The plot was a result of the writing. So what elements are you percieving as shallow?
I think its the most unusual choice of word to use as criticism.
I really don’t think I can be bothered with this conversation right now but as I said before – Children of Earth was shallow. It had the emotional depth of a teaspoon. That doesn’t mean it was bad but it wasn’t a deep and meaningful piece of television. It was a B-Movie. There's no connection or depth to the characters or their relationships and as a result noting that happens has any real depth.
I did say that I suspect they had alternate takes for some of the final parts, didn't I? That was the traditional way they do these things, after all. (Last minute filming is fairly new, and only really practical because of how computers have sped up the edit/post-prod process.)
I can’t say for sure either way but I doubt there were alternate endings filmed.
In the grand scheme of things the character of Rex likely survived because Mekhi Phiefer (whose name I probably just misspelt but I’m too lazy to check) and Bill Pullman were the only stars from a US perspective and they couldn’t bring Pullman’s character back. And as fans keep reminding me unfortunately it would be very difficult to make Torchwood without Barrowman so he was never going to die either.
Imagine if the show was based in Captain Jack's bachelor pad, where he followed the unfolding crisis on the news while munching on popcorn and guzzling bottles of Budweiser, then at the end cried "Eureka!", grabbed his grandson and sent the aliens packing.
Now do you see why concepts do not make for "deep" drama.
Well yes but I am not talking about an imaginary situation. I am refering specifically to COE.
It was a very very good core concept, and the overall series was quite good too, but because it was a good old-fashioned serial with cliff-hangers, captures and continual gradual revelation. Nothing "deep" but still enjoyable and engaging
I still cannot see how you are getting from it having cliff-hangers, captures and gradual revelation to it being shallow.
Fine. So why didn't you say that in the first place, rather than picking at something that I hadn't even said...?
You quite clearly gave the impression that Miracle Day was some sort of work in progress which relied on the audience reaction/ratings to determine which actors/characters survived at the climax, didn't you?
I really don’t think I can be bothered with this conversation right now but as I said before – Children of Earth was shallow. It had the emotional depth of a teaspoon. That doesn’t mean it was bad but it wasn’t a deep and meaningful piece of television. It was a B-Movie. There's no connection or depth to the characters or their relationships and as a result noting that happens has any real depth.
Nobody is forcing you to reply or comment Dont know why you felt the need to state you cant be bothered with having a conversation.
I am suprised you are criticising MD to be honest for lack of depth if you did not find this in COE.
Surely this should make you less critical of MD overall as your expectations (or lack thereof) should not be of the level you expect anything other than mindless fun?
I only watched a few episodes this serious, and then the finale. The filler was too much, and felt as if it never was going to end. However, I actually liked the finale. It wasn't spectacular, but it was okay. The dynamic shown between the Amercan and English TW members was quite good. Ester dying wasn't much of a loss tbf. She was kind of useless. It did annoy me that there were so many explosions every 5 seconds. Kind of god boring.
TW needs more extra terrestrial things, not terrestrial things. Would have been nice to introduce the Americans to a lot of the DW universe enemies
I hope that TW does come back and they learn from this serious. 10 episodes is far too long. They need to do stand alone episodes and two parters for a series maybe (as been said many times). Having watched TW from the beginning I know it can be amazing, just hope they write it a bit better next time. (and somehow bring Tosh back from the dead lol)
Surely this should make you less critical of MD overall as your expectations (or lack thereof) should not be of the level you expect anything other than mindless fun?
In theory yes. The problem is that Torchwood forgot it was supposed to be mindless fun driven by dense plotting and tried to hold itself up on strength of characters and development. It didn't work.
Just watched the last 2 parts as Ive been on hols for 2 weeks...Over all, I feel as I have said before, if not for all the padding it would have made for a half decent 2 hr movie...laghed when the presenter at the end said 'well I didnt see that coming'....let me think Rex gets a blood transfusion with Jack's blood....Nope, I saw The Rex becoming immortal bit coming a mile off after that scene...sad that Esther died, was hoping that all 4 would be the new Torchwood team.Best line came from Gwen 'How much lipstick do you need to wear?' My overall verdict was fair to good but if they hadn't strung it out so much i'd have given it a good to excellent.
No-one likes the reply that says "I agree" but I came here to say what you said and there's little I can add to your post.
I was bored with the first 6 or 7 episodes, and because I gave it a chance I really enjoyed that last 3 or 4.
It so obviously should have been a five parter over a week like CoE was.
If it ain't broke don't fix it.
PS I *loved* Gwen's "bulging eyes" look at the end.
I really hope they bring Esther back into it, because I believe that they easily could bring her back, the audience liked her, and she was the only character, at the beginning I said I didn't want to die!
Welcome to the 'Torchwood killed my favourite character' club...
No-one likes the reply that says "I agree" but I came here to say what you said and there's little I can add to your post.
I was bored with the first 6 or 7 episodes, and because I gave it a chance I really enjoyed that last 3 or 4.
It so obviously should have been a five parter over a week like CoE was.
If it ain't broke don't fix it.
PS I *loved* Gwen's "bulging eyes" look at the end.
Oops - I agree with both of the above - I voted Average on last nights show as a reflection on the series. Still, there's always Series 5 to look forward to.
Si Fi always gets a beating, I just watch it and enjoy the ride (Lost, Stargate, Dr Who (The Event didn't get me back after the long break though)). I may not always love the endings but the journies are always a blast.
Enjoyed it even more the second time round. The actress that plays Jilly, what a beautiful woman - made her character even more ugly. Also missed Gwens comment when she saw the blessing - "I see a lifetime of guilt, but then I am a working Mother"! She had some great lines.
Most of the plot elements seemed to change completely part way through the series. Early in the series if people were put through situations in which they would normally die they remained conscious. Later on they became unconscious Category 1s. Early in the series Oswald seemed genuinely popular (for example, that rally where he ends up going on about Phi-corp being angels or something), but later the situation suddenly changes so that supposedly only the TV producers had ever liked him. Actually, what was the point of Oswald full-stop?
Also, I think the show was hamstrung by its desire to be incredibly black-and-white. Oswald never really develops as a character because heaven forbid a paedophile murder has a storyline involving even the slightest hint of redemption. And what's that? ZOMG they're burning living people! Except they're people who would have the plug pulled on them in the mortal world and the plot has to resort to depicting administrative errors/misdeeds to make the situation appear to be immoral.
I think too many times the writers have gone "Ahh, the audience will go with it!" And maybe you can go with each individual inconsistency or flaw but they do start adding up and really affecting your perception of the quality of the show. I would like RTD to try to do one series of a show where the plotting is absolutely watertight because I think his writing would benefit enormously from the experience and it would also demonstrate to the audience that he is capable of doing such a thing.
I think it suffered from the same problem as FlashForward, Lost and The Event. They had an idea about no-one dying, but didn't really have the story to see it through to the end.
Although FlashForward and Lost both had a lot more to work with (I didn't see The Event). This felt like a 2-hour story and 8 hours of filler. Admittedly some of the filler was good, but even bits like Angelo turned out not to matter. The tile Jack took from his null field? Forget about it. The writers did.
I voted Poor. That's also a judgement on the series as a whole: had I known it was going to be this bad, I probably wouldn't have watched it. What annoyed me most was the senselessness and stupidity. For example, the CIA people knew they had a mole, and knew that mole had just right then leaked their plans and sabotaged them. Yet they didn't have enough sense to adopt a "need to know" system. They happily let the mole watch them trace her call. What did they expect to happen? They didn't even watch to see if anyone made a run for it.
So little had a proper explanation. There was no big reason for the ovens, for example. No reason for the government being so keen to classify everyone as Category 1 whether or not they were. No reason, for that matter, for people like Gwen to resist handing her father over. At the end they just suddenly said, "You know what, he's had a good run. Let's let him die after all." why couldn't they think of that before Gwen resorted to armed robbery and drug-dealing?
There was no real explanation for why Jack became mortal. Nor for why the family wanted everyone else to be immortal. Or how the Blessing managed it. Previously it had only managed the average lifetime of the people who lived near it, yet now it can change the world? And it can even override what Rose did? Why didn't the family bury the Blessing months ago? They were even stupid enough to explain to Torchwood why their plan to stop them wouldn't work, and then to give them a better plan that would work.
There was so much wrong with the episode. A lot of it was trite, like how they finally caught the mole, or Rex's magically being made immortal.
I liked Children of Earth. I didn't like the first two Torchwood series, or this, so I guess CoE was a lucky fluke. Shame. I wanted to like Miracle Day.
It's ok - you don't have to go and find them yourself. The BBC do. Several million of them, and when surveyed tell the BBC they were enjoying it (AI 85).
I thought it was quite enjoyable. Especially towards the end. I have only seen COE and this. But it did rather test the patience. A tighter story in fewer episodes would have been better. Usual need to suspend your disbelief on the "science" - It's more fantasy magic in terms of what the blessing was. but never mind. I'm used to that. I like RTD discussing different ideas of how the world might be run.
Not the best thing ever, but I'd give something similar an hour a week. (well, maybe about six or seven of them anyway)
edit: The comment above mine by chipchat is very good. Agree with most of that. These things always seem to have huge long scenes where the baddies stand back and let the goodies chat. ( They should have thrown a tarpaulin over Rex when he knelt down to comfort Esther. Maybe they didn't have one handy.)
Figures don't tell you how many prople are enjoying a show- there's a poll here which is a 'good thing'. It gauges the amount of people (who're still watching) and those who may want to catch up on opinions of the show.
Yes, it's a completely personal experience as to whether your friends/family are 'enjoying' something or are willing/able to give you a view.
Personally I preferred the monster of the week attitude (with maybe a story running in the background) with a proper 'team' dynamic.
But you get me wrong! I adore TW- this story just lost me an a lot of my acquaintances round about Episode 3. I carried on- and just wondered how this was made into so many episodes... it was far too many episodes without too much happening (yeah, Gwen blew up a camp etc etc) but in the end I only had an interest when there was a hint of 'oh, er, this might be going somewhere'. And I didn't feel sufficiently engaged with th characters (again, subjective- perhaps some thought that Esther and Rex were well fleshed out chracters). I'm not even a JB fan, although I love the CJH character, the performance sometimes descends into panto- I should know I've seen about a thousand of them!).
And you're right about chipchat- I can go with most of that.
It just seems a pity that, personally, this series just didn;t engage me as much as I wanted it to. Another subjective comment: I never liked 'Gwen', (as a character) anyway. Her constant wavering betweeen "I'll see you die like a dog"/" I won't let you be a suicide"/ "you KNOW don't you?" act was repetitive (for me) in this series and infuriated me in the extreme. Unlike esther, she's s.upposed to be a professional (despite Jack's probable useless management and training) and able to focus on a mission.
Incidentally, have yuo been reading the RT letters' page? Bizarrely there's not been much TW, positive (very little) or negative (more).
RTD has no excuses for not bringing our favourite characters back, Torchwood is sci-fi.....
This is one of the rare times I completely agree with RTD. When a character dies they should stay dead especially in a show where the central character is an immortal who is repeatedly killed throughout. Death should mean something.
It's ok - you don't have to go and find them yourself. The BBC do. Several million of them, and when surveyed tell the BBC they were enjoying it (AI 85).
Yeah but the BBC also has to take into account that over the course of the run around 2 million people stopped watching (presumably because they didn't like it) so its swings and roundabouts.
I think this explains a lot about the pacing and plot lines that seemed to go off on a tangent and/or lead nowhere.
Jane Espenseon talking to 'SoSoGay'
SSG:In a recent BBC writers’ room blog entry, you [Espenson] wrote that Torchwood made you feel young again. How so?
Espenson: Did I say that? I guess it did because there was this sense of- well it was very different from any show I had been on just in terms of working experience. Everything felt new — we spent more time one-on-one with the showrunner. Normally on a US TV show you don’t let scenes be longer than a couple pages, but Russell would say, ‘I don’t care if scenes are seven pages long as long as they’re good!’ And just like Ronald D Moore on Battlestar: if a writer found something better — a new character development or an interesting reveal — we were told to do it, and the rest of the writers would work around us. There’s been a great sense of exploration and that must’ve been it!"
I think this explains a lot about the pacing and plot lines that seemed to go off on a tangent and/or lead nowhere.
Jane Espenseon talking to 'SoSoGay'
SSG:In a recent BBC writers’ room blog entry, you [Espenson] wrote that Torchwood made you feel young again. How so?
Espenson: Did I say that? I guess it did because there was this sense of- well it was very different from any show I had been on just in terms of working experience. Everything felt new — we spent more time one-on-one with the showrunner. Normally on a US TV show you don’t let scenes be longer than a couple pages, but Russell would say, ‘I don’t care if scenes are seven pages long as long as they’re good!’ And just like Ronald D Moore on Battlestar: if a writer found something better — a new character development or an interesting reveal — we were told to do it, and the rest of the writers would work around us. There’s been a great sense of exploration and that must’ve been it!"
There's point where you have to be succinct- and, for me, this did not happen. Prehaps other viewers felt differently.
As much as I think Esther should come back I don't think she is still alive. Before rex got shot. Gwen said why would the blessing not bring her back.
Now I could understand this comment if they where with some CIA agents but it was just the group who would surely know Esther was alive making the comment totally pointless if she was not dead.
Yeah but the BBC also has to take into account that over the course of the run around 2 million people stopped watching (presumably because they didn't like it) so its swings and roundabouts.
Oh come on every major show has big dip in ratings. there is many reason for this. One big one is the fact the bbc chose to show it a week before US. IF it was one day I would of tuned in for the whole series. I sure many others gave in to just downloading instead of watching live.
Its not exactly ratings have been massively poor. both US/uk have been fine for a renewal.
Comments
I can’t say for sure either way but I doubt there were alternate endings filmed.
In the grand scheme of things the character of Rex likely survived because Mekhi Phiefer (whose name I probably just misspelt but I’m too lazy to check) and Bill Pullman were the only stars from a US perspective and they couldn’t bring Pullman’s character back. And as fans keep reminding me unfortunately it would be very difficult to make Torchwood without Barrowman so he was never going to die either.
Well yes but I am not talking about an imaginary situation. I am refering specifically to COE.
I still cannot see how you are getting from it having cliff-hangers, captures and gradual revelation to it being shallow.
You quite clearly gave the impression that Miracle Day was some sort of work in progress which relied on the audience reaction/ratings to determine which actors/characters survived at the climax, didn't you?
Nobody is forcing you to reply or comment
I am suprised you are criticising MD to be honest for lack of depth if you did not find this in COE.
Surely this should make you less critical of MD overall as your expectations (or lack thereof) should not be of the level you expect anything other than mindless fun?
TW needs more extra terrestrial things, not terrestrial things. Would have been nice to introduce the Americans to a lot of the DW universe enemies
I hope that TW does come back and they learn from this serious. 10 episodes is far too long. They need to do stand alone episodes and two parters for a series maybe (as been said many times). Having watched TW from the beginning I know it can be amazing, just hope they write it a bit better next time. (and somehow bring Tosh back from the dead lol)
In theory yes. The problem is that Torchwood forgot it was supposed to be mindless fun driven by dense plotting and tried to hold itself up on strength of characters and development. It didn't work.
No-one likes the reply that says "I agree" but I came here to say what you said and there's little I can add to your post.
I was bored with the first 6 or 7 episodes, and because I gave it a chance I really enjoyed that last 3 or 4.
It so obviously should have been a five parter over a week like CoE was.
If it ain't broke don't fix it.
PS I *loved* Gwen's "bulging eyes" look at the end.
Welcome to the 'Torchwood killed my favourite character' club...
or Owen (the first time) or Suzie (the first time) or Rhys.
RTD has no excuses for not bringing our favourite characters back, Torchwood is sci-fi.....
Oops - I agree with both of the above - I voted Average on last nights show as a reflection on the series. Still, there's always Series 5 to look forward to.
Enjoyed it even more the second time round. The actress that plays Jilly, what a beautiful woman - made her character even more ugly. Also missed Gwens comment when she saw the blessing - "I see a lifetime of guilt, but then I am a working Mother"! She had some great lines.
Also, I think the show was hamstrung by its desire to be incredibly black-and-white. Oswald never really develops as a character because heaven forbid a paedophile murder has a storyline involving even the slightest hint of redemption. And what's that? ZOMG they're burning living people! Except they're people who would have the plug pulled on them in the mortal world and the plot has to resort to depicting administrative errors/misdeeds to make the situation appear to be immoral.
I think too many times the writers have gone "Ahh, the audience will go with it!" And maybe you can go with each individual inconsistency or flaw but they do start adding up and really affecting your perception of the quality of the show. I would like RTD to try to do one series of a show where the plotting is absolutely watertight because I think his writing would benefit enormously from the experience and it would also demonstrate to the audience that he is capable of doing such a thing.
Hi ntscuser - nice to meet you
I rather liked Gwen's comment to Jilly in the lift - 'how much bloody lipstick can you wear?'.
Gwen certainly packs a punch, doesn't she?:eek:
I voted Poor. That's also a judgement on the series as a whole: had I known it was going to be this bad, I probably wouldn't have watched it. What annoyed me most was the senselessness and stupidity. For example, the CIA people knew they had a mole, and knew that mole had just right then leaked their plans and sabotaged them. Yet they didn't have enough sense to adopt a "need to know" system. They happily let the mole watch them trace her call. What did they expect to happen? They didn't even watch to see if anyone made a run for it.
So little had a proper explanation. There was no big reason for the ovens, for example. No reason for the government being so keen to classify everyone as Category 1 whether or not they were. No reason, for that matter, for people like Gwen to resist handing her father over. At the end they just suddenly said, "You know what, he's had a good run. Let's let him die after all." why couldn't they think of that before Gwen resorted to armed robbery and drug-dealing?
There was no real explanation for why Jack became mortal. Nor for why the family wanted everyone else to be immortal. Or how the Blessing managed it. Previously it had only managed the average lifetime of the people who lived near it, yet now it can change the world? And it can even override what Rose did? Why didn't the family bury the Blessing months ago? They were even stupid enough to explain to Torchwood why their plan to stop them wouldn't work, and then to give them a better plan that would work.
There was so much wrong with the episode. A lot of it was trite, like how they finally caught the mole, or Rex's magically being made immortal.
I liked Children of Earth. I didn't like the first two Torchwood series, or this, so I guess CoE was a lucky fluke. Shame. I wanted to like Miracle Day.
Figures don't tell you how many prople are enjoying a show- there's a poll here which is a 'good thing'. It gauges the amount of people (who're still watching) and those who may want to catch up on opinions of the show.
Yes, it's a completely personal experience as to whether your friends/family are 'enjoying' something or are willing/able to give you a view.
Personally I preferred the monster of the week attitude (with maybe a story running in the background) with a proper 'team' dynamic.
But you get me wrong! I adore TW- this story just lost me an a lot of my acquaintances round about Episode 3. I carried on- and just wondered how this was made into so many episodes... it was far too many episodes without too much happening (yeah, Gwen blew up a camp etc etc) but in the end I only had an interest when there was a hint of 'oh, er, this might be going somewhere'. And I didn't feel sufficiently engaged with th characters (again, subjective- perhaps some thought that Esther and Rex were well fleshed out chracters). I'm not even a JB fan, although I love the CJH character, the performance sometimes descends into panto- I should know I've seen about a thousand of them!).
And you're right about chipchat- I can go with most of that.
It just seems a pity that, personally, this series just didn;t engage me as much as I wanted it to. Another subjective comment: I never liked 'Gwen', (as a character) anyway. Her constant wavering betweeen "I'll see you die like a dog"/" I won't let you be a suicide"/ "you KNOW don't you?" act was repetitive (for me) in this series and infuriated me in the extreme. Unlike esther, she's s.upposed to be a professional (despite Jack's probable useless management and training) and able to focus on a mission.
Incidentally, have yuo been reading the RT letters' page? Bizarrely there's not been much TW, positive (very little) or negative (more).
They had around 10 hours to fill and his utterly nonsensical go nowhere subplot filled some of that time.
Jane Espenseon talking to 'SoSoGay'
SSG:In a recent BBC writers’ room blog entry, you [Espenson] wrote that Torchwood made you feel young again. How so?
Espenson: Did I say that? I guess it did because there was this sense of- well it was very different from any show I had been on just in terms of working experience. Everything felt new — we spent more time one-on-one with the showrunner. Normally on a US TV show you don’t let scenes be longer than a couple pages, but Russell would say, ‘I don’t care if scenes are seven pages long as long as they’re good!’ And just like Ronald D Moore on Battlestar: if a writer found something better — a new character development or an interesting reveal — we were told to do it, and the rest of the writers would work around us. There’s been a great sense of exploration and that must’ve been it!"
There's point where you have to be succinct- and, for me, this did not happen. Prehaps other viewers felt differently.
Now I could understand this comment if they where with some CIA agents but it was just the group who would surely know Esther was alive making the comment totally pointless if she was not dead.
Oh come on every major show has big dip in ratings. there is many reason for this. One big one is the fact the bbc chose to show it a week before US. IF it was one day I would of tuned in for the whole series. I sure many others gave in to just downloading instead of watching live.
Its not exactly ratings have been massively poor. both US/uk have been fine for a renewal.