Originally posted by Alan
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Couldn't agree more, It was just too drawn out. I honestly believe that in the season 1/2 days of torchwood that the entire series 4 could have been condensed into a good decent 2 part series clifhanger.sigpic -
Sci-Fi can have any form it wants. That's the beauty of Sci-Fi, it must always have a secondary genre. So it was a conspiracy thriller sci-fi rather than an action sci-fi. Doesn't make it less Sci-Fi.Originally posted by Alan View Post
"Five Rounds Rapid"
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Indeed. It just was padded out and draaaaaaaaaaaged. Children of Earth was short and punchy and those 5-days back in 2009 were some of the best I've seen. I couldn't wait for the next episode.Originally posted by Vashta_Nerada View Post
Miracle Day I found tuning in every week to be a chore and found myself wanting the conclusion to be sooner rather than later. I think its only the fact that I'm a fan of the Whoniverse and Torchwood and Jack and Gwen that kept me tuning in every week. I hate writing that but it is how I felt. If the Miracle Day-type of storytelling is the format for future Torchwood series...I don't want to know. And its sad to write that.
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Yeah, Just really hope they get it back on track when/if they make a new season. Regardless even if it is going to be like series 4 i am going to have to watch at least 2 episodes otherwise i wouldn't know if its like series 4 or not, and by that point it would be too late and I would have to watch the rest of it anyway.Originally posted by Alan View PostIndeed. It just was padded out and draaaaaaaaaaaged. Children of Earth was short and punchy and those 5-days back in 2009 were some of the best I've seen. I couldn't wait for the next episode.
Miracle Day I found tuning in every week to be a chore and found myself wanting the conclusion to be sooner rather than later. I think its only the fact that I'm a fan of the Whoniverse and Torchwood and Jack and Gwen that kept me tuning in every week. I hate writing that but it is how I felt. If the Miracle Day-type of storytelling is the format for future Torchwood series...I don't want to know. And its sad to write that.
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Good point and your use ofOriginally posted by Vashta_Nerada View PostYeah, Just really hope they get it back on track when/if they make a new season. Regardless even if it is going to be like series 4 i am going to have to watch at least 2 episodes otherwise i wouldn't know if its like series 4 or not, and by that point it would be too late and I would have to watch the rest of it anyway. is well justified. Quite a dilemma.
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Torchwood: Series 5 “In Limbo”
November 5th, 2011
John Barrowman has given an update on the future of Torchwood, and it’s not looking good.
Barrowman says the show is in a state of limbo at the moment with no sign of movement.
Asked if the show will return again for a fifth series, he said, “If there’s a pause button, we’ve pushed the pause button now because we don’t know what’s happening.”
He added: “I would love to do a new series and I will play Captain Jack as long as they want me to play Captain Jack, but it’s in limbo at the moment and beyond my control.”
So it appears that any hopes for another series any time soon are slim.
Link to original article here: http://doctorwhotv.co.uk/torchwood-s...imbo-27692.htm
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http://doctorwhotv.co.uk/owen-myles-...ture-28064.htm
Seems a Torchwood movie or special may be on the cards...
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Don't get hopes up. That's what Eve Myles and Kai Owen would LIKE to see happen. What the actors want and what the BBC and Russell T. Davis and any other PTB want are a totally different thing all together and at the end of it all...it does all come down to TPTB.Originally posted by Teddybrown View Post
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HMV Announce Torchwood Signing Event
Submitted by Pip Ellwood on Mon, 11/14/2011 - 13:35
Fans of the hit BBC One series Torchwood get the chance to meet stars John Barrowman and Eve Myles, in person, when they visit HMV's flagship Oxford Street store in London's West End for a signing session on Tuesday 29th November 2011.
To celebrate the release of Torchwood: Miracle Day Series 4- out today on DVD and Blu-ray - John and Eve will be at the store from 6pm to meet fans and sign copies.
Torchwood: Miracle Day stars John Barrowman (Doctor Who) and Eve Myles (Little Dorrit), who are joined by an all-star cast including Bill Pullman (Independence Day), Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under) and Mekhi Phifer (ER).
When convicted child killer Oswald Danes (Bill Pullman) miraculously survives his own execution, the footage holds America transfixed. At the same time, people all over the world stop dying. Day after day, the phenomenon continues. And a secret British institution named Torchwood seems to hold the answers... CIA agents Rex Matheson (Mekhi Phifer, ER) and Esther Drummond investigate the only two surviving members of the team - Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles), who has retreated to a remote Welsh hideaway with her husband and new baby, and the mysterious, brilliant Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman). But they soon find themselves on the same side, fighting the greatest threat to humanity ever known - humanity itself.
Earth is filling up, fast. Resources are running out. And as history has shown, bad things happen when good people get desperate.
Due to limited time available the event will be wristbanded. 300 wristbands will be issued on a first-come, first-served basis on the day of the event from 8.30am from the HMV 150 Oxford Street, London store.
Link to original article here: http://www.entertainment-focus.com/n...-signing-event
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Torchwood: Miracle Day DVD review
James Peaty
Russell T Davies’ sci-fi series Torchwood goes transatlantic for Miracle Day, out now on DVD. Here’s James’ review...
Published on Nov 15, 2011
“Everything has its time and everything dies.”
If ever a line of dialogue encapsulated the ethos of an entire era, those words, from the episode The End Of The World, probably sum up most succinctly what Russell T Davies’ Doctor Who was all about. An almost five-year long meditation on grief, loss and loneliness masquerading as a frothy, Saturday night slice of escapism, Davies’ Who stands as one of the finest examples of populist storytelling during the last decade.
And then there was Torchwood.
Until its third series, when the show was reformatted as a five-part, self-contained BBC One serial, it would be fair to say that the ‘adult’ Who spin-off – fronted by John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness and Eve Myles as Gwen Cooper – had been something of a mixed bag.
However, the brilliantly executed Torchwood: Children Of Earth changed all that. Clearly designed as an ending (of sorts) for the show, the serial’s intense, Nigel Kneale-style chills enthralled viewers, delivering both stellar ratings and the series’ first real wave of critical praise. It seemed that, finally, Torchwood had stepped out of the shadow of its parent show. With both Davies and fellow exec producer Julie Gardner moving to the USA to take up positions with BBC Worldwide Productions, it wasn’t long before a fourth run of the series was commissioned.
However, this time, while there would be a significant uptick in the show’s budget, there would also be a US premium cable channel as a co-production partner, and a shift in location from Britain to America. The fruit of this co-production deal is Torchwood: Miracle Day, which, while delivering a more lavish production than previous incarnations of the show, doesn’t manage to maintain the quality of Children Of Earth.
Which isn’t to say that Miracle Day is without merit, far from it, but it does feel like many of the lessons learned during Children Of Earth haven’t quite made the journey across the Atlantic intact. Seemingly conceived as something approaching both a franchise reboot and a continuation, Miracle Day follows the intriguing central idea of what happens to human society when everyone on Earth mysteriously stops dying.
However, intriguing ideas don’t necessarily make for engaging drama, and one of the main issues Miracle Day faces right from the start is that the Torchwood team is ‘fighting’ something (the absence of death) that is essentially intangible.
That being the case, how do you then make this seemingly amorphous idea both present and threatening?
In all honesty, I’m not sure whether Davies and his team ever come up with an effective answer to this and, as a result, the first few episodes are full of scenes bombarding us with facts about how dangerous this ‘miracle’ is for the world.
Repeatedly, we’re informed that people aren’t dying, intensive care units are overflowing, the world faces imminent resource collapse inside four months… and yet none of it makes the slightest impression. However, what does make an impression is the sight of a virtually barbecued ‘corpse’ that’s somehow still alive, a CIA agent surviving impalement on a metal pole, and a convicted paedophile surviving lethal injection.
Unfortunately, all three of those images appear in the first episode, and there’s very little in the following nine hours that comes close to achieving a similar, visceral impact. Another problem, especially in the first half of the series, is that by relocating the show to America, Davies is forced to spend an inordinate amount of time having to re-establish the basis of Torchwood, both as a concept and a group of characters.
As a result, the first episode is split in a number of different directions and never really comes together in a particularly satisfying manner. Certainly there are some effective set pieces and striking moments in the episode, but it almost feels like the checklist of story and series requirements has robbed Davies’ writing of its usual rhythm and clarity.
He’s certainly not helped by the distinctively different tone and execution of the material shot in Wales as opposed to that shot by the American crews. This is at its most apparent during the first episode, where the ratio of Welsh and US scenes is roughly 50-50.
The scenes in Wales, shot by a production team who’ve worked on the show since the start, feel like they belong in Torchwood. In contrast, the American-shot material has a look and feel that is both broader and more generic. This lessens as the season progresses, but it’s noticeable in certain scenes and even draws comment from both Davies and Gardner in the accompanying DVD commentary.
Despite the issues that recur during the first half of the series, there are definite high points. Myles (alongside Kai Owen as husband Rhys) is on top form throughout, while Barrowman, although somewhat more peripheral in the first few episodes, delivers some of his finest material as the show finds its feet in the second half of the season.
Of the American cast, both Mekhi Phifer as CIA agent Rex Matheson, Arlene Tur as Dr Vera Jurez and Alexa Havins as CIA analyst Esther Drummond give strong performances, which manage to be both distinctive and complementary to those given by Barrowman and Myles. Faring slightly less well, though still offering strong support, are Bill Pullman and Lauren Ambrose as the oddly matched pairing of paedophile Oswald Danes and PR girl Jilly Kitzinger.
While these two characters never fully deliver on the promise of their early appearances, Pullman and Ambrose are never less than fully committed in their performances and always deliver something more interesting than you’d expect.
However, despite the fun of their performances, it’s actually when Oswald and Jilly are sidelined during episodes seven and eight that the story and the show itself really starts to shift into focus.
Episode seven in particular, which is set in both the 1920s and 2011, contains John Barrowman and Eve Myles’ finest performances in the show. Both a touching love story and a savage indictment of both Jack and Gwen, it’s arguably as strong an episode as Torchwood has ever delivered. Ironically, it’s also the one episode in the series that overtly embraces the show’s connection to Doctor Who and that broader universe, a connection that at times it seems almost embarrassed to admit.
Although episode eight is something of a ‘bottle show’, it still manages to introduce both John De Lancie’s enjoyably rude CIA chief and move most of the story pieces into place as the show hurtles towards its finale.
And it’s in those final two episodes that the series finally manages to find some sort of balance in this new transatlantic context. Unlike the choppiness of episode one, in these last episodes the cutting between story strands set in Wales, Latin America and Shanghai is seamless, with the tone, performances and look of the show blending together perfectly.
As for where the story goes in these final two hours, there have been many complaints about both the cause of the miracle and its solution and, while it may infuriate some, I found it to be an effective and honest conclusion to the story.
Certainly the ultimate end of the series, which ends on one of Davies’ patented "What? What?!? What?!?" notes, is both cheeky and just a touch silly, but it leaves room for future adventures featuring the Torchwood team.
As I said at the start of this review: "Everything has its time and everything dies." However, in the weird and wonderful world of Russell T Davies, the one caveat to that statement appears to be Torchwood.
Because of that, don’t bet against the show making one more comeback somewhere down the line.
Disc
The DVD extras for Miracle Day are of variable quality. Torchwood: Web Of Lies is the complete ‘motion comic’ which was released online in the US as a companion to the show. It’s perhaps most notable for featuring former Buffy actress Eliza Dushku as the main voice artist.
In addition, there are brief character intros for new viewers, one-minute introductions for each episode by Davies and Barrowman and a seven-minute selection of deleted scenes.
Of more interest is a 30-minute Making of… documentary which is entertaining, but fairly unrevealing as it mainly focuses on the Welsh shoot that occurred early in the production schedule. Similarly, the special effects featurette takes an all too brief look behind the scenes of how certain key sequences were executed.
Despite the somewhat lackluster quality of the other extras, the commentary tracks attached to both the first and final episodes of the series are another matter entirely. Featuring both Davies and Gardner, the two tracks find the normally upbeat production duo in a far more critical and reflective mood than we’re used to.
Hinting at numerous production problems along the way, Davies and Gardner prod and poke at aspects of the finished episodes that they aren’t too keen on, while openly questioning their own decisions and those of the execs above them. Essential listening.
Episodes: 3 stars
Disc: 3 stars
Link to original article here: http://www.denofgeek.com/Reviews/113...vd_review.html
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Nah, not that short. Not even close.Originally posted by Vashta_Nerada View Post
But it surely didn't need to be 10 episodes. If they had done as with CoE and done it in five over a week, it would've been spectacular though."A society grows great when old men plant trees, the shade of which they know they will never sit in. Good people do things for other people. That's it, the end." -- Penelope Wilton in Ricky Gervais's After LifeComment
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http://doctorwhotv.co.uk/doctor-who-...rlin-29624.htm
John Barrowman and Eve Myles are nominated in the best male/female categories of the NTAs. Comment
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Torchwood nominated for GLAAD Award
Thursday, January 19, 2012 - Posted by Chuck Foster
Torchwood: Miracle Day has been nominated in the Outstanding Drama Series category of the 23rd Annual GLAAD Awards. The Starz series is up against Degrassi (TeenNick), Grey's Anatomy (ABC), Pretty Little Liars (ABC Family), Shameless (Showtime).
The GLAAD Media Awards honor outstanding media images of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community that inspire change. The GLAAD Media Awards serve as a benchmark for the media industry and complement GLAAD’s work to bring LGBT images and stories to Americans.
The Awards ceremonies take place at the Marriott Marquis (New York, 24 Mar), the Westin Bonadventure (Los Angeles, 21 Apr), and at the Marriott Marquis (San Francisco, 2 Jun).
Link to original article here: http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2012/01...nated-for.html
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I loved Miracle Day. Maybe it was the action scenes that kept my attention span, maybe it's because I love shows like Spooks and 24, maybe it was because that guy that played Q was in it, maybe it was the fact Torchwood was back after so many years or maybe it was the drugs in my system that made everything just brilliant.
Whatever it was I loved the series and every week I'd be glued to the TV screen in such a way I hadn't done since LOST or maybe Stargate Atlantis.
I love RTD too and just to have a show that he was a head writer on be back on TV was just so great.
It seemed to do very well in Australia.My post for Gate World: An Autistic's take on Sci-FiComment
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