Torchwood: Miracle Day

[Shippou-Sensei]

so does anyone still care?

torchwood... is kinda shit. there are a few nice episodes and the children of earth series wasn't bad but i'm frankly kinda sick of it.

the joint starz production does look interesting with it's international scope and more of an action focus but i'm not sure if that can really save the series.

perhaps barrowman doing gay scifi action hero with big budget might be cool in it's own way but more and more i want to divorce this from the doctor who universe

 

[SpookyFrank]

Harmless fun. Barrowman is fairly awful most of the time but you put up with him because he's on the same show as Eve Myles.

 

[ddraig]

avnt they fucked off to the us for this?
grumble bastards if so

 

[andy2002]

Children Of Earth was terrific - the other two series were so bad they were, er, just plain bad actually. Looking forward to Miracle Day - whenever the BBC are going to get round to showing it...

 

[DotCommunist]

All shit other than CofE, if this can live up to that then great. If it is just who with pointless sexuality bolted on rather than part off then it can taske the rape-spray and go back to cardiff

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

kiss kiss bang bang was a good episode




if only for the over the topness

plus less of the other charactors

 

[ericjarvis]

Torchwood is silly.

Personally I'm all in favour of silly. Especially silly given the sort of production budget usually reserved for boringly worthy.

 

[stuff_it]

I think it's nice that the actors still have jobs...

And yes, I'd far rather see silly and with explosions, fighting, and running about than something serious and low budget.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

The campiness is Torchwood's best feature.

 

[strung out]

children of earth was fantastic. the rest i've not really paid much attention too tbh, but if this is as good as CofE, then i'll take a look

 

[captainmission]

but children of earth was good in spite of it being torchwood, not because of it

 

[strung out]

what a ludicrous comment. it was torchwood and it was good. therefore torchwood has the potential to be (and indeed has been) good.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

i think it's a reasonable comment. if you asked what style defined torchwood and then asked if that style was a major influence on why children of men was good the answer you would probably get is no.

it's not a comment that torchwood can never be good just that the things that make torchwood what it is are not usually associated with greatness.

for example the cast are for the most part dreary or really fucking unlikeable. the tone is just fucking wierd. it would be funny if it wasn't so fucking dark but the darkness comes across as trying too fucking hard most of the time. in fact most of torchwood would be described as tryinjg too fucking hard. barrowman works in it because he has made turning it up to 11 his signature role but for everyone else your not sure if they know they are in a drama or a comedy.

and i don't HATE the show.

helicopter shot of jack standing on the top of a random tall building

 

[DotCommunist]

format helped with CofE. five 40 minute jobbies (was it 60 mins?) in a five day run allowed them to maintain the story/tension etc.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

also they had gotten rid of a lot of the less desirable secondary characters and had actually built up a reasonable character in ianto making it actually kinda matter when he dies (because no one really gave a shit about toshiko or owen)

 

[strung out]

i think it's a reasonable comment. if you asked what style defined torchwood and then asked if that style was a major influence on why children of men was good the answer you would probably get is no.

it's not a comment that torchwood can never be good just that the things that make torchwood what it is are not usually associated with greatness.

for example the cast are for the most part dreary or really fucking unlikeable. the tone is just fucking wierd. it would be funny if it wasn't so fucking dark but the darkness comes across as trying too fucking hard most of the time. in fact most of torchwood would be described as tryinjg too fucking hard. barrowman works in it because he has made turning it up to 11 his signature role but for everyone else your not sure if they know they are in a drama or a comedy.

and i don't HATE the show.

helicopter shot of jack standing on the top of a random tall building

why not view CofE as being (hopefully) the start of an improvement in the show though? i agree with the first two series being pretty dire (from the little i saw), but to suggest that CofE is good in spite of being Torchwood just seems a bit too grudging. if the show carries on from where it left off in CofE, then i'll be very happy, and i'd rather wait to see whether the improvement in quality continues, than have a pop based on the dubious quality of stories made four or five years ago.

 

[captainmission]

what a ludicrous comment. it was torchwood and it was good. therefore torchwood has the potential to be (and indeed has been) good.

children of eath was great, but it had its roots in quatremass/apocolypic 70's british sci-fi/creepy bbc kids tv. Not the usual camp adoloscent fare the average torchwood episode. The torchwood characters are jarringly thrown in there with there over the top antics, and it more or less held togther. But i think it would have worked better as a stand alone sci-fi series rather a torchwood thing. But that said i'd be quite happy just watching 5 hours of peter capaldi being a bastard.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

i hope torch wood is now diffrent and miricle dat does look a whole lot better than the old stuff but if we are talking about th e idea of torchwood as a series at the moment the bad still outweighs the good.

it also means we might have to rethink what we mean by torchwood. CoE took a radical departure from an existing format therefore what the new format will be like is still unknown

also with the death of most of the characters the departure of the series from a specific location and threadt we have to ask what is torchwood anyway?

for me it basically the jack show as i couldn't give a fuck about the woman and her bloke

 

[ginger_syn]

I'm looking fowards to new torchwood and ok the first series was a bit duff but it kept getting better. And rhys is class

 

[rollinder]

There's going to be two different versions according to the preview/publicity feature in the new Doctor Who magazine - US version is going to be more explicit but shorter & the BBC version (when they get round to showing it) will be censored but will have longer episodes with extra scenes.

 

[Bungle73]

There's going to be two different versions according to the preview/publicity feature in the new Doctor Who magazine - US version is going to be more explicit but shorter & the BBC version (when they get round to showing it) will be censored but will have longer episodes with extra scenes.

Why don't they just show the same thing in both countries....?

 

[rollinder]

Why don't they just show the same thing in both countries....?

According to the article Starz want something more adult/explicit (& are showing it as a programme for adults in it's own right not as a spin-off) but for a shorter timeslot while the bbc want less gay(& straight) sex (eta: oh and violence related to attempts to change the spoiler) as they're worried about kiddy Doctor Who fans watching it. Wonder which version'll end up on the eventual dvd/blu-ray.

Been avoiding information/spoilers until recentlly - it's sounds like it's going to be good, maybe not up to Children Of Earth levels.

Spoiler: basic plot spoiler

everybody on Earth becomes like Captain Jack - nobody can die, and the population level becomes untenable

 

[strung out]

different audiences apparently. in the uk, torchwood (although it wasn't intended initially) has got a larger kids fanbase which necessitates excluding some of the ruder bits. as RTD said, it won't matter too much as the extra scenes will all be up on youtube within days anyway. i don't think it's ideal personally, but i can kind of see why they've done it.

 

[PlaidDragon]

Torchwood is great, CoE was great, Miracle Day will be great. That is all.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

i think also there is a product placement issue.

 

[Pseudopsycho]

According to the article Starz want something more adult/explicit (& are showing it as a programme for adults in it's own right not as a spin-off) but for a shorter timeslot while the bbc want less gay(& straight) sex...

i think also there is a product placement issue.

KY and Durex?

CofE (bloody RTD and his blatant obsession with religion) was good so will be watching miracle day. Maybe Owen has become the new Death and has fucked off to nob emo/goths. Bit like Reaper Man

 

[dylanredefined]

The only problem with CofE was how mankind basically became a bunch idiotic cowards when faced with those aliens.Where as in the same universe the daleks and everyone else had regularly been turning up to give the earth a going over.So to them instead of being the end of the world its mearly a tuesday!

 

[Divisive Cotton]

n the uk, torchwood (although it wasn't intended initially) has got a larger kids fanbase which necessitates excluding some of the ruder bits. .

I thought last time it was shown after the 9 o'clock watershed?

 

[strung out]

yeah it was, but a lot of kids still watch it though. i wouldn't have cut any of it, but i can (sort of) see their reasoning for it. starz want to make an adult show, whereas the bbc want something that has adult themes which kids can watch too.

 

[Bungle73]

What's you guys' opinions on this? I was reading the Wikipedia entry and it claims the CofE series was shown in a "graveyard slot". Apparently this is what RTD claims. As far as I'm concerned 9pm on the BBC's main channel is about as far away from a "graveyard slot" as you can get! In fact seeing as a whole week was dedicated to it I'd say it got special treatment.