Definately felt rushed. The whole 'Jack is buried for 1900 years' thing was so ignored... after all that time in the dark, not breathing, chocking, dying, coming back to life etc, how come his mental state wasn't affected. Does being an alien from the 51st century mean your hair stopped growng? How long would your hair, nails and beard be after all that time. How emaciated would he be? Why did John throw him the ring, when it wasn't him that used it to fnd Jack? As mentioned earlier, does Jack's period RAF coat, shirt and pants not age, or get damaged from multiple bullet hits? This could have been a whole story arc in itself, but was ignored. Did Jack recruited in the 19C know that he was in the vault? Or did he find himself sometime? As it was, I look more distressed after a heavy night out

i loved the bit at the end of this episode which explained why Toshiko was on DW. About the spacepig. Brilliant episode but sad

I'm gonna get a t-shirt with "Because you're breaking my heart!" printed on it.


Can someone remind me what the "Victorian lesbian" thing was that Chubby was on about. I remember the two ladies in "Fragments", one of whom said Jack was pretty and I remember seeing one of them again with her black colleague in "Exit Wounds" but where was the steamy girl-on-girl action mentioned?


Oh and can I just say - 67% Excellent! And nearly 87% Very Good or Excellent is phenomenal!

The one who said Jack was pretty then said to the other "Not as pretty as you".

Oh sure, maybe I was too facetious for my own good, I knew *that*! That's hardly some great lesbian moment is it? She seemed the kind of person you really wouldn't want to call you pretty as next thing she'd be asking if she could keep you as a pet and would be tormenting you and dressing you up in little frocks and before you knew it, she'd have petted you too hard and killed you.

I'm probably just rationalizing, but hey ho...

If you compare this imprisonment to what he went through on the Valient, I don't know; maybe that prepared him for the 1900 years. Yeah, I know it's hard to compare 1 year to 1900, but on the valient, it wasn't just continuous death, it was all out torture. After the initial escape attempt (I may be off having only seen the Utopia/Drums/Timelords three-parter once with this whole being new to TW/DW thing), there wasn't any hope left (unless the Doctor told Jack about Martha...I don't remember so I might be off). It was torture without hope which may have made it feel longer than a year.

1900 years is still going to feel much longer no matter, but during that whole time, he had a plan (or was probably trying to come up with one), a purpose, something to go back to. Jack forgiving Grey, that says to me he proably went through a zillion phases of emotions (anger, fear, hopelessness, etc.) while down there. And when he felt like he was going mad though, he always had the Year that Never Was (or whatever it's called ) to compare it with.

Ummm...yeah...

And there's also the possibility - already mentioned in this thread somewhere - that he didn't actually keep dying and coming back to life if he couldn't get a breath. Maybe he spent most of the 1900 years 'dead' until he was dug up.

Good point. I probably missed it since when I read the beginning of the thread I was in major over Tosh and Owen.

OK, bit slow at reviewing the Episode here but I'm going to do it now so here goes...

Absolutely BRILLIANT!!!!! I loved every single minute of it!

I mean what can I say? What a fantastic way to end this wonderful 2nd Series. (I still haven't seen Series 1 BTW but my friends are strongly advising me NOT to see it and just stick to Series 2. Wow was it really that bad?)

My God what a sad ending, poor Owen and Tosh! Why oh WHY do bad things always seem to happen to my favorites?! I truely am convinced I'm The Kiss Of Death! My favorites ALWAYS either end up dead, end up having rubbish fates or lame lives. It's not fair! Why couldn't Ianto die, he's bloody useless! The only role I've ever seen him play is Jack's love interest and that's it(really am sorry Ianto Fans, I tried to like him, really I did hell I even WANTED to like him but I just couldn't)!

My God I just relized... If I'm The Kiss Of Death then Tenth Doctor, Martha and Jack aren't safe! If I carry on at this rate then Tenth Doctor will have a rubbish reason to regenerate like having a WalNut hit his head, Martha will be living in the streets and Jack... Well it's too late to save Jack (he's evantually going to be an unattractive giant head living in a jar) but it's not too late to save Tenth Doctor and Martha! I hate to do this but it's for their own good. From now on I'm going to hate them and love Rhys and Mickey The Idiot/Tin Dog (Red-Eye shivers with disgust)!

Blimey I've gone Off Topic! Better stop now.

Yeah so anyway nooooooooo NOT Owen and Tosh! WHY?! I don't normally get upset over a TV show but I actually cried when they died. I'm never going to forget that last moment.

Now I don't know about you guys but Jack must've had an awful lot of bloody patients for being buried alive that long. I really do wonder what he was doing during that time? Probably playing nots and crosses with himself.

James Marsters was once again brilliant as Captain John and I truely do hope he'll be back next Series and I don't know about you guys but I have a really funny feeling we haven't seen the last of Gray.

So all in all, brilliant Episode. 10/10 and gets an Excellant Vote from me!

Wasn't there a comparison with him drowning or something - did he 'revive' only to drown again or only come back when being recovered from the warter and back into a situation where life was possible.
I must admit I prefer this theory as it's easier than trying to think of what he may have gone through! It would also explain how he managed to carry on straight away rather than go raving mad.

or even the 'water'

Not being one to quote myself - I hardly referred to it as being "steamy girl-on-girl action" or a "great lesbian moment" Amos????

In fact I was stating to the contrary - it was boring and unnecessary, and contributed nothing. Why did there have to be a reference to a relationship between two very minimal characters which had very little screen time. It's got to be another RTD queer drop in. I'd like to think I'd say the same about a hetro situation, but I probably wouldn't.


In fact it does, as Reece has issues with Jack (who is a male, just like him) as Gwen harbours some kind of desire for him which keeps cropping up in story lines. If Gwen had a girlfriend instead that, whole dynamic would be different.

The whole gay Torchwood is another debate - which again is frankly boring.

Only just finally watched my recording of this last night, in great anticipation, and I was frankly disappointed.

I only voted average in the poll, which IMO it was.
From a series end story I expected a lot more than that, and (dodgy CGI monster aside) I enjoyed the last story of series one much more.

Of course I could just make a list as long as my arm of the plot inconsistencies, and several people have already pointed out many of them. They don't actually worry me, and it's not any of that which disappointed me. You can pick holes in the script of virtually all sci-fi/fantasy programmes, and DW and TW are certainly no exception.
They are fantasy programmes however, and I'm willing to cut an enormous amount of slack to the writers in this genre because it's not serious fact-based drama, and artistic licence can be taken to extremes and not spoil things as long as everything else is done well.

What a good job that Jack's grave was still out in the open air in 1907 though, even in the middle of a city. It would have made it a bit awkward if they'd put a building on top of it!

As several others have already quite rightly pointed out, the actor playing Gray was absolutely dire!
He single-handedly did more to spoil this episode for me than anything else. I had the same cringes every time he opened his mouth as I had watching the equally awful Hayden Christensen in Star Wars.
I'll give the guy the benefit of the doubt that he's not really an abysmally weak and incompetent actor, and was just badly mis-cast and/or badly directed, but I'm afraid the damage was done whatever the cause was.

As the villain, consumed with rage and angst, the character should have radiated terrifying menace and cold, calculated, all-consuming irrational hatred for Jack and contempt for anyone else who stood in the way of his vengeance.
I got none of that whatsoever, either from the character as scripted or the delivery by the actor.
Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful!

I for one got no sense of real threat from the Cardiff bombs either. The electricity supply seemed to be unaffected for a start, which was very odd indeed.
If you wanted to cause maximum disruption and panic in a city, taking the power out would be the first thing you'd do surely?

Oops, I did say I wouldn't nit-pick about that sort of thing didn't I........

The death scenes were well handled, and I can well understand that many people found them very moving.
Most people knew I think that two main characters were going to be written out, and I for one hope that it is permanent. Things have to evolve and move on.

I really enjoyed this series as a whole, and I hope that series three happens and explores new avenues.
Torchwood has got a lot going for it, but I'm afraid that this series did go out with a bit of a wimper as far as I'm concerned.

Maybe I missed something really obvious - but when Gray let Captain John go, why didn't John just go back to the grave a day later or something? Instead of waiting 1900 years and then having to actually find the location again? Plot hole or did I miss an explanation?

Grey only allowed John one more trip in Time.

How exactly he did this is unclear, either he broke Johns VM in such a way as it would only work once or he had taken the VM and was able to send John on his way without going himself.

If the later and John had asked to be sent a day in the future Grey would have been a tad suspicious.

If the former (which is probably more likely) and John could go anywhere without Grey knowing, while he could dig Jack up and Jack could then live through till 2009 John himself would age and die in the past, something he was obviously not prepared to do.

But as it turned out, all he needed was a hug.

This is what bugs me when people refer to DW and TW being Whedon-influenced. If this had been Buffy or Angel, we'd have had half a season exploring the impact and ramifications of such a traumatic and horrific event. Instead, it's brushed off and treated as inconsequential.

Don't want to moan too much... it was a reasonably strong episode. But I do feel that it's consistently let down by sloppy script writing and an underdevelopment of story arcs.

No, but you bang on about them being lesbians, whereas aside from one character saying the other was prettier than Captain Jack, I saw nothing to emphatically state that both characters were lesbians. Sure, Torchwood is famous for its sexual undertones, but I really think it's someone's dirty mind filling in the blanks there.

Excellent!!

It was superbly acted, and was a great episode!!

Perhaps Time Agents in their training have some sort of mental technique in case they are caught in traps like Jack was, 1900 years in the one place or whatever, to go into trance or to work on paradoxes and mental puzzles, to keep their sanity..... or perhaps in an untransmitted story of WHO or TORCHWOOD, the Doctor turned up in the Tardis after a few years, freed him then put him back there in, say, 1867 after a little trip forward in time.. The fifth? Sixth? Seventh? First? Doctor.. (Who) knows??

I've only just caught up with this one as I was on hols last week and really enjoyed it, very sad.

maybe I missed something but I didn't get how the ring helped Jack/John? What happened there exactly?

Torchwood's going to need some new blood now. I hope they don't draft in Rhys and the policeman. (Though they need a technical whizz and a medic, so hopefully not!) Perhaps they could bring back Martha?

The Ring transmitted a signal on a particular frequency, when John returned to 2009 he got Tosh and Gwen to try and track it down so they could locate the grave and dig Jack up.

However in 1901 Torchwood had already picked up the signal and dug Jack up, presumably Jack then turned off the signal or it being in the Cryo Freezer stopped it working.

Martha does seem to be odds on favourite to replace Owen. Tosh's replacement is

Ah ok. Does this mean he is stuck in present day Cardiff now then?

[quote=doktor]
This is what bugs me when people refer to DW and TW being Whedon-influenced. If this had been Buffy or Angel, we'd have had half a season exploring the impact and ramifications of such a traumatic and horrific event. Instead, it's brushed off and treated as inconsequential.

Don't want to moan too much... it was a reasonably strong episode. But I do feel that it's consistently let down by sloppy script writing and an underdevelopment of story arcs.
[quote]

I think that's kind of the point when people moan about the Buffy/Angel influence. Torchwood practically lifts some Angel plot lines but treats them so shabbily that it's just annoying. Mostly I don't object to plotlines being lifted if they are handled in a different and interesting way - Torchwood unfortunately always executes them very poorly. The idea that Jack could just pop out of that grave after 1900 years and be perfectly fine and lucid enough to give detailed instructions to Torchwood. Just a bit silly really. Not that there's anything wrong with a silly program - but it still manages to take itself so seriously.

Poor Tosh and Owen

Random thread bump, but I have to say I loved this episode.

You're breaking my heart. Amazing.