Re: Review - Torchwood: Children of Earth Day One


<pbowles@xxxxxxx> wrote in message news:163ff18e-111d-4b11-b86c-fd718352104d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On 6 July, 22:33, "Agamemnon" <agamem...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<pbow...@xxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:90661a42-39ca-419c-8bcf-3b6c4560ab33@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

> Hmm, didn't they have an episode called Day One already? Fortunately,

Yes, Killer***. RTD must now accept my name for it.

Can't he just overwrite it and pretend it never existed instead?

> this offering is considerably better than that one, and features some
> interesting misdirection. Based on what had been said in the Radio
> Times, I was expecting a rather soapy, slow start, with some sneering
> "corrupt civil servant" as the bad guy. Instead, the pacing is tight,
> the 'domestic' scenes engaging (Ianto's was especially fun - and now
> his character's actually being given things to do it turns out the
> fellow can act and do more than deliver sarcastic lines), and the 'bad

Well I did predict that Ianto and Gwen were the only decent characters in it
apart from Jacke and Toshik and Owen

You predicted that Ianto and Gwen were the only decent characters
apart from Jack, Tosh and Owen? Congrats on that prediction. Though
you forgot Andy.

No. They were the on decent characters and Tosh and Owen were not, so should have been killed off.


should be killed off. It's much better
without them. So were the audio plays. Hopefully the main cast will stay at
just three.

From the radio plays I felt a cast of four was about right (and in
fact I was saying that last year, with Ianto's general uselessness -
that was back when I was only expecting one character to die in the
finale). The first and third plays, who had semi-regular characters in
the "Fourth Torchwooder" role, were much stronger than the second, at
least partly for that reason - in particular Andy was very welcome in
the first one.

> FURTHER
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> SPOILERS
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> BELOW
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> Bit of a shame about Rupesh; he seemed an interesting character,
> although he was too obviously flagged as the new recruit for me to
> believe he'd actually become part of the team. Nonetheless I wasn't
> expecting him to turn out to be one of the villains; Habiba is barely
> less obvious as Torchwood's new addition, but the way they introduced
> her to the team (or will introduce her, when Jack gets the email) as a
> Home Office mole was interesting, if not adequately explained (reading
> one webpage on Torchwood prompts her to send them info the Home Office
> is trying to suppress?)

In the real Home Office she would lose her job for logging into a colleagues
account without their permission, and the would have software preventing
that kind of thing anyway by restricting logins to specific computer IDs on
the network.

In the real Home Office, Torchwood would know all about the 'blank
page' because Frobisher would have accidentally left his laptop full
of confidential information on a train.

> The alien mystery stuff remains mysterious, in the X-Files style "Who
> are they and what do they want?"; unlike the X-Files, so far it holds
> my interest (then again, if the X-Files had only lasted five episodes,

The X-Files went down the toilet after season 3.

I'll take your word for it. I'd lost interest by the time season 2
started.

Yes, it wasn't as good as the first.


> But the human action is the star of the show - never mind the bad
> Hannibal Lecter impressions of the old guy, so far this is a thriller
> that's actually delivering on its promise of making you want to know
> what happens next - with Frobisher, working out what the bounty
> huntress is up to. As I say, even the scenes with Jack's daughter and
> Ianto's sister aren't at all bad, and Ianto's 'couple' unease was
> almost as entertaining as his coming out scene.

> All in all, a very promising start (continuation?) to Torchwood's
> third season - but on a lower budget with a full season next year
> (presumably), are they likely to be able to sustain the interest of
> viewers who start watching the show with this in future years, if
> those fail to deliver? And, with the new effects budget, where's the
> pterodactyl? I hope it got out before the Hub blew...

And flew a mile in a second to escape the blast.

Well, if Gwen managed it...

Phil

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