Torchwood: Children of Earth DAY FIVE FINALE grading thread
- Thread starter Jim Steele
- Start date
I made this point somewhere else, I dont think the question of "where was the Doctor during this?" is valid given the nature of his life.
not really those are all real life events, not the case with the 456, you might as well be asking, where was Superman during the 456, should he not have done anything to help?
Let us at the very least limit the Doctor to saving the Whoverse, not the real world.
This whole "where was The Doctor" thing is tiresome. Had RTD written it so that The Doctor showed up, waved his magic screwdriver and saved the day everyone would be complaining that it was a cop out. They would have been right in that case. It would have been the biggest cop out imaginable.
Instead, we got a well written, dark piece of TV drama. The show was better for the lack of involvement of The Doctor and/or Sarah Jane.
Instead, we got a well written, dark piece of TV drama. The show was better for the lack of involvement of The Doctor and/or Sarah Jane.
Bingo - we actually have a filmed example of the Doctor deliberately choosing not to intervene and prevent catastrophe, even when it is demonstrated that it was caused by an otherworldly force.
Really the amount of ignorance the doctor has about current affairs is truly frightening.
But if he doesn't know about it, that means that later on he's allowed to change it.
Take two.
But if he doesn't know about it, that means that later on he's allowed to change it.
Take two.
Checkmate
Commodore
None of those were due to alien incursions. And for all we know, he may have been at those events. We don't know because those events haven't been addressed in the fictional universe we see on screen... yet.
But this one has.
Not that it matters since the argument I was replying to was "he was off doing something else." Which is a completely silly argument to make. Like he has some linear timeline that he has to stick to and can only be in one place at one time ever. Ridiculous.
But this one has.
Not that it matters since the argument I was replying to was "he was off doing something else." Which is a completely silly argument to make. Like he has some linear timeline that he has to stick to and can only be in one place at one time ever. Ridiculous.
Remember his timevision from the one set in Rome with Donna?
besides, back to Pyramids of Death when he stopped for a breather, travelled with Sarah Jane into the future to see what the world be like if he didn't save the day, didn't like it, and then returned to the roaring 20s to kick the shit out of those preGoul'd wannabees.
besides, back to Pyramids of Death when he stopped for a breather, travelled with Sarah Jane into the future to see what the world be like if he didn't save the day, didn't like it, and then returned to the roaring 20s to kick the shit out of those preGoul'd wannabees.
He does have his own timeline to a degree, if he meets post-Torchwood Jack who tells him about the 456, then later (from his p.o.v) gets a call from Martha asking for help, he knows he can't interfere there. At least I think that's how it works, from the episodes dealing with that sort of thing. Regardless though, there have been catastrophies due to alien influence that the Doctor does not know about or get time to stop before. Most recently the one that happened to the inhabitants of the world in "Planet of the Dead"
What I want to say is: Oh, God, they killed Ianto. 
But I'm going to say this instead: I can't believe what I've just seen. I thought it was utterly awesome. I loved Peter Capaldi's portrayal of his character. I loved that whole storyline with the ministers and the permanent civil servants. I thought it was blinding. Bridged at the end was just wonderful. Her character reminded why I apprecite the Whoverse so much in its willingness to give older actresses good, solid roles.
I thought the shots at the end of the soldiers taking away the children was shocking (the ones accompanying Gwen's v/o at the start of day 5). Really shocking.
Loved the humour. Loved the bathos (new word for the day!)
Really didn't care for the whole thing with UNIT and the US Army turning up. Couldn't understand why the woman cabinet member started addressing the US Army officer as "sir". Since when did the US have juristriction over the UK Government. That whole thing wound me up and I had to ignore it in the end. More questions than answers about UNIT. It's like they have no one to answer to, the way they just walked in and started spouting off. Anyway, I can't decide whether I like that or not.
I adored the scene when the cabinet, or CORBRA or whoever it was, were sitting around the table discussing which children to sacrifice. I thought that was some of the best drama I've ever experienced. Really very excellent stuff in my opinion.
I can't even think about Jack. That's going to take a long time to sort out.
This thing should win awards. There was all sorts of clever stuff going on with it, in my opinion. But it won't.
Ianto's dead. I think I might be in a tiny little bit of shock about that.
They should show this again the day before a general election.
But I'm going to say this instead: I can't believe what I've just seen. I thought it was utterly awesome. I loved Peter Capaldi's portrayal of his character. I loved that whole storyline with the ministers and the permanent civil servants. I thought it was blinding. Bridged at the end was just wonderful. Her character reminded why I apprecite the Whoverse so much in its willingness to give older actresses good, solid roles.
I thought the shots at the end of the soldiers taking away the children was shocking (the ones accompanying Gwen's v/o at the start of day 5). Really shocking.
Loved the humour. Loved the bathos (new word for the day!)
Really didn't care for the whole thing with UNIT and the US Army turning up. Couldn't understand why the woman cabinet member started addressing the US Army officer as "sir". Since when did the US have juristriction over the UK Government. That whole thing wound me up and I had to ignore it in the end. More questions than answers about UNIT. It's like they have no one to answer to, the way they just walked in and started spouting off. Anyway, I can't decide whether I like that or not.
I adored the scene when the cabinet, or CORBRA or whoever it was, were sitting around the table discussing which children to sacrifice. I thought that was some of the best drama I've ever experienced. Really very excellent stuff in my opinion.
I can't even think about Jack. That's going to take a long time to sort out.
This thing should win awards. There was all sorts of clever stuff going on with it, in my opinion. But it won't.
Ianto's dead. I think I might be in a tiny little bit of shock about that.
They should show this again the day before a general election.
You think that a man who can be having any kind of unimaginable adventure at any point in the entire span of infinite time and space should be expected to turn up every time one poxy planet has to deal with a catastrophe?
Really?
That's your argument?
(if your comeback is "but he has a time machine, he can go back and change shit!" then one would have to ask if you've ever paid attention to Doctor Who during the talky bits)
And no matter how you slice it, having The Doctor turn up to help would undermine....everything. It wouldn't be like when Jack turns up on Doctor Who. Can you imagine The Doctor taking a back seat and letting Torchwood do their thing? No. He'd take over and try to sort it all out with Awesome And Win. That's how he's written, and that's his way. Even when he fails, he's still in the driving seat.
Basically, The Doctor is too big to be a guest on Torchwood.
Basically, The Doctor is too big to be a guest on Torchwood.
Agreed. Torchwood can be on Doctor Who, but The Doctor can never be on Torchwood. He's simply too far out of their league to be a guest star. Unless he was evil or possessed and the Torchwood crew had to stop him, but that's just stupid.
Although The Doctor showing up for a lighthearted, comedy episode on Torchwood could work.
That's true. The Doctor can be on Torchwood in a comedy episode, he can be on Torchwood as a McGuffin (is this the Doctor's corpse? I thought he regenerated, etc.), he can have a cameo on Torchwood, the TARDIS can appear in a Torchwood episode, but the Doctor can't join forces with the Torchwood team (what's left of it) in a Torchwood episode.
Ok then, how come the 1st Doctor showed up on Earth years after the Dalek Invasion? Why didn't he turn up during or before the invasion?
And the Doctor does have a linear timeline, that's how come he couldn't go back and save Adric.
You could come up with any number of reasons why the Doctor didn't show up, but frankly I don't care, I prefer Gwen's notion, that this time hs simply chose not to.
I'm sure that had he known, he'd be there like a shot.
The thing that I think a lot of people are forgetting is how the mechanics of time are presented in the Whoniverse, and how the personal time streams of time travellers differ from the main universal timeline.
We've seen, on numerous occasions, phone calls taking place across the vastness of eternity. You can phone The Doctor in 2009 and he could pick up in the distant past, or far in the future, or even while he's in the time vortex.
This tells me that, as unfathomable and inconceivable as it sounds, the Doctor can be having an adventure in 25AD *while* the 2009 events of CoE are occurring relative to his personal timestream.
That's how time travel has been presented in the series, time and time again (lolpun). So to me it seems a rather uninformed (and utterly fatuous) argument to make, that The Doctor should be on hand to solve any Earth crisis that may pop up. That's not realistic in the slightest.
The thing that I think a lot of people are forgetting is how the mechanics of time are presented in the Whoniverse, and how the personal time streams of time travellers differ from the main universal timeline.
We've seen, on numerous occasions, phone calls taking place across the vastness of eternity. You can phone The Doctor in 2009 and he could pick up in the distant past, or far in the future, or even while he's in the time vortex.
This tells me that, as unfathomable and inconceivable as it sounds, the Doctor can be having an adventure in 25AD *while* the 2009 events of CoE are occurring relative to his personal timestream.
That's how time travel has been presented in the series, time and time again (lolpun). So to me it seems a rather uninformed (and utterly fatuous) argument to make, that The Doctor should be on hand to solve any Earth crisis that may pop up. That's not realistic in the slightest.
I'm not a Torchwood fan. I saw a few episodes of Series One; of those, the only one I enjoyed was "Captain Jack Harkness" -- though "End of Days" was okay. I have not, to this day, seen a single episode of Series Two -- not even the ones with Freema Agyeman, much as I adore her.
But I look at look at "Children of Earth: Day One," and oh my God so gooooooooood. And the rest of it did not disappoint.
And, no, the Doctor should never appear on Torchwood. The Doctor is not psychologically realistic enough of a character. He's the British Superman. The Doctor should always be a distant figure to the characters on Torchwood -- a figure of longing, of aspiration. He should, really, serve the same function that God does -- not in the sense of "the Doctor is Jesus," but in the sense of, a figure who never appears but whom everyone longs for to solve all of their problems and to be better than they are.
Anyway.
My God. Pure, pure brilliance. I was glued to my computer all weekend.
I never want to hear anyone complain that RTD can't write or has no self-control or doesn't know how to hold back again, 'cos clearly he does but chooses to write Doctor Who in a different style.
Oh my bloody God.
BTW -- the government of Prime Minister Brian Green? Guilty of treason. Even if they felt compelled to hand over the children to the 456s to save humanity, they had no right to hide the information from the people of Earth, nor did they have any right to decide to exempt their own children, nor did they have the right to only target the poor, the working class, and the ethnic minorities (which is exactly what they did). The whole lot of them committed treason against the United Kingdom and ought to be prosecuted for it (to say nothing of the fact that Green and the special ops folks ought to be charged with murder, and Bridget Spears charged as an accessory).
But I look at look at "Children of Earth: Day One," and oh my God so gooooooooood. And the rest of it did not disappoint.
And, no, the Doctor should never appear on Torchwood. The Doctor is not psychologically realistic enough of a character. He's the British Superman. The Doctor should always be a distant figure to the characters on Torchwood -- a figure of longing, of aspiration. He should, really, serve the same function that God does -- not in the sense of "the Doctor is Jesus," but in the sense of, a figure who never appears but whom everyone longs for to solve all of their problems and to be better than they are.
Anyway.
My God. Pure, pure brilliance. I was glued to my computer all weekend.
I never want to hear anyone complain that RTD can't write or has no self-control or doesn't know how to hold back again, 'cos clearly he does but chooses to write Doctor Who in a different style.
Oh my bloody God.
BTW -- the government of Prime Minister Brian Green? Guilty of treason. Even if they felt compelled to hand over the children to the 456s to save humanity, they had no right to hide the information from the people of Earth, nor did they have any right to decide to exempt their own children, nor did they have the right to only target the poor, the working class, and the ethnic minorities (which is exactly what they did). The whole lot of them committed treason against the United Kingdom and ought to be prosecuted for it (to say nothing of the fact that Green and the special ops folks ought to be charged with murder, and Bridget Spears charged as an accessory).
Well that was bleak as hell. I mean, a well-told story. Just so depressing I had to go watch Transformers 2 again. Basically it's RTD's fault I laughed at Wheelie humping michaela's leg. The bastard.
I'd have liked to see more of the worldwide anarchy - how are other nations finding their 10%? Instead we just got a small riot on a council estate in cardiff. But I guess the show hhad a limited budget.
The PM was rather 2-dimensional. And that Dekker chap, I was waiting for them to do something cool with him, even if in a creepy manner. But in the end all he did was play captain negativity for a bit then get shot. I thought Frobisher was well done though; poor bastard was in over his head.
The ending managed to have emotional weight thanks to Jack's sacrifice but otherwise I found it too convenient. Then again emotional weight is usually the only good thing about RTD's conclusions anyway.
I'd have liked to see more of the worldwide anarchy - how are other nations finding their 10%? Instead we just got a small riot on a council estate in cardiff. But I guess the show hhad a limited budget.
The PM was rather 2-dimensional. And that Dekker chap, I was waiting for them to do something cool with him, even if in a creepy manner. But in the end all he did was play captain negativity for a bit then get shot. I thought Frobisher was well done though; poor bastard was in over his head.
The ending managed to have emotional weight thanks to Jack's sacrifice but otherwise I found it too convenient. Then again emotional weight is usually the only good thing about RTD's conclusions anyway.
Question: do you think the US government was choosing differently? Or the French, the Sudanese, the Chinese? Actually I imagine the Chinese probably just said "Give them the children of ciy X!"
And you are correct re RTD, I've always said the main problem I have with him is that I can see he is a great writer, he just annoys me by not reigning himself him: Like Midnight this shows exactly what he's capable of, he is a great writer.
Please note this doesn't mean he gets a free ride from me from now on when he does go overboard in future!
and he still has trouble coming up with credible solutions to huge disasters/invasions etc- this one worked though, if only because of the sacrifice Jack made, and it wasn't quite as bad as just twiddling some knobs.
You have no idea how many catastrophes I've managed to avert just by twiddling my knob.Please note this doesn't mean he gets a free ride from me from now on when he does go overboard in future!