Sci-Fi Torchwood (Doctor Who spinoff)

I've been watching on BBC America so I've only seen episode 1 so far of the new season (just started airing last night). Interesting triangle there between Jack, Gwen, and Yanto.
 
So who else is watching the Torchwood: Children of Earth mini-series on BBC America? What do you guys/gals think?

 
Tell us when it's finished airing over there so we can talk about it properly. They showed it here in the UK a couple of weeks ago on successive weekday nights, so all done in 5 days flat. Don't want to give any spoilers away :smiley:
 
Tell us when it's finished airing over there so we can talk about it properly. They showed it here in the UK a couple of weeks ago on successive weekday nights, so all done in 5 days flat. Don't want to give any spoilers away :smiley:
BBC America is also airing it as a five day mini-series. They started this past Monday which means Day 3 is airing even as I write this. So far each episode seems to about 1:15 in length with a 15 minute 'Inside Look' behind-the-scenes show airing after.

OK, folks, it looks like we have an embargo on this topic until Friday around 10:15 PM Eastern time. :D
 
It was a great series. It was the first series we watched on Blu-ray, and going from the grainy EDTV-downconverter-to-analog of BBC America to the HDTV-via-Blu-ray was like having ten years of grime washed from the windows. And the story was great. I sure hope that Torchwood returns.
 
Alright then. Back to this since you've all probably seen it now.

Who thought the minister was only going to kill himself when he pulled the gun out in his house after defying the government and being told his children were to be taken?

I was sat watching that scene with a couple of people and they all insisted he was going to kill himself yet I stated he was going to kill his kids and then himself. It seemed the logical decision to make under the circumstances!

Not to put too much of a downer on things, but anyone heavily interested in scifi would surely have come to that conclusion as they were watching it?
 
... Who thought the minister was only going to kill himself when he pulled the gun out in his house after defying the government and being told his children were to be taken?

I was sat watching that scene with a couple of people and they all insisted he was going to kill himself yet I stated he was going to kill his kids and then himself. It seemed the logical decision to make under the circumstances! ...
I thought it was obvious what his intentions were because of the scene where he is talking with the PM (was it the PM or another title?) and the PM says that the children of somebody of on the cabinet had to be included so that the public has sympathy for the government. The minister's response that they are "only girls" and the PM has seen what the 456 intend to do with the kids. Right after that the minister then puts in the request for the gun and when he gets home he has his wife take the kids upstairs to their room.

At that point it should have been clear to the viewers that the minister intended to spare his children from being handed over to the 456. If he was going to only kill himself then that would have spared him getting out of his situation but his kids would still have been in peril of being given to the 456.

Too often, even in real life, parents come up with the outcome that the only way of protecting their kids is by taking their lives. :(
 
A similar scenario we saw with the film The Mist. The Mist (2007) - IMDb

Similar outcome really as well. Kills everyone to save them an awful death and the disaster blows over.



And i think I remember all the ministers had their kids saved because of being on that council of war. It was that minster speaking out and saying it was wrong that resulted in his kids being put on the list.

We've also seen a number of blogs on major news websites over here discussing the use of school tables to skim off the worst of the worst for that required number the aliens required! They have been quite interesting to read, showing the mini series was watched by a quite mainstream audience over here.

TLS Dev




One blog writer actually worked out from the school records in Bristol, a city in the UK, how many kids would be taken from each school!

http://www.jamesbarlow.co.uk/torchwood-–-are-your-kids-10-percent

The spreadsheet with the raw numbers:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=ty1vV5QJr2BShg4Lm757zNw&single=true&gid=0&output=html
 
A similar scenario we saw with the film The Mist. The Mist (2007) - IMDb

Similar outcome really as well. Kills everyone to save them an awful death and the disaster blows over.
Good example. The ending of The Mist caught me off guard a bit when I first watched it since it was not the 'warm fuzzy feeling' ending that most Hollywood films are afflicted with.

And i think I remember all the ministers had their kids saved because of being on that council of war. It was that minster speaking out and saying it was wrong that resulted in his kids being put on the list.
Watching the council making the decision, it was chilling seeing the progression from talking about "children" to "units" being handed over. The writers did a fine job of showing how in extreme situations people are capable of defending their morally questionable actions.

We've also seen a number of blogs on major news websites over here discussing the use of school tables to skim off the worst of the worst for that required number the aliens required! They have been quite interesting to read, showing the mini series was watched by a quite mainstream audience over here. ...
It would be interesting to see the US audience reactions if shows like Torchwood & Primeval were shown on the major broadcast stations instead of only available on cable stations and even then not a lot of people with cable get BBC America so their Torchwood & Dr. Who watching is restricted to the cuts on the SyFy Channel.

But, back to to Torchwood, now that the discussion embargo has been lifted... :P

What part of Jack constitutes 'Jack' as a being? He has survived a lot of different deaths but his demise in Torchwood HQ made me wonder what part exactly of him is considered to be the essence from which he regenerates?

No Jack, no office, no Ianto, and a pregnant Gwen. It'll be interesting to see how the writers recover from this one and, if there is another season, where the new Cardiff HQ will be.

I also did not realize that Torchwood Cardiff was the only Torchwood unit apparently left! After the events of Doctor Who going against the Daleks & Cybermen at the same time left the primary Torchwood HQ gone I had mistakenly assumed that Torchwood as an organization will still alive & well with it's various satellite branches still intact. Children of Earth though pointed out that Torchwood Cardiff was the last remaing Torchwood unit in place. Has Torchwood really ceased to exist?
 
Well I myself had throughly enjoyed the miniseries, but upon further viewing found that the story didn't quite stand up to repeated viewings.

where the story fell apart for me was when the unit soldier asked the alien what they needed the children for, and the basic reply was "chemicals" (ie drugs) Thats was when the show fell apart. for me anyways.

Because if I had been that soldier, I would have quickly replied "Chemicals you say? well why don't you give a sample of this drug and we'll analyse it and crank it out by the metric tonne for ya, hows that sound bigguy?"

Thus no need for the kids, and the show is derailed.

Basically to me RTD messed up by trying to make the alien TOO repugnant. However, if the aliens had said "energy" then everything would have been fine.

Thats MY 2p anyways.
 
I feel that that is as good of an argument as any to resist the temptation to apply real-world scrutiny to genre-oriented programming. Television is just for fun AFAIC. The objective of a viewer should therefore be to be entertained (because what is being offered isn't typically intended to support other objectives). How much suspension of disbelief should be expected of a viewer, to contribute to their own entertainment, is, of course, a matter of opinion, but the way I figure it, viewers are all roughly within the same range of capability, in that regard, so if there are a significant number of viewers who can do so, then it is reasonable to expect others to do so. The question I think folks need to ask themselves is whether they actually are serving their own best interests by ruining their own fun so often by becoming fixated on the science. Don't get me wrong: Some folks may derive their entertainment only from the science, and that's okay. However, I do wonder if there aren't other venues from which that entertainment can be more reliably derived. I think relying on television to serve that wish is probably a losing proposition. I feel that there are simply too many folks just looking for fun, and that makes other sub-genres of far lesser preeminence.
 
I have just gotten to the forum and this is really my first post. So hello. Anyway, I was kind of really into and had to search the net to download the episodes before they aired on BBC America. I did the same thing for Being Human. I had never heard of the series before until I had read about it in the local paper and they said it was really good.

One of the things that stood out to me was how death touched some of the characters. I did not expect the plot to be so unforgiving and it was unexpected and great.

Just my two cents for what its worth.
 
With the new season of Torchwood making it's American debut soon on July 8, Starz has released a new trailer. The new season is notable because production has moved from the UK to the US and it also moves to a premium cable channel (aka: only subscribers will be seeing it for a bit).

Miracle Day starts on the premise that on a particular day nobody is able to die, death simply doesn't happen for anybody. The CIA then ends up getting in touch with the Torchwood crew to help them investigate.

 
I can not see the Torchwood Trailer I am geting:

The uploader has not made this video available in your country.
Sorry about that.

So wen is Torchwood going to be available to the UK?
 
I can not see the Torchwood Trailer I am geting:

The uploader has not made this video available in your country.
Sorry about that.

So wen is Torchwood going to be available to the UK?
Wow, it is usually the reverse... US surfers not able to view UK clips because of copyright reasons (usually BBC).

I am not sure when or if the new season will make its way to the UK. With Starz producing it the rights get a little complicated. At least for me I'll be waiting for it to hit DVD or Netflix since I won't pay for "premium" cable channels.
 
Just finished watching this episode. It was a bit "talkie" for far too long. The guy they try to "kill" in the lab was a scary scene that many people really don't need to watch :smiley:
 

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