The Torchwood Society

If you want to watch it, then I have a link with fairly decent quality for a stream, it's in 3 parts but you can easily navigate between them if you have any cognitive ability whatsoever

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xjy56o_two-p1_shortfilms

If this isn't allowed then apologies, feel free to delete my post mods.

Ep dragged a bit, so far this series is much worse than CoE, hopefully they'll up the "drama" quotient rather than have all the light-hearted jokey stuff in the later episodes. That said, Bill Pullman is fantastic.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 1641

Mess.

20

Original post by Colonel.

The Americans aren't that great actors, they're all like rejects from other shows.

They just feel a lot better than Gwen and Rhys tbh. And even poor American actors are showing up (previously) prime time English actors.

I get the same feeling about almost every English show I watch. Maybe I just don't 'get' English acting. But it always seems forcibly ecentric and poor. But (usually) as soon as they are put in American settings they start to act believably etc.

Reply 1642

Mess.

20

Does anyone feel that 10 episodes for this problem is about 5/6 episodes too many?

I know I especially, always moan about Doctor Who cramming things in to one episode when it would be better spread over 2 or 3. But this one feels a bit like it is being spread for the sake of it. I hope it starts moving up the drama and suspense at least a little bit soon as well as giving some mystery beyond OMGZZZZ DYING IS LIKE TOTALLY IMPOSIBLEZZZZ.

Reply 1643

Colonel.

3

Original post by Mess.

They just feel a lot better than Gwen and Rhys tbh. And even poor American actors are showing up (previously) prime time English actors.

I get the same feeling about almost every English show I watch. Maybe I just don't 'get' English acting. But it always seems forcibly ecentric and poor. But (usually) as soon as they are put in American settings they start to act believably etc.

Most good acting in British television is restricted to comedy, Peter Capaldi, David Morrissey, David Tennant and John Simm.

Reply 1644

Colonel.

3

Yes, 10 episodes on this one concept, which is a great concept nonetheless, is too much.

Reply 1645

Smilingsam

14

Original post by Colonel.

The whole series based on the Problem was based on the critical and commercial success of Children of Earth, I reckon.

Yeah true, I just hope that the new base is better than the previous one and has a few pets. I might be the only one that misses the pterodactyl that jack used to have it was nice little surprise every few episodes.

I've also got an idea that they will bring the "new doctor" in to help everyone Torchwood being related to the show they have got to intervene at some point most probably at the end. Which will have a link in with the new alien in that series the one that Amy pond saw before maybe that is somehow related to 456. :cool:

Reply 1646

Friar Chris

19

Original post by Mess.

Does anyone feel that 10 episodes for this problem is about 5/6 episodes too many?

I know I especially, always moan about Doctor Who cramming things in to one episode when it would be better spread over 2 or 3. But this one feels a bit like it is being spread for the sake of it. I hope it starts moving up the drama and suspense at least a little bit soon as well as giving some mystery beyond OMGZZZZ DYING IS LIKE TOTALLY IMPOSIBLEZZZZ.

To say they're having 10 episodes, why did they make the series opener such a rushed mess (no username pun intended)? The main event starts with no build-up, barely any pre-amble, they find torchwood within about 10 minutes, there is no hunt to track them down, no effort to even find anything out about them; a seriously injured man flies across the Atlantic and drives to Wales within the space of 5 minutes, escapes from bindings in 30 seconds, has a pointless helicopter chase and that's it.

Series (not 'season', thankyou Yanks) openers are meant to be tense and set the scene for the entire series - this was just a mish-mash of nothing significant, a load of ridiculously rushed bits to get everybody met and together really fast. To say they had such resources available, they did a poor job... The archive search, for example, was an opportunity for massive tension and a really impressive mysterious encounter as these unknown assailants are in the shadows. But no - one chubby guy who blows himself up with a ridiculous cliche jump into a fountain outside the window. And then to add insult to injury, the best they could think of for the (again pathetically short and insignificant) post-mortem (or rather, pre-mortem :P) scene was 'what happens when you cut its head off'.

Sorry, I don't normally write reviews, but it was honestly crap... The two best moments were the psychic paper 'Owen Harper, FBI', which is a tiny nice detail for British viewers, and the 'I had to PAY FOR A BRIDGE'... An easter egg and a brief comedic snip should not have been the highlight.

Perhaps if they hadn't spent so much money on helicopters and RPGs (I mean, come on - they're isolated on the coast... Bomb the house, have a sniper on the hill, send in a team of hitmen, whatever - the helicopter was just hollywood flash massively out of place) they might have done a better job?

Post Scriptum: It should have been called the 'Torchwood Institute' instead of 'Society', for a nice touch ;P.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 1647

lukejoshjedi

10

It's weird how Torchwood has turned into a generic american serial sci-fi drama now... I really wanted to like it but I just really didn't like episode 1

To sum it up it just felt 'too american' and lost its 'essence', I really hope the show gets better though

Reply 1648

LastLordofTime

OP

11

Torchwood became less like Torchwood with Children of Earth. It was a sci-fi story which could have been told entirely without the Torchwood team and would still work. The same is pretty much true of Miracle Day. It's pretty much lost its connection to the Doctor Who universe.

Not that it's a bad thing. I find it to still be a good drama, it's just not Torchwood-y anymore.

Reply 1649

Colonel.

3

Children of Earth was still very Torchwoody.

Reply 1650

rmhumphries

17

Original post by LastLordofTime

Torchwood became less like Torchwood with Children of Earth. It was a sci-fi story which could have been told entirely without the Torchwood team and would still work. The same is pretty much true of Miracle Day. It's pretty much lost its connection to the Doctor Who universe.

Not that it's a bad thing. I find it to still be a good drama, it's just not Torchwood-y anymore.

Hmm, yeah, I agree with this.

As I said in the ep1 thread, then while it had its funny moments, it was very much a lot of setting the scene, but then I expected that. I was also annoyed by the fact that Torchwood were forced to go to America, that is hardly going to put them in a good mind set to help the Americans.

ep2

Speculation on the rest of series:

Reply 1651

lukejoshjedi

10

It's weird, it's like they've effectively killed off Torchwood itself (as we knew it anyway), with 3/4 of the team well dead

I'm thinking the idea they're using now is that TW can still exist and will carry on as long as Cap'n Jack is there and tied to the story somehow (as well as Gwen maybe), other members can come and go as can different plots

I preferred the 'proper' seasons of Torchwood though, it's a great point to say that the show can grow, adapt and be changed in which ever way the director wants buut changing it so much that it's nothing like the original Torchwood that gained all the fans, the show we all love is a bit so silly

Also some aliens need to feature again, soon

Reply 1652

speedystef

11

The format of the show has completley changed, no arguing with that, for a start the actual Torchwood team barely exists anymore, series' 1 & 2 were phenomenal, Children of Earth was pretty good but to be honest I was more excited about Torchwood being back than anything else :tongue:

On a positive note, even though it's all based on 1 main theme, I'm landed that there's 9 more weeks of Torchwood, and I very much enjoyed the season premiere it was epic (not Torchwood as it's true fans know it but still epic)

There's no way they can call this Series 4, because it's not a series it's a 10 hour extended episode (+ there hasn't been a series 3 yet :wink:

)

Reply 1653

LastLordofTime

OP

11

Original post by speedystef

The format of the show has completley changed, no arguing with that, for a start the actual Torchwood team barely exists anymore, series' 1 & 2 were phenomenal, Children of Earth was pretty good but to be honest I was more excited about Torchwood being back than anything else :tongue:

On a positive note, even though it's all based on 1 main theme, I'm landed that there's 9 more weeks of Torchwood, and I very much enjoyed the season premiere it was epic (not Torchwood as it's true fans know it but still epic)

There's no way they can call this Series 4, because it's not a series it's a 10 hour extended episode (+ there hasn't been a series 3 yet :wink:

)

10 hour extended episode = a serial :fyi:

Reply 1654

frequent_flyer

8

Original post by LastLordofTime

I find it to still be a good drama, it's just not Torchwood-y anymore.

I think you're right about Torchwood losing it's essence. Where are the tiny, talented but flawed human beings fighting their tiny aliens in WALES and weevil dodging? Where are the aliens at all? Okay, the series has moved on, but it just feels a bit out of its depth. I also think the plot of the two episodes so far could have been condensed into a few minutes. Especially

Spoiler

in episode two. No way did that have to last a whole 20 minutes of viewing time.

American Torchwood bashing aside, I'm so happy it's back, and really enjoyed episode two :smile: