This confuses me the more miracle day goes on. The first Dalek serial had more going on in 25 mins than the torchwood episodes. Have people had similar problems showing friends the old Dr Who eps. He is a fan of the new series but a lot has changed.
What you have to realise is that not everyone has the same taste in things, be it food, wine, sexual preferences and what one thinks is a good or bad television series, plus TV production has changed over the course of the last fifty years and American and British productions can vary in the style of how they are made. Once that is acknowledged, confusion should be gone.
Honestly I don't even bother. If someones going to be "OMG its in black and white?!" or "Old DW is boring", or "The FX are awful, how can you watch this?" I just write them off as a lost cause and let them live in ignorance. Yeah, I'm feeling grumpy today.
I understand people have different tastes. My point is when you get past the visuals Miracle day is a much slower story.
I loved the first Dalek serial, but the Dead Planet literally had nothing in it. They wondered a bit, explored some passages, cliffhanger. Torchwood will usually at least end with some kind of action scene. People usually realize that the scenes didn't necessarily advance the plot. That doesn't mean the pacing was slow, it just means that there's a lot of things meant to set the tone of the season but don't move from A to B.
Yea for some people, even if there's no plot to speak of, if there's action, they feel like something happened. Also, someone people, even with a cram packed plot, if there's no action, they feel like nothing happened. And then of course, there are those who's eyes glaze over if they watch something in Black and White, so they don't even notice what's going on, which makes them feel it's slow or boring, since they're not paying attention, because their brain doesn't accept Black and White
And that's a bad thing - why? Not every story has to be go-go-go all the time. If you're wanting nothing but action, I recommend you never read something like Shogun or War and Peace. The pace of Miracle Day has been fine. It's been able to give the characters and the story room to breathe. It's ironic that people are complaining about its slow pace, yet look at all the people harping about nuWho being too fast-paced and longing for the days when it took 6 weeks to tell a story - and believe me, there were plenty of classic-era Whos for which the "more happened in The Daleks' first 25 minutes" statement most definitely applies. See, for example, the 10-episode The War Games which the co-writer himself has acknowledged was loaded with filler and really never really went anywhere until the last 2 episodes. Yet it's considered an all-time classic. Or The Talons of Weng Chiang which I don't dislike per se, but do consider rather overrated and a story that would have been much stronger as a 4-parter than a 6. Alex
Well, I thought there were things happening in Miracle Day when there was neither action nor plot progression. The medical committees discussing the consequences of the miracle were one example. I mean, the Dead Planet literally had them walking and exploring empty rooms for 25 minutes. I thought it picked up in the end and was a much better serial than The Unearthly Child's subsequent episodes, but I think that's about as close as you can get to literally nothing happening.
Never said a slow story was a bad thing. But a story full of nothing. Just nonsense filler padding it out. There's no depth to the characters the situations glazed over. To say it has more going on than the first Dalek serial is ridiculous. Sadly scenes like the medical comittee discusion were too few and far between.
Old episodes of Doctor Who are unbelievably slow due to the nature of TV, especially the black and white episodes.
Maybe he should see the Cushing movie, which is faster paced but severely toned down (and nothing to do with the continuity of the show).
The ADD Generation can't enjoy shows and movies unless they're fast paced with lots of explosions, shiny things, and CG effects.
I'm absolutely obsessed with classic film, television, music, and most everything else. Nearly everything I have a passion for predates my birth by decades. At the moment I'm in the process of restoring another 8mm film projector. My favorite movie was released a decade before my father was born. I watch movies with my daughter that were made before her great-grandfather was born. None of that makes the Hartnell serials suck any less. They're ponderous and painfully padded. Find a better, and perhaps more original, argument.
I would disagree and say that the pace of MD has been a bit too slow, at times it felt almost as if it was telling us things about characters which we already knew, this was after all season 4 of the show (but then again it might just be my perception). I felt they could have lost at least 3 episodes and still told the story. Take the plot where Gwen's family is held hostage so that she will take Jack to the hostage takers so that they can take him to see Angelo. Yet you'll want to come with us because of who sent us. Wouldn't an invite have worked the same? But as you say each to their own
As far as it being Series 4 of the show, and telling you things you already know, keep in mind, this is the first Season for Starz and many US viewers, so, you have to repeat the important stuff from S1-3 for those viewers. Sure, it could've been tightened up a couple or 3 episodes shorter, but, I wouldn't ahve wanted it to be only 5 episodes, personally, I think that would've tightened it up too much. COE could've used another episode or two to stretch it out a bit, IMHO. so much happens in those 5 episodes and so much tense drama, it's really draining to do a rewatch marathon. A couple episodes more would make marathon rewatch easier, IMHO.
The sign of a good drama is that it leaves you wanting more. The sign of a poor drama is that it leaves you wanting less. That sums up CoE and MD for me. CoE was the perfect length, but Miracle Day had patently been stretched far further than it needed to be stretched.
^Agreed, I found with MD nothing much happens for the first few episodes, that moves the plot forward. They almost seem to gloss over the reason for Jack's return (something to do with erasing referrences to TW), which after the end of the 456 incident, and the brief scene at the end of 10th Doctor's tenure seemed a bit lacking. Plus the end of MD doesn't seem to tie up with "Parting of the Ways", you can gain immortality by having a total blood transfusion from Captain Jack.