A Verdict on Torchwood

Sep 10, 2011 19:35

The Torchwood finale was quite good, but I stopped caring in episode 8 and really only watched the last two episodes just to find out what would happen. I liked the random reference to one of my very favourite episodes of DW, but it just made me wonder what Donna was up to. In fact, every time they referenced Who or SJA, it just made me wish Eleven or Sarah or Donna or Martha would waltz in and fix everything, which made me sad because it just would not happen.

The whole series really needed to lose three to five episodes. The big problem was that it was just stuffed full of plotlines that went no where and made the characters look like incompetent idiots. It really needed to be tighter and a lot of the plotlines cut. Plus, it felt like RTD was just retreading a lot of his old stuff, some scenes seemed just cut from various Doctor Who episodes, just with Torchwood characters inserted in place of the originals. Also, a lot of its themes have been covered by other things, but better (such as, 'pharmaceutical companies are evil' plotline was done by The Constant Gardner, but much better, 'miracle causes world to go crazy' was fabulously in RTD's own The Second Coming also much, much better than Torchwood).

And at the end of the day, what turned me off was deaths. I loved Children of Earth, I love Battlestar Galactica and Rome, I've just finished reading the ASOIAF series, I don't mind darkness, death and violence in the fiction that I consume, but only so long as it serves a purpose in the story. I felt at times, Miracle Day crossed the line into torture porn, which is something I do not enjoy and do not seek out, and it really put me off the series.

Still, it had it's good points, there was some wonderful Gwen stuff, and Eve Myles was fabulous, as was Bill Pullman (maybe he was a bit too good, I don't think I'm going to be able to watch Independence Day the same way again). Hell, John Barrowman who was actually pretty good as well. I was really impressed with him at times. Gwen and Rhys gave Amy and Rory and Ned and Cat bit of competition for the title of msot adorable married couple on TV. And the first couple of episodes were really intriguing and well done and I particularly loved the early plotline about how the healthcare system would cope with such an event happening. But as a follow-up to Children of Earth, it was a massive disappointment.

torchwood

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