Torchwood

[fairyd123]

Is anybody else finding Torchwood unbelievably frustrating? The potential is there but they're just not living up to it. Tonight's episode bored me to tears. They've got the time period and the leeway to produce something exciting and innovative and instead we keep getting rather dull, poorly written and very deriative episodes. Cannibal villagers, sex crazed aliens, mind reading - done to death over the course of a million and one sci-fi shows and I'm way to jaded to consider girl on girl kissing exciting, envelope pushing television.

How many more times can they shoot John Barrowman posing iconically on a rooftop before the entire enterprise lapses into parody? The writing is a serious let down. They were supposed to be writing Doctor Who for adults and instead we have a weird mix of creaking old sci-fi storylines sitting very uneasily with sex driven storylines. And somebody give John Barrowman more than 6 lines for christ's sake!

So far its been incredibly disappointing - and I'm not holding out a lot of hope that its going to improve any time soon.

Comments

[lea724.livejournal.com]

I had been planning on starting Torchwood once I finished the DW episodes I hadn't seen, but I haven't been hearing very good things about T. at all. :(

[fairyd123.livejournal.com]

I think the problem is that with the exception of one episode which directly linked into Dr. Who the rest of the episodes have used plotlines so ancient you can practically see the cobwebs on them. The show is horribly deriative but it tries to hide that by adding sex, violence and a lot of same sex pairings. Which sounds great in theory but has been surprisingly dull in execution. Jack was more saucy and exciting when he was airing in a 7:00 p.m. timeslot on Doctor Who. He's now got his own show and the timeslot to be as risque as hell but the character actually comes across as quite straight laced. Barrowman isn't being utilised enough and half of the cast (Toshi and Ianto) are dead weight.

Its frustrating because they have the freedom to do whatever they want and produce sexy gorey exciting suspenseful tv but so far its been kinda blah. The first season of Doctor Who was superbly written, the second season wasn't as well written but had its moments. All of Torchwood's episodes are on par with the Ok episodes of Doctor Who - episodes like The Idiots Lantern and the werewolf ep - a mildly entertaining way to spend 45 minutes but nothing to write home about. Which is irritating as it has the potential to be great. I won't be surprised if it doesn't get another season - the ratings are quite good (its on a tiny digital channel over here) but critically its been fairly derided.

[lea724.livejournal.com]

a mildly entertaining way to spend 45 minutes but nothing to write home about.

I have to say I'm disappointed. I had had high hopes for the spin-off to be good. :(

I guess I'll check out the first episode or so and see how I feel.

[wenchpixie]

I'm actually really enjoying it - ok there are some derivative bits and pieces in it and they're playing up to the "we're past the watershed" a little much, but on the whole it's pretty good. I'm liking that Jack's very hard line and quite able to make the decision to kill things, lacking in (human) sentimentality.

I'm also liking that the episodes have been from PoVs other than Jack's - mostly Gwen's, although the change to Tosh's tonight was interesting.

I can see where people won't be gelling with it, but I'm firmly on the side of a win for team Torchwood I think.

[fairyd123.livejournal.com]

I like Jack's hardline approach and am down with the sex and violence but I'm just not that impressed with the whole package. I like Jack, like Gwen and was surprised at how quickly Owen grew on him. I find Ianto and Tosh to be deadweight but that's just me. It just pains me that I found myself saying "god this is dull" out loud during today's ep. I spoke to my father earlier (world's biggest Doctor Who fan - he raised me on the show) and he thinks the show is dire -its very much amateur night as far as he's concerned. They've got the makings of an engaging cast and a great concept but so far I just think the writing is pretty poor. It's as deriative as Supernatural but in Supernatural J squared's chemistry hides a multitude of sins. Torchwood doesn't seem to have anything to hide behind - and to me anyway the cracks are showing.

[astrothsknot.livejournal.com]

And the cannibal villages was a hint at how good TW could be, but still. Gwen bugged the shit out of me in that ep. I was shouting at the telly when she leaning towards the head hillbilly convinced he was going to bite her ear off.

This could have been so good and it's been so...not. I've let my son see some eps and he's loved them. I think that's the problem. They shouldn't be writing at my 11yo's level.

[astrothsknot.livejournal.com]

It's like instead of looking at what SF can be, thought-provoking, insightful, action-packed, they've just looked at all the cliches, figured they've got a niche audience who'll swallow any shit and worse than that, a stereotypical audience who want stereotypical things and chucked that at us, so anyone wanting anything else they can't deal with it, because they just don't seem to get that SF viewers actually aren't stupid and come from all walks of life.

I can't see it apealing to non-SF fans.

I get this all the time as gamer. Sad, really.