Children of Earth vs. Miracle Day : Compare, Contrast, Discuss

[itsmeyousee]

 

 

 The idea that the rest of the world would just "go along with it" was absurd.  As a friend of mine said, "Putting children in transport and taking them to certain torture and death by the thousands?  I don't want to be the one calling Israel with this suggestion."

I thought the idea worked a lot better in COE than MD where all the Governments built furnaces to get rid of the dead population and they were built really fast and organised really fast. Which suggested to me that most Governments had plans in place already in MD

 

And the choice  in COE was themselves or the dead beat kids and they chose kids that they thought wouldn't amount to anything anyway. And those supposed dead beat kids were represented as adults by Ianto, showing just how wrong the Government was/is with their own judgements. But i believe that any Politican in power would in fact save themselves first and then try and spin it for the greater good.

 

The global idea just worked 1000 times better for me in COE at least it seemed to be truly global with the inclusion of Unit and they are the global Alien force not TW. Not saying COE didn't have problems but comparing with MD , since that is also one long global story told in a episodic manner it seemed much more TW than MD did.

[Dizzy76]

For me, it's kind of an issue of two wrongs don't make a right (Not sure if that makes sense but just go with it).  COE may have executed the governmental aspect a bit better than MD but it was still bad.  Like Swansong was saying about the alien setup, I could have overlooked the way one aspect of COE was handled (i.e. the governmental aspect) if a ton of other elements had been executed better than they were.  Adding them all up together just makes the entire thing too much to take/overlook. 

[Captanne]

There are a couple of other differences between the two threats.  One was an alien asking for something valuable to and beloved of humanity -- its children.  It's a blackmail situation:  Give me what I want or I will kill you.  That simple.

 

The Giant Vagina's situation was an external effect that impacted every human being immediately.  There was no blackmail; no threat in the offing.  First of all, it wasn't a threat -- it was a gift.  It was an obvious gift -- mankind is constantly seeking the answer to death.  Major religions are based on that very quest.  This is a fundamental "miracle" at its most basic.  Also, there was no blackmail.  No, "We're going to threaten you until you do some dreadful thing for us."

 

It's two completely polar opposite effects.

 

One is blackmail.

 

The other is supposed to be the perfect gift.  The answer to all of mankind's great questions.  It's misguided -- and that's what causes the problem.  The miracle is ill-thought out and what becomes the problem is how mankind attempts to deal with the unexpected ramifications.

 

But the issue isn't held over mankind until they are forced to do something.  The gift is readily given to each human being.  There is no force.  

Edited July 30, 2014 by Captanne

[itsmeyousee]

But MD was a treat , just not an external one. It was done by the "Families" and since they were the baddies and mentioned that it was Plan A and they would now go to Plan B. I'm guessing they wanted something out it, money , remake the world into their own utopia, or whatever. I don't think that part was very clear LOL Just like how it was now all about Jack's blood and Rex not staying dead was equally unclear or why the Governments around the world all had the same plan to deal with the dead and how they all acted so fast with it. None of it was very clear LOL

 

At least COE was pretty clear on what was wanted and why the alien wanted the kids. And the time constraint that was there making the Governments have to act, whether or not what was done was good or not, wasn't really my point. I just think COE made it believable that this was happening globally and everyone was involved with it being thrust upon them. And the UK Government were trying to cover their own arses, thinking they could control what was happening but couldn't.

 

And using children was meant to be horrific and killing Steven to save the rest of the worlds children and the Governments taking care of themselves, and how they see the poorer or bottom side of society as despensible. It wasn't an uplifting story or a happy ending, I mean everything about TW got destroyed and Jack left. But it made more sense as a story on a global setting than MD did to me.

 

 

[indeed]

The global threats are both crap. It's just that COE was better at hiding the flaws. If Torchwood ever comes back, please no global event in a limited/special series. Enough already.

Edited July 31, 2014 by indeed

[April Bloodgate]

I definitely agree with what @Swansong and @Captanne said about major things not making sense or just being left unexplained about the aliens. And several of you have made some really valid points about logical problems with the way the government handled the situation. I definitely wouldn't rewatch this, but I enjoyed it in the moment.

Edited July 30, 2014 by Denay

[Luckylyn]

I think that COE benefited from having less episodes than MD.  COE is more cohesive and sells the sense of urgency while MD doesn't for me.

[Chip]

A topic for comparing the two series. Assumption is that anyone has seen all Torchwood to date so spoilers are of no concern.

[Captanne]

Good points, all.

 

Personally, I think RTD was making more of a point about the ultimate corruption of mankind who, even when offered eternal life, turn that gift into Nazi Germany.  I think that was his point.  Give us ice cream every day for the rest of our lives and we'll start killing off fat people in camps because they are a drain on the social medicine system.  (IOW, we are immature children and immature children are more than capable of pulling the wings off butterflies.)

 

It's a trope of the first order and he does it ham-fistedly.  Both "villains" were awful.  And by that I mean -- poorly depicted.  Not "frightening".

 

Lastly, I see your point Mousey, that the Families are the enemy but I was never convinced of that. I think they are just part of the human problem.  The Giant Vagina's "gift" that goes horribly wrong by how humanity responds is the problem.  I'm not sure MD had a real villain other than the fact that RTD thinks humanity is rotten to the very roots.

 

ETA:  "Mousey" is a nickname I gave itsmeyousee years ago over on TWoP when I misread her screen name.  I simply am used to it now.  :-)  She said she doesn't mind -- right, Mousey?

 

EETA:  Thank you, Chip!  

 

E3TA:  Hi, Denay!

Edited July 30, 2014 by Captanne

[indeed]

I don't consider turning the whole world immortal when no one knew what that really entailed a gift. It would be different if everyone knew what was going to happen and could adjust accordingly. Or what swansong said below.

Edited July 30, 2014 by indeed

[Swansong]

Both COE and MD suck at situating these threats on a worldwide level, but I agree that COE perhaps sucks a little less at it because its shorter and the production is much more stream-lined. Having said that I think making the threat global in COE made the situation far less believable than it needed to be. And since they were never really going to attempt to show a global response because of the limits of the production it seemed a bit of a redundant gimmick in the end. I don't think having the threat focused solely as a UK threat would have made the story any less dramatic since that's where all the action happens anyway. It was never going to be particularly believable that every government would respond in the exact same way even if they wanted to because not all countries are remotely equal and that's a pretty significant fact about our world. Or that, for instance, the US would take orders from the UK or whatever they were trying to sell.  And since they have the aliens supposedly studying and regurgitating actual real world facts that makes that harder for me to ignore. But even taking any attempt at realism out of it and presuming that Doctor Who has its own set of world rules it still didn't make sense because the whoverse, particularly under RTD's reign, is a world that deals with worldwide alien threats on a regular basis and yet COE seems to be happening in a world where that isn't really true. They kind of pay lip service to UNIT's existence, but we're basically left to believe that for the five days this is going on, while the government is busy inexplicably trying to kill off not only all Torchwood's personnel, but all its resources too, UNIT are apparently passively twiddling their thumbs. Not to mention you have to also ignore other potential resources like Sarah Jane and her trusty computer, Martha and her access to the Doctor (well with her you have to pretend she's honeymooning on some island with no children or media access and so misses the whole five days) even though Torchwood are stripped of their own resources and know these people thanks to their own apperances on Doctor Who. (I'm also amused at the suggestion that despite working at Torchwood all that time and being a leader for almost a decade the only useful contact at UNIT the supposedly charming, charismatic Jack has been able to cultivate in all that time is Martha, a woman he only recently met). And then after all that it apparently takes two minutes to solve the problem and for the world to go back to normal. And then in MD they don't even have the world particularly remember this, or any other alien threat for that matter, happened. Why is Esther, a person whose job requires her to be observant, still ignorant about the idea of aliens? I mean it was bad enough when they did this with Gwen, but by s4 they really needed to playing a new song.

 

RTD seems to have a pretty one-track mind when it comes to world issues. Governments are evil and all officials become Nazis and everyone else, except our trusty heroes (and the occasional hero-adjacent person) are passive and never really curious about what's going on. And when it's all over, no matter how significant the threat, everyone just magically forgets it ever happened. This is particularly absurd in MD where literally everyone on some level is bound to be affected by the 'miracle' and the world destruction it supposedly wreaks. Gwen, supposedly one of the world's most wanted, can travel back and forth between the UK and US by plane as she wants despite the world going to hell. And even when she commits what would be considered a very public act of terrorism the only blowback for her and her family is the ridiculous kidnapping by some random people that doesn't even have much of a point in the end. And then, despite the destruction to governments and societies in the end everything just magically goes back to more or less normal. I mean why even make these threats global if the consequences are just going to be so negligible in the end?

 

I think the idea of the miracle as a gift that just happens one day inexplicably and happens to have these horrible side-effects despite trying to do something good for the world would have been a lot more interesting as a plot than what we got.  But that's not what happens. The 'families', who apparently already control the world, pour Jack's blood into some magic making hole deliberately so they can make the whole world immortal, so they can destroy the world so that they can create some sort of fascist society in its wake and control the world. Or whatever. And they can apparently turn it on and off as they choose. It is pretty much Torchwood style absurdly over the top, unnecessarily convoluted villainy at its not so finest. The miracle is a means to an end not the end itself more's the pity.

Edited July 30, 2014 by Swansong

[itsmeyousee]

Good points, all.

 

 

Lastly, I see your point Mousey, that the Families are the enemy but I was never convinced of that. I think they are just part of the human problem.  The Giant Vagina's "gift" that goes horribly wrong by how humanity responds is the problem.  I'm not sure MD had a real villain other than the fact that RTD thinks humanity is rotten to the very roots.

 

ETA:  "Mousey" is a nickname I gave itsmeyousee years ago over on TWoP when I misread her screen name.  I simply am used to it now.  :-)  She said she doesn't mind -- right, Mousey?

 

 

 

I don't mind in the slightest, wish i had thought of the name, i quite like it LOL

 

I'm confused cause i thought now i have only watched the one time MD was aired and never never again will i watch any part of that. But i thought much like Swansong mentioned that "the Families" did it. This was Plan A, pour some of Jack's immortal blood from both sides of the earth in the Big V and that turns everyone else immortal like Jack but Jack already being that way went mortal. So Jack and Rex reversed it by pouring in Jack's now mortal blood, the end except for the Rex part.

 

What the end goal was in MD ? No bloody idea in the world. But COE i knew what the end goal was, druggy aliens wanted a fix, simple easy. Now the fix was kids so horrifying and they wanted a shit load, so i don't know maybe one for each alien back home who knows. But the druggy alien still had their kid from 1965 so it can keep going. Governments save their own arses first and give in with time constraints but still hand over what they think are the dead beats in their society and no offense meant but once again simple easy.. Now would some countries fight for their kids who knows, Jack saved the day ( with a teriible price) but no kids got taken aside from the poor buggers in 1965.

 

Back to MD no time time constraints yet in the time it took Jack and friends to cross the USA camps were built, furnaces built, people employed to incinerate the excess Dead people and not just in America but World Wide why ? Why does the whole bloody world come up and excute the same plan ? that made no sense what so ever to me.

 

And in reference to what was the supposed nazi feel or whatever, cause i'm not getting it to be honest. If RTD was warning the world that it could happen again. I'm sorry but he did a really bad job of it. What i got was badly used history and disrepectfully used history for a cheap horror story that didn't work. We got no new insight into religion except what anyone can be made into a cult leader check out our child raping muderer, see what great PR can do. What lessons i am supposed to be learning ? Some people are whack jobs

 

I'm not saying that COE didn't have problems, every TW story has problems and WTF moments LOL But on a global scale the story of COE made much more sense tha MD did for me

[Captanne]

IIRC, the Giant Vagina gave mankind immortality.  The Families figured it out and started banking on it.  (Corrupt humans, remember.)

 

I consider the Giant Vagina's immortality a misguided gift.  "Cake every day for the rest of your life" can be a wonderful surprise gift to a 5 year old.  As long as the 5 year old has parents who will keep him or her from getting diabetes and morbidly obese.

 

Gifts can be surprises.  Gifts don't have to be asked for or expected.  Gifts are in the realm of the giver and their motivation.  Not the recipient.

 

To my mind, RTD's point was -- Mankind got the very answer to its prayers.  Literally.  On a cosmic scale.  "Mother Earth" (Giant Vagina) gave mankind what it prays for, again, literally.

 

And mankind is fundamentally, an evil, child-raping, concentration camp building, murdering, terrorizing 5 year old who can't handle exactly what they have been asking for for thousands of years -- either Cake every day for the rest of their lives (like my hypothetical 5 year old) or Immortality.

 

ETA:  My typing is still a bit wonky.  Left hand is weak.  Typos must be cleaned up.  LOL

 

EETA:  Swansong, while I agree with a lot of your MD points, I just think RTD's brush strokes were very broad.  I like his creativity and his grand ideas (although, by now I find them predictable) but I don't think his attention to detail or ability to weave conspiracies is very good.  I think, he said to himself "What does mankind want" and the answer is painfully obvious.  Then he said, "Let's have Mother Earth (the gentle, kind, giving goddess -- who, ironically, mankind is poisoning and boiling and fracking to death) give it to them."  Followed quickly by his signature cynicism, "Now let's watch them fuck it up."

 

At which point he called hair and makeup to design him a giant, bleeding Vagina.

 

Plain and simple.

Edited July 31, 2014 by Captanne

[Swansong]

I agree that RTD is using immortality to explore wider themes about humanity, but the miracle isn't the ultimate big bad of the story. It's just the catalyst or the gun used by the ultimate big bad, The Families, to further their agenda to destroy the world and rebuild it more to their liking which is why I presume there is a plan A (use immortality to destroy the world) and when that fails a Plan B. Without the Families guiding and manipulating things along presumably there would be no miracle in the first place. I do agree that the Miracle is a much more interesting big bad than the Families though which is why if I hadn't given up on Torchwood before that a s5 with them still around would have been enough to ensure I wouldn't be watching. 

 

I like a lot of the themes Torchwood explores, but they aren't exactly original even in terms of the plots sometimes. The sex alien plot in s1 is pretty similar to one done on The Outer Limits, which was done much better, Adam lifts a lot from the Buffy episode and The COE plot is basically the film Quatermass just with junky aliens harvesting kids for drugs instead of aliens harvesting young people for food.  Which is fine. It's fun sometimes to see how different people handle similar themes, plots, character beats. But I feel the same way about COE and MD that I feel about Torchwood as a whole. There are these interesting moments that intrigue me, but the overall whole is generally unsatisfying and feels kind of half-assed. I agree RTD can be very shoddy in terms of his sci-fi stories with the details, with continuity, but that seems especially true on Torchwood and I'm just not sure why that is. I mean RTD has always been a broad strokes, sledge-hammer approach kind of writer and he can often get more invested in the visual/ narrative set piece that looks or sounds good, but doesn't ultimately add much to the story and that's why I've never been a huge fan of his, but Torchwood even under his hand has always struck me as so much worst for that kind of shoddiness. I was far more intrigued by the plot possibilities that the whole immortality story line suggested than the one for COE, but MD was far more unwatchable than COE was and not just because it's longer.

 

I thought S3 was good end for Torchwood. I mean I would have preferred something more than Jack leaving in disgrace, everyone else dying needlessly and Gwen surviving to return to her ordinary life, but it did fit with what we got of the characters and Torchwood for better or worst up to that point and Jack's 'just watch me' before he leaves is kind of poignant.  But MD kind of reinforced the idea that they've never really known what to do with the Torchwood aspect of Torchwood, the organisation, the characters within it etc. and that the stories they apparently want to tell they can do far more effectively without it which is a bit of an unfortunate impression to give of a show's premise.

[indeed]

Which is why it's frustrating they can't/won't hand it over to people who could come up with Torchwood stories and who show an actual interest in the concept than someone who only uses the name and doesn't seem all that invested. There has to be someone out there (and no, I don't mean JB and his sister).

Edited July 31, 2014 by indeed

[Luckylyn]

I feel like Torchwood itself was just a dressing for stories RTD wanted to tell about Gwen.  I don't think he graspt the depth of storytelling the organization itself could provide.  COE felt like a finale and MD the spin off. 

 

I am still unclear about what the Families were after.  They already controlled banking, politics, and the media.  They could accomplish their goals by other means than making the whole world immortal.  I know there was a dropped subplot of the Families profiting from people needing pain mediation  since they will have to suffer endlessly from conditions that normally would have killed them.   I don't get what the human incinerators had to do with their ultimate plan. 

 

The 456 had clear goals.

[itsmeyousee]

IIRC, the Giant Vagina gave mankind immortality.  The Families figured it out and started banking on it.  (Corrupt humans, remember.)

 

 

.

This is where we differ wildly. The Big V didn't give Mankind anything. It was something supposedly natural in our enivorment that used to create what ,? never ending Dead people why ? I don't know cause the families great Plan A was confusing to say the least. LOL But The Families used Jack's immortal blood so they added to the natural to create what they wanted.

 

So that's like saying uranium was giving the Governments in the 40's the ultimate power to take over the world or something. But someone had to come up with the idea of how to turn it into a bomb and that's what the Families do. They create the Bomb, so they are responsible, not a gift from the Big V.

 

As for RTD and his story telling, i'm not a fan. He is very good at ideas, very bad at pacing. He takes far too long to get to the climax then wraps everything up within a minute. He is also too main character heavy and forgets that the minor characters have a role, they have to have their own journey aside from supporting the Main characters.

 

But i also think that jump in time for a quick wrap up worked in COE. We don't need to see Jack grieve any more than we do. Jack came back for his team and TW but that's all gone, even Gwen to an extent. So Jack supposedly went back to the stars, where he came from. Which made sense to me, after being stuck on Earth waiting for the Doctor, losing everything why would he stay ?

 

Unlike MD and Mortal Jack, remember mortal Jack getting shot bleeding out stuck in the middle of the desert. Jump forward 2 months later and Jack's not dead, yet he still isn't healed how the F is that possible ?. And how does he travel to Scotland while bleeding everywhere ? Poor Tosh could only make it down the stairs and she fell half of that way and she was mortal

[Swansong]

And he's routinely being drained of his blood by someone with no medical training to a dangerous level. I get that shows aren't always good with this stuff and Torchwood was particularly bad, but being mortal and the limitations it places on him now is a fundamental point of his story in MD so you'd think they'd try to be as true to that as possible.

 

 

But i also think that jump in time for a quick wrap up worked in COE. We don't need to see Jack grieve any more than we do. Jack came back for his team and TW but that's all gone, even Gwen to an extent. So Jack supposedly went back to the stars, where he came from. Which made sense to me, after being stuck on Earth waiting for the Doctor, losing everything why would he stay ?

I think it works if you ignore the fact that most of COE's focus is on the politicians and this supposedly horrible decision they make to the point of sending the army in to schools and homes to kidnap children. And then we get to the end and that's quickly wrapped up and seemingly forgotten. I know he likes to rely on the world just forgetting these big events, but I'm not sure the world is as quite as forgetful as he likes to pretend. Especially when they're directly impacted. And then he pretty much does the same thing with MD in an even more unlikely scenario.

And he's routinely being drained of his blood by someone with no medical training to a dangerous level. I get that shows aren't always good with this stuff and Torchwood was particularly bad, but being mortal and the limitations it places on him now is a fundamental point of his story in MD so you'd think they'd try to be as true to that as possible.

 

 

But i also think that jump in time for a quick wrap up worked in COE. We don't need to see Jack grieve any more than we do. Jack came back for his team and TW but that's all gone, even Gwen to an extent. So Jack supposedly went back to the stars, where he came from. Which made sense to me, after being stuck on Earth waiting for the Doctor, losing everything why would he stay ?

I think it works if you ignore the fact that most of COE's focus is on the politicians and this supposedly horrible decision they make to the point of sending the army in to schools and homes to kidnap children. And then we get to the end and that's quickly wrapped up and seemingly forgotten. I know he likes to rely on the world just forgetting these big events, but I'm not sure the world is as quite as forgetful as he likes to pretend. Especially when they're directly impacted. And then he pretty much does the same thing with MD in an even more unlikely scenario.

[itsmeyousee]

I thought Jack's statement that the world is like a graveyard was sorta addressing that there is no instant spring back from those events in COE, even if we didn't see it

 

Makse you wonder even more about Rex and Esther and why they were shocked about aliens LOL Must have been on holidays that week

[Swansong]

 

I thought Jack's statement that the world is like a graveyard was sorta addressing that there is no instant spring back from those events in COE, even if we didn't see it

I thought that was more a comment on his personal state of mind, that with all the deaths he'd experienced that's all he could see now and he couldn't escape it no matter how far away he got. I didn't really see it as a comment on actual events beyond his own personal involvement.

 

 

Makse you wonder even more about Rex and Esther and why they were shocked about aliens LOL Must have been on holidays that week

They were probably on that island Martha went to each time a worldwide alien invasion happened. 

[itsmeyousee]

I thought that was more a comment on his personal state of mind, that with all the deaths he'd experienced that's all he could see now and he couldn't escape it no matter how far away he got. I didn't really see it as a comment on actual events beyond his own personal involvement.

 

They were probably on that island Martha went to each time a worldwide alien invasion happened. 

I thought the graveyard part was about Jack and the world but the dirt on his shoes was the wholey personal part for Jack.

 

I wonder how big the Island is, it seems like lots of people like to go there when world wide events happen LOL

[Swansong]

 

I thought the graveyard part was about Jack 

I just took it as a metaphor for his state of mind to emphasize how deep his grief and guilt goes to the point that pretty much everywhere he goes all he sees is the deaths he's caused. Hence why the planet feels so small.He can't escape himself. I don't think he meant he's literally seeing graves everywhere. The nod to the fallout seems to be the PM losing his job and that woman who said they should give away other people's children taking over.

 

 

I wonder how big the Island is

 

And how isolated because whatever is going on in the world never seems to touch there.

 

I think it's so weird with people like Gwen and Rex and Esther because they're in jobs where you're supposed to be observant and aware and in both Gwen and Esther's case the suggestion is that even more than the people around them they're supposed to be curious and tenacious and not necessarily people who just accept the party line and yet they show no real awareness of things that even an ordinary, less critical person would have a hard time ignoring. Until Jack tells them about it of course.

[itsmeyousee]

Or in Gwens case the lady at the lights knew all about "Bloody Torchwood" obviously Gwen never did any speed traps as a PC, i would think most of the Cardiff Police Force would have clocked the SUV at some stage LOL.

 

They should have learnt from Gwen and written Esther more like Lois in COE, who was refreshingly non plussed about the Alien part and more worried about the commiting treason cause her government sucks part.

 

 

I didn't mean that the world was literally a graveyard and i get that is was about Jack and his grief but i did think the graveyard part had a double meaning one Jack , two the world and then the dirt part was just Jack.

[John Potts]

One of the advantages of taking a global perspective is that you can see how different governments deal with the same issue - but apparently, in RTD's mind, all governments are equally evil and come to the same (EVIL!) solution. Couldn't we see one government try something different? We could have "Nice" governments who simply tried to cater with the undying (and possibly bankrupting themselves in the process) and "nasty" governments who - well, act exactly like they did. And if all governments are equally cynical/corrupt, how come none of them considered invading somebody else and taking their children (logistically tricky given the timescale, but surely some country would try it)? It's just a failure of imagination to have every government act the same way.

[Luckylyn]

RTD does seem to have a very simple "Humans are bad especially governments" mentality in both COE and MD.  He doesn't portray the complexities that are inherent to the storylines he creates.

[indeed]

I believe RTD did say somewhere that he was going to address how at least one different country reacted (I forget the details), but they didn't have the budget (and/or time?) for it in COE. So, his solution? Just ignore it and act like everyone's on-board in a mere 24 hours (and change).

He gets twice as long and it looks like a bigger budget and he still drops the ball in MD, but at least pays more lip service to the global impacts.

[itsmeyousee]

Maybe other countries did react differently in COE and we just didn't see it. I mean Frobisher was only speaking for what about a quarter of the countries in the world if that. And there was a time constraint which i think is an important difference between COE and MD. And Jack saved the day before any kids were taken.

 

Unlike MD which went on for months and there was no reason for any unified effort. There wasn't any world wide enemy that the Governments knew about, just lots of dead people not staying dead

[Swansong]

 

Maybe other countries did react differently in COE and we just didn't see it. I mean Frobisher was only speaking for what about a quarter of the countries in the world if that. And there was a time constraint which i think is an important difference between COE and MD.

We're told the aliens aren't willing to negotiate and will destroy the world if they don't get all the children they ask for. We're even given a scene where they try to negotiate the numbers down and it fails. So if we're supposed to believe that other countries are refusing to go along that's a pretty significant point that needs to be made on screen because really Britain handing over all those children to the aliens only works if every other country does as well. Otherwise all that effort, storming into homes and schools etc., is a bit pointless if the point is to avoid the aliens attacking them because other countries refusing ensures they're going to be attacked anyway.  Plus it's a show. If you don't show it or acknowledge it in anyway on screen then it may as well have not happened. But mostly I don't really the point in deciding you want to write particular kinds of global story lines because they raise complex issues about the world and then decide to tackle them in the most simplistic,least global and least complex way possible. And moreso than MD, I don't really think COE, beyond the title of course, really needs to be set globally to work and if anything it seems to hamper their storytelling. I mean that scene where the aliens gas those people in Thames House instead of aiming for a couple of countries to show the world they mean business would have probably made more sense if it was just the UK they were threatening instead of the entire world.

 

I get that getting to film in a couple of different countries( although other than Wales and a couple of cities in America did we get to see much of any other country the characters supposedly ended up in) is fun, but if one of the main points of a story is to consider how people and governments would respond globally it seems a bit pointless to then not really explore that. And the fact that even when they do have a bigger budget and more time and a storyline that really lends itself to a global setting and they still don't bother to really tackle the global perspective more than in token ways or as a hook kind of suggests that's maybe that's not an aspect they're really interested in addressing effectively, time constraints or otherwise.

[LexiconDevilOne]

Torchwood S1 & S2 was kind of fun. Although way way too much Gwen.

 

S3 & S4...one was horrible, and the other was even worse. This show, TOTALLY, jumped the shark coming to the United States.

 

 

favorite character...Ianto Jones.

 

 

edit...grammar is important.

Edited August 3, 2014 by LexiconDevilOne

[Captanne]

Ianto Jones.  He is part of the family here at the Captanne house.  We've adopted him.

 

We need a little nefarious, impish humour in this house.

 

Oh, and we probably need an archivist, too given that between the lot of us we have MAs, JDs, and PhDs.

 

Someone to keep us on our toes 'cause .... ya just never know what's lurking in the basement.

[itsmeyousee]

The original Ianto is in COE compared with the fake Iantos in MD, so COE is automatically a 1000000 times better than MD LOL

[Captanne]

Anytime you get to see GDL is a good thing but I would argue that wasn't any such "Ianto" in CoE.  I don't know who that was but it wasn't Ianto.

 

ETA:  I'm not saying GDL wasn't doing a stellar job portraying a Pod-Ianto.  There were moments of sheer joy -- Ianto's face when Jack stormed out of the "Warehouse Set from FOOTR" (lazy location crew), and the smile when he suggested some personal time, the purple shirt in natural daylight, and the horror at Jack's disappearance and the "I'll find him at any cost -- I'll even get a backhoe and wear a terrible hat" business.

 

But that was merely a very convincing performance.

 

I have no idea where the real Ianto Jones was but he was not present in CoE.

Edited August 9, 2014 by Captanne

[itsmeyousee]

I think you think everyone was a "pod person" in COE Captanne LOL

 

I meant when they actually took Ianto parts and they had other characters doing or saying it in MD. So once again COE wins hands down for me (smiles)

[Captanne]

LOL, Mousey.  Since I don't understand Gwen anyway, I have no idea who she was.  And Owen and Tosh were already dead -- so there are really only two Pod-People I worry about.  RTD had already started his implosion of Torchwood Three.  It only took him five episodes to totally scorch the earth.

[itsmeyousee]

As you know Captanne my hatred for MD equals yours for COE, so well done RTD great way to keep viewers LOL

 

But as for the cliche about sexuality you only mentioned COE and Ianto, my question was why not also mentioned  MD ?  And you don't seem to, is that cause you don't hate MD, so you don't think about the similarities ?

 

Cause in MD it was equally as bad as COE. Jack just took Ianto place as the one to cop it. Angelo was a cliche to the max with built in excuses. And the supposed chat up between the Barman and Jack OMG i'm sure all guys wished it was that easy to pull LOL. It was truly but equally dreadful but at least COE had context with Ianto and dealing with his relationship with Jack publicly for the first time, not saying it wasn't over the top and cliched and lame, just it had context

 

And if i was slamming RTD in his cliche way of writing about a certain thing all the shows that did the same thing would be mentioned. So in SB i would have mentioned COE and MD even though as you know i don't see that scene that way and was just curious why you didn't ( smile)

[Jaded]

I watched the marathon of Torchwood that aired on BBCA a week ago. They showed seasons 1,2 and 3. I should have stopped after the 2nd season and skipped Children of Earth completely. The depression level just gets higher and higher with each of those five episodes. I was glad for it to finally be over with the last one and it's something I never want to see again. Miracle Day was the first season of Torchwood I saw and while it might not have been the best acting wise I don't remember feeling this way after watching it. I guess BBCA doesn't have rights to air Miracle Day? I can't figure out any other reason why they wouldn't have aired it too.

[Captanne]

Children of Earth sucked.  I wrote a long review of it over on the Amazon DVD boxed set page.  (I think I wrote it on the HD boxed set page -- but it might have been on the SD set page.)  I read it again sometime ago and it still held up (the review.)  If you know how to find it quickly, I think it's a pretty decent read.  I try to be fair but also am honest.  CoE had so many problems.  I can say this -- people tend to like it if it is their introduction to Torchwood.  If, however, like most of the folks here, you come to it in chronological order, it is pretty awful.  

 

I actually found Miracle Day more interesting (I am particularly fond of Jack saying, "If you turn me in, Gwen, I will tear the skin off your skull."  (I paraphrase all but the 'skin off your skull' bit.))

I made it with good cheer until the Big Earth Mother Thing was literally a Giant Vagina and then they killed off the Ianto-Standin. 

I just couldn't take it any longer.