Thursday, December 07, 2006

Torchwood revisited

You know what, Medium Rob was pretty on the money about the most recent episode of Torchwood: it wasn't all bad.

Good points:
  • the title "They Keep Killing Suzie" - bleak and suggestive
  • the script wasn't entirely bollocks and had a decent level of developing through the episode
  • Indira Varma was fantastic (I would think that as I have fond memories of her from this)
  • the resurrection glove effects were pretty cool

  • Bad points:
  • that whole stop-watch thing at the end. I refer you to MediumRob's dirty mind...
  • badly handled humour about naming - it didn't work
  • "... there's only a few minutes..." said in darkness: next scene takes place in broad daylight. Clearly Wales has a different relationship to the whole sun/moon thing than the rest of the world. Was there an eclipse they didn't mention?
  • this Torchwood secrecy thing must be one of the biggest jokes of the series. Are all the police gonna get retcon pills? (and btw in discussing the Whedonverse 'retcon' was when they fitted in backstories that had previously not been mentioned or even directly contradicted previous information: not sure how well that reflects the action of the amnesia pills)


  • Of course the Behind the Sofa team have screamed loudly about how bad the whole series has been and I do love their humour enough to appreciate their points (could this really be the end of the Tachyon TV podcasts according their latest release?). But I have tried to remain sympathetic to Torchwood despite it being way off mark at times with both its intentions and actions.

    Have you stuck with it?

    2 comments:

    Anonymous said...

    I have stuck with it, though I'm not sure why — you'll have gathered from my comments at Rob's that I'm less than impressed!

    I dunno — there's definitely the core of a good idea there, but the scripting, acting and direction are so shoddy. If the rumour's true about BBC2, rather than 3, recommissioning it and insisting on a rethink, I'll be a happy little sci-fi nerd.

    Anonymous said...

    My problem with the set-up is that it's supposed to be this all-important above-government agency protecting the world from alien invasion, and it's actually a handful of incompetent idiots in a basement in Cardiff. The equivalent only worked for Buffy because nobody else knew what was going on. Here it's just implausible. These are the best people they could get? Really? I thought the Doctor Who London Torchwood, which had proper employees and funding and a decent office, was much more convincing. Is it supposed to be some kind of in-joke about how badly-funded Wales is in comparison to London? That's very BBC.

    Still, I wouldn't care if it was any good. I think I mainly object to it because it isn't funny and all the characters are so unlikeable.