Torchwood (Doctor Who fans, take a look...)

Originally posted by Digi
DW's my favorite show ever, so we're not coming from the same aesthetic position. It's unlikely we'll agree here.

You lost me with the Stargate and BSG stuff though. My geekdom doesn't extend into those realms.

I was just trying to illustrate the differences in tone, but you didn't get the references hehe. The BSG remake was a serious, gritty sci-fi drama, Stargate and SGU are a goofy camping trips. 😎

Every once and a while I'll try to get into Dr Who, because frankly I don't like having such a hole in my geek credentials, but it never catches me. A lot of people compare it favourably to Buffy and Angel, but I don't know... it just seems much more cartoony then either of those shows ever got. I don't even really like the Steven Moffat episodes I've seen, and I absolutely love pretty much everything else he's ever written. To me Dr. Who is like Flash Gordon, or Buck Rogers, or the original Battlestar Galactica. Dated. 🙁

Actually since End of Time it has become apparent the Daleks didn't come off better in the Time War after all. Daleks are indeed one of the worse sufferers of villain decay.

The hate against Daleks is because there are actually very few good Dalek stories and every time they bring them back they tend to cock it up.

To take the new series as an example:

Dalek was very good. One Dalek seemed extremely dangerous.

Parting of the Ways- the Daleks were less good but the story had drama. However, they were disposed of in a cheap fashion.

Doomsday had shock value for the Daleks returning but they were again disposed of far too easily.

Daleks in Manhattan was frigging abysmal and led to the writer being fan-pilloried.

Journey's End... they weren't a disaster, but Davros was better than the Daleks and they were again undone with a button push. AN entire Dalek empire now- snuffed out as if nothing.

Victory of the Daleks was hyped as the big re-invention and return to form.. and they cocked it up.

And all that together and you have a definitive scale of increasing disapproval from fans. Daleks are the public face of Doctor Who villains but in fact their storeies are not generally high in viewer figures OR popular with the fans- there is a lot of myth behind them being important. When someone or something keeps coming back but is at best average and often outright rubbish, you are going to see hate.

So finally Moffat has said that he won't bring them back until they have a good story for them. That's really all they need. Despite the Tennant break they have been very much over-exposed and the longer they are away before they get a decent story to come back with, the better.

-

As for Miracle Day- yes, clearly filler here with the 10 episode run. But it is that most important of things for a longer story- intriguing. If they pull it off right with satisfying reveals, then the whole will hang together well.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Actually since End of Time it has become apparent the Daleks didn't come off better in the Time War after all. Daleks are indeed one of the worse sufferers of villain decay.

The hate against Daleks is because there are actually very few good Dalek stories and every time they bring them back they tend to cock it up.

To take the new series as an example:

Dalek was very good. One Dalek seemed extremely dangerous.

Parting of the Ways- the Daleks were less good but the story had drama. However, they were disposed of in a cheap fashion.

Doomsday had shock value for the Daleks returning but they were again disposed of far too easily.

Daleks in Manhattan was frigging abysmal and led to the writer being fan-pilloried.

Journey's End... they weren't a disaster, but Davros was better than the Daleks and they were again undone with a button push. AN entire Dalek empire now- snuffed out as if nothing.

Victory of the Daleks was hyped as the big re-invention and return to form.. and they cocked it up.

And all that together and you have a definitive scale of increasing disapproval from fans. Daleks are the public face of Doctor Who villains but in fact their storeies are not generally high in viewer figures OR popular with the fans- there is a lot of myth behind them being important. When someone or something keeps coming back but is at best average and often outright rubbish, you are going to see hate.

So finally Moffat has said that he won't bring them back until they have a good story for them. That's really all they need. Despite the Tennant break they have been very much over-exposed and the longer they are away before they get a decent story to come back with, the better.

-

As for Miracle Day- yes, clearly filler here with the 10 episode run. But it is that most important of things for a longer story- intriguing. If they pull it off right with satisfying reveals, then the whole will hang together well.

lol, I'm sorry I used Daleks as an example. Next time I need a stock villain, I'll remember this.

I loved Journey's End though. I'm a sucker for epic scope, so my objectivity largely goes out the window in such cases.

Agreed on Miracle Day though. It's compelling, and I enjoy it, but we're lying to ourselves if we think there's no artificial filler to extend the plot.

I have a feeling Miracle Day has gone the same way as Children of the Earth, too much filler. Children of the Earth would have been better as a three part series and not five, Miracle Day is going the same way. Episodes two and three had far to much filler and I suspect this one would be better as a five or six part story that said the storyline is worth seeing out to the end.

Before that guy got shot, he was about to reveal the name of the bad guys. His mouth was totally forming a 'D'. Clearly we're dealing with Daleks here.

uhuh

/Hugs Digi

There, there Digi, it's all going to be alright.

Oh GOD why don't we actually know what the plot is yet?!

There's still much I like about the central mystery, but you can't go past the halfway point in a ten episode series and not actually define what is going on- let alone several episodes past!

If they were going to string it out like this I think they should have done it as an arc- have a series of episodes about general stuff with the Miracle Day plot building in the background and resolving at the end.

Thats always how RTD has operated. Torchwood and the larger Doctor Who arcs always operate on a "Dig a giant hole for a ton of episodes and then in one episode figure out a magical solution"

There's what, 2 episodes left?

Just got around to watching episode nine and what is the secret?

Planet earth has a giant butt crack! 😕

Well that's what it looked like. whistling

I hope the full info comes about in the final.

Seems like it was a small retcon to Jack's immortality. The reasoning they gave shouldn't have overridden how he became immortal in the first place, and it shouldn't have made

Spoiler:
Rex immortal

Some people have also been critical of the perceived lack of continuity with Doctor Who, as Miracle Day takes place at a time that the Doctor was on Earth this past season, and Amy/Rory were on Earth during the time as well, while he was searching for River.

I'm happy to overlook the latter. Maintaining absolute continuity is tricky, and it's a whimsical sci-fi series (DW at least). The former seemed odd to me though. Jack himself (rightly?) states that his blood means nothing, but the direct evidence suggests that it does.

...

Decent series, some nice moments. Dragged out the plot. It could've easily been 6-7 episodes, mostly by condensing the first 3-4 episodes. They seemed a bit too preoccupied with killing people. Didn't leave much but the original team for any possible future seasons.

The only way the change to Jack's immortality and the Rex thing really makes sense is if The Blessing is strong enough to alter cosmic variables.

As they never really explained what it was, that's presumably possible. If odd.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
The only way the change to Jack's immortality and the Rex thing really makes sense is if The Blessing is strong enough to alter cosmic variables.

As they never really explained what it was, that's presumably possible. If odd.

Suppose so. I didn't think of that. Much like the continuity issue I mentioned, though, I think they probably just glossed over it for the sake of the story.

Again, I don't get too upset about such things. But RTD was overseeing all this, so it seems random that he'd allow such ambiguity to what he already established.

Way to much filler and parts of the storyline just vanished with no explanation. for example Jack's boyfriend, where the hell did he get that alien tech that allowed him to die from? You could have cut this down to a five part story without all that boring filler. The storyline was all over the place at times and well all I can add is...five out of ten for effort.