Heath tried to kick off a discussion about Torchwood at Catallaxy but the cats who will not be herded preferred to talk about… the stuff they usually talk about. Let’s hope we can actuall talk about how feckin good the first ep was (or not). Personally, (minimising spoilers - best to tape the thing so you can watch it without the ads), I’d say definitely not CSI Cardiff, Harkness, Gwen and the Welsh accents are cute, the pterodactyl at the end was a nice touch, and overall a promising beginning. I haven’t seen much of the new Doctor Who, so I can’t really comment on how it works as a spinoff. But good spinoffs should stand on their own two feet, anyway, unless they’re doing the Buffyverse thing where the shows run in parallel.
“unless they’re doing the Buffyverse thing where the shows run in parallel.”
I believe they are, since (I’m told) Harkness just appeared in the most recent third series Dr Who episode (also featuring Life on Mars’ John Simms as… an old villain).
I taped it and just watched it - I thought it was rather fab, with an atmosphere that was quite distinctive.
Oh, God, don’t tell me this pile of steaming …. has arrived in Australia, has it? The new Doctor Who has had its moments, occasionally, when everyone stops shouting for five minutes, but “Torchwood” concentrates the worst of its excesses. Drama and excitement aren’t the same as volume, RT Davis might like to learn. Chaotic, unconvincing, often plain embarrassing, incoherent, where to stop?… Give me the sly and knowing Buffy any day.
I’m not sure if I liked it or not. It seemed a bit tacky. I’ll probably have to watch more to make up my mind.
I thought it was fantastic. But then again, I’m a huge Dr Who fan (both old and new series), so there may be a very strong selection bias at work here!!!
Torchwood s1. is a bit of a mixed bag, but there are some really strikingly good stories coming up. Rule of thumb: if it was written by a woman, it’s going to be a good episode. Plus the episode written by PJ Hammond (the creator of Sapphire and Steel), which was fab.
And speaking of the Buffyverse, James Masters will appear in Torchwood s2.
Oh, and don’t blame RTD for the Torchwood excesses; after the first episode, his involvement is limited. Torchwood’s showrunner is Chris Chibnall.
Taping and watching it sans ads would have been the go. One of the things about the Doctor being on ABC is that we get a smooth flowing story, rather than a series of Big Brother commercials destroying the flow.
That said, I enjoyed it. Some nice comic touches, especially for Doctor Who fans.
Yes. A mixed bag of s**t. In defence of the BBC’s Who revenue stream, with its merchandising and multiple multimedia multicast spinoffs (is “Totally Doctor Who” shown in Oz?), there was an episode called “Blink” a couple of weeks ago which was really stunning. Scary and poignant in equal measure.
i’ve seen them all too and the season finale is brilliant.
some of the melodramatic stuff in the middle is a bit hard to get through, but so are some of the eps of the new dr who where he is more like dr christ.
Well, no, I do mean that it’s mixed. Episode 8 in particular (whose very name constitutes a spoiler) is flat-out terrific. And even the rubbish episodes (hello “Cyberwoman”) are at least fun to watch.
More problematic is the character of Owen, whose date-rape tendencies are treated as comic relief! I’m surprised that angle of the opening episode didn’t get more play here.
Meh…for every good(ish) episode of Torchwood there’s three crap ones. At least for Doctor Who it’s the other way around. Whats’s’name who plays Capn’ Jack just isn’t a par with Christopher Eccleston or David Tennant either.
BTW…the second episode of season 3 new Dr. Who (Gridlock) is one of the best of all Dr. Who’s I’ve seen. Don’t miss it when it makes it to Oz TV.
I’m a big Doctor Who fan, and I was pretty disappointed in Torchwood (which I presume everyone realises is an anagram of ‘doctor who’). It looked really cheap in a way that (the new series of) Doctor Who doesn’t. Anything that uses special effects looks like it uses backyard-quality blue-screens and computer rendering. In contrast, the new Doctor Who looks very slick.
I know that crappy special effects are something of a Doctor Who tradition, but Torchwood just looks bad. I’m willing to give it a go for a few episodes, to see if it grabs me. I just hope it gets a bit better. The new Doctor Who, on the other hand, remains consistently good, IMHO.
Big Dr Who fan here - at least of the Tom Baker/Jon Pertwee era and the most recent two.
I thought the first ep was poor. Cardiff might be a dump, but boy they couldn’t let go of that. Harkness character too bloody annoying. Great glaring blunders (like, if it were me and knowing they falsify computer records I’d have WRITTEN IT DOWN WITH A PENCIL AND PAPER!). There weren’t enough teasers (didn’t seem to be any “here’s something interesting but we’re not going to give it away just yet” bits) in it to make me want to watch further eps although I might just to keep Mrs BK happy.
The trailer for the 2nd ep looked much better, but then it’s a trailer so who knows?
Oh, and who was the actress playing the blonde at the bar? Seemed familiar.
Bored now.
I’ve seen the whole season and i like it a lot. It’s not supposed to tie in to the Dr. Who show except for Captain Jack. The second episode is a lot of fun, and i wont spoil anything, there’s wikipedia for that. John Barrowman (who plays Captain Jack) is a very good actor and its toward the end of the season where we see it.
Also, to anyone who hasn’t seen it, it’s essentially Dr. Who in Cardiff with a lot of bisexuality.
I’ve seen a few episodes on the net. My main problem with the series is the main character (Gwen Cooper) just irritates me for some reason. There are some interesting plot lines but there isn’t enough there to get me hooked in the same way Doctor Who does.
Possibly the wrong animal metaphor, Kim. How about the dogs who keep returning to each other’s vomit, or the dead horses engaged in mutual flagellation?
Anthony, I was a bit iriitated by Gwen, but then I was also somewhat attracted to her (must be the gap in her front teeth).
I didn’t mind it and I went in with my eyes shut, as i didn’t realise it had anything to do with Dr Who. A show i was quite a big fan of as a child. Will continue watching i think until it either gets really stupid or i lose the attraction to Gwen.
Is he a lipsniger, tho’?
Torchwood’s tone is wildly inconsistent. Sometimes it feels like it’s written by a bunch of pre-pubescent Dr Who fans pretending to be adults - but swears and gratuitous sex alone do not make a show adult. I can’t see it lasting past another season.
“Anthony, I was a bit iriitated by Gwen, but then I was also somewhat attracted to her (must be the gap in her front teeth).”
Ah yes, the Gwynneth Paltrow Effect. The gap in her front bosoms is not without charm also.
Sex always sells and Captain Jack Harkness is much hotter than any of those eunuchs on Big Brother and Brothers and Sisters. Could Rachel Griffith be any more bland? Has she had a sex change? If not, perhaps she should.
Of course, do not even mention Media Watch!
Oh, and using Cardiff is one of the more inspired location decisions in recent television history.
It was the most watched show on digital TV in the UK every week and it broke ratings records.
“there was an episode called “Blinkâ€? a couple of weeks ago which was really stunning. Scary and poignant in equal measure.”
Yes, truly excellent. Those statues…
I think the decision was inspired by the fact that the show is made by BBC Wales!
Supun: Commander In Chief rated extremely well when it first started, too. I think Torchwood’s problems are the same as that show’s - just doesn’t know what it wants to be, so won’t find a long-term audience.
I thought the first episode was weak, but I’ll give it another couple of chances to improve. I remember hating X-files initially. So we’ll see how TW goes.
Apart from the accent I don’t like Gwen either. She’s too passive to be a central character IMPO. Things happen to her and she reacts rather than acts to drive the story forward. I hope that changes over the course of the series. Having Capt. Jack already established and stealing every scene will make that difficult, however.
I like it the only thing that annoyed me was the ADs cant stand em but the commerical TV does that,maybe it why I don,t watch it that often
Sorry, Sam, but Torchwood’s ratings were consistently astronomical across its entire 13 week run and, more importantly, its Audience Appreciation Index rating was extremely high — so a lot of people watched it and a lot of the people who watched it rated it as excellent.
(OK, I admit that it may be slightly hypocritical to defend so vociferously a show I have a few reservations about, but I’m a bit tired of how lazy some of the criticism is.)
And I’ll just post the following from Outpost Gallifrey (the one-stop trainspotter site for Doctor Who Fans):
Torchwood has made a strong Australian debut in the ratings. It averaged 1,003,000 viewers in the five major capitals, winning its (time-adjusted) 9.40pm timeslot over Channel 7 (average 964,000 viewers) and Channel 9 (average 963,000 viewers). It enjoyed a 40% audience share in the 18-49 age group.
John Ryan
Amen my brother, on the ads. Same with SBS. If Labor gets in, all you Luvvies with influence MUST make them totally separate the GayBC and SBS from government. I fear a BBC-style TV licensing fee is the only way.
SBS News is one of the best in the world - possibly even better than PBSs’ Newshour with Jim Lehrer, which I LOVE for the “homeliness” of its Lady journos.
However, SBS’s recent interspersing of five minutes of video and analysis from Gaza with “Go Harvey, Go Harvey, Go Harvey Norman, NOW is insupportable. How much more can a Koala bear!
Call me spoilt by the last few years of film, but I can’t stand the Xena-level special effects they’re using. Its not that hard to get things to move and render realistically any more. That stupid ‘dactyl made me want to throw my tea at the screen*. Show was fun apart from that, mind.
*Also, I couldn’t get past the fact that allowing a giant flying reptile into a room full of delicate equipment is perhaps not the wisest thing. What if it craps on something valuable?!
Actually, I thought it was an ironic postmodern reference to the traditional terrible Dr Who 70s special effects!
Either that, or the Beeb weren’t sure whether it would be a big hit when the series was commissioned, and the budget wasn’t big.
Hee. I’m actually moderately qualified to speak on this topic given my (abandoned) doctoral research on the aesthetics of ‘bad’ special effects..
The problems with the FX in the opening episode partly revolve around the decision to film with what turned out to be a pretty dodgy high definition video camera (Torchwood is HD, unlike Doctor Who, which is still standard definition), which was replaced by a superior model in the second shooting block. So the picture quality in general isn’t as good as it is later, and the CG work has to blend in to the picture. But there’s a lot less CG in Torchwood than in Doctor Who, which is a good thing because it costs at least twice as much to build and texture HD models as it does for the same in SD.
Well, there was plenty of wood being torched in tonight’s ep. (I counted seven blokes “blown up” as it were!) With a bit of Sapphic lip-sync-ing from the gap-toothed one to boot. I’ll give Torchwood another few eps in the hope that it’s 1/10th as good as the born-again (heh) Dr Who.