Random Musings on Torchwood

[book_junkie007]

Torchwood has been featured as iTunes' TV Show of the Week in honour of Gay Pride Month, so if you're in the States, you can download Everything Changes for free, if you haven't already. Basic premise of the show if you've never seen it before: it's a spinoff of Doctor Who where five bisexuals run around Cardiff catching (usually unfriendly) aliens

Comments

[ericadawn16]

Well, we'll see...

We do like a lot of different things and Amazon proves this with their sales. Netflix proves this with their statistics.

Then, executives don't care anyway. Take Joss Whedon. His last two shows only lasted one or two seasons. His last film? 1 BILLION DOLLARS.

Tv people are stupid.

No, I didn't like Miracle Day that well.

[book_junkie007]

I agree. I don't watch that much TV, but I don't like most of what's on American network television at the moment. I watch one show, Castle, and that's it. I haven't tried the cable channel shows cuz I can't be bothered to figure out which channel has which show in Canada

[ericadawn16]

Ah, I see...

In 2007, I couldn't wait for BBCA to start showing Torchwood. I loved Captain Jack in his DW episodes especially since the first two were written by Moffat, one of my favorite television writers. I loved Torchwood so much once it aired that I tracked down the episodes that hadn't been aired on BBCA yet on the internet and watched.

Yes, there was a lot of filler. There was a lot of politics and things that felt like preaching to the choir with me...I have journal entries for almost every episode. They seemed to forget that Jack's into anything not just men, there was a lot that I just didn't think made sense, they made Rex totally unlikable, they killed off Esther for no real reason, there was a lot of people acting like idiots and just...

ugh

Giant vagina in the Earth!

PS: The same idea of people not being able to die was addressed in Being Human in just an episode or two and much better done, I thought.

[book_junkie007]

I think there was a lot of character assassination which occurred, and the American characters were poorly written. Granted, there wasn't a lot of time to develop them like the originals, but learning SOMETHING more about them would have been welcome.

There's a trope called the Idiot Ball, where the character carrying the Idiot Ball for the ep is NOT a good thing. It usually means there's decisions made by the characters which they normally wouldn't make, and other stupid things. I think every single character carried the Idiot Ball in every single ep.

Trying to remember which ep of Being Human addressed people not being able to die. Was that 3.03 with the zombie ep? And are we talking about the UK or US version? I adore the UK version, and tried watching the first couple eps of the US version. It...didn't work for me, to the point that I didn't watch it again.

[jedi_harkness]

It's the same old story; American audiences and critics love a show from overseas because it's edgier and is better-written and acted than most U.S. fare, and the American TV execs either don't give a whit, or produce an awful remake that they think caters to "American" tastes. As the saying goes, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

I mostly agree with you on Miracle Day; RTD had an amazing idea, and they just couldn't quite pull it off. It either needed to be longer to explore all the subplots, or condensed into a week-long series. The beauty of CoE was that it was five episodes, which made the story tight and fast paced. I think MD would've benefited from being 7 episodes played over a week. Immortal Sins was my favorite episode of MD, mainly because it featured Jack and was more of a Torchwood story.

[book_junkie007]

Exactly.

I adore eps where the distant past, recent past, and present are blended together into a story line, which is why I love Immortal Sins, Fragments from series two, and Out of Gas from Firefly.

[karaokegal]

I think it helps if someone at least has seen the Jack episodes of
Doctor Who season one, so they have an idea of what Jack is all about, both in terms of back-story and omni-sexuality.

[book_junkie007]

Maybe. I didn't see Doctor Who before I saw Torchwood, and I followed Torchwood just fine. But I do agree that it's better to have seen the Doctor Who eps with him in them, in order to better appreciate Jack on Torchwood. Also, I think the writers need to remember that Jack is omni-sexual. Too often they stick him with a man, which is nice, because, Yay, gays on television being portrayed in a positive, non-camp way! but they also need to remember that he's capable of having an emotional connection with women as well. He's not either/or, and I think sometimes people forget that.