I Originally saw the episode , 5 days before it broadcasted on BBC One i just couldnt wait to see it , overall i thought the final episode was pretty good it sort of reminded me of the final bunch of episodes of Buffy the Vampire slayer , i guess Jane Espenson's previous ideas inspired her to co-write this episode with RTD.
I Originally saw the episode , 5 days before it broadcasted on BBC One i just couldnt wait to see it , overall i thought the final episode was pretty good it sort of reminded me of the final bunch of episodes of Buffy the Vampire slayer , i guess Jane Espenson's previous ideas inspired her to co-write this episode with RTD.
Jane Espenson talks about writing the final episode
"I will also tell you that this episode was actually written by Russell. What I did was write a first draft that got the scenes of his story down on the paper in a rough form and he took it from there – I love this script, but I can't take credit for much of it. I cut out the pattern that he'd designed, and he made the outfit"
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.
Children of Earth didn't suffer a 33% loss of viewer.
COE was not shown a week before in the states. Also those viewing figures are combined figures bbc Iplayer and repeates.
I'm not saying it did amazing but not exactly something that does not happen all the time. Big shows lose viewers over time. As long as view figures acceptable, The show will continue.
I'd argue myself that a good actor can lift a pooly-written part and make it more than it might have been. There are some character actors - Bill Nighy, for example, or Alan Rickman, or Gary oldman - where you *know* you'll enjoy their performance, no matter the quality of the material.
I'd put Bill Pullman's performance in Torchwood into this category - and John de Lancie's as well, for that matter. I agree the characters weren't given depth and complexity - but their performances were surely still "good character acting"?
And the same goes for Peter Capaldi in CoE; his performance and the fate of his character absolutely transfixed me.
BTW - on a general note: All this discussion of "deep" and "shallow". Anyone out care to give me an example of what they consider "deep" Sci Fi (or TV in general) if they consider the issues raised in CoE and MD to be "shallow"?
I think this explains a lot about the pacing and plot lines that seemed to go off on a tangent and/or lead nowhere....
Those comments make it sound an awful lot like there wasn't actually any plot planned out beyond 'nobody can die' and everything else was just made up on the spot. In fact the episodes kind of had that feel as well.
So far in final figures it has lost audience every week but one and for the most part these aren't small drops. And it is worth mentioning that at its current ratings level Torchwood is not a major show. In fact its a pretty minor show. Having final numbers around 4.5 million when the competition on the main opposition is basically non-existent isn't great.
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.
The modern defence for poor ratings - everyone is just downloading it. Guess what they aren't. In truth it is still a tiny minority of people that are illegally downloading shows.
In 2010 the most pirated shows were the Lost and Heroes series finales which globally were downloaded 5.9 and 5.4 million times respectively. They were massively ahead of the third most popular illegal download which was Dexter that had an estimated 3.8 million downloads. By the time you get to the bottom of the top ten illegal downloads shows are around 1.5 million illegal downloads globally. There's simply very little if any evidence to suggest that the audience dip for Torchwood can be explained away by illegal downloads.
Those comments make it sound an awful lot like there wasn't actually any plot planned out beyond 'nobody can die' and everything else was just made up on the spot. In fact the episodes kind of had that feel as well.
Not entirely true.
And here's something to digest the audience erosion for each episode (these are just finals and so far only cover up to episode 8)
So far in final figures it has lost audience every week but one and for the most part these aren't small drops. And it is worth mentioning that at its current ratings level Torchwood is not a major show. In fact its a pretty minor show. Having final numbers around 4.5 million when the competition on the main opposition is basically non-existent isn't great.
The modern defence for poor ratings - everyone is just downloading it. Guess what they aren't. In truth it is still a tiny minority of people that are illegally downloading shows.
In 2010 the most pirated shows were the Lost and Heroes series finales which globally were downloaded 5.9 and 5.4 million times respectively. They were massively ahead of the third most popular illegal download which was Dexter that had an estimated 3.8 million downloads. By the time you get to the bottom of the top ten illegal downloads shows are around 1.5 million illegal downloads globally. There's simply very little if any evidence to suggest that the audience dip for Torchwood can be explained away by illegal downloads.
They haven't been good either. At best they've been passable and for expensive drama that's not the greatest position to be in.
your one those who fall for idiotic stats. The only way sites can get stats are from public torrents one lesser used forms of piracy in this day and age. It excludes two major ways of pirating private torrents and file sharing sites. For one the two major sites I use have on total 6-7 million active users combined.
Now these number can not be known simply because the person gathering the stats would have to be member of every priavte torrent site and know every person who uploads to all the many file sharing sites.
Now I don't need to explain to you those numbers could bumped up millions if you could monitor all the means pirating.
I'd put Bill Pullman's performance in Torchwood into this category - and John de Lancie's as well, for that matter. I agree the characters weren't given depth and complexity - but their performances were surely still "good character acting"?
In a word no.
I think a great actor can make terrible material entertaining and for the most part I think Pullman made the most of what he was given but without detailed and consistent writing to back up the performance there's no character depth. If you actually isolate just the Oswald scenes across Miracle Day the character is astonishingly inconsistent and there seems to be absolutely no internal or even external logic to who he is or how other perceive him.
It is important (I think) to stress that I'm not saying Pullman was terrible in Miracle Day just that it wasn't an example of character acting because there was no character for him to inhabit.
BTW - on a general note: All this discussion of "deep" and "shallow". Anyone out care to give me an example of what they consider "deep" Sci Fi (or TV in general) if they consider the issues raised in CoE and MD to be "shallow"?
I have name checked a few shows throughout this discussion although I don't think any of them have specifically been sci-fi. Specifically on the sci-fi front I think The X-Files did a brilliant job of creating detailed characters with emotional depth although eventually it ate itself alive and screwed that up with some truly awful writing and creative decisions. I'm sure someone will want to chime in with Battlestar Galactica although I've never really been able to get into it.
Having said that I think it is important to stress that I'm talking about emotional depth here and the creation of layered and complex characters not about whether a plot has issues, ideas or themes that make you think. I think I said before that Torchwood works at its best when it is reliant on its plot and that's why Children of Earth worked because the plotting on that was relentless whereas Miracle Day basically had no plot and tried to rely on the strength of its characters to carry it through and that's why it didn't work.
COE was not shown a week before in the states. Also those viewing figures are combined figures bbc Iplayer and repeates.
I'm not saying it did amazing but not exactly something that does not happen all the time. Big shows lose viewers over time. As long as view figures acceptable, The show will continue.
Those figures for COE are actually the BARB final ratings, (which don't include BBC online iplayer viewers or repeats -if any- on another channel the same week)
Comparing them to the BARB final ratings that we know (so far) for TWMD (up to ep8), then the recent season did indeed loose viewers (6.6 down to 4.6m) over the course of the season.
And I'm actually someone who liked TWMD (though not as much as COE)
Those figures for COE are actually the BARB final ratings, (which don't include BBC online iplayer viewers or repeats -if any- on another channel the same week)
Comparing them to the BARB final ratings that we know (so far) for TWMD (up to ep8), then the recent season did indeed loose viewers (6.6 down to 4.6m) over the course of the season.
And I'm actually someone who liked TWMD (though not as much as COE)
I stand corrected. But I still feel it has great chance of being renewed. Its not exactly starz will get anything better.
your one those who fall for idiotic stats. The only way sites can get stats are from public torrents one lesser used forms of piracy in this day and age. It excludes two major ways of pirating private torrents and file sharing sites. For one the two major sites I use have on total 6-7 million active users combined.
Yes and I'm sure everyone of those 'active users' is downloading every episode of every show :rolleyes:
I also like the idea that you think file sharing and 'private' torrents aren't being tracked.
Now these number can not be known simply because the person gathering the stats would have to be member of every priavte torrent site and know every person who uploads to all the many file sharing sites.
Actually they wouldn't but that's another story for another day.
Now I don't explain to you those numbers could bumped up millions if you could monitor all the means pirating.
In reality they probably wouldn't be significantly increased. Whilst illegal downloading is an issue it isn't anywhere close to the issue that the industry want people to believe it is. Pirating has been seized upon as a way to distract from the much bigger and much more real problems that currently exist within television and film that nobody really wants to address.
I am however getting a kick out of the idea that people are now arguing that Torchwood dropped around 2 million viewers over the course of 8 episodes because people have been illegally downloading the episodes rather than waiting for the BBC airing. Surely if people were unwilling to wait for the BBC airing the show would have started low and stayed low not bled viewers throughout its run?
I stand corrected. But I still feel it has great chance of being renewed. Its not exactly starz will get anything better.
They already have something better - Spartacus massively outperforms Torchwood. And they have new drama Boss on the horizon which is tracking relatively well for them right now.
Starz don't have the programming or operating budget of HBO or Showtime. Right now they can't afford to prop up shows that they don't feel are having a positive impact on their business especially not when that show hasn't had much in he way of critical love. It remains to be seen if they feel Torchwood has had a positive impact or not.
Yes and I'm sure everyone of those 'active users' is downloading every episode of every show :rolleyes:
I also like the idea that you think file sharing and 'private' torrents aren't being tracked.
Actually they wouldn't but that's another story for another day.
In reality they probably wouldn't be significantly increased. Whilst illegal downloading is an issue it isn't anywhere close to the issue that the industry want people to believe it is. Pirating has been seized upon as a way to distract from the much bigger and much more real problems that currently exist within television and film that nobody really wants to address.
I am however getting a kick out of the idea that people are now arguing that Torchwood dropped around 2 million viewers over the course of 8 episodes because people have been illegally downloading the episodes rather than waiting for the BBC airing. Surely if people were unwilling to wait for the BBC airing the show would have started low and stayed low not bled viewers throughout its run?
You obviously not aware of how it works. In all means of the law file sharing sites are legal. They are untracked ( especially by small time bloggers), its private business who does not release the numbers The only person who knows the numbers are the up loaders. Private torrents are same private there is no way of monitoring them. Public torrents log the numbers on the site so they can monitored.
When article came out you could simply see the all the numbers came of public peer to peer sites.
Of cause I'm not saying 2 million people did. I'm saying it was not good move and viewing figures could of been higher. A lot people stop watching simply because it board them.
You obviously not aware of how it works. In all means of the law file sharing sites are legal. They are untracked its private business who does not release the numbers The only person who knows the numbers are the up loaders. Private torrents are same private there is no way of monitoring them. Public torrents log the numbers on the site so they can monitored.
Of cause I'm not saying 2 million people did. But I'm saying it was not good move and viewing figures could of been higher.
Again its nice that you think this 'private' file sharing can't be tracked (I've seen it done and its much easier than you and others seem to think).
In regards to Torchwood's scheduling its not a decision that the BBC had a great deal of control over. Airing it earlier is unlikely to have had a substantial or even noticeable impact on the numbers anyway. The impact of illegal downloading simply isn't that great. I might accept that negative word of mouth for the series (from US fans) impacted on the numbers but again that would be a pretty insignificant number because it would be largely isolated to the more hardcore fan base who are likely going to watch regardless.
Again its nice that you think this 'private' file sharing can't be tracked (I've seen it done and its much easier than you and others seem to think).
In regards to Torchwood's scheduling its not a decision that the BBC had a great deal of control over. Airing it earlier is unlikely to have had a substantial or even noticeable impact on the numbers anyway. The impact of illegal downloading simply isn't that great. I might accept that negative word of mouth for the series (from US fans) impacted on the numbers but again that would be a pretty insignificant number because it would be largely isolated to the more hardcore fan base who are likely going to watch regardless.
IT depends on what you mean by tracked. Views of the site are made public megaupload has on average 46 million Unique viewers. But files can however not be monitored especially not every single one. The view figures for each file are not public in anyway unless you are uploader of the said file. Unless you can proof otherwise. Even if its possible Your talking 100's and 100's of petabytes of data for someone to go throw all that it would take a long time.
Good point is all the US shows. Look how viewing figures increased when shows started being shown more nearer to us showing.
I'm not saying it would be a massive increase may be there would been no increase we will never know but it still was a stupid decision on BBC behalf.
Those comments make it sound an awful lot like there wasn't actually any plot planned out beyond 'nobody can die' and everything else was just made up on the spot. In fact the episodes kind of had that feel as well.
Actually other comments by Espenson in various interviews indicate that much of the story was planned in detail (she talks a lot about big marker boards where minute details would be planned out) plus a lot of stuff (like the antidote on the plane, the medical consequences of immortality) were researched thoroughly or indicated by advisers. She even said that the names of the 3 families (that couldn't be traced in the records) were checked by RTD himself ensure that they weren't names that could be found (she didn't say how he checked it).
Thats what made Espensons comment in the SoSoGay interview that I quoted so interesting, as it seemed to say that even once they had already decided on a particular plot, it could suddenly change if the writer designated to write the episode came up with another idea, whilst writing it, that RTD approved of.
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 can't say I'm surprised by that -- overall, it had a bit of a feel like a series BBC did when I was at school, where viewers got to pick the next episode. And this comment is on-topic, cos Sylvester McCoy even turned up for a guest slot as The Doctor.
There was a lot of standing around talking, with the bad guys not really doing too much to try and stop Jack and Rex (other than shooting Esther - "I know how we shall stop you! We shall shoot this bystander, which will not prevent you from completing your dastardly scheme in the slightest! And we won't shoot Gwen, just for consistency!")
I don't see why that's inconsistent. Remember, the bad guys knew that Jack's blood had to go into the Blessing from both ends, and they thought that the supply of his blood at Buenos Aires had been destroyed in the explosion. They were entirely confident that they had nothing to fear. When it was revealed that Rex was full of Jack's blood, the bad guy at Buenos Aires had to come up with something quick. Shooting Rex was impossible, as that would send his blood into the Blessing. Shooting Esther didn't physically stop them, but it was at least a possibility that Rex would stop in order to save Esther. It didn't work, but it was all the bad guy could think of and not bad for a spur of the moment idea.
As for why the woman in Shanghai didn't shoot Gwen, well, she no doubt had done her homework on Jack and thought that a man who killed his own son to save the world wouldn't be deterred so easily.
As for why the woman in Shanghai didn't shoot Gwen, well, she no doubt had done her homework on Jack and thought that a man who killed his own son to save the world wouldn't be deterred so easily.
I feel like I survived this series of Torchwood rather than watched it. It was pretty dire. I voted 'awful' every week. Actually, that's not strictly true - one week I voted poor. So why did I keep watching? Cap'n Jack - I love that character. And Bill Pullman - he pretty much carried the show. Apart from that it was nothing more than American trash. Now there's nothing wrong with American trash, I've watched lots of it over the years, it's a great time waster - but please - don't give me American trash and call it Torchwood. That's just rude.
Will I watch if it comes back for another series? Of course I will - but if it's as bad as this one I'm not sure I'd persevere for the whole series.
Oh and the whole Rex/immortal thing - totally predictable, Esther's death - they could have killed her off nine episodes earlier for all she brought to the show. Thank God for Bill Pullman and Cap'n Jack.
*Apologies for any grammar/spelling mistakes - I'm a tad drunk
Esther's death - they could have killed her off nine episodes earlier for all she brought to the show.
If nothing else, she brought her hotness But actually I think she was an excellent character who grew right through the series. There isn't a single other character I wouldn't have gladly seen die in her place.
Comments
haha
and obivously Esther this series :mad:
But I do hope she returns, but I don't think RTD will want her too:(
Jane Espenson talks about writing the final episode
"I will also tell you that this episode was actually written by Russell. What I did was write a first draft that got the scenes of his story down on the paper in a rough form and he took it from there – I love this script, but I can't take credit for much of it. I cut out the pattern that he'd designed, and he made the outfit"
http://www.afterelton.com/tv/2011/09/jane-espenson-torchwood-miracle-day-ten
Children of Earth didn't suffer a 33% loss of viewer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torchwood:_Children_of_Earth
COE was not shown a week before in the states. Also those viewing figures are combined figures bbc Iplayer and repeates.
I'm not saying it did amazing but not exactly something that does not happen all the time. Big shows lose viewers over time. As long as view figures acceptable, The show will continue.
I'd argue myself that a good actor can lift a pooly-written part and make it more than it might have been. There are some character actors - Bill Nighy, for example, or Alan Rickman, or Gary oldman - where you *know* you'll enjoy their performance, no matter the quality of the material.
I'd put Bill Pullman's performance in Torchwood into this category - and John de Lancie's as well, for that matter. I agree the characters weren't given depth and complexity - but their performances were surely still "good character acting"?
And the same goes for Peter Capaldi in CoE; his performance and the fate of his character absolutely transfixed me.
BTW - on a general note: All this discussion of "deep" and "shallow". Anyone out care to give me an example of what they consider "deep" Sci Fi (or TV in general) if they consider the issues raised in CoE and MD to be "shallow"?
Not entirely true.
And here's something to digest the audience erosion for each episode (these are just finals and so far only cover up to episode 8)
Episode 2: -840k
Episode 3: -260k
Episode 4: -300k
Episode 5: -20k
Episode 6: -570k
Episode 7: -120k
Episode 8: +160k
So far in final figures it has lost audience every week but one and for the most part these aren't small drops. And it is worth mentioning that at its current ratings level Torchwood is not a major show. In fact its a pretty minor show. Having final numbers around 4.5 million when the competition on the main opposition is basically non-existent isn't great.
The modern defence for poor ratings - everyone is just downloading it. Guess what they aren't. In truth it is still a tiny minority of people that are illegally downloading shows.
In 2010 the most pirated shows were the Lost and Heroes series finales which globally were downloaded 5.9 and 5.4 million times respectively. They were massively ahead of the third most popular illegal download which was Dexter that had an estimated 3.8 million downloads. By the time you get to the bottom of the top ten illegal downloads shows are around 1.5 million illegal downloads globally. There's simply very little if any evidence to suggest that the audience dip for Torchwood can be explained away by illegal downloads.
They haven't been good either. At best they've been passable and for expensive drama that's not the greatest position to be in.
Can't understand the blood from Jack making Rex immortal
Am back from holiday and shall catch up on iplayer tomorrow hopefully.:)
your one those who fall for idiotic stats. The only way sites can get stats are from public torrents one lesser used forms of piracy in this day and age. It excludes two major ways of pirating private torrents and file sharing sites. For one the two major sites I use have on total 6-7 million active users combined.
Now these number can not be known simply because the person gathering the stats would have to be member of every priavte torrent site and know every person who uploads to all the many file sharing sites.
Now I don't need to explain to you those numbers could bumped up millions if you could monitor all the means pirating.
In a word no.
I think a great actor can make terrible material entertaining and for the most part I think Pullman made the most of what he was given but without detailed and consistent writing to back up the performance there's no character depth. If you actually isolate just the Oswald scenes across Miracle Day the character is astonishingly inconsistent and there seems to be absolutely no internal or even external logic to who he is or how other perceive him.
It is important (I think) to stress that I'm not saying Pullman was terrible in Miracle Day just that it wasn't an example of character acting because there was no character for him to inhabit.
I have name checked a few shows throughout this discussion although I don't think any of them have specifically been sci-fi. Specifically on the sci-fi front I think The X-Files did a brilliant job of creating detailed characters with emotional depth although eventually it ate itself alive and screwed that up with some truly awful writing and creative decisions. I'm sure someone will want to chime in with Battlestar Galactica although I've never really been able to get into it.
Having said that I think it is important to stress that I'm talking about emotional depth here and the creation of layered and complex characters not about whether a plot has issues, ideas or themes that make you think. I think I said before that Torchwood works at its best when it is reliant on its plot and that's why Children of Earth worked because the plotting on that was relentless whereas Miracle Day basically had no plot and tried to rely on the strength of its characters to carry it through and that's why it didn't work.
Those figures for COE are actually the BARB final ratings, (which don't include BBC online iplayer viewers or repeats -if any- on another channel the same week)
Comparing them to the BARB final ratings that we know (so far) for TWMD (up to ep8), then the recent season did indeed loose viewers (6.6 down to 4.6m) over the course of the season.
And I'm actually someone who liked TWMD (though not as much as COE)
I stand corrected. But I still feel it has great chance of being renewed. Its not exactly starz will get anything better.
I also like the idea that you think file sharing and 'private' torrents aren't being tracked.
Actually they wouldn't but that's another story for another day.
In reality they probably wouldn't be significantly increased. Whilst illegal downloading is an issue it isn't anywhere close to the issue that the industry want people to believe it is. Pirating has been seized upon as a way to distract from the much bigger and much more real problems that currently exist within television and film that nobody really wants to address.
I am however getting a kick out of the idea that people are now arguing that Torchwood dropped around 2 million viewers over the course of 8 episodes because people have been illegally downloading the episodes rather than waiting for the BBC airing. Surely if people were unwilling to wait for the BBC airing the show would have started low and stayed low not bled viewers throughout its run?
Starz don't have the programming or operating budget of HBO or Showtime. Right now they can't afford to prop up shows that they don't feel are having a positive impact on their business especially not when that show hasn't had much in he way of critical love. It remains to be seen if they feel Torchwood has had a positive impact or not.
You obviously not aware of how it works. In all means of the law file sharing sites are legal. They are untracked ( especially by small time bloggers), its private business who does not release the numbers The only person who knows the numbers are the up loaders. Private torrents are same private there is no way of monitoring them. Public torrents log the numbers on the site so they can monitored.
When article came out you could simply see the all the numbers came of public peer to peer sites.
Of cause I'm not saying 2 million people did. I'm saying it was not good move and viewing figures could of been higher. A lot people stop watching simply because it board them.
In regards to Torchwood's scheduling its not a decision that the BBC had a great deal of control over. Airing it earlier is unlikely to have had a substantial or even noticeable impact on the numbers anyway. The impact of illegal downloading simply isn't that great. I might accept that negative word of mouth for the series (from US fans) impacted on the numbers but again that would be a pretty insignificant number because it would be largely isolated to the more hardcore fan base who are likely going to watch regardless.
IT depends on what you mean by tracked. Views of the site are made public megaupload has on average 46 million Unique viewers. But files can however not be monitored especially not every single one. The view figures for each file are not public in anyway unless you are uploader of the said file. Unless you can proof otherwise. Even if its possible Your talking 100's and 100's of petabytes of data for someone to go throw all that it would take a long time.
Good point is all the US shows. Look how viewing figures increased when shows started being shown more nearer to us showing.
I'm not saying it would be a massive increase may be there would been no increase we will never know but it still was a stupid decision on BBC behalf.
Actually other comments by Espenson in various interviews indicate that much of the story was planned in detail (she talks a lot about big marker boards where minute details would be planned out) plus a lot of stuff (like the antidote on the plane, the medical consequences of immortality) were researched thoroughly or indicated by advisers. She even said that the names of the 3 families (that couldn't be traced in the records) were checked by RTD himself ensure that they weren't names that could be found (she didn't say how he checked it).
Thats what made Espensons comment in the SoSoGay interview that I quoted so interesting, as it seemed to say that even once they had already decided on a particular plot, it could suddenly change if the writer designated to write the episode came up with another idea, whilst writing it, that RTD approved of.
I don't see why that's inconsistent. Remember, the bad guys knew that Jack's blood had to go into the Blessing from both ends, and they thought that the supply of his blood at Buenos Aires had been destroyed in the explosion. They were entirely confident that they had nothing to fear. When it was revealed that Rex was full of Jack's blood, the bad guy at Buenos Aires had to come up with something quick. Shooting Rex was impossible, as that would send his blood into the Blessing. Shooting Esther didn't physically stop them, but it was at least a possibility that Rex would stop in order to save Esther. It didn't work, but it was all the bad guy could think of and not bad for a spur of the moment idea.
As for why the woman in Shanghai didn't shoot Gwen, well, she no doubt had done her homework on Jack and thought that a man who killed his own son to save the world wouldn't be deterred so easily.
Grandson
Yeah, OK
Will I watch if it comes back for another series? Of course I will - but if it's as bad as this one I'm not sure I'd persevere for the whole series.
Oh and the whole Rex/immortal thing - totally predictable, Esther's death - they could have killed her off nine episodes earlier for all she brought to the show. Thank God for Bill Pullman and Cap'n Jack.
*Apologies for any grammar/spelling mistakes - I'm a tad drunk
If nothing else, she brought her hotness
I think I heard the teensiest, tiniest few microseconds of Tardis Vworp when Rex was ripping his shirt open.
Did I though?