that be a certain Time Lord's hand then?

Interesting, so far. Her from 'pity the Gelf' is quite good. Will certainly be watching next week.

That was fucking awful.

So, RTD watches Buffy and Angel and wonders why no-one is doing something like that on British TV ... and then he comes up with this pile of old shite?

The Beeb have clearly spent at least some money on it ... did no-one think to do some basic quality control on the scripts?

Complete balls.

Bah!

Jim

Didn't really enjoy it. They come accross as a bit smug and dull whereas the policewoman is a torn faced liberal pain in the arse. The swearing and sex only highlighted the fact that it's a poor man's Dr Who with 'adult content'. May watch again but won't fret if I miss it.

So, RTD watches Buffy and Angel and wonders why no-one is doing something like that on British TV ... and then he comes up with this pile of old shite?

...and with Captain Jack's apparent immortality, he even gets to include a Spike/Angel analogue into the series ;-)

I was thinking more Captain Scarlet, killed by aliens then resurrected... now he's indestructible.

- Steve

Heh - that is a bit more accurate!

I actually thought it was better than most of season 2 of New Who. Having said that, the sex did feel levered in just to make it clear that this was for grownups, not the kiddies.

I hadn't seen any of the trailers & was expecting it to be really awful. It wasn't that bad, not that good either but some of the one-liners were quite funny although far too much alcohol may have helped on this point. Other things borrowed were the cells from Silence of the Lambs and the doors from Deep Space Nine.

I thought the second episode was the height of originality - but then I've never seen that episode of Outer Limits with Dean Stockwell off of Quantum Leap, so I'm living IN A DREAM WORLD.

Not the worst show ever, but you'd have hoped with the sci-fi pedigree of British television in general, there would have been something more cerebral than a basic Sci-Fi Channel knock-off in the offing.  That set for Torchwood itself is actually embarrassing to behold, though.  Like a kids' show of some description.

I don't think it's really comparable with high-budget US showsâ??more like what appears on Sci-fi. I thought, wooden acting aside, the set-up episode was pretty good, but the second one was a bit naff. Still, no real opinions form until episode three's done with, so next week is the real test for me.

BAH! The missus wanted to catch the final Prime Suspect* and my VCR is on the fritz, so I guess it's the rerun on BBC2 Wednesday for me!




* +++SPOILER!+++

It was the annoying kid, the victim's 'best friend', wot did it.

and the life giving machine from B5 - which will no doubt be used before the series is out to save a member of the cast. My moneys on Gwen - who'll come around on her death bed with Cap'n Jack slumped over her. And her regret will be that she never boffed him...

I thought it was a direct lift from Strontium Dog, that.  The Time Drogue, was it?

Forgot about that. But now you mention it

that episode of Outer Limits with Dean Stockwell off of Quantum Leap

To me, it was also reminiscent of dodgy, 80s, space vampire fillum Lifeforce.

To me, it was also reminiscent of dodgy, 80s, space vampire fillum Lifeforce

Quite enjoyed that - very daft, but good fun. Any film that features Patrick Stewart going mental, giant space bats & naked space vixens gets my vote (in fact, I recently picked up the novel... :-) )

[shakes head slowly in disgust]

;)

Well, it was all a bit ho hum.  Made somewhat bearable by the two engaging leads, made somewhat unbearable by RTD's sense of humour.

Both episodes had silly stories and it is a very silly show.  I won't make a huge effort to watch this every week.  Might seem more cool if I was a kid.  And it seems a shame some of them aren't allowed to watch it.  The sweariness and 'sex' didn't really add anything and could have been taking out (even of the episode about a creature that goes around having sex for some stupid reason or other) and anyone could have watched it.

One thing that did get me was I would think how preposterous something was, then one of the characters would say how preposterous it was, then another character would give an explanation as to why it was preposterous, but possible.  All very odd.

Ah well, 21st century, bah humbug.

I immediately thought of Captain Scarlet too, but Captain Scarlet is much better.

Those two episodes were watchable, but not exactly original. There was nothing in them that hasn't been done thousands of times before. I found it all a bit bland.

Hyperreal police jackets.

Overanalysis, thy name is thread 18420.

Did that scene where they brought the dead bloke back to life for a couple of minutes remind anyone else of a device owned by a certain mutant bounty-hunter?

Whoops. Professor Bear already mentioned that. Sorry, must have skimmed past a couple of posts.

Come to think of it, didn't Buffy do this same storyline with a preying Mantis woman?

What you have to remember is that Buffy was a kids program.

Which didn't stop it going up it's own arse after the first series.

You'll never guess where I was when Torchwood was on...   >:(







Clue: the same place I'll be when the frigging repeat is shown.

>Clue: the same place I'll be when the frigging repeat is shown.

Have you heard of this thing called a Video Recorder. I hear they are all the rage.

As others have hinted at, the supposed mature approach only seemed to justify a few rude themes. It was bascially the Doctor Who crew doing the same thing, only giggling.

I watched it, but I just didn't like it all that much. The Torchwood ensemble are naff, the Cardiff setting is boring now and the low point was when the sex alien (motivation?) was first shown in the toilet. Whilst sex versus death is a well-established theme, the treatment was just gross. The piles of sand were pathetic, and masturbating security guard basically unpleasant.

The chap in the suit is a handy ever-present Deus Ex and there was an over-reliance on CCTV to the detection element. It really is no fun to watch crime being solved by a database.

The second episode hinted at an allegory about how sex is chepened in our society but the programme itself only reinforced that. And any other vestige of real sci-fi was missing.

All that said, Barrowman was surprisingly enjoyable, and the bit with the shootings at the end of Ep.1 was very well done.

With it's mature tag, I was expecting something in the vein of Cracker - with naturalistic acting, deeper themes and higher production values. Not, ironically, New Who with a very immature approach to sex and swearing.

Must improve.

M@

"Have you heard of this thing called a Video Recorder. I hear they are all the rage."

It's broken, and I'm buggered if I'm buying a new one - this is the first show this year I've felt the need to tape! I only watched 2 TV shows with any regularity in the last 12 months.

what a totally inauspicious start to the series. For something supposedly adult in tone, it was remarkably juvenile for the most part. The setting of Cardiff was bland and the storylines were generally nonsensical. Acting was variable, at best, wooden and unconvincing at worst! It could of aimed to be a modern day Quatermass, but came off as a very poor mans X-Files!
Must try very, very much harder!
Dweezil.

I thought that show Strange (The Stranger?) they did a few years back on BBC1 was better.

RTD must've left a copy of this brief on at the writers and production teams desks:

IMPORTANT: Basically to make Torchwood you have to:

1.Replace girl screaming "Doctor!" with "Captain Jack"

2.Instead of saying something like: "the biological makeup and anatomy combined with psi signals makes it a polymorph breed" you now say:

"the fookin' alien bastards biology and build makes the cunt a psi shagger from space! shit!"

3. Also, aliens no longer shoot you or touch your brains/skull to kill you. That's silly, immature and Dr Who stuff so it's right out. Torchwood is a "mature" show.

Aliens now have to be Vampires because that's edgy or they have to fuck you to death because sex is "mature" and scary and shit.

T'was poo.

Finn Sin

Strange. Written by the bloke who wrote 2.4 Children and vo-wrote the demmi-legendary If you see God tell him.

Torchwood met my low standards and kept Nicky awake. She fell asleep during Darkplace. It's no co-incidence that we almost split that night. I mean...falling asleep during Darkplace!

To be honest, I was slightly surprised that the murder weapon in the first episode was a knife and not a throbbing alien cock, especially after they said it was 8 inches long and 3 inches wide and that the women were stabbed from the front and the men from behind.

You've just made that up, haven't you?

Sadly, no.

I'll be watching it again, it was OK, and way better than Robin Hood currently is.

I had the same thought as Wils, and I don't have his dirty mind.  

Only watched the first one so far. It was... OK.   But as others have said, it's pretty much a rerun of "Rose", with Jack as the Doctor and Gwen as Rose.  The resolution wasn't great.  i'm sure a top secret organisation wouldn't need to go out stabbing people - and if they did, why use a space knife?  and then get squeamish about killing the heroine?

There must be a good few deaths in a big city like Cardiff without going around adding to em. Still, as this was the biggest implausible, I suppose for RTD, that's something.  

I thik the real problem is how RTD handles writing for a different audience.  

He seems to write in a very similar style (lots of chips and pizza and good for nothing boyfriends and such, with an afterthought plot).  For his family audience, he adds he adds chummy, lovey "isnt this great" dialogue.  For his adult audience he adds swearing and naughtiness, but there's no real attempt to make either type of story particularly sophisticated or at the very least subtle, nor to really tailor the meat of the tale for whichever audience he's going for.

I know it's probably a forlorn hope, but I would love to see a modern Robert Holmes or Terrance Dicks take the helm of Who (assuming of course that RTD does step down, or that the show survives long enough!). I'm becoming increasingly tired of his approach to the series and it would be wonderful to see someone with a more straightforward, serious approach in charge.

That doesn't explain why he gets such incomprehansible plaudits, such as Mark Lawson who called him the best writer of his generation, Stephen Moffatt who said 'Rose' was the perfect example of how to write drama, and Jonathan Ross who also praised him speaking ti Billie Piper last week.

ADE

I dont really understand the "best writer" stuff he get, other than I suppose, theres not much competition! I'd argue that what he writes is well done in and of itself, (chips, down to earth types, pop culture witticisms), but he doesn't seem capable or interested in writing out of this box, so we get him trying to bring the Who mountain to the RTD Mohammed.

Theres an interview where he says he hates fantasy, which seems a bit rich from the guy who has driven Who the closest to fantasy its ever been, with next to magic powers resolving plots on a weekly basis.  he also says emotions are a necessity in all modern telly - I agree with that, but again, the pallet of emotions he seems to play with appear limited - The Doctor and Rose are pretty interchangeable in terms of their emotional responses and points of reference.  a great writer would invest his characters with a whole range of different emotions and viewpoints, in order to best create "drama".  Drama is conflict, its not "I love you very very much" - that's in many ways the opposite of drama, at elast it is is if forms so much of the meat of the relationships your trying to invest with some depth!

So I guess I'm the only one who got everything he wanted out of t he first two episodes?

Because it was an excellent two hours of fun sci-fi adventure.  Right in line with the excellence of New Who.

I certainly missed the 'fun' bit! What I saw was mostly turgid and underwhelming. That's not to say it won't improve, but I'm not holding out to much hope. As others have already noted-to many poorly written characters is a major problem, the standout being the utterly superflous boyfriend character, who if was any more of a cardboard cut-out, would blow over.

No, The Adventurer you weren't the only one. You're just braver than me.

I liked it.

Actually, I'd agree with Moffatt that Rose was a pretty good example of how to write drama (ruined by some terrible (mis)direction - most noticeable when I caught the BBC3 repeat a few months back).  The script itself works very well at reintroducing all the things you need to introduce, and because you can legitimately sideline the main threat in such an intro story, it doesnt show up RTDs weaknesses in that area.

"utterly superflous boyfriend character"

On seeing him, my first words were, he won't last... let's see if he does.

I'll be watching thwe first two episodes tonight thanks to the magic of the internet*. Pah! I spit on your video recorders!












*Disclaimer: While still not technically 100% legal, I figure it's morally OK to download this, since it's not available on DVD yet and I've already paid to see it with my licence fee. I'll delete it when I'm done, honest!

Haven't seen the second one (saving it for later), but me'n'the wummin really enjoyed the opener, even tho' we both guessed whodunnit early on.  

Thought Cardiff looked great, and thought the Gelf Girl was a very sound lead.  Capn' Jack was restrained, but now reminds me of the Sound of Music.  Also thought that was Eccleston's hand in that jar.  Would have preferred less swearing and more (some) nudity.

But yeah, will be watching.  Good stuff.

Nope... you're not the only one. I too enjoyed it. Not saying there isn't room for improvment (coz there is) but as a whole, I thought the first too eps were more than watchable and will certainly be back for more next week.

Alan!

So I guess I'm the only one who got everything he wanted out of t he first two episodes?



Well, I've already stated that I enjoyed it.

I thought it was pretty good, actually...

Flicked it on towards the end. After a few minutes, Jack says:

"I've got a surplus of alive - I'm giving it away!"

Then he says:

"She travelled for millions of miles for the greatest sex...and still ends up dying alone."

So...noone at any point read the scripts beforehand and said "er, perhaps that's not a very good line..."

ADE

I thought it was pretty good fun but the attempts to be grown up felt a bit Hollyoaks Latenight special., so was a bit of a cringefest at times. The sex scene even had my mum laughing. Will keep watching though.

After initially setting up this post I finally got to watch this last night and the jury is still out.

The second episode was a complete rip off of species and sex gags you could get in within 45 minutes. I pissed myself laughing at the sex scene especially when he popped it. Good old RTD managed to get in loads of gay innuendos and a lesbian sex scene for the 'boys'. I feel it was just trying way too hard (fnnrr) to be adult and trying to bring Sci-Fi to the mainstream by rehashing well worn plots with sex and violence thrown in for good measure and to re-establish the fact that it's for 'grown ups'.

Plus, and I don't know whether anyone else has mentioned this, but Men in Black anyone? I was waiting for the Amnesia weapon to come out at some point.

First episode, OK ish. Second episode trys way too hard and a lot of bollocks and ripping off from other themes.

Hopefully third time lucky?

Larf sez: Plus, and I don't know whether anyone else has mentioned this, but Men in Black anyone? I was waiting for the Amnesia weapon to come out at some point.

I've just read through this whole thread and was wondering why no one had mentioned Men in Black! I thought I'd be the first, damn it! You win again, Larf, but one day, victory will be mine! Etc.

Anyway. Yes. Watched the first two episodes on BBC2 last night. My Mrs fell asleep in the middle of the first one, but luckily woke up just in time to fall asleep in the middle of the second one as well.

But maybe I fell asleep too, which is why there were seemed to be so many things wrong with the first episode...


++ Obligatory Spoiler Warning ++





So, there's this savage beastie running around the top floor of the hospital (how did it get there?), but luckily Torchwood are on-hand to deal with it, which they do by neatly taping up some a couple of plastic sheets over the end of the corridor.

PC Cooper and the hospital porter both manage to circumvent this high-tech security system by pulling the sheets aside and stepping through. So is the beastie allergic to plastic, then? Is that it?

The beastie kills the porter, and we're later told that this is neatly covered by fiddling with his sign-in sheet and dumping the body in the river. Well, that's all right then. He was only a porter after all, and not someone to worry about.

Perhaps if the Torchwood chaps had come up with something more sufficient than a couple of plastic sheets, such as - call me mad here - a bloke with a gun, then the porter might not have died.

The second episode was better, but not by much. The killer's victims die and are somehow turned into incredibly neat little piles of dust... Perhaps Cap'n Jack should go back in time to the 1966 Batman movie and use the caped crusader's "Bat-Atomic Dust Reintegration Machine" or whatever it was called.

Hmm...

Probably won't be too pushed about watching future episodes.

-- Mike

The sexual alien predator thing has been done a million times, whether it's species, buffy, chronenburg.  But few, FEW, have ever done it in such a ridiculous way.  A glowing cloud of green gas inhabits people, makes them fuck people until they somehow are reduced to a small pile of powder.  (Does this remind you of anything*)

You aren't allowed to ask why, because you'd get a very silly response, where RTD thinks if he says enough big words he'll confuse people into forgetting what they asked about in the first place. Blabbablabbblabba! Well it sounded very technical.

As for the hospital thing, shame they didn't stop hiding and sniggering while Gwen Cooper talked to the alien and instead step out to save the guard (it's okay you see, we can cover up the death).

The problem with torchwood, is that it's perfectly okay, as long as you do not, under any circumstances think.  RTD doesn't want you to think, that's his job, he wants you to feel.

This is not Science Fiction.  It is a parody of science fiction, served up to people who have been told science fiction is childish crap.  

*These plots make Darkplace look like a work of a genius (which they are, I supposomundo).  Garth Marenghi doesn't get a second TV series and RTD does?  Where's the cosmic justice?

The twat.

After four days I've finally given in.  I am of course used to crap science fiction, but to have the guy responisble so lauded for this juvenile tosh is galling.  

Must... close... down areas of.. ranting... brain...

I would love to have hated the first two episodes of Torchwood (or, if the juvenile plot and screening of the 2nd ep is anything to go by- Touch Wood). I also would've loved to have liked it.
Yet neither was possible. Because of the blandness. The terrible, terrible all consuming blandness. The whole thing was sci-fi by numbers superficial, blood sex and bollocoks for the sake of it.And blandness. It engendered no sense of extreme emotion whatsoever... Rubbish!

Still, it does answer one of lifes ultimate questions. What is the worst job in the world.
Rat Catcher?
Cess Pit Executive?
The guy who collects the eggs in a battery farm?
No.
The worst job in the world is the Health and Safety Officer at Torchwood 3.

"Here ya go, Steve"
"What's this Captain Jack?"
"Oh you know, just that risk assesment you wanted me to fill out."
"Thanks, I'll just have a quick look over the details an th-hang on! What the hell is this? You want to-"
"Yeah"
"-stand on the top of the building?"
"Yeah"
"Wearing a massive, movement constricting coat?"
"Yeah"
"With your hands in your pockets? Oh. Oh, oh and I see you don't want to do it on the roof, oh nooooooo that's too easy, you want to do it on that V-shaped sticky out side bit again?"
"Uh-huh"
"You twat. You absolute twat. D'you know how many people fell off that thing lifting you out there the last time?"
"I don't care, I can't die! Ha haa!!"
"And I see it's in the daytime!! For the sweet love of crap!! We're a SECRET organisation!"
"Screw you, Steve. I'm off to open all the pteradactyl cages..."

Sigh...

I kind of agree, in that it was really dumb and not in any way a good representation of the genre, but thanks to Dr Who/Torchwood my previously uninterested in sci fi mum is now seeking out more of the stuff and has pinched all my Battlestar dvds, which she's loving. So hopefully by bringing new people to sci fi it's doing at least one good thing.

Yeah. If TouchWood (tee hee hee) can be used as a Springboard to better things (and at the moment I think that's eveything else)there this light at the end of that long Welsh tunnnel.

The "bringing in non sci-fi fans" argument is quite sweet, but for me, I don't like other Sci-fi programmes (with the exception of Sapphire & Steel) - certainly no American ones.

I liked Dr Who for being Dr Who, not for being Sci-Fi, so these variable attempts to shoe horn in "treats for Joe Public" leave me feeling more and more underwhelmed, from what was quite a positive initial start back in the day.

Well, there is alwys the possibility that the light at the end of that long, Welsh tunnel is in fact Issaac Asimov on fire...

He's back and he's pissed!

No-one tell him where Will Smith is...

In all seriousness, I enjoyed Series 1 and 2 of Doctor Who and think it's programmes of that nature that should bring Mr J. Public into Sci-Fi and not neccassarily the Eldorado with aliens that TouchWood was.

Plus, where the hell do the dimension travelling Weevils get their leather jackets from? Does the rift pass through River Island on the way to Cardiff?

"Screw you, Steve. I'm off to open all the pteradactyl cages..."

See, THIS is the kind of post that keeps me smiling through the grinding horror fo another work day.  Bravo, Brock!

Oh Yeah and the Weevils business - I mean who the hell would approach a scary monster in a corridor and laugh at him thinking it was a mask or on the other hand take the piss out of his deformity - I mean come on.

Plus as well the porter looked like the darts caller from Bullseye.

Innnnnn one, and alien glove bring granny back from the dead so she can tell you were she hid her fortune and scare the shit out of your mum.

Innnnnnnn two - Alien pheramones one spray and she's yours, but if you're the other way inclined you can have a george


Innnnnnnn three - read a book, does it f**k it reads a whole library and fits in your handbag


and Bully's star prize is a job at Torchwood...

Heh, heh. Thanks T-Back!

I read a review which reckoned that RTD is good on the big ideas but crap on details and I think he's right.

I knew it was going to be crap from the first few seconds when I saw the rain... thick Hollywood rain when what you needed was more realistic thin drizzle.

Every time I started to think, well it's almost showing potential, another stupidity would come up. One that was particularly annoying was the riot in the pub, with juke box blearing out when there was no sound of it until the second they opened the door. Oh and the bloody pterodactyl flying freely, looks nice, but makes not sense.

"I mean who the hell would approach a scary monster in a corridor and laugh at him thinking it was a mask or on the other hand take the piss out of his deformity"

Well, actually, I was in the [sarcasm]lovely[/sarcasm] town of Derby the other day and encountered The Man With A Tumour For A Face ... and I did the terribly English thing of 'Taking No Notice and Keeping Walking' thing ...

Cheers!

Jim

"where the hell do the dimension travelling Weevils get their leather jackets from? Does the rift pass through River Island on the way to Cardiff?"

Yeah, for creatures that dwell in the sewer they were looking quite dapper.

They get their jackets from Torchwood.

Or at least that one's jacket had Torchwood on it. In black, on black. About where the breast pocket would be.

Makes you wonder...

Mind you, I really enjoyed it and I'm thoroughly looking forward to more.

Loved the "Screw you, Steve" dialogue though.

"RTD doesn't want you to think... he wants you to feel"

Spot on PVS - That encapsulates in a sentence exactly what is wrong with new Who and Torchwood.  RTD would probably be happy to agree with the sentiment there as well, which i think is the real problem that will hold back Who while he's on board.  

The sentiment in itself, is fine.  Who needs some emotions to make it work best - the old series had a number of great moments that were based on emotions.  These moments worked even better becuase they were used sparingly.  The new series overdoes the emotional content at the expense of  time to resolve plots and logic satisfactorily, and to a degree where it feels forced and manipulative.  

RTD needs to reign in the layering on of emotional scenes, so that they arent repetitive and serve to remind you of the emotional stakes that are in play at key moments rather than every other moment, the series would be half way to being all it could be.  The Docotr and Rose constantly tell us how much fun it is travelling together, but wouldnt it be better to show us that fun rather than emote about it?  

If he then employed people to watch out for scenes that make no sense, like the Weevil in hospital one (thought about it, looked on Dr who forums, but theres no logical explanation to that scene) then that would serve to fix the other half.

"They get their jackets fro Torchwood"

Aha, but of course. It's nice to see that random managerial budget waste goes on in departments outside the civil service.. ;)

"Hey, this alien bloodsucker looks a bit parky. Get some overalls."

"Overalls? OVERALLS? Are you insane? Why spend a tenner on a boiler suit when a £200 soft leather jacket with matching emblems will do?"

"But, Capatin, er... even our uniforms aren't that good."

"So? It's not about you, it's about how we are percieved by our key vampric demographic. We have to be seen to be hands on and going forward by close of the play this century. Now, have you talked to Ralph Lauren about those diamond manacles I asked for?"

"Er, yes but the expense account claim is verging on suicidal sir, an-"

"Tough crap, English losers! We'll get the money. Dissolve Torchwood 6 in Barnsley to pay for it."

"I mean who the hell would approach a scary monster in a corridor and laugh at him thinking it was a mask or on the other hand take the piss out of his deformity"

Hmm, not sure about this - I though for a show set in Cardiff (or B&I in general) , I thought this was a spot-on reaction.  As a group of peoples, we're not exactly geared towards screaming or laughing, far more likely to rationalise and try to ignore it.  First reaction on meeting funny looking bloke = unfortunate burn victim (it IS a hospital) or halloween mask.  Not: "oh my god its an interdimensional alien!".  

Though to be fair, Torchwood exists in a world where there have been two full scale alien invasions in the past year...

first one was OK, second one banal-crappy-crap.

It is shit.

I'm all for girl on girl action, and if this was all girl on girl action I wouldn't have a complaint.

It's badly written, badly directed, badly produced and badly acted.

I was looking forward to this, such a disapointment.

Charlie Brooker bang on the money as usual:

Link: "like Buzz Lightyear, but less realisitc"

That Charlie Brooker review is even now being held up by an obsessive Whovian as an example of how much th British Press love RTD...

Jsut seen the first 15 minutes of the second episode - This Chibnall bloke has learnt from his mater well - that is, his plotting already seems as lame as RTDs...

So a guy disintegrates, but they need to fake his death with another body made to look like the victim.... erm... wouldnt it be simpler to have just another missing persons case added to the 1000s of others...?

ha! its a spin off of Dr who! all spinoffs are crap man! eg. joey - every single power ranger related aspect of ANYTHING!!!

I don't know anything about Torchwood at all.

Interesting Torchwood facts for the uninitiated:

1. It's an anagram of Doctor Who...



...er, and that's about it, actually. :-(

I thought Torchwood was okay, pretty much what I expected - no better, no worse.

The only real gripe I have is that because they seem to be trying to distance the show as much as possible from Doctor Who (in effect making it a show that if you'd never seen any New Who you wouldn't even realise the two shows were related) it makes every mention of Torchwood in season 2 of Who look like a very cheap and non-too-subtle ad for a show that RTD would rather be working on at the time, rather than the show he was working on (ie. Doctor Who).

"every single power ranger related aspect of ANYTHING!!!"

Does not compute.  

Fucking hell, a device which allows you to voyeuristically feel people's emotions in other times...

"Emotion, it's like ENERGY or something, dudes!"

No.  No it's not.

"No. No it's not.
No. No it's not."

Well, apparently, yes, yes it is. Because RTD says so.

So. You're wrong. And clearly a homophobe and a science-fiction hater if you say different.

So that's you put in your place. Boyo. Look you. Yakkie-dah.

Leeks. Sheep. Coal miners. Charlotte Church.

And a whole load of other Welsh cliches.

Neil Kinnock.

Cheers!

Jim

I knew when the introduction shamefully tried to emotionally blackmail me, more of the same was due.

Royle family beforehand though, rarely do the comeback specials work, but I doubt 13 episodes of Torchwood would have as much genuine humour and emotion in it.

Royle family beforehand though, rarely do the comeback specials work, but I doubt 13 episodes of Torchwood would have as much genuine humour and emotion in it

Bloody marvellous, wasn't it? I'm not ashamed to admit that I blubbed a little at the end. Loads of wonderful moments in there - the great Jungle Book sequence, Mini David, Cheryl's succession of lonely hearts hopefuls...

Hopefully it will be the last episode, as it was the perfect note to go out on.

It suddenly occured to me earlier that the severed hand in the bottle was the doctors hand from the Christmas special that fell over the side of the ship, which is a nice touch (especially since they didn't labour that point)

Aside from that, the jury is still out. I agree with most points rasied against it, but despite this still think its worth giving it a chance.

Personally I thought Sunday was a great tv night.

Royal Family was superb, tho of course the "death" was obvious from the start, although that didn't spoil the impact of the show. Like PVS said, comebacks very rarely work, but this was just everything it should be. A genuine classic show!

Torchwood, I thought was very good this week. Had a "Life on Mars" feel to it (probably down to the subject matter), did anyone notice who wrote this episode? I'll tell you one thing I noticed tho. I don't remember one bit of swearing in the episode, proving that adult shows don't have to have bad language to get across, and also dispelling some of my reservations of the first two episodes. Now very much looking forward to next weeks!

Alan!

Last night was the first one I had seen. And probably the last. It's rubbish.

Whoever did the casting needs to be shot. For these types of shows it really helps to get a really good looking woman to draw people in. The lead is no oil painting.

To compound that - She can't friggin' act.

Why is there sexual tension between Cpt Jack and Welshie bird anyway? Was this explained in the first two episodes?

It felt like a Sci-fi episode of Hustle without any of the charm or the humour.


Am I being overly harsh? I realise I have come in on the third episode.

I think Eve Myles is "well fit" and a superb actress, so obviously I ain't gonna agree with you at all. I thought much of the casting was spot on, especially Barrowman & Myles, and most of the support cast was much better this time round.

The sexual tension is a developing thread in the show.

Never seen Hustle so can't comment, but given the subject matter of last night's Torchwood, I for one wasn't expecting a comedy, but I did see loads of charm, especially in the scenes where Gwen relives some of her fondest memories with her boyfriend.

Answering my own question on writer, it was Helen Raynor.

And anyone else spot that the main baddie was played by Gareth (Blakes 7) Thomas?

Alan!

Gwen relives some of her fondest memories with her boyfriend

I'd become bored and distracted by that point, so it might have had some charm in it that I'd missed.

I think Eve Myles is "well fit" and a superb actress

Are we talking about the same person?

Well I know I am. Guess beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.

If you were bored by then, guess Torchwood isn't the show for you.

Alan!

"And anyone else spot that the main baddie was played by Gareth (Blakes 7) Thomas?"

I was busy drunklypainting a model Avro 504K biplane (just in case watching Torchwood wasn't geeky enough) so it took a while to twig, but yeah good to see him.  Last time I saw him was on the last episode of series one of Randall and Hopkirk, which was my favourite episode of that show.

Torchwood really is a load of crap, but it's crap enough to be entertaining in a sort of swearing at the telly sort of a way.

Episode was by Helen (checks website) Rayner.  In many ways, a more compelling drama was possible and the Torchwood shite just got in the way.  X-Files meets Buffy is my revised opinion.

Boyfriend is still doomed.  Gwen will end up with no social life just like the rest.

For an adult spin off of Dr Who (still one of the worst ideas ever) all the use of sex, guns and swearing seems somehow more irrepsonisbile as it is still a kids show, aimed at kids.

"And anyone else spot that the main baddie was played by Gareth (Blakes 7) Thomas?"

I was busy drunklypainting a model Avro 504K biplane (just in case watching Torchwood wasn't geeky enough) so it took a while to twig, but yeah good to see him.  Last time I saw him was on the last episode of series one of Randall and Hopkirk, which was my favourite episode of that show.

Torchwood really is a load of crap, but it's crap enough to be entertaining in a sort of swearing at the telly sort of a way.

Episode was by Helen (checks website) Rayner.  In many ways, a more compelling drama was possible and the Torchwood shite just got in the way.  X-Files meets Buffy is my revised opinion.

Boyfriend is still doomed.  Gwen will end up with no social life just like the rest.

For an adult spin off of Dr Who (still one of the worst ideas ever) all the use of sex, guns and swearing seems somehow more irrepsonisbile as it is still a kids show, aimed at kids.

"I was busy drunklypainting a model Avro 504K biplane"


Ah, so that's why you never like anything. You don't actually sit and watch them. Just look up occassionally and decide if you like what you see or not!  ;)

"just in case watching Torchwood wasn't geeky enough"

Is Doctor Who and Torchwood considered Geeky now? Aren't they both pretty mainstream? I know lots of non-sci-fi people that watch both shows.

"Torchwood really is a load of crap, but it's crap enough to be entertaining in a sort of swearing at the telly sort of a way"


You might change your mind if you actually sit and watch an episode!  ;p

Nope... gotta disagree. It's not the greatest thing ever, but I do think Torchwood is about the best show on tv at the moment (Royal Family specials and classic Avengers episodes notwithstanding). Still room for improvment but it is heading in the right direction at the moment.

"Boyfriend is still doomed. Gwen will end up with no social life just like the rest."

Oh... definitly. He could be wearing a red Star Trek shirt!

"For an adult spin off of Dr Who (still one of the worst ideas ever) all the use of sex, guns and swearing seems somehow more irrepsonisbile as it is still a kids show, aimed at kids"

Sort of agree here, although there were guns in Doctor Who (all those UNIT soldiers) and this week's was better for that fact there wasn't any swearing or sex (tho there was sexuality).

You can tell me to fuck off again now!  :)

Alan!

Sorry Alan, I just have different views to you on this stuff. I expect something a lot better.

Fuck off.

I really enjoyed that episode, and am enjoying the series.

Helen Raynor, in case people are wondering, was formerly a scripteditor on New Who.

â?¢ Gwen is foxy in a Scully type way

â?¢ The stories are pretty lame and there's more holes than a sieve which are plugged by really lame techno babble or passed off with some shallow jibe.

â?¢ But I like it and last nights episode was the best of the three so far.

â?¢ Not as good as the Royale family which had me in buckets

â?¢ At least it's not Robin Hood - which is crap.

Y'know Larf. I think you've put my thougts on Torchwood into words perfectly. The series can improve, I for one have never said it couldn't, but it is far from awful.

Alan!

Heh, I was just pulling your leg Paul(you'll get my sense of humour one day). You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, which is as valied as mine. What works for me doesn't necessarily work for others. As i've said before, Torchwood isn't perfect, but I do honestly believe it's the best British show currently on tv (and as I hate most U.S. stuff that's a big recommendation).

It's fastly paced, exciting, doesn't take itself too seriously, has humour, without mocking it's audience,and has charm and emotion. The show looks good and feels good, and the lead characters are engaging, at least for me. It is sci-fi drama for the mainstream(not series sci-fi, which wouldn't be watched by joe public), so unbelievable elements and situations are a given, and if they have to go down the old technobabble escape route oncee in a while, then fine by me. As I said, not perfect but it's far from crap.

IMHO obviously!  ;)

Alan!

Serious sci-fi and unbelievable elements arent  the only two (mutually exclusive) options available though.

You can have broad appeal and still have plots that are resolved satisfactorily,  and I think this is my main gripe with both this and Doctor Who.  

And its not so much the fact it happens week in week out, it's the fact that the production team seem wedded to the same belief as you express there, Wrighty - that to be popular you have to remove the brain of a series, and that Average Joe Cit doesnt care if the story falls apart on closer examination, so long as we've made the effort to tug his heartstrings.

Now you can tug my heartstrings all you like (see The Royle Family last night as a fine example), but thats your sole goal when you set out, and to achieve it, you'll sacrifice believability, then you won't wow this particular viewer.

If the storyline is paper thin, and/or a poor second to pushing emotional buttons then for my money, it's likely to be too manipulative and shallow in the end product.    

when i say believeability, I'm not looking for someting believable - just something that adheres to its own logic and makes sense, no matter how strange.  Excluding from that description anyhting that reeks of "magic", or "it just is,OK?", which the production team seem to like to rely on far too often

Oh, get you, and I do admit that the production team do sometimes go down the easy route, but I didn't think last nights Torchwood, nor (to a degree) the 2nd episode did this. The one thing I do think they do is often not explain thingsvery well, leaving the viewer confused. Mind you, some viwers need hitting over the head with a brick (like the guy who complained at never finding out why the clockwork robots were after Madam de Pompadour in Girl In The Fireplace).

And this approach may leave you cold, and it is each to their own, but these are 2 of the best watched shows we are producing now. Of course, figures only reflect popularity and not quality, but this does prove that a lot of people do like the approach to the show(s), and as that's the audiance they're aiming at, then the shows are succesful (just not for you).

Alan!

True enough!

I do think their success is based on producing something that's almost willfully imperfect, though - imperfections that a Hollywood trained audience have long since given up on expecting explanations for admittedly, but imperfect just the same!

"So. You're wrong. And clearly a homophobe and a science-fiction hater if you say different."

Just walk away, man - just walk away...

Link: "Leave it, Jim - he's not worth it!"

It suddenly occured to me earlier that the severed hand in the bottle was the doctors hand from the Christmas special that fell over the side of the ship, which is a nice touch (especially since they didn't labour that point)

you are kidding right?

Hell in episode 2 when the container smashed and the hand spilled out they had that bloody time lord tune from doctor who playing in the background....

It's what Jack uses it for that worries me...

The severed hand - whether it belongs to the Doctor or not - is clearly The Hand of Glory and I fully expect Grant Morrison to sure forthwith.

>> The only real gripe I have is . . . they seem to be trying to distance the show as much as possible from Doctor Who . . .

For me, that's a blessed relief. RTD is doing just fine fucking up Who with his revamp, the show really doesn't need Torchwood adding to its misery.

And there was some mention in Episode 1 that Torchwood Four has disappeared. I guess it's not just Buffy that RTD is enamoured with . . .

"
For me, that's a blessed relief. RTD is doing just fine fucking up Who with his revamp, the show really doesn't need Torchwood adding to its misery."

Yeah, coz all those awards and high viewing figures are really bith aren't they?!

"And there was some mention in Episode 1 that Torchwood Four has disappeared. I guess it's not just Buffy that RTD is enamoured with"

I got that as a direct homage (something RTD does a lot).

The one line I thought really stood out in the series was "I show you something fantastic, and you just criticize!"

Never was a truer word spoken imho.

Alan!

Well, the high viewing figures show that the public have embraced it for its strengths, but not necessarily because its faultless. I'll readily accept that most of the viewing public dont care if on reflection, the plots don't add up - they watch it once, then they forget about it until next week.  At the other end of the spectrum, the fans will explain away the logical flaws and at times piss poor resolutions.  In between are a tiny number of people who are fans (that is, they'd like to rewatch the thing and are trying to assimilate the complexities of the story in such a way as to satisfy their inherent need for "sense"!) but can't get their head around RTDs shonky scripting.  

So RTD can certainly continue to ignore the criticisms with regards both the logic of the plots and the percieved parochialism of the show (both in terms of it being chained to modern day Britain, and in the characterisation).  He can continue to tug heartstrings and chuckle contentedly at the "egg heads" who criticise him for it.

The "all you do is criticise" line does indeed  say it all - it sum up RTDs approach of "don't think at the cracks, feel the love".  Which is OK if you are willing to buy into it, but comes across as massively arrogant to those who dont.  

The third way is to fix the cracks, RTD, then we wouldnt need to criticise...

As for awards, well, Dr who was winning public phone in awards before RTD got his hands on it...  TV 60 awards anyone.  The format of Who is such that it takes a real idiot to mess it up.  Even done with gaping plot holes, people will be drawn to it, as it is a great concept.  RTD seems to be constantly implying that Who can only work in his image, when Who has worked in a 100 different ways over the years.

i was really quite enjoying the relaunched Who up until Dalek, when I started to try and piece together the logic of what I'd seen (after having enjoyed the ep on first viewing).  Even after seeing this recurring flaw in how the team had done stuff, I surmised that the next year, they'd be looking to iron out those kind of inconsistencies. As it turned out, RTD seems to almost take pride in them, hence that line in Torchwood.

>> Yeah, coz all those awards and high viewing figures are really bith aren't they?!

Oh, for fuck's sake. Popularity and plaudits do not automatically equate quality. Why do people continuously trot out that bollocks?

As for Torchwood Four's disappearance . . . Yeah, you're probably right. It's a throwaway line that won't catch people's attention like it did mine, even before I made the Babylon 5 connection. People won't be intrigued at how an entire base could simply . . . disappear.

Bad DumbLad. You've been thinking again.

Some excellent points there Cthulouies... many I agre with despite coming at the show from a different demigraph to you. I guess I am in the group that will try and explain away the logical flaws etc, tho that doesn't mean I dont always spot them... hust that I don't let the flaws dictate my enjoyment of any given episode, if i've enjoyed the majority of stuff. I guess it's the glass helf full/glass half empty approach to life.

You're right about 60's Who getting these sort of awards, and quite often, the same sort of critisism too, especially fom those that preffered "high-brow" sci-fi (I remember Sydney Jordan panning the series for ot being si-fi at all, and I think Alan Moore held similar views).

Alan!

"
Oh, for fuck's sake. Popularity and plaudits do not automatically equate quality. Why do people continuously trot out that bollocks? "

I never said they did! In fact if you read the thread back you'll see that I actually said the same thing as you. What I did say was that viewing figures and plaudits do indicate the popularity of a show, and if a show is popular then it isn't a fuck up (which it would only have been had the show not been watched, not got wards, and had been subsequently cancelled).

And the only trotting out of bollocks I can see is the one where a person implies personal opinion and taste as fact, when the facts actually say the opposite!  ;)

Alan!

My God... i'm gonna have to get used to this new keyboard (or proof read first) the typos in my last few posts have been horrendous!  :D

Alan!

True enough that Who has been looked down on from loftier "proper sci-fi" circles from its inception.  I'd have no problme with that continuing, as I'm no great fan of that kind of Sci-fi myself.  

The old series certainly dropped the odd clanger or three but you never got the sense that it was part of their manifesto.  RTD, rather than accept loose plotting and parochialism as weaknesses, would paint them as strengths.  

I'm not sure if he truly believes no-one would watch a show where the lead character couldn't quote Kylie lyrics, or if this is just a way of disguising his limited vision/ability when it comes to writing characters.

RTD will tell you its the emotions that matter, but if the plot becomes a series of events engineered to push and pull particular heartstrings, rather than the driving engine of the characters development, then I'm going to think it's manipulative rather than a believable emotional journey.

I just think it s a cart before horse way of writing drama.  "Here are a series of emotional events that need to occur - please string some incidents together to achieve this"

The first seasons most popular and critically acclaimed story was The Empty Child - the one that was satisfying in both plot terms and emotional content.

There was a properly resolved cliff hanger that played within the conventions set up already.  You could argue that there was ill concieved science, but care seemed to have been taken to follow through the stories own logic in a satisfying way - shame he couldnt repeat the gig second time around, despite repeating a lot of the basic ideas!  

Steven Moffatt is apparently working on a Jekyl & Hyde series ('Mr Hyde'), so considering the BBC's new enthusiasm for rejuvinating old characters in a contemporary style for their Saturday evening slot I guess that may well be the next.

ADE

You'll not get me arguing with many of those points. I too think that Moffat's stories have been the better ones in each season, tho I do think he played the manipulation of emotions trick too. I loved Girl In The Fireplace just as much as Empty Child, and when some hated parts of (the pretending to be drunk scene for example), I often thought them as some of the episodes strengths.

I honestly do think that RTD does indeed think that way, and you have to be honest and say that the success the show's had bares that out, whether you personally like it or not. Whether people would have still watched if done like the old series, or more seriously or darker, then we'll never know. I personally think that it wouldn't have had the success it has.

Like everyone, I don't think the show's above criticism however, and I too have episodes I don't like (as much as others) but I just accept that not everything works for me and just enjoy the show for what it is, rather than what I think it should be.

For the record, i'm a big fan of Doctor Who... and I mean a big fan, tho not to the degree that I don't see it as anything more than a tv show I really enjoy watching. My fave period being the 60's & 70's but I can also enjoy later periods, and just coz I didn't like say "Delta & the Bannermen" doesn't mean I thought the show as a whole was crap.

Alan!

Ah - and there's a lot riding on this Alan - what do you think of The Gunfighters?

eeek Now the pressure's on!

The Gunfighters... hmmm. First time I saw it I thought it was awful, but watched it again recently and enjoyed it much more than I previously had. I could survive without the Linda Baron singing but the story as a whole has many redeaming points as well as number of things that don't work. I loved the scenes where everyone thinks the Doctor is Doc Holiday, certainly the shoot-out at the end is quite well realised (for a tv show of it's type and time), and I particularly enjoyed the early scenes where Steven is trying to act the part of the cowboy, much to Wyatt Eearp's amusement. That said, even ignoring the historical  innacuracies of this story, there are a number of things wrong with the story. A lot of the comedy elements don't always work for me, and the less said about the sets the better. The story really does drag in the middle, and the whole thing could have been told over 2 r 3 episodes,as oppossed to 4.

Erm, have I sat on the fence here?!  :D

I'd say that it just about gets away with things as an experiment, tho by no means is it a favourate of mine from the Hartnell era, and although watchable (tho mainly as a curio) I certainly wouldn't want every story to be done this way.

To sum up, i'd say that The Gunfighters was an experiment in storytelling for the series, that produced a mixed bag result.

Alan!

You have narrowly avoided a killfiling. Let that be a warning to you all. Your god has spoken.

Filthy assistants to me!

I'm just glad you didn't ask me about Delta & the Bannermen!  :)

Alan!

i think in many ways the new series is too fannish for me - I know I'm having my cake and eating it here after lambasting RTD for popularism, but here me out...

The Doctor drunk scene plays to a fan audience I think, who like to see the Doctor doing something a bit outside what you'd expect of him - a "broader, deeper" doctor if you will. Sometmies that works for me, but more often, I feel they're trying to bolt stuff that has never been seen before on in order to justify their love of this old TV show as something more than just a nostalgia/kids thing

Though possibly, I'd have been less critical of the scene if it hadnt been staged with all the tension of an episode of Thomas the Tank Engine, and Timmy Mallett wasnt standing in for Tennant that day.

Christ, it's getting worse... it was like some rejected Bill episode that someone's pulled out of a bottom draw and added a handy gadget to. Then padded it out with a pointless chuck on an evacuee. Oh and top goggled-eyed 'acting' towards the end along with some great psuedo deep stuff on 'ghosts'... but top marks for piss-poorness, 'let's add something that looks sort of cool but makes no fucking sense' the alien targets in the gun range. Jesus-wept...

So ya liked it then? ;)

Alan!

I think Torchwood suffers from the same thing as new-who; mainly that you're always conscious of how much better it could have been.
Personally I think that a reboot of U.N.I.T would have been more fun than the whole Torchwood thing. I'm thinking Ultimate Force meets the Sea Devils!

As a perfect antidote to RTD UK Gold is showing Tom Baker Who.

Genesis Of The Daleks is on at the moment on UK Gold+.

>> The typos in my last few posts have been horrendous!

Heh. That may well explain why I misunderstood what you meant, assuming I did.

If I were half as articulate as the Watcher or PVS, each post would be a wonderful deconstruction as to the failings of new Who: not only as a continuation of the old show but as a drama series in its own right. But I'm not, so I'll just stick to saying it's shit, and nod in agreement when someone voices an opinion I agree with.

Now let me be! I need to watch Ghost Machine so I can have an informed arsehole as to why it's crap.

TORCH WOOD...

DARK WOOD...

DARK PLACE...

What a hysterical load of tripe.  I chuckled heartily through that.

Lentil's anguished cry was robbed straight off Rick Dagless MD when he had to crush the still living head of his decpaitated best friend.  With a spade.

The tetsuo style man was really a nasty touch, perhaps spoilt a little by too much lingering on it.

Really, it's too much to take seriously.  A Dean Learner production with a budget.

My brother raised the point the other day that Captain Jack = Captain Scarlet.

He might make a good Captain Scarlet.

It actually had more in common with the episode where Dr. Lucien Sanchez falls in love with a woman who is turning into broccoli, and there were also parallels with the scene where the temp is killed by Liz.

Mcwild has already mentioned the similarities to Captain Scarlet and I noticed them too.

I assume you are now talking about tonight's episode , which was on while I was out winning the pub quiz.

Well done, Cosh.
What did you win?

THE GODDAMNED RESPECT OF HIS PEERS!


Plus, a small cash prize would've been nice, too!

Watched the second episode of this on Saturday night and it wasn't bad.

But Gwen is so-o unsexy I wasn't even interested when she was lezzing it up with the alien.

:: I think Torchwood suffers from the same
:: thing as new-who; mainly that you're
:: always conscious of how much better it
:: could have been.

Apart from last night's episode, which suffered from the fact that it was one of the most appalling slices of TV 'drama' that I've had the misfortune to sit through. Utter, utter garbage.

Apart from last night's episode, which suffered from the fact that it was one of the most appalling slices of TV 'drama' that I've had the misfortune to sit through. Utter, utter garbage.

No, no, no... it proved exactly how evil these new look Cybermen are.  They took that woman and made her sound exactly like June Sarpong!  Only a truly Machevellian malevolent monster would do such a thing.

Still, it's the one by the bloke wot wrote Sapphire and Steel next week...

I've just realised it was also like the "Skipper The Eye-Child" episode of Darkplace, when Dagless was trying to conceal the "creature" from his work colleagues. They've ripped off the whole series!

It's all complete bobbins, of course, but it's entertaining bobbins. Which is just what I want on a Sunday night. If I want serious thought-provoking stuff, I'll read a comic or something ;)

We've been enjoying the arch silliness of Torchwood in our house, up until the current Cyberwoman effort.  What an abysmal waste of time.  The script was awful, the acting was awful, the lighting was impenetrable, the costume was awful, the plot was weak, and the direction... holy Grud, the repeated slow-mo close-ups of Our Hero's primal agony.  Keriste, what a fuck up.  Still, everyone's allowed a complete turkey or two... hoping next week will be better.

That Gwen is a bit of a go-er, tho' - a new one every week!   Boyfriend, possessed woman, Cap'n Jack, ugly pervy guy - what next?  Good job she's easy on the eye.

Somebody has made the Garth Marenghi comparison over on that defender outpost Gallifrey...

As I haven't seen beyond the first 15 minutes of the second episode due to sheer lack of interest, I have to say a Darkplace vibe might encourage me to play catch up - especially since this weeks is the PJ Hammond ep.

In an extremely spiteful way, I hope the failures in Torchwood highlight the fact that 90% of whats great about the new Who is inherent in the format, and that 90% of whats wrong with it is repeated here in Torchwood. Plus, without Billy, who the public really took to, I also spitefully hope that Season 3 will have to work hard to keep it's audience - a drop in the figures might have them reassess some of these shonky elements.  If they continue to pop the champagne corks at high viewing figures, then the show can carry on regardless, loved by many, but for my money, asking me to switch off too much to enjoy the ride.

erm.. defender of "all things Who website" Outpost Gallifrey that should read

:: They took that woman and made her sound
:: exactly like June Sarpong

And made her look like lame-ass Circuit Breaker from Transformers, the crap years.

Actually, looking at Outpost Gallifreys forum, theres quite a few posts making hte Marenghi connection... must try and catch up!

It was very bad - the direction seems to be leaden, and the flashback to the conversion was comical.

It would have worked better, and had been creepier if the cyberwoman was a bit more Tetsuo along the lines of the upgraded doctor. As it stood, it just looked too panto.

The biggest problem I have with Torchwood is the characters are such an unlikeable bunch of amateurish fuck-ups.

In the pilot, one turns out to be a serial killer, one is a creepy borderline rapist using that alien rohypnol, and two otheres are responsible for deaths of innocent people.

- Steve

The problem with the cyberwoman for me was that she looked like a very sexy woman at a star trek convention.  I'm sure if you had been patially cybernised (?) then she would looked a bit manky.

I'm picking for the sake of it, but she was very distracting.

Talking about the characters McWild, the biggest dissapointment for me is Captain Jack.  I have no real idea who he is, the charisma of the Who series needed to gain a bit of reality.  

Anyway, I'm assuming him to be some sort of bisexual Angel (as in buffy) character, living in his exotic pad, beset by personal problems despite being good looking (for the ladies and the gays) and surrounding himself with a bunch of misfit characters.  

If Doctor Who was crossbred with Buffy, then this is a British Angel.  Except as it is now rather obious, it's Darkplace for real.

Still, can't wait for next weeks PJ one.  High hopes...

:: If Doctor Who was crossbred with Buffy, then
:: this is a British Angel.

It's what happens when you crossbreed Angel with British sci-fi with a massive turd. After the promising pilot, despite some really very major character flaws, Torchwood's really gone to hell. I give it one more episode, and RTD had better not make TW "compulsory" viewing for understanding Doctor Who's third series.

Well, i wouldn't bet on that.  He really revved up Torchwood throughout the entire second series, turning it into a big advert for his new series, which kids can't officially watch of course.

The whole concept for the series is wrong in my mind.  The BBC could have spent that money on a new independant SF series with nothing to do with Doctor Who.  You can't have an adult spin off fom a kids show, especially one that contains so many elements from Doctor Who and elements that are too adult for kids.

I dunno, with the new Sarah Jane series in the pipeline, it's hard not to be dissapointed in his total domination of the field.  Why have three series that are the same, Dr Who lite, Dr Who and Dr Who with sexuality (and no Dr).

Why am I even thinking about this stuff!  :)

Well this weeks I watched it via the magic of beer goggles... and it was bloody brilliant*!





* for all the wrong reasons of course. Just hilariously bad.

Watching John Barrowman on Jonathan Ross I'm not exactly surprised to find he is gay himself - not a dig at anyone's sexuality, it just strengthens my suspicion that RTD literally casts whoever he fancies.

ADE

Well, finally watched Cyberwoman, and i dont think ive seen anything quite so cackhanded under the name of Who since the McCoy days.  

So much wrong with this, but some points -

They go down to confront the Cyberwoman with guns - then the next minute Jack is telling them to use whatever weapons they can find... erm, maybe those guns?  

But Ok, maybe i missed the scene where everyone left them on the side cabinet... but whats this!? They all get out of the base, and start producing guns left, right and centre to point at each other!   Utter cobblers!

Then theres the whole Darkplace parody thing going on - elements of the funeral from Ep 1, the broccoli woman and Skipper the eyechild - and thats just the most obvious ones

Theres some pretty incredible dialogue that sums up my two main gripes with new Who and this... Firstly, theres a scene where Ianto calls Jack a monster for wanting to kill the evil DEATH DEALING CYBORG! Like the dalek episode, where the Doctor is "just like a Dalek" for wanting to kill it, or the Christmas invasion where according to the Dcoctor, the humans are worse than the Sycorax (who only wanted to enslave the population and/or commit genocide).  Utter cobblers!  

Secondly, the plot is riddled with not so much plot holes as plot canyons - the six hour shutdown, the hilarious brain surgery, the fact the janitor smuggled in a whole cyber conversion kit...but you can see the production team are ready to address this issue:

From episode 1
Question:  Gwen: "this makes no sense"
Answer:    Capn Jack:"I show you something fantastic and all you do is criticise"

and now in this one:

Jack: "I will send in you, Ianto, the only guy I cant trust, to sort out this menace.  Even though a second ago I was trying to stop you.  and even though i cant be killed by it and could just keep having a go til it dies"
Other woman: "but that makes no sense"
Jack: " I don't want your opinion"

Ah right, so that explains it!

Utter utter cobblers!

For full Darkplace effect, the "declassified" show that followed was superb.  RTD telling us "this was a story begging to be told" with a straighter face than Dean Learner;  another guy saying how important it was to get the costume right - cut to appalling cheesefest Trek-Con cosplay thing; back to RTD telling us "their is NO DOUBT that this episode is brilliantly scripted"

If he had turned around and said "this is the story that Highway to Heaven were too scared to tell", I dont think I'd have batted an eyelid.

Seeing RTD preening over how good these episodes are is probably the worst bit.  The week you've spent giving interviews to the press or these vanity docs would have been better spent actually rereading some of these turkeys...

UTTER COBBLERS!

Now I know it's a load of old shite, I don't mind it as much as I did initially.  It's a bit of camp toss and it has Captain Jack in it - albeit not actually acting like the Captain Jack from the Doctor Who episodes.

Although, having said that, I admit it's a bit of a cop-out that an entire series of Doctor Who was used as an extended trailer for the show, building it up as a deeply sinister and menacing enterprise, and now it turns out it's just some chaps in one of Rentaghost's sets mouthing some sort of This Life fanfiction dialogue.
The format is also not a million miles away from a similar alien technology-stealing organisation (also led by an unkillable main character with a shady past) that appeared in the Dr Who audio books.  Good to see RTD stretching himself to think of something new.

It's the PJ Hammond one tonight (I think), so interesting to see if it's a future shock to shit us up, or hamstrung with a lot of camp nonsense.

Can't really defend Cyberwoman! I've enjoyed most of the series so far (with some reservations) but the fourth episode really was mindless rubbish wannit!?

Like PVS, I am looking forward to Hammond's ep. Could be the best of the series, going on the previews and the writer's credentials.

Alan!

"..now it turns out it's just some chaps in one of Rentaghost's sets mouthing some sort of This Life fanfiction dialogue"

The Prof is on fire tonight! (Ugh, singed bear fur smell...).

It's the PJ Hammond one tonight (I think), so interesting to see if it's a future shock to shit us up, or hamstrung with a lot of camp nonsense.

Coinkerdinkerly, it's on at the same time as a PJ Hammond scripted Midsummer Murders...

I dunno - you wait 25 years PJ Hammond to write something, then two come along at once.  I blame the goverment.

now it turns out it's just some chaps in one of Rentaghost's sets mouthing some sort of This Life fanfiction dialogue.

Surely you mean to say 'it's Rentaghost meets This Life - ON ACID!'

Not a real fan of either This Life, or Rentaghost.

One is about a load stuck up, soon to be impoverished, "higher social class" and the other one's core concept reflects the attitude, I have about it.

Its a memory I dont particularly want having around.

I prefer Richard and Not Judy's approach to the "ON ACID!" comment - when deconstructing the claim that Lee Evens was 'like Norman Wisdom on acid', Lee and Herring pointed out that Norman Wisdom on acid is just a frightened old man.
"Torchwood - some frightened children's performers"

But I'll still be watching Torchwood in about half an hour, so slagging it off seems pointless unless I'm willing to stop watching altogether.  Like Robin Hood.  I've stopped slagging that, too.  Seems pointless at this point - everyone's got eyes.  And ears.
"You shot my deputy"

Bollocks.

two other ludicrous points - the pizza girl eneters the office that a front for the secret organisation Torchwood (who call themselves Torchwood to both the police who know they are special ops of some kind, and also to the pizza people).  To get gotted by the cyberwoman, she had to find a secret switch, enter the mysterious lift, walk the abandoned corridor to the big giant circular door.... Or she could ahve just left the pizzas on the side.

And theres the most ridiculous line that sums up the RTD approach of "tell dont show".  Gwen suggests they have a rota for the driving and Jack goes "we are a secret alien fighting organisation, and you want a rota?".  Sadly, everything we've seen of Torchwood (sitting around eating pizza and playing basketball) suggests its exactly the kind of mundane thing they'd do. Mundane is their bread and butter.  Just because you tell me this is an organisation thats too cool for rotas - too late mate, Ive watched the previus episodes, you are nowhere near being too cool for rotas...
   

Well in true comic book guy mode, I'm straight onto the internet to talk about it.  What can I say, I'm avoiding the washing up.

Whatever I say will sound a little begrudging, but it wasn't bad.  Certainly felt better for being more serious in tone, would have made a better story on its own without the torchwood elements though I felt.

There was something always bright and snappy about the show even when it should have been dark and scary.  And overall I felt the show could have been better made.

The story was good, though I felt the end needed a little more direction.

Great to see PJ Hammond back, this could have been a real classic in a Tales of the Unexpected or Armchair theatre type show.

... And another episode concludes.

I didn't watch last week's because I was following my own advice, and I had something better to do. This week, I genuinely didn't have anything better to do, and the missus likes it.

What a pile of old fucking shite this is. Jesus! British SF has the pedigree of being some of the scariest stuff that has ever appeared on mainstream TV, and RTD's take on it is this hackneyed pile of owd crap?

No. Sorry. I had no exposure to RTD's work prior to Who ... I have no axe to grind on that score, but this is piss-poor, lazy, badly-writen, badly-directed, badly-acted (my God -- did gappy-toothed woman actually clap her hand to her forehead in this episode?), lowest-common-denominator shit of the first order.

I wanted an updated version of Quatermass, I wanted the pants-wetting fear of Saphire and Steel on that railway station, I wanted the horrific bad dreams I endured after Nightmare Man ...

But this ...?

Sorry, Russell, but you can fuck right off.

Bah!

Jim

Cor, wish I'd said that Jim.

"I wanted an updated version of Quatermass, I wanted the pants-wetting fear of Saphire and Steel on that railway station, I wanted the horrific bad dreams I endured after Nightmare Man ..."

Couldn't agree more.  And Quatermass and Sapphire and Steel were all primetime shows aimed at the general audience.

Quatermass and Sapphire and Steel weren't necessary evils for the producer's ego-wankery, though - hence the product that could stand up to repeated viewing once the 'he can do no wrong' fawning tabloid bullshit had faded.

There was still the glimmer of a good show in there tonight, it's just a pity it was sodomised by the shitty Sci-Fi Channel CGI effects that will not only date the show appallingly in six months' time, but make it look cheesey RIGHT NOW, and scream that the makers haven't enough respect for their audience to try something as simple as shitting them up with a decently creepy atmosphere and leaving the monsters to their imagination.  Shoving in the evil faeries with sharp teeth and rasping voices is just an outright admittance that there's not enough faith in the audience to understand what's going on if it isn't spelt out for them with rubbery monsters, panto-villain paedophiles, and an evil stepdad who grins evilly as he does something that will stop his stepdaughter from being happy.  It must have absolutely killed the producers that the stepdad couldn't wear a cape and twirl his mustache as he hammered in each nail.

Mind you, it says more about me that I keep watching this tosh that has contempt for my intelligence than it does about the folks who make it.  Roll on next week's episode - the more emo the better!

My response to last night...

Link: The RIP thread

My response to last night...

I thought it was much improved last night - admittedly, it wasn't particularly original and was hampered by the usual cast of non-actors and mood destroying music (except the bit in the playground), but on the whole a massive improvement over last weeks.

I thought it was an improvement, but that's not really saying much.

Sadly, it worked better when the rest of the team weren't that prominent, and some of the other actors were pretty bad.

I thought it was a real mistake to show the fairies that prominently, especially if you've got an actor who can't convincingly interact with CGI. Having them that brightly lit didn't really tally with the earlier comments of them only being visible out of the corner of your eye.

The deaths were a bit crap, really - considering they're pitching this as an adult show, I think they could have gone more gruesome, killing off the bullies, roasting the stepdad with the BBQ etc.

I think if they'd been made much more vindictive, or that the fate of the girl was not what she was expecting, then losing to them would have been more significant - as it stood, I didn't really care.

It made me wonder when Caballistics Inc was coming back though.

- Steve

Given the choice between a new series of Torchwood and a series of Caballistics there'd be no choice really.  You could make a pretty good series out of Caballistics.

I've watched the two(?) episodes screened on terestrial.

There's nothing more I can really add to what's already been said.

Apart from still trying to decide whether or not it's worthy or not of being made a parody of in twenty years time..

Dark Place anyone?

Well I didn't take against this weeks quite as badly as you, Jim; though by your own admissin you hadnt seen the abomination that was the previous one.

During the 80s, when Doctor Who was shit and Sapphire and Steel had been and gone, I could never understand why they didnt get Hammond in to take charge.  So this was a "be careful what you wish for" moment for me.

It was the first episode in 5 that reached any level of competence, but the direction was pretty poor, the old lady over acted and the Torchwood people and their super weather detector were as irritating as ever.  

The script started off being a (self) rip off of Hammonds classic railway station S&S, with fairies instead of ghosts. The appearance of the fairies was utterly mishandled, as was the silly voices they were given.  With a bit more subtlety and suggestion, better acting and another rewrite (for example, you don't need super weather computer showing that patch of rain - did they say it was an alien weather monitoring thing?  If they're just patching into the Met - ridiculous!  Just have one of the team comment about how clear a night it is as they drive there, in contrast to the old womans garden...

and ditch the CGI mansized fairies - they just crap on any atmosphere that could have been built up - as Jack says, they should be something you cant quite focus on, just a blur at best, with a hint of teeth.

Still, next weeks is another Garth Marenghi scribed episode, so could be fun!

I am avoiding it, maybe see it on dvd or repeats one day eh..

I think the other problem that besets both this and new Who is the mantra that the 45 minute format ahs been a success.  For me, (and looking for excuses where perhaps its just plain bad writing!) there aren't that many stories you can tell in a satisfying way in that length of time - without all the shortcutting of handy gizmos ruining any tension and a faint feeling of "is that it?" lingering even when things havent been fudged that badly

And the cartoon hole in the fence summed up the production teams whole ethos and style - if you cant even make a convincing hole in a fence, what chance have you of making a convincing drama?

Can someone explain to me how:

Jack's dad would be in his nineties - and jack appears to be in his early thirties? So, Jack's dad would've had to have been putting it about in his late 50s / early 60s? (Ok, that's not inconceivable but you'd think someone would've mentioned it?)

I dunno, I've tried to defend this show, but take out the sweary words and rampant sex and you'd've had a decent CBBC show I'm sure.


-pj

Isnt Barrowman about 40? - (for the cover story to work) he'd have to have had him when he was about 50.. though thats not implausible - look at Chaplin.

Ummm... PJ, you realise that every single 'Jack' mentioned was the same one? Right back to 1906, or whenever that earliest flashback was, it's the same guy, not aging. Don't know why I'm defending it, though.

For all its sins, I did quite like it, as far as no-brainer tv goes - then I read Jim's post about Quatermass, Sapphire and Steel, et al, and I wanted to cry when I thought of the fabulous pedigree it's pissing down the drain, and of how brilliant it could have been.

Yeah, I know that ... but for his cover story to work (and for people not to question it...) the numbers would have to add up (why he didn't just say his grandad was fighting in world war II I don't know...)

- pj

Aaaaahhhh... Consider my mouth shut then.

I see tonight's episode even has a title worthy of Garth Marenghi...

'Countrycide'.  Holy Quacking Moley...

Juding by the writer's previous form ('Day One' and 'Cyberwoman') and what I've seen on the trailers, my prediction for tonight's action is 'Doctor Who meets Dog Soldiers - ON ACID!'

Hmm. I totally forgot it was on, which says something, really. We watched an episode of West Wing instead.

It had no plot this week, none at all, quite an achievement.

Have to say this episode really brought the series back from the brink for me. I was getting worried that it wasn't going to take it's "muture" nature seriously. This episode really let it's adult aspect shine through. Honestly it was a grade A slasher horror story, on par with some of the best of the film genre, let alone television. The fact that the foe ends up NOT being alien at all was the best part. It kept me guessing the whole episode.
I liked the changes going on with the cast's emotions, there's almost a "Cthulhu" type thing going on, as the characters become exposed to the extreme weirdness and danger of their job the crazier and more detached they become, until they end up like that Torchwood agent in the first episode who went nuts and died for it. That's good story telling right there, and hope it continues from here on out.

Still not "the best series ever" but it's starting to get there.

Here is the story (not sure if they deseve to be called SPOILERS)...

Some people are going missing in an area and they suspect the hellmouth from Buffy/dimensional rift is responsible for throwing out some weirdo monsters.  

They go there (stopping only by a buger van in their Torchwood car and shout about aliens, people wonder how conspiracy theories start) , find empty houses and some bodies, some 'things' running about and body parts in the fridge.  They run about with guns a bit, are caught by people (four of them in total it seems) who do this 'harvesting' every ten years in their community, Torchwood gets the upper hand after a lot of buggering about and the most ridiculous shoot out I have ever seen (he shoots three people about 100 times and only manages to wing them) and... well, there is no revelation, these people just sort of do it really.  Y'know, kind of a tradition.

Interspersed with character 'development'.  It turns out the Scientist lady fancied the date rapist all along, but was really good at hiding it.  Gwen finally decides after being shot and injected with morphine that she really wants a bit of excitement so she's shagging him now.  Jack glanced meaningfully a bit and was occasionally  a 'bit near the edge' during the story.  Ianto Jones made the faux pas of reminding them all they'd killed his cybergirlfriend.  Jack glares meaningfully.  You wouldn't let it lie...

The direction was woeful, we spent an eternity waiting to see what was in the fridge, when we already new.  Some very bad 'disorentation' cuts as well on Ianto.

"Honestly it was a grade A slasher horror story, on par with some of the best of the film genre, let alone television."

No, no, no.  Almost any teen slasher of the last 5 years was vastly superior to this.  Wrong Turn, Last Cabin, I know what you did last Tuesday.

If you've seen Dog Soldiers, well done, it's much more entertaining than this and only twice as long.

And... Reservoir Dogs was over 15 years ago, I was so embaressed for them.  All the running about with guns is cringeworthy in the show.  Not only is this Britain, but they can't use them.

If it wasn't for the BBC4 SF season, this would be the highlight of my week. It's very rare to get shite of this quality on the screen, we should treasure these moments.

It seems like you're looking for Shakespeare in a sci-fi action/horror series. I can see why you're not jiving with it's particular brand of over the top genre fiction.

It seems like you're looking for Shakespeare in a sci-fi action/horror series. I can see why you're not jiving with it's particular brand of over the top genre fiction.

Doesn't have to be Shakespearean, just a story would be nice.  It is inept.

I saw a story, I saw a prologue, a beginning, a middle, a climax, and an ending. Plus an Epilogue to boot.

The story goes, the gang goes alien hunting, and stumble into bunch of crazy ass humans instead. And the moral for the show is, it's not just aliens who can be monsters.

I understand the prologue.  There was a woman in her car who got killed (though that might have happened anyway, driving at night talking into her mobile phone).

They then go to the area, find some deserted houses and wander about.  Beyond signs of a cannabal feast they find no clues, or do anthing beyond chalk up some words on a blackboard.  They stumble aound, get attacked (and funnily enough the man who can't be killed always stays out of danger) and sort of win.  Just where are the plot twists and revelations?

Anyway, prog's here.

I saw a story, I saw a prologue, a beginning, a middle, a climax, and an ending. Plus an Epilogue to boot.


I saw the not-even-thinly disguised plot of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, even down to the fact that the local cop was in league with the hick baddies.

It's a HOMAGE, thank you.  If I was clever like Gary Bushell and his officially recorded IQ of 165, I could have shoehorned in a gay reference, but I'm not, so I shall just pretend that was sarcasm.
This episode was a load of shite.  I shan't defend my reasons for watching it because, quite frankly, I don't have any.  It's on when I'm in front of the television on a sunday, and that's pretty much the only reason I watch at all.  If there was a repeat of series 4 of the Shield on at the same time, I'd be watching that instead.
Same goes for Robin Hood, and Doctor Who, if I'm honest - there's fuck all else on television at that time on a saturday evening except brain-dead shit that the tabloids fawn over obsessively, and thus makes me want to avoid it like the plague, so I watch the all-ages stuff on the BBC instead.  Then I come here and slag it off because it wasn't very good and it needs saying when people start holding up the flaws as strengths.
Ditto Torchwood.  All it takes to bury this piece of shit is for someone to start showing Battlestar Galactica on freeview at the same time.

I do not enjoy Torchwood, I merely experience it.  It's quite like dysentry, in that respect.

It was the worst episode yet, for all of the previously mentioned reasons. It was horrible, and not in the way that was intended.

Russel T. Davies also seems to have made a rule that there must be at least one snogging session per episode, which 50% of the time must be between two people of the same gender.

Call me insane but I was expecting one of the villagers this week to shout "don't worry tubbs they won't get far!"

As soon as TW's Land Rover was stolen, it was obvious that it was humans. Meh.

On the positive side, there were a couple of scary moments when we saw the corpses and the use of swearing seemed more well done than before.

But with it's premise giving TW the entirity of space and time to explore, the show takes us to a small village in Wales to shoot some stereotypes (in quite a camp way). I know it being humnas was supposed to be a twist, but this is a sci-fi show - it'd be a bit like watching "Gardener's World" and there being no gardens in it.

Finally, having the main character Gwen cheating on her everyman fella to be with a complete plonker makes her totally unlikeable and worse, risks steering future sub-plots into the realm of soap-opera and melodrama.

A shame.

M@

Haven't posted for aaages, but I just had to say:

Torchwood. Bit poo really.

Glorius just glorius... I love being able to predict every twist as you watch it.

The gun 'fight' at end was pure Darkplace. But I wish they would have been brave enough to throw in a chainsaw to show they really did not give a shit about ripping off Chainsaw Massacre wholesale. I love the fact that characters are having an affair where there is zero affinity between the two actors concerned. And I'm glad the've got the 'it's actually humans' episode that every single sf show ever always does out of the way

Next week lezzing up! Hoorah!

"The gun 'fight' at end was pure Darkplace."

I said it was hilarious.  Jack's attack was eerily similar to Dean Learner on one of his Shotgun rampages, but less effective.

jack harness, your pathetic.
owen, your immensely gross.

the first two episodes made me hope for darkness, smut and a healthy order of cheese.

but all we've got now is a shit and cheese sandwich. with shit instead of bread.

Faced with one armed loon, the other on the ground unarmed, two gun toting 'Woodentops still couldn't manage to other than cock it up... just as usual.  At least Jack saved the day with his Darkplace-heroics.  I think this one played to Chimpnal's strengths, that is, a series of attempted shocks with cludgy unlikeable-character quips, no need for any clever invention, subtlety, twists (other than the bleedin' obvious) or much logic.  So it seemed better than his last effort.  

It's supposed to be a village of cannibals but with just three of them, and about three buildings as well.  At least when the old Amicus/whatever movies did these things they had the prescience to have the weird village behind a portal of eldritch fog, or disappearing when the people went back to try and prove they weren't mad. Here there is no good reason for the village to not be found before now with the huge number of people disappearing.

To be fair there were some quite good moments mainly involving human remains in squalid environs, but the tension kept being sabotaged with the poor story action and direction.  They should have made the human cannibals mutants at least, for a show that is hyped for it's aliens this would have disappointed a lot of people, especially at the mid-season slump.  All their alien tech is strangely missing when they could do with it most.


I think the problem, other than this fellow's writing and poor grasp of Science Fiction, is the entire TW thing is bogged down by it's ill thought out concept.  We were rushed headlong into the hub which has no organisation, no bureaucracy, no structure - other than Jack in charge - as someone said it's just five guys in very big basement (or toy shop) being flashy.  For all we know or believe they turn up when we do, do this random stuff and by a miracle don't kill each other along the way, before going away again.  Someone must be supplying them with finances and helping enforce their mandate too, since even with their alien gizmos it seems a well-enough prepared assault by say, the army, could take the place (perhaps disguised as pizza delivery boys).  I also don't see why people would stand having an organisation, a blatant one at that, beyond all laws and so on. It would have been better, since the show revolves around drippy Gwen, to have gradually inducted her into this mysterious, threatening, scary outfit (as it was intended to be) over the course of a good few atmospheric, scary, episodes if not a season.  That way the alien/weirdness threat could have been built up (more) credibly and made TW seem less the masterbatorial solipsism it most often appears.

It would be improved if they worked on the hierarchy and politics of it, showed some more staff maybe from the other bases and showed what happened to them, gave Jack either someone to be answerable to or as a rival.  Maybe a shady government org is obstructing them for it's own ends...  Deal with the amateurish lack of security etc.  At the moment it's simplistic rather than realistic.

The Hammond one was best so far if still flawed.  I guess I just keep watching to see how bad it can be...  It's not that I want it to fail, quite the opposite since the future of Brit TV SF could hinge on it.

I haven't seen Torchwood. I'd be curious to see it, although after all your comments it would be 'how bad can it be?' curiosity (the same which drove me to pay money to see Street Fighter).
  How does Torchwood compare to other examples of badness? For example, how does it measure up against:
Neighbours?
later Red Dwarf?
K9 and Company
Love thy Neighbour?

and various bad sci fi shows I can't think of for the time being

First of all, Red Dwarf is amazing.

Second of all I'm put Torchwood being about as good as Stargate SG-1. Which is good praise.

It's not Battlestar Galactica, but then...what can be?

Calling Torchwood "bad" just seems silly as hell. It's got solid production values, a good cast, and some good plots. It just stumbles over it's own feet and falls into some cliches at some point each episode so far. It's not "excellent" but it's not "bad" or "terrible" either.

Hey - just how are you watching this young man - I trust you've paid your licence fee?  ;)

Anyway, I'd argue (not having seen the Brecon Chainswa Massacre yet) that it IS bad.  At best it's competent but unoriginal - at worst its stagey, unconvincing in dialogue, motivation and plot.  At it's very worst (that is, Chibnall scripted) it tripped out into some kind of awful parody version of the genre.

If you can tell me in what ways Cyberwoman made satisfying (or even half-competent!) drama, then I'm interested.  I'm not a big fan of genre TV tbh, so maybe this is what passes as normal?

Yes, this is genre television.  But then, what other kind of television is there?

What on earth are the rest of you watching that's apparently the pinnacle of literary merit that makes Torchwood not stand up? Because I want to be watching THOSE shows.

:: What on earth are the rest of you watching that's apparently the pinnacle of literary merit that makes Torchwood not stand up? Because I want to be watching THOSE shows.

The State Within is excellent!

M@

>What on earth are the rest of you watching that's apparently the pinnacle of literary merit that makes Torchwood not stand up? Because I want to be watching THOSE shows.

The Wire.

Eh, I didn't care for The Wire, but then I'm not big on contemporary crime drama.

However I'm currently in the process of checking out The State Within because it looks interesting and political drama is always welcome.

"What on earth are the rest of you watching that's apparently the pinnacle of literary merit that makes Torchwood not stand up? Because I want to be watching THOSE shows."

I'm not asking for "the pinnacle of literary merit" from Torchwood.

I'm asking for consistent characterization, for writers who notice plot holes and fucking fix them rather than let them slide, or have them glibly dismissed in a line of dialogue.

I'm asking for some kind of justification of the 'adult' label, other than an entirely unnecessary use of the word 'fuck' in Episode One, and some equally unnecessary sex in Episode Two.

I'm asking for some concept of how to structure a story, some imagination in the direction.

Yes ... Torchwood could be worse. It could be shot on Super 8, the SFX could be done in stop-mo by the team that did Morph, Cannon and Ball could be recurring villains.

There are lots of ways Torchwood could be worse, but that still doesn't stop it from being fucking awful.

Cheers!

Jim

To be fair, I don't think there is much contemporary TV that's great, which is why the new Who has gone down such a storm.  I wouldn't deny Dr Who is one of the best dramas on British TV at the moment... but that's not to say it's brilliant - stuff like Spooks and Hustle leave me scratching my head in bemusement at their popularity. I'd say that Torchwood is to Dr Who as Ultimate Force is to Spooks...

>Eh, I didn't care for The Wire

Well that explains a lot.

That my tastes are different then yours?! MY MIND IS BLOWN!

But seriously here's a simple break down of what's on TV (or recently on TV) on either side of the Atlantic and what I like and dislike, The Wire, meh. Deadwood, Yay!. Carnival, Yay! Battlestar Galactica, Yay! Lost, Meh. Heroes, eh. Doctor Who, Yay! Stargate SG-1, Yay! The Venture Brothers, Yay! Life on Mars, Yay! Robin Hood, eh.

I have very broad tastes, but where TV is conserned, I perfer Sci-fi, contemorary fantasy, and action/comedies.  

>That my tastes are different then yours?! MY MIND IS BLOWN!

Don't be fool, you know what I meant.

Not really. I don't care for The Wire, and apparently this explains why I like Torchwood. When the two pieces of information don't correlate.

Theres an interesting 5 star review of series 2 of Who in SFX, that strangely I agree with (except the stars)!

It likens RTD to Tony Blair, and fans to hardened socialists who have realised that new Whos soft centre is a sincerely held policy, rather than a cover to get the masses watching.  In many ways that's spot on, but it doesn't address the matter of whether RTD's new policies, like Tonys, are a bag of shite...

Anyway, if the rumours are to be believed, theres only two more Who series to get wound up by anyway! ;)

"I haven't seen Torchwood. I'd be curious to see it, although after all your comments it would be 'how bad can it be?' curiosity (the same which drove me to pay money to see Street Fighter).
How does Torchwood compare to other examples of badness? For example, how does it measure up against:
Neighbours?
later Red Dwarf?
K9 and Company
Love thy Neighbour?

and various bad sci fi shows I can't think of for the time being "

it's worse than strange.

I didn't mind Strange, and as I said, I'd have preferred a 13=part series of that to Torchwood.  It had a better main character, a genuinely different supporting cast and potentially an excellent bad guy.

Torchwood has all the bad points of Dr Who and more besides with few of its saving graces.

The program is a joke, and one I'm happy to laugh at but it is a real shame that the BBC have so uncritically given themselves over to RTD's whims.  I imagine better proposals for SF shows have been rejected over the years without so much as a glance.

>When the two pieces of information don't correlate.

Well actually they do, but never mind.

>When the two pieces of information don't correlate.

Well actually they do, but never mind.

Only as far as you're concerned, Gary...

"worse than strange" - what does that mean? Really, really bad? Good if you like 'strange'? Something else?  I gots to know?

By the way, I liked early Red Dwarf but found the later series unwatchable


yours consumed with curiosity about Torchwood

Strange was a supernatural drama series which was shown on BBC1 a few years ago. It was slightly rubbish, but had a lot of potential and was a heck of a lot better than Torchwood in my opinion. It also had stories featuring scary, ghost-filled double-decker buses and killer skirting board.

The killer skirting board episode was my favourite.

I liked the earlier Red Dwarf too, but the last couple of series were crap.

strange was pretty damn bad, but really enjoyable. nice and tacky, and at moments embarrassingly cheesy, but it had something good going for it. attractive people ( well one very attractive guy and the rest were alright), some tension between the characters...

it was my cheesy brit sci-fi hit when i lived in canada, so will always have a special place in my heart.

whats so annoying is that torchwood should be good...

Wednesday's episode was the best yet, apart from sitting with your girlfriend's folks and watching the really cridgey bit where they are in the woods and he's saying that she'll come really hard.

V. uncomfortable.

I've only got round to watching the first two, with the rest being on my Sky+ box.  Should I not bother?

You need to watch the cyberwoman one, which was episode 4 (I think), it's the most ridiculous thing you'll see in an age of ages.

"V. uncomfortable. "

And that is a problem.  What is Torchwood?  Fine, it's not a kids sho (even tough it spins off from one and looks like one), but Is it the kind of show you can watch with the quasi-in-laws, or is it a mates-only full-on cock-sucking-whores Deadwood experience?   It clearly isn't the latter, because it still plays like Angel's poor relation, but nor is it the former, because of the gratuitous use of swearing and sexual references (I use the g-word intentionally, in that it adds nothing to the story or atmosphere - certainly doesn't make the show seem big or clever, in the way that Deadwood's calaculated obscenities elevate the show to the level of modern Shakespeare).  

I caught a couple of middle-aged women talking aboout the show at work the other day, and they seemed mighty impressed. Perhaps this is the target Torchwood audience - middle aged menopausal women...

"Perhaps this is the target Torchwood audience - middle aged menopausal women..."

Well, the target audience certainly isn't me!

Watched about fifteen minutes of it last night, because the missus had put it on, after which she said: "Shall we find something else. This really isn't very good, is it?"

So we watched the BBC4 docco on SF instead and shook our heads sadly over the fact that the Beeb appears to think that Torchwood can hold its head up in the company of its predecessors.

Cheers!

Jim

I had the misfortune of watching the Torchwood Declassified behind-the-scenes prog for the Brecon Chainsaw Massacre ep. They showed clips of Jack's all-guns-blazing entrance at the end of the story together with the crew explaining how they wanted it to look... Christ Almighty. They actually wanted it to look that laughable and they think it actually came across as some kind of brutal, effective finale & not a high-budget Darkplace.

Pretty much all hope of future Who being any good is rapidly disappearing - until we get someone else in charge of the series, it won't matter who's writing or performing because they're all going to be subject to the whims of a handful of prats who actually see the flaws in the show as something to be proud of. Fuck.

Spent most of Wednesday mocking the Fairy step dad with the Scriptshop bunch, cause we know him and have a love/hate thing going on. Still the best episode yet. Says a lot that I've not bothered with the latest.

Saw a teenage emo gothlet with a home-made Torchwood T-shirt the other day.

EEEEEEMMMMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Her out of Hexed has lost a bit of weight, there.  Liked the bit where they mentioned UNIT, and thought "that would've been a good series" - then realised it probably wouldn't, as it'd still be the same losers making it as makes this rubbish.
Great bit at the start where it didn't even pretend not to be a parody when they were skidding towards the crime scene in their inconspicuous black 4X4 with glowing strips up the side of the windows.

It was shit, but not enjoyable shit this week.

Another load of old wank.

Looking forward to next week's insightful review, PVS!

"Another load of old wank."

Didn't even contemplate watching it this week. Somebody let me know if it suddenly gets good, otherwise ... meh.

Want to elaborate on the above, Herr Von Scott?

Cheers!

Jim

I thought this week's was the best so far. Not quite where it should be, but not bad.
Unfortunately, the writers don't seem to have the confidence to follow through a decent story idea without adding some OTT melodrama.

So, they get stuck with the revived corpse of a colleague. Fine. That's a good enough starting point and there were some nice moments.
SPOILERS FOR THOSE WATCHING ON WEDNESDAY...

They didn't need to turn her into an evil machiavellian genius. Nor have her out to kill her dad. It was far more interesting when she seemed more human with believable motivation - wanting to save her dad. The ending would have been more interesting if she cared about the fact that her living meant the copper died, but still made that choice anyroad.

Disappointingly, the returning woman seemed a better actor than the others and a more likable character too.

- Huey

Well,  I was hoping to continue adding on some general one liner dismissive interviews for the next few episodes.  But that's all ruined!

Torchwood has several problems including bad scripts, bad direction and bad acting.

Take this weeks story, it had maybe 25 minutes of unfulfilling story and a lot of fluff.  I'm guessing that a writer is asked to deliver a 35 minute script containing a full story (a difficult task I suspect, same for Who) and then RTD pads it out with 'character mush'.

A good example of how bad it is was the last few minutes (they seemed to last longer):

We are at the end and they are locking Suzie up again, Jack makes a tortuous speech that looks like he's performing it in some overly dramatic theatre play.  "One day we're going to run out of space.... sigh"  The camera pulls back quickly to show the wall of coffin space just so we understand what he means.  There is no logic to what he says or what they are doing.

Excrutiating writing follows:
Jones "What should we put on the death certificate, she had so many deaths"
Jack "I don't know... ... ... ...Death by Torchwood"

No, don't put that down you stupid fucking prick.

The acting is poorly thought out and accentuated by unpaced direction.  The long long pauses giving a silent run up to hammy dialogue.

You could achieve more by being more careful with the pacing.  It rushes madly desperately incoherantly through plot and grinds to a treacley crawl when people are staring at each other moodily over the character mush, or expressing some over the top emotion.  To me it shows where the priorities are.  

Character development is in the form of dropping a bombshell with no warning.  Such as Toshiko's unrequited love of Owen (clonk!) and, somewhat bizarrely at the end, Jones suddenly using a stopwatch as a chat up line for some casual sex with Jack (clang!).  Jack offers to send everyone home early so they can screw.  

Both the death certificate and the lets knock off early dialogue begs me to ask what the fuck is torchwood?  Is it a real organisiation that has protocols, receives funding and is expected to perform under pressure defend the country?  Or is it just a bunch of people fucking about and someone somehwere hoping that those Torchwood chaps don't destroy Wales along the way.  Anyway...

Presumably Jones is over resenting Jack for killing his girlfriend and Jack has forgiven Jones for bringing a cyberwoman home.  But I have been watching the show, and I've seen no sign of it and have no idea where this has come from.  I should say I don't mind who screws who in the show (apart from RTD), I have no problem with male characters in the show having sex with each other, I'd just like to have it make sense.  

Everyone in Torchwood has had a homosexual experience so far.  Again, not a problem, I don't want to be one of those people complaining about the shows gay agenda. Because if there is one, it's message is that everyone can have a homosexual experience, but only if it involves mind controlling aliens/alien technology that warp their reason.  That would be a fairly poor gay agenda.

While Jones' comment about gloves coming in pairs was a bit predictable - two blokes back from the pub both shouted it out in advance at my house - but actually not bad, and I say that knowing RTD wrote it.  However, what did Jacks strange blank questioning look mean and why did Jones suddenly look awkward?  What the fuck is going on, what was that, was it in the script, was it freeform jazz acting?  This sort of stuff plagues the show.  Plus the problem with a clever line not thought through is that it adds the classic B-Movie ending where all the efforts of the movie are spoilt by the threat of the reappearence of the monster at the end.  You've sat through all of this, but the monster is dead... .... ...or is it?  

The whole end scene of the show is a tiny microcosm of why the show is a load of old wank.  I was embarressed for them.

I even watched Torchwood Declassified for the first time to see them justify it.  They can't, they're too busy trying to work out what the subtext of the show is (no firm consensus, but be assured it's all deep and meaningful).

There you go, Jim.  If I could be bothered to watch it again sober, I could write a whole book on this crap.

"Nor have her out to kill her dad."

What the fuck is it with RTD and bad dads?  

Paul, you love it really...Captain Jack's your boy friend...

Yeah, but Pauls the husband.

Damn straight.

Sounds anything but to me... ;-)

Torchwood or Love Actually? Decisions, decisions...

The strange thing is though, I agree with everything Paul said there- but I still like the show.

Good for you RAC, I'm not trying to convince anyone its crap, it's there, people can make of it what they will.

Today I got round to seeing episode three, the one with the past/future emotion reader.

Based on the first three, all I can say is, it doesn't suck (unlike the last series of Who) but it ain't great either. The ending was insane, as was the bit after that when Jack tried to make the woman feel all right, and not in the good way, but not anywhere near the "Doctor picking up the Olympic Torch" level of insane.

Considered in it's own right, its not that offensive to my nerdish disposition or anything.

Considered as the BBC's attempt to continue their fine heritage of classic sci fi, it's a little depressing.

More thoughts on the series as a whole when I finally get round to watching the rest (could be a fair few years yet).

"it doesn't suck (unlike the last series of Who)"

Give it time. Frankly, although I had problems with the second series of Who, it's high art compared to the dross that is Torchwood, which is in dire need of a brutal script editor. In the most recent episode, so many things jarred. That thing with the ISBNâ??what? She'd have needed the EXACT SAME EDITION of the EXACT SAME BOOK when setting things up! Idiotic! Shutting things down by using a cleverly found line from the actual poems would, of course, have been beyond the writers of this show. And, it has to be said, when I was living in Cardiff, it never went from the middle of the night to daylight in "40 minutes". Gnh!

There were black screens behind the seats in the Torchmobile. For some reason. But it looked darker than it was.

"There you go, Jim. If I could be bothered to watch it again sober, I could write a whole book on this crap."

Why, thank you, Doctor Von Scott ... a fine dissection that saves me having to subject myself to this tosh to reach the same conclusion!

Your sacrifice will not go unnoticed.

Cheers!

Jim

Another completely nonsense episode, but amongst it all I was particularly confused by the line from the Secretary bloke about there being a lot you can do with a stopwatch or somesuch.

Am I right in also thinking - as PVS seems to - that this was a prelude to sex? If so...

1. How could he have gone from utter devotion to his Cyberwoman gf to casual boy-bonking in less than three months?

2. I may be niaive, but what sexual activity involves a stopwatch?

M@

I may be niaive, but what sexual activity involves a stopwatch?

A variation on Soggy Biscuit?





;-)

I'm with Mat...the stop watch thing is just...confusing, and I'm open minded...  Perhaps it's a soggy biscuit type thing.

As for the show, it is crap, but Cardiff looks great, and I'm still watching it (in HD too).

Perhaps it's a soggy biscuit type thing

PERVO HIVE MIND! :-)

Scary that...

Heh - I blame Wils ;-)

I usualy do.

Nicked from someone else, the solution to the stopwatch question:

Stopwatch...time....what do we do with time?
Waste it.
What's waste?
Rubbish.
And what do we do with rubbish?
That's right! You've won !

So they went off to bugger Dusty Bin?

You are Wils and I claim my 5 pounds (and novelty stop watch).

Damn - sprung! Excuse me while I go off to talk dirty to Malchi & find my purple trousers...






(sorry, Wils ;-) )

"I have no problem with male characters in the show having sex with each other"

I do, it's a spin-off of Doctor Who, and whenever was that supposed to be about men putting their willies up other mens bottom?

ADE

Since the 1964 novelisation of the second story was named Doctor Who in an exciting encounter with some cock.

And not forgetting, of course, the classic Tom Baker story now sadly lost from the BBC archives, Doctor Who and The Deadly Arse-assin.

Link: MORE WHO-MOPHOBIC LAUGHS HERE!

Ade, the whole project is sorely (no pun intended) misguided.  Why anyone should want to make an adult spin off from Doctor Who is beyond me.

From Outpost Gallifrey:

"Helen Raynor has donated an autographed copy of her script for Torchwood episode three, Ghost Machine, to the Cardiff and District Samaritans. The script is signed by Raynor, John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Burn Gorman, Naoko Mori and Gareth David-Lloyd. It is being auctioned on eBay, and all proceeds will go towards running costs at the Cardiff Samaritans."

At least someone on Torchwood ecognises what they've dne and is taking responsibility for their actions :p

Rather sweetly Naoko Mori has done a little Manga style drawing of herself next to the signature so you'll know who she is.

This just makes me want to go to see Avenue Q again to get my prgramme signed.

Link: Clicky linky buy me.

Sorry, meant to add a link!

Despite myself good luck to the auction.

Let's face it, any drama that begins with anyone investigating a mysterious murder, or series of murders that doesn't include the word 'Columbo'...is shit.

ADE

Pff.... Robbie Coltrane should sit on you for saying that.

This weeks episode seems particually baffling. Let me get this straight. I'm a a villain and I think i might get killed so i'll programme some Manchurian candidate to start killing people so he can be brought into the secret base where the chances are i'll be trapped having just been reincarnated. Wow! That's some fine long term planning.
Plus would you really have the name of your super secret organisation on the front of your jeep? What's the point of erasing people's minds if you're just going to drive down Cardiif High street advertising your above top secret cabal?

What they do is secret, not that they exist at all.

Yeah, the last series of Who showed that everyone and their dog knows that Torchwood exists, so I guess the loud aspects of the Torchwood series are consistent with that.

This does not stop it being bloody stupid though.

If eveyone knows of Torchwood, the first question everyone would ask is:

What does Torchwood do?

Special Ops wouldn't cover it in the playground, never mind the real world.  In an age when our most secret organisation, once never admitted to exist, has a visible HQ, what would Fleet Street, the BBC, The House of Commons and a hundred other interested organisations have to say?

I'd let it off, like I've forgiven Doctor Who a lot over the years, but as Torchwood is so keen to point out, it's not a kids program.

"it's not a kids program."

No, you're right ... it's possibly the most breath-takingly awful bag of old shite that's been served up to the viewing public in many years.

Russel T deserves to be taken out behind the chemical sheds and shot for this. It's appalling on so many levels that it's actually embarassing. Torchwood is a joke that isn't even funny ...

Let the Rhesus Monkeys record this for posterity:

RTD ... you stand on the brink of ruining British SF. You are squandering one of the finest heritages of TV dramas, despoiling the memory of the original Dr Who, of fine SF dramas like Sapphire & Steel, like Day of the Triffids, like The Tripods, like Nightmare Man (although I seem to be the only person who remembers this) ...

Sorry, Russell, but you are -- without wishing to put too fine a point on it -- a cunt. You can't write your way out of a paper bag, and your attempts to justify Dr Who and/or Torchwood as quality TV drama are laughable. Fuck you.

Cheers!

Jim

Jim, I believe your fine dose of bile belongs on Outpost Gallifrey as well...?

I have recently stopped going on Outpost Gallifrey due to the unusually high numbers of fanboys on there who are gushing about how good Torchwood is without giving any explanation as to why it is good. The moment anyone dares to criticise it, they are shot down by the sycophants and accused of moaning and trying to bring the show down. At least those that don't like Torchwood are generally giving reasoned arguments for their criticism.

I love British Science fiction, RTD is a genuinely unfortunate chapter in its history.  He can't do science fiction, he can't do a kids adventure series, he can just do Buffy parody, a sort of Emo Fantasy.  He's best left to farcical slice of life sex/romance stories.

Presumably Russel T Davies is seen as some Doctor Who Messiah who can do no wrong, so is worshipped by the halfwits who would welcome any doctor who in whatever form it took.

I keep harking back to it, but Second Coming should have been the warning.  An interesting premise, but RTD has nothing to say (apart from we don't need gods and aren't all humans great) so after a long build up to the second coming of christ, the son of god commits suicide with some poisoned spag bol.  Shame, I thought god would have more style somehow, he's come down a long way since the ten commandments.  Perhaps he outsourced the second coming to an independant contractor.

After Grade had helped kill off British SF in the 80's (The only argument for much of it is that they didn't have the money to make it look like Star Wars), SF and Doctor Who was going to come back at some point, and the rumblings had been going on for some time.  It's such a great format for a show that as long as you had good production values, a decent cast and even half decent stories it was going to be a success.

Anyway, I'm fairly confident that having blackmailed the BBC into this, when he quits he'll take his ball home with him or at least hammer a nail through it so the other kids can't play.

Awful man, endlessly singing his own praises, if he were to fall down a sewer because of a missing manhole cover in Cardiff and never seen again I'd be genuinely grateful.

>most secret organisation, once never admitted to exist, has a visible HQ,

Well that's what they want you to think...

>Nightmare Man (although I seem to be the only person who remembers this) ...

Don't be daft. Everyone who saw this remembers it. And it's out on DVD now.

"It's such a great format for a show"

I always felt that even in the old show, whenever I've caught old episodes, there was more they could do with the premise, and specifically the Time Lords. In the stories I've seen you never really get to find out much about them or why they travel in time (I've just looked at Wikipedia which seems to confirm this), yet it is this that I think should have provided The Doctor with his motivation. He seems to be a rebel but we don't really know what from. Though the time travel aspect of the show means you can potentially go anywhere and do anything, you also need to rein that freedom in and provide some reasons to not make it look like he's just inanely wandering - or in the case of the new series being a kind of time tourist. There was a whole opportunity to create some real politics and continuity in the show, so you can imagine my disappointment that the first thing they did when bringing it back was to simply wipe out the most promising aspect in the show (rather non-sensical itself, since they would exist all across time, and they could surely go back and change things anyway), never to refer to it again.

ADE

"It's such a great format for a show"

I always felt that even in the old show, whenever I've caught old episodes, there was more they could do with the premise, and specifically the Time Lords. In the stories I've seen you never really get to find out much about them or why they travel in time (I've just looked at Wikipedia which seems to confirm this), yet it is this that I think should have provided The Doctor with his motivation. He seems to be a rebel but we don't really know what from. Though the time travel aspect of the show means you can potentially go anywhere and do anything, you also need to rein that freedom in and provide some reasons to not make it look like he's just inanely wandering - or in the case of the new series being a kind of time tourist. There was a whole opportunity to create some real politics and continuity in the show, so you can imagine my disappointment that the first thing they did when bringing it back was to simply wipe out the most promising aspect in the show (rather non-sensical itself, since they would exist all across time, and they could surely go back and change things anyway), never to refer to it again.

ADE

The time lords invented time travel and set about "helping" (USA style) more backward civilizations. Then one lot got nukes from them and wiped out themselves and a lot of others (See the Tom Baker story Underworld). The time lords then decided to go all pacifist and stop others getting or using time travel.

The is what the Doctor rebelled against.

"Don't be daft. Everyone who saw this remembers it. And it's out on DVD now."

Ah ... when I mentioned it on another thread, I was met with a deafening silence, hence my comment.

I'm well-chuffed that it's out on DVD. I think that may well make my Christmas wish-list!


Cheers

Jim

"Jim, I believe your fine dose of bile belongs on Outpost Gallifrey as well...?"

Be my guest. I'm already signed up to more forums than I can manage, but if anyone wants to copy 'n' paste then feel free!

Cheers

Jim

I'm not sure that all that's bad in Torchwood is RTD's fault. Okay it's his idea and his characters an' all, but most of his time will be taken up with Doctor Who and setting up the next spin off; Sarah Jane Smith investigates.

The re-vamped Doctor Who has had some real bad moments, but it has also had some great ones too (Mostly in the first series). Torchwood hasn't had any great moments, simply some okaaay ones and some real crap ones.

the show-runner for Torchwood is Chris Chibnall. He's the fella responsible for getting the other writers, putting a story framework together and re-writing all the scripts. What's more, the 3 episodes that have REALLY sucked : the Cyberwoman one, the hicks one and the sex monster one were all written by him. He's also responsible for the season finale which will undoubtably suck.

- Huey

I just found an interview with him where he lists RTD as one of the writers he admires

"his versatility, vision and voice are unparalleled in the history of TV drama"

Ick.

His wikipedia entry also states that he's going to be writing for the third series of the new Who.

- Steve

Link: Chris Chibnall Admires...

"but most of his time will be taken up with Doctor Who and setting up the next spin off; Sarah Jane Smith investigates."


Really?  I thought most of his time was taken up with self aggrandising interviews.

*znort!*

;-)

So, did Chibnall get the job because he's an arselicker, or is he is arselicking because he got the job? And "unparalleled in the history of TV drama"? What a fucking insult to the generations of fantastic writers who've worked at the Beeb...

This just in: RTD's house of sham now officially out of ideas: allegations of dusting off and recycling an episode of New Who not even one year old bandied about. Davies yet to comment.

"Really? I thought most of his time was taken up with self aggrandising interviews."

Oh yeah, that too.

Someone at BBC3 has a sense of humour as the show had the CBBC logo on it for the first ten minutes.

I'm not going to launch into a dissection of this show, it seemed to be Torchwood's version of the Doctor Who geek story (the one with Peter Kay and the fellating paving slab), and it unsurpirsingly had the same effect on me.  

I didn't mind it, despite all the attempts to get the digs in against those dreaded geeks.  Torchwood barely figured in it, so hey.

Damned by faint praise perhaps, but that's all it can hope for.  Because damned it surely is.

So Chibnall is being groomed as the sacrificial goat when BBC management have to make note of adverse critical and viewer reaction to S3 of Who and Torchwood is what you're saying?

I'm of the opinion that a turd can shine, but it can't be polished and it's still just a turd.  Torchwood is exhibit A: shiny, but not good, and all the reviews that have been positive and make actual critical examination of the show (as opposed to fawning bandwagon-jumping) seem to be of the opinion that it's good BECAUSE it's so compellingly awful.  Lots of horrible shows run and run, though - Smallville, The OC, That Dancing Thing Before Robin Hood, Anything Made By ITV, etc...

"Damned by faint praise perhaps, but that's all it can hope for. Because damned it surely is."

I have to admit, I have no idea how this show is playing beyond the confines of this message board!

Does anyone know what the wider opinion is? Viewing figures? Googling 'Torchwood review" seems to get pages of stuff pre-launch or about the first episode, so I'm curious as to how opinion has developed as the series has gone on ...

Cheers!

Jim

Stolen from www.unitnews.co.uk

01. Everything Changes
Written by...............Russell T. Davies
Original UK Airdate.........Sunday 22 Oct 2006
Final ratings (BBC3)............2.52 million
Final ratings (BBC2)............3.03 million (shown as doublebill)

02. Day One
Written by...............Chris Chibnall
Original UK Airdate.........Sunday 22 Oct 2006
Final ratings (BBC3)............2.49 million
Final ratings (BBC2)............3.03 million (shown as doublebill)

03. Ghost Machine
Written by...............Helen Raynor
Original UK Airdate.........Sunday 29 October 2006
Final ratings (BBC3)............1.78 million
Final ratings (BBC2)............2.49 million

04. Cyberwoman
Written by...............Chris Chibnall
Original UK Airdate.........Sunday 5 November 2006
Final ratings (BBC3)............1.39 million
Final ratings (BBC2)............2.16 million

05. Small Worlds
Original UK Airdate.........Sunday 12 November 2006
Final ratings (BBC3)............1.26 million

From the wikipedia page, viewing figures are around 1.2 million for BBC Three, and around 2.2 million for the BBC Two showing.

I've not seen many positive comments about it, usually it's derivative, cheesy nonsense with fairly unlikeable and inconsistent characterisation.

For me, it often feels like an inverse airline edit of a film, basically a kids show, but with added gore, swearing and sex to jazz it up.

- Steve

One thing I will say because it's a criticism of the whole show, is that Eugene was said to be this character always hanging around.  Well fine, but why didn't we see that in at least a few preceding episodes, the show would have had much more impact.

This problem effected the bombshell character development where we are told something is true, but not allowed to see it for ourselves.

I was trying to work out what the deal with the end was.

Last week, and in a prior episode, they made a big thing about there being no afterlife, darkness, with something unpleasant that is going to come after CJ.

This week, Eugene's all Patrick Swayze rising up towards the light and narrating from beyond the grave.

- Steve

Damn it is a pile of steaming crap this show.  I'm even bored trying to spot local film locations now.

I thought it was a missed opportunity how they do the kind of special FX they used to use for Al on Quantum Leap.

Funny too how they aspired for authenticity by referencing eBay but the screenshots were fake, and then instead of a Little Chef we had that awful "Happy Cook". Arf...

Speaking of Quantum Leap, was this episode an attempt to hit the same kind of earnest sentimentality that Quantam Leap did so well (imho)? If so, it really missed the mark.

It all just seems too wimpy, and is it me, or does there seem to be quite a lot of issues with absent fathers in this and New Who?

M@

Dads appear to be evil, perhaps not as evil as the Daleks, but certainly on a par with say, the Krotons.

It's all part of the Gay Mafia's anti-dad, pro-mum agenda...

;-)

I really did try to be attentive with this episode but gave up after two minutes when, despite his hand passing through Tosh, Eugene was still able to walk along the ground and climb into the Torchwood jeep.

And I really could do with someone explaining the ending to me. How come Eugene could be seen, heard, and touch things? Was down to that alien eye thingie? Or did it have something to with that science fayre about black holes or whatever it was?

They had a preview of Sarah Jane Smith spin-off  on Blue Peter (okay, I had the TV on in the background), it's repeated at 6:30 on the CBBC channel though I guess the preview will probably be online soon. The other main character is a girl who's parents are splitting up, so it's obviously very gritty and modern and won't be crap.

ADE

seen torchwood finally.

i understand what has been said now.
its neither cutting edge adult sci fi or family entertainment is it.

i would describe it as youth TV show trying to be something it isnt.makes me think of   channel four efforts back in the 80s to be controversial. dissapointed that the beeb would spend money on this,when i am sure there are many great sci fi ideas which have been rejected.

Is this the clip?

Link: link

Well that's the show but there were other clips too. Yeah Samantha Bond is in it, it's shown New Years Eve or New Years Day. More of a kids show than Torchwood but I'm skeptical that that makes it more promising, the whole enterprise is way too rushed as it is.

ADE

I won't be bothering, 2006 is my last year for New Who.

Oh, fuck off, Torchwood gets a second series.

Last nights episode got aound 900,000 viewers beating Lost aparently.

I need to find something else to complain about.

900,000 viewers? Um, isn't that a drop-off of about two million from the first episode?

I really, really wish the Beeb had taken all the energy, money & talent being thrown at Torchwood, Sarah Jane & the other spin-off marketing bobbins & ploughed it back into Who. Make that a show to be proud of, a gleaming genre centrepiece... don't fucking milk the damn thing dry the moment you get more than a few million viewers.

Gah - I think I'm in the same position you were 6 months ago, Paul...

Has a second series definitely been given the go-ahead then?

Not that I'm surprised, it seems to be more a case of 'We've built the set, better make use of it'

Beating Lost is not really that significant, since BBC Three has Freeview viewers in addition to anyone watching via Sky or Cable.

- Steve

Link: It has now...

Reading the reality gap statements in that blur really hammer home to me how Torchwood has been a through the looking glass moment. Throughout series 1 and although with some stronger doubts creeping in through series 2, I'd kind of put aside my concerns about the underlying quality of RTDs vision.  Now I know how those people who complained from the off felt - that they were somehow seeing a different programme to the one that these people were commenting on, and where getting rave reviews and record viewing figures!

Dalek first set me off on a path of concern - crying daleks, magic time travel DNA...

But then, I enjoyed Cornells one (at least the story was one which naturally had the "blub" elements at its core) and Moffatts seemed to show there was a away to combine RTDs "fun" agenda with a proper mystery, some good jokes and a kind of approaching logical resolution.

Then we got a silly filler with the magic TARDIS and a silly ending with a magic TARDIS, but OK, they'll see that Moffatts was by far the best received and thats the line they'll pursue.

Next season, Moffatt repeats the same story but swamps it with extra RTDisms.  The Doctor trasnforms into a WACky guy, Gatiss also feels under the influence of RTDs spell and Matthew Grahams one... well, what a letdown.  But even so, blinkers on for me to some degree.

But Torchwood has revealed the Emperor has no clothes.  If it can happen to a card carrying "I want to belive in Who" fan like me , it can happen to you too Amstor!

Cheers,

I read on digital spy that BBC Three and Two were fighting over who would air it first, and that RTD wanted BBC One to show it.

I'm not surprised really, they just appear to be content to keep deluding themselves that they have a good programme.

Maybe it will improve, but I doubt it.

- Steve

From the press relase - "...there will be more of the adrenaline-fuelled, action-packed adventures of our team of Torchwood heroes."

Any adrenaline-fuelled, action-packed adventures, and indeed any actual heroes, would be welcome.

M@

"Now I know how those people who complained from the off felt"

It's nice to be vindicated once in a while.

I actually quite liked the Dalek one though, it did actually have a purpose, which was to examine this familiar enemy closer, examine one in isolation and show how deadly it can be on it's own, something which had never been done before. It's a shame the series finale just cut-and-pasted hundreds of them and made them fly as if that was something creative.

I had my doubts from when I first saw a picture of Christopher Ecklescake in a leather jacket. It just didn't make sense that a time-traveller would wear trendy modern dress and the whole idea lost it's charm. I never liked the casting or the characterisation even when the story was okay (there just wasn't any real believability in his relationship with the much younger Rose) and if anything David Tennant was an improvement - though they still never gave him a proper motivation, switching between angry defiance and giggly excitement at the drop of a hat.

ADE

I've deleted all Torchwood episodes 3 on from my Sky+ box without watching them. Does it make any reference to Doctor Who at all?

Yeah -in principle, thast a good approach, and sure, you watch it and theres a dalek addressing all those laughable aspects and turning them into strengths...

Then RTDs blue pen comes along and says - lets make the Dalek cry at the end.  And you get utterly reprehensible dialogue like Roses "He's (the Dalek) not the one pointing a gun at me", when the Doctor appears to rescue her.

Now, when I'm trapped in an underground lair with a killer that has just wiped out hundreds, and a friendly face comes up and points a gun at said killer, I'm not sure just what would motivate me to look at the situation in such an arse ended fashion...  

And your DNA changes when you time travel... erm?  and Daleks like to be able to absorb other races DNA, despite being defined by their notions of Racial superiority?

It just summed up the RTD approach - doesnt matter if it doesnt make sense, so long as we get a crying scene or poorly conceived political/moral point across

Link: Y'know, there was a time when New Who didn't make

'. . . us swear', that should have read.

I really liked the first new series, I thought it was a fantastic family programme. No, it wasn't hard core sci fi, but to be honest that's not what I want from doctor who. I just wanted a fun, light hearted adventure series that could be enjoyed by any age, and that's what I got.

The second series wasn't a family programme. It was a kids programme with nob gags. And that isn't the same thing.

At the moment my only opposition to Torchwood is that its bland. Not bad, just completely forgettable. Then again, I've only seen up to episode 3.

Well, when the new show started, it had a LOT of goodwill i think.  People claim that RTD "made" the show a success, but why the hell did 11 million tune in on the first night, sight unseen?  Because of what Who represents, not what RTD Who would be.  

Episodes 1, 4 and 5 were tarnished by poor direction. Watching Rose again this year, you can see just how wrongly they pitched it.  That said, it's probably RTDs strongest script.  It does what it needs to, it has an excuse to gloss over the "plot", as that is by necessity the background to introducing the Doctor to a 'new' audience.  episodes 2 and 3 had things going a bit wonky too, but you reckon "this is first season wobbles - the Beeb will need a bit of time to remember how to make this stuff".

Then Moffatt came along with a good story, and you might have generously forgiven the ending of Ecclestons Doctor as a botch to accommodate him jumping ship.

It's only by series 2 (if you're slow like me!) you start to see the RTD hand of death plucking anything interesting from the scripts, and performing  "mountain to Mohammed" trickery by making the Doctor and all his adventures (even in the year 20,000 or wherever) fit his writing limits - that is, pop culture references, a bit of risque banter and chips.  

The Audience appreciation figures are in for Cyberwoman and the rest! and they tell a chilling tale - apparently Torchwood as as loved as the last season of Who, which had an average of 84/85 AI figures (out of 100 IIRC - a great score):

22 Oct 2006 - 101: Everything Changes - 82
22 Oct 2006 - 102: Day One - 83
29 Oct 2006 - 103: Ghost Machine - 84
05 Nov 2006 - 104: Cyberwoman - 84
12 Nov 2006 - 105: Small Worlds - 85
19 Nov 2006 - 106: Countrycide - NA
26 Nov 2006 - 107: Greeks Bearing Gifts - 83

To cut and paste from my Outpost Gallifrey rambling...

"Fabulous!

I'm glad Cyberwoman in particular got such a high AI, as it shows the AI process to be utterly worthless in my eyes.  Next time someone quotes the high AIs for Who as a blanket defence - well 'Cyberwoman' got 84, so that's that argument in tatters - thats about the series 2 average isnt it?!

For a good few months I had started to doubt my sanity - I'm watching shoddy TV, yet apparently it's going down well according to the AI - maybe it's just me then, being overly picky.  Wouldnt surprise me to be honest, the man who after watching the Oceans 11 Don Cheadle recruitment scene swindle vowed never to pay to be patronised again..! :)

Now these figures would seem to suggest it's not me being overly picky, but the general audience being utterly unpicky - years of Hollywood dumbing down have succeeded it would seem.  

The only alternative is a shadowy cartel of Who fanatics have positioned themselves as BARBS sample in the 16 years since Who was taken off the air, just in preparation for this moment!  Unlikely, you might cry... but ask yourself: as unlikely as Cyberwoman getting an AI of 84?"
 

I should think that the first trailer for new Who had a lot to do with general viewers tuning in but, yeah, I agree Who is held in much affection and not not just by fans.

It's also quite telling that critics such as Alison Graham are singing new Who's praises due in no small part to RTD's reinvention of Who as a soap opera, meaning that the show is now worthy of serious critical attention. Of course, soap operas are considered a more worthy form of entertainment for no other reason than the fact they supposedly take place in the 'real world'.

And just how many episodes of new Who have been set on Earth, specifically in present-day Britain?

Series 1 had 4 episodes set in the here and now, and 2 very close. Series 2 had 4 set in the here and now, 1 very close and 2 that may as well have been. And there's the Christmas special too.

I never thought I'd see these two people in the same place at the same time to be honest...

"David, you've learnt from me well, but I think you could make that scene in the final story work better if you put on a scooby doo accent..."

Is that picture real or photoshopped? I only ask as I also cannot believe it.

Genuine, if frightening photos. Apparently once photographed they claimed that they were only there as part of next years comic relief single video....

The truth as we know, is far more sinister...

"I hear in episode 4 of the new series, the sonic screwdriver is destroyed... You'd best hang on to the Mallett, David"

"Thankyou, Master"

Well I quite enjoyed last night's Torchwood...

If the sonic screwdriver is destroyed that could well increase the quality of the show.

If the sonic screwdriver is destroyed he'd be dead in a minuite.

What would he use to open the lock, close the lock, cut the chain, mend the broken, kill the alien item or just about anything to get you out of a sticky situation.

Pathetic.

Genuine, if frightening photos.

Although obviously wishful thinking, that second photo looks like Tennant's just kneed Timmy in the bollocks.

"shadowy cartel of Who fanatics have positioned themselves as BARBS"

I'm genuinely suspicious of both the official viewing figures, and of audience approval stats for this one reason:

I don't know anyone who's ever participated in any these things. Not only that, I don't know anyone who knows anyone who's ever participated. I don't know anyone who's even met or heard of anyone who has ever directly participated in contributing to this research.

And I've been curious about this for the best part of 20 years.

This only really suggests the following possibilities:

1) The sample audience is so infintesimally small as to be statistically irrelevant (see also: any women's cosmetic ads - "92% of women saw a visible difference in two weeks [small print: sample size = 98])

2) The sample audience is geographically skewed towards certain regions, also invalidating any extrapolation up to national levels

3) The sample audience is relatively fixed (ie - they basically poll the same bunch of people week in and week out), which also invalidates extrapolation up to a population of 50-whatever million.

These are only idle thoughts ... if anyone has any definite info on the statistical process behind this sort of thing, I'd certainly be interested to hear it!

Cheers

Jim

Theres been some indepth coverage of this over on OG, but thats a strange nest to dig around in - if i get the chance...

Certainly WWW.BARB.CO.UK tells you more (if i've got that URL right).

Although I speak of a sinister cartel in jest, it wouldnt surprise me if there was a bit of Who biase in their sample - consider this.

When Dr Who was taken off, Who fandom had a collective breakdown - a kind of post traumatic stress disorder descended, which saw them blame criticism of their show as the casue of its death (not the fact that show was pretty unwatchable).  Now, presumably, BARB don't force you to join up, and if you were asked as a general member of the public, how many would be arsed?  10%? less?  If a Who fan was asked to give their opinions on TV, surely, they'd bite the hand off BARB.  so a much higher proportion would sign up (in my ludicrous example, lets say 100%!).  It might be statistically unlikely... then again, if your sample is only (say 2,000) people, and you get 50 of them being dedicated Whoies (as opposed to 5 out of 2000 as a % of the populace - more made up figures!), then it would surely skew the results wouldnt it - both AIs an viewing figures?    

Confession time, I was on a TV viewing figures panel and I always said about 6 people were watching Who on a Saturday when it first started just cos I wanted the show to suceed (egardless of what i thought of it), even when it was just me and a mate or me on my todd.  No checks and measures with these things :p

>I was on a TV viewing figures panel

Well, that's what you want us to think

I no longer care what anyone thinks of Torchwood and Doctor Who, or my opinions on it, I am utterly burnt out.

Wasn't the Torchwood when in Who a massive  place filled with UFO's etc...

Why is it now in a bunker?

Because it's now in Wales.

Imagine you were stuck in Cardiff - wouldn't you want to just hide yourself in a big hole in the ground...?

Confession time, I was on a TV viewing figures panel and I always said about 6 people were watching Who on a Saturday when it first started just cos I wanted the show to suceed (egardless of what i thought of it), even when it was just me and a mate or me on my todd. No checks and measures with these things :p

Bizarre. Still, I imagine every other programme gets the same treatment. Ultimately, Torchwood is OTT to new Who's Tiswas and the standard for judging Who and Hood should be Knight Rider and The A-Team - teatime telly faves of yore - rather than Blakes 7 or Dr Quatermass.

Wasn't the Torchwood when in Who a massive place filled with UFO's etc...

Why is it now in a bunker?

That at least was satisfactorily explained. The Who Torchwood was the London HQ, whereas the Cardiff one is a distant outpost that wouldn't even be there at all if not for the magic plot-and-solution-generating rift. I think they're investigating its Deus Ex Machina capabilities.

I haven't been watching Torchwood, or even the later Doctor Whos, but if the rift is such a world-changing thing that brings alien threats from other dimensions there more than anywhere else, why not move more of the operation there and not leave it to a handful of people holed away seemingly more interested in each other?

ADE

Below is from a review of the year's TV in the Guardian


---
Russell T Davies, writer of Doctor Who and Torchwood

I wish I'd had time to write more Torchwoods, because I only wrote the first one. We're hitting a great stretch now with four scripts in a row by women, which in science fiction is practically unheard of. It's been less than a year since David Tennant became the doctor. It was scary this time last year: Chris Ecclestone was brilliant, then he left and there was this big hole. But have you seen the BBC schedules? It's like a Doctor Who christmas. I'm very pleased, obviously, but it's a bit barmy.

I thought The Royle Family Queen of Sheba episode was the most blinding thing I've seen on telly this year. Big Brother was sensational. I love it unironically - it's some of the best storytelling you'll see. My friend Simon's wedding was the high spot of the year. It was a Buddhist wedding. Cardiff Buddhists. I went along ready to have a right old laugh, and it turned out to be beautiful.

Link: Original article

"Confession time, I was on a TV viewing figures panel"

Fair enough ... so, now, I sort of vaguely know one person who's actually participated.

And that's in 20 years of intermittently bringing this up in conversation with people.

Consider: a statistically significant sample (for example, in general election polling) is around 1000 people. 1000 to 1500 people in the sample gives a margin of +/- about 5%.

1000 people per week, over 20 years gives a figure of 1,040,000 people polled over the total period. That's about 1 in 6 of the total population of Britain, regardless of age (and I'm assuming that the under 5s, for example, don't figure that largely in the poll sample).

I'm sorry, but I know more than six people. If I ask twelve people and no-one has ever even heard of anyone who's been involved, then the sample size has to be less than 500. As near as I can figure, the average sample size per week is probably less than 100 people.

Statistically speaking, that's completely fucking worthless.

Sorry, whoever compiles these figures can stick them up their arse!

Cheers

Jim

I have to say I feel really good having got it out of my system, keep working through it chaps, you'll get to a zen like state of harmony eventually.

Repeat the following mantra...

"Torchwood is shite, Russel T Davies is an arse, Doctor Who is a twat."

I've seen lots of my favourite things pissed against a wall over the years.  Mid-late 80's Doctor Who, Star Wars new trilogy, post 80's 2000AD, New Who.  There's always such a sense of frustration and dissapointment watching anything that you've invested more than a healthy amount of enthusiasm in, fuck up before your eyes.

Still, I can't let the man waste any more of my time.  Going to try and stop watching Torchwood now I know it has a second season.  

I saw the first two episodes of series three of Lost... now there is potential to get annoyed and waste more time :)

 I don't know why they dont just go the whole hog with torchwood with a recast for the second season, Chico as Captain Jack, Sue Pollard as Gewn, the reanimated corpse of Sid James as rapey Owen. then they could have a "you have been watching" end credits where they all wink to camera.
 Ibncidently the Village has Eyes cannibal shlockahaust  episode was the least coherent biggest plot holed pile of crap I've seen, and I've seen 2 episodes of Andromeda.  

I thought Charlie Brooker's latest review was quite good.

- Steve

Link: Year's Most Jarring Show

thanks to the interweb, I`ve just watched the first episode of Torchwood here in futuristic Japan. I thought it was okay, despite the cliche (oriental woman is computer genius = shock!).  Gad, but that`s a strong Welsh accent the new woman`s got.

yours unfashionably,

Floyd

Nah, there are stronger Welsh accents than that Eff Jay. If anything, that's a mild one.

I think Windsor Davis should be in the next series, boyo.

Dare I whisper that it was actually not bad last night?

there are stronger Welsh accents than that Eff Jay.

Like these for instance. ;)

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSjtBkdMM1U

"Dare I whisper that it was actually not bad last night?"

You could, but I wouldn't agree with you.
Every week there's a story idea with potential written all over it and every week they piss that potential away.

This week's idea: 3 people from the '50s end up in 2006. Rather than spend time fully exploring the problems these characters would encounter 5 minutes is spent on this aspect as they walk into a supermarket. The rest of the time? Some lame soap style drama about Owen falling for the pilot and spouting THE worst dialogue of the series so far.

None of the characters' stories were wrapped up satisfactorily: Jack helps one commit suicide after a week rather than help him to adjust, the youngster just gets a job and buggers off and the pilot just assumes that this rift will turn up again, despite it not claiming any other planes ever.

This wasn't sci-fi. It wasn't even an interesting drama. It was crap written by somebody who has never actually spoken to a real person and doesn't understand how real people act.

This should be a great series. Who the hell hired these writers?

- Huey

I've seem one episode so far (the "ooh, I can hear people's thoughts" episode).

It was pretty much pants and was enough to convince me the best course of action was to pretend TORCHWOOD does not exist.

I've seem one episode so far (the "ooh, I can hear people's thoughts" episode).

It was pretty much pants and was enough to convince me the best course of action was to pretend TORCHWOOD does not exist.

well, ep 1 was okay by me.  The Oriental woman got the nerdiest alien artefact; one bird took home a glove that can raise the dead, a nurky guy took home some aphrodisiac spray that really worked, and the oriental took home.....a thing that scans books. So she can wave it at a Dickens book and then gasp in amazement while she reads it on the computer.  I:m not denying that the thing would be handy for making CDs of my 2000 AD collection, but it:s not all that futuristic.
yours irrelevantly

Thought I'd give it a second chance and watched OUT OF TIME tonight.


Oh.





Fucking.







Dear.


Even the tiffin scenes were piss-poor.

Curiously, I've just watched an episode of some Smallville-like US tv show called Supernatural, in which the main characters go looking for a beast in the woods that's abducting people.  The main characters get kidnapped by some hicks who are responsible (the twist is that "people are crazy" and there wasn't anything fantastic or supernatural about the disappearances at all), and after some dodgy scrapping action in the third act, the female copper (emoting something rotten) asks the main redneck why his family killed all those people, to which he replies "because it was fun" while laughing maniacally.
This reminds me of something, but I'm buggered if I can  figure out what...




For some reason, I found the title of the episode ("The Benders") amusing.

i know uni is getting to me when this weeks torchwood just makes me want to add some stupid lines about modernism....

So - did anyone bother with the finale?

- Steve

Yeah.

If you'd got to this point, you'd probably have found the first episode in the two-parter to be par for the course in terms of what went before it.  The gay captain seemed terribly forced, but otherwise no more or less objectionable than the rest of the series.  The series finale had a bit of Tardis sound effects at the end, but I notice even David Tennant wouldn't lower himself to appear - which must say more about the script than anything else, given he was quite happy to appear in the entirety of Who's second season.
There was a Godzill-like appearance by The Beast from that 'Prince of Darkness on an asteroid by a black hole' two-parter from the second series of Who, but if so, that throws up the question how he could be in Who if he died in Cardiff.  And also shows how little there is in Cardiff to stomp flat if you were Godzilla-sized.

The finale itself was alright, though.  Plenty to nitpick (mostly some William Shatner-channeling by Barrowman and forced emo in general), but nothing worse than what's gone before.

There was a Godzill-like appearance by The Beast from that 'Prince of Darkness on an asteroid by a black hole' two-parter from the second series of Who

Godzilla-like?  Nay, 'twas Spiny Norman from Monty Python...

I could take a shot at the cheap and tacky-looking cgi demon, but it seemed unnecessary given that this sequence was still far more effective than THE ENTIRETY OF THE AMERICAN REMAKE OF GODZILLA, as at least The Beast was realised well as a threat to life in general, instead of some transexual lizard looking to take advantage of sheltered housing for its seemingly countless offspring, which is the clear analogy that the makers of Godzilla US were making.

Oh well, three episodes in and I`m still liking it, albeit with various nitpicks. Captain Jack is less annoying than he was in Dr Who (where he was always implausibly pretending that his sexual ambition was to be the meat in a Christopher Ecclestone/Billy Piper sandwich). The large-eyed Welsh policewoman is growing on me.

Well, at least the Sarah Jane Adventures was fun!

I thought the last two eps of this were the worst of the bunch. Just awful.

Two characters get trapped in 1941, but why bother telling an interesting story? Or any story. Just random incidents until the end where both Captain Jacks start snogging on the dancefloor. And I'm guessing that you'd probably get your head kicked in for that kind of thing in '41. When the Torchwooders start walking through the rift nobody seems to be suprised. Instead the Captain justs salutes. Does that make any kind of sense?

Last episode had some moments. Mostly involving the wierd old guy who was much more effective than the stay-puff marshmallow man.
And who would have been suprised by Jack's revival?

Just bloody awful.

-Huey

What happened to the old guy in the end? Did he just wander off?

I was disappointed as I thought he was going to turn out to be the first doctor because he looked a lot like William Hartnel

Just seen it.

Lack of any plot was disappointing. Overall it left me with the same feeling as the series has in general; it's empty, not bad as such, just boring.

The fact that Abbadon seems related to the thing from the Satan pit could lead to stories later. Not interesting stories, me thinks, perhaps not even stories at all in the conventional "beginning, middle, end" kinda way, just... episodes.

I've been Torchwood free since giving up most of the way through the Brecon Chainsaw massacre.

From what I understand, theres now magical demons who kill with their shadows roaming around the Whoniverse?  Say a lot about the new production teams wrongheaded grasp of Who.

What really riled me (about a show I didnt even see!) is the apparent appearance of the Doctor/TARDIS at the end.  So much for this being independent of the kids show it span off from.

What's really starting to piss me off is the apparent disregard for the long-term consequences of his actions shown by RTD. For forty years Dr Who managed to be cool and exciting and scary with alien invasions which were hushed up, kept quiet, and in general didn't interrupt the progress of the world one jot. Now, after only two years, the man's gone and had contemporary Earth involved in massive world-shaking events four times and then he thinks he can just ignore it all in future epsiodes and occasionally make lame jokes about people's determination to forget.

He really ought to just fuck off and let someone with some wit take over before it's too late.

...well now that doctor whore is a BBC global success it has to be more commercial so the people who don't like doctor who will like it.

"What's really starting to piss me off is the apparent disregard for the long-term consequences of his actions shown by RTD"

...like showing the end of the planet Earth in the second episode! Kind of spoiling everything!

Not only that but then it's the has no concern for her feelings at all...and we're supposed to like him!

..and THEN, he suddenly gets all dark and emotional because his 'race' have been all wiped out! Not to mention that he's a time traveller so he presumably can always go back and see them!

ADE

Bad typing, what I meant to say was:

"What's really starting to piss me off is the apparent disregard for the long-term consequences of his actions shown by RTD"

...like showing the end of the planet Earth in the second episode! Kind of spoiling everything!

Not only that but then it's the first place The Doctor takes Rose, as if he has no concern for her feelings at all...and we're supposed to like him!

..and THEN, he suddenly gets all dark and emotional because his 'race' have been all wiped out! Not to mention that he's a time traveller so he presumably can always go back and see them!

ADE

As I understand it, the Timelords were wiped out of the timeline entirely. I could be mistaken, though...

Torchwood had to be one of the most aggravating pieces of sci-fi telly I've ever seen, it just felt like it was trying to show off how cool it was whilst really being more like Richard Madeley's Ali G impression. It was honestly embarrasing from start to finish. Poor production values, lazy plotting, ill conceived characters and sub-Buffy monsters.
Quite who it was meant to cater for I don't know. SF for the nuts and heat generation I think.
Pretty glad I missed the last few episodes to be honest, sound like they were worse than what went before.

i missed the finale, as not bovvd

As I understand it, the Timelords were wiped out of the timeline entirely. I could be mistaken, though...

Noisybast, you'd be perfectly correct if we were dealing with proper sci-fi here, which pays attention to things like continuity and, god, I don't know, science. Since we're dealing with RTD-fi, it's safe to assume that Gallifrey was blown up, possibly because the daleks poured water into the planet's core.

My sentiments echo you're own MrC.  Still, I have some Nigel Kneale TV shows on DVD to keep me going.

I'm not sure how you eliminate all timelords from the timeline, they just seem to mention it as if it makes perfect sense, though it seems impossible and totally paradoxical to me.

Not that Doctor Who isn't paradoxical in every episode - I mean if he can get the Tardis to work he can go back and pre-empt anything bad that ever happens, it's just they usually wisely skirt round such issues without making such a big paradox central to the character's motivation.

ADE

How the fuck, on God's green earth did this get commisioned for a second series? It is absolutely bollock renchingly bad! Seriously, you must need to of had a labotomy to enjoy this cynical, jaded crap!
Doctor Who is one thing, this just takes the piss!

Who cares if the Americans can shit better shows out in their sleep?  Torchwood is British and you should be thankful you even get that much, as the licence fee, which you pay by law whether you want to or not, has to stretch to a lot of other things.

Anyway, there's been precedents in American tv shows where a single show has been successful and got loads of spin-offs, like CSI and Law and Order.  And even precedents in sci-fi where the spin-off shows have all been the work of one select group of producers who insulate themselves from the criticism of people who clearly hate the shows (the fans) and the shows have just got steadily better, like the Star Trek and Babylon 5 franchises.  Wasn't Enterprise the best show ever?

Though Torchwood was pretty dire, I doubt our Yankie cousins could make a better televisual programme - after all, being English (or in this case Welsh, who were after all the original Britons) means that it is automatically superior to the product of any other country, no matter what the quality.

Does that law include Baywatch?

If it's dubbed with a series of upper-crust accents, then yes.

At a kiddies party on Tuesday and was surprised at the number of mothers who said they watched it...Barrowman is a big draw for this type of show (helped I expect by the Cardiff local to hook us Welshy types in).

I agree. Firefly started shakily and improved considerably during its first run. Torchwood started bad and got progressively worse throughout its run.
The UK has a long fine tradition of quality Sci-Fi programming, Torchwood is not an example, so I don't feel grateful at all.
US programming, as far as I'm aware, is dictated, in large part, by advertizing so I'm guessing if a show has at least a reasonable viewing figure, that can determine a shows future. That and Enterprise was probably kept on life support by the financial behemoth, that is Paramount-I bet some corporate heads rolled for that particular error of judgement.
The Beeb would be better off in counting it's losses and putting it's money into some quality 'one off', Sci-Fi programs.

Sadly, as far as the BBC are concerned, there are no losses to Torchwood - its doing very well ratings wise and even clunkers like Cyberwoman got great feedback from the audience research they do.

The BBC aren't interested in making intelligent Sci-Fi, they're interested in keeping Russell T Davies happy until such a time as he will create "proper dramas" for them.  In the meantime, the unexpected ring of the cash register that Who has set off has been a welcome surprise.

This doesn't seem particularly far-fetched...

"Actor David Tennant swaps roles as he dresses up as Doctor Who's assistant for a sketch on Channel 4's Friday Night Project lampooning the time-travelling show. Host Justin Lee Collins (left) plays Doctor Who, while Alan Carr (centre) appears alongside him as a "Carrlek"."

- Steve

Is that Dee Dee Snyder?

Oho. Comedy gunstalks.

>> Torchwood started bad and got progressively worse throughout its run.

I'd disagree. With the exception of the final episode, none of the last few installments came anywhere near to being as woeful as 'Day One', 'Countrycide', and, lest we forget (try as we might), 'Cyberwoman'.

The problem is that RTD and Chibnall seem to think their ideas are so inherently brilliant that the time in which they should be developing all these story and character arcs is squandered by their constant self-congratulation of how clever and wonderful they're both being.

The Bad Wolf story arc from New Who's first season suffered to its detriment from RTD's contrived, faux enigmatic obscurantation. Instead of creating a genuine mystery, RTD seemed content that having the words 'Bad Wolf' recur throughout the season would suffice, much the same way that 'Torchwood' was namedropped at every given opportunity in season two.

Another example would be the "Genesis Ark" from 'Army of Ghosts'/'Doomsday': a deliberately obscure name that, at best, is tenuous-to-the-point-of-being-insulting what that very name is in fact concealing. And as with 'Bad Wolf', the denouement proves it essentially meaningless.

The Torchwood finale is also deprived of the same lack of consequence that further spoilt New Who's 'The Parting of the Ways'. The only people that come back to life are those that had viewer identification; not only that, their sins are forgiven if not forgotten.

And just what exactly was Bilis Manger's motivation? He's pivotal in the events that lead to the Rift's fracturing, appearing in two episodes no less, yet the best Chibnall could come up with some half-arsed throwaway line that advents Abaddon's arrival.