Please tell me Torchwood gets better

[Chess Piece Face]

I was new to doctor who this year and have now seen all of the revived series. I love it and find 10 to be "my doctor" even though I like 9 and 11.

So now I'm looking to watch more and I've started Torchwood. I liked captain jack on who. So far, 4 or 5 episodes in...he's not great. He hardly seems like the same character, for one. Also I am finding the rookie girl cop very bland. I can't even recall her name at the moment.

But the worst part is the writing. I watched cyberwoman last night and I was really surprised at how bad it was. Totally implausible. Ianto hides her there? And then he still just works there afterwards? Do they need a coffee boy that badly?

Then tonight I watched the one with the fairies. Not as bad but still bad. I figured cyberwoman was probably the exception to the rule but to see another stinker right afterwards is making it really hard for me to hang in there.

What does everyone think. Is Torchwood just not for me? Is there a better point to go back to in the original run of doctor who now?

FYI, I enjoy episodes like Vincent and the doctor, or the master/Saxon stuff with 10. I liked blink. I prefer RTD in charge as opposed to moffat. I get the show now is more of a fairy tale than it was with 10, but I don't prefer this. Also I find the horror stories in the new series to be some of the most boring. I don't care about trying to feel scared. Before cyberwoman I would say the worst ep is the one with the kid having a monster in the closet, or fear her.

I hear children of earth is good. I just don't know if this show is for me. So far I can't even recall the stories, except for chows ow bad these last 2 were...and that can't be good.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

 

[RoJoHen]

The general consensus:

Season 1 sucks.

Season 2 is better, but not great.

Season 3 is awesome.

Season 4 is okay.

 

[Kelthaz]

Series 1 is the worst thing to ever grace television since Heil Honey I'm Home!
Series 2 is mediocre and forgettable, but entertaining enough,
Series 3 (Children of Earth) is the best sci-fi on television since Babylon 5.
Series 4 (Miracle Day) is dumb as a stump, but incredibly entertaining.

It's a pretty interesting ride. I can't wait to see what Series 5 will bring to the table.

 

[David cgc]

Season 2 picks up substantially. Season 1 Torchwood has the problem that it's always deadly serious about really ridiculous things. In season 2, the tone shifts so that it's comfortable being a bit sillier in execution, which makes the silly stuff fun, and the serious stuff more affecting. Season 3 ends up being about as serious as 1, but it's much better executed, so it actually works. Season 4...

I'll need some more time to think about season 4. Tonally, it's more like season 2, but it tries to do a tight, continuous single story like 3, but it's kind of shoddy in execution. The individual episodes don't add up into one long episode like they're supposed to.

 

[Chess Piece Face]

I see. Well I do want to get to season 3 so I will prob. force myself to slog through. I have enjoyed tennant reading the audiobook stone rose, so I guess those other audiobooks can hold my interest until 3.

I have seen the pilot of doctor who. Would you recommend just going along in order? Or is there a generally agreed upon good era to jump into?

 

[PsychoPere]

Season 1 was horrible.

Season 2 was decent-to-good.

Season 3 was fantastic.

Season 4 was horrible.

 

[Sindatur]

Season 1 - A few gems, but, yea, alot of waiting for it to get Great.

Season 2 - Still waiting for it to get great, but, there's fewer real lows

Season 3 - Goes beyond great

Season 4 - As said, there's a lot of entertainment, but, it doesn't gell nearly as well as S3.

 

[RoJoHen]

I have seen the pilot of doctor who. Would you recommend just going along in order? Or is there a generally agreed upon good era to jump into?

Like, the original pilot from the 60s, or "Rose" from 2005?

I personally haven't seen anything from the old Doctor Who. I started watching in 2005 with nuWho, and I've loved it.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Season 1: Horrible with the exception of one great episode.
Season 2: Good to great with the exception of one horrible episode.
Season 3: Simply amazing.
Season 4: Horrible.

 

[Cyke101]

I found Season 4 to be pretty entertaining in its own right, but it *very much* pales in comparison to Season 3. Among Season 4's faults, without spoilers:

-trying to be a sci-fi version of "24"
-slapdash conclusion
-in attempting to be more American, it seems to adopt its Season 1 conception about what makes a show "mature," ie adding in more sex, swear words, and violence haphazardly, as opposed to Seasons 2 and 3 which let up on all that yet had some pretty deep, insightful stories (true maturity) that wouldn't be possible on Doctor Who.

So roughly:

Season 1: crap
Season 2: better
Season 3: Whoa baby
Season 4: Entertaining, but bits of crap in there

 

[Starkers]

Can't really quibble with most of what's been said so far but my ratings for completeness' sake

1. Terrible, tries to be adult and fails, curious mixture of really serious and adult themes with an adolesent's take on sex/language. The teenage kid who giggles cos he said a naughty word.

2. Much more relaxed. The sex and bad language are still there but spaced out which makes them seem more realistic and less annoying. Not great but loads better than one.

3. To paraphrase Craig Revell Horwood "A-MAZ-ING!" Quite possibly the best bit of telly in many, many years.

4. A mishmash of the previous three series' styles. The main story is interesting but stretching it out over 10 episodes doesn't help, and there are several episodes that really shouldn't exist because they're not needed. In many ways it's like a lot of early classic Who where you'd have whole episode of padding sometimes. There's a bit of sex, some gratuitious some which actually has a bearing on the plot, one superb episode which is mostly flashback and, in hindsight doesn't advance the story that much, several good ones but quite a few poor ones. It's ok, enjoyable enough and given the choice I'd rather watch it again before season 1.

So for me order would be...

Children of Earth
Season 2
Miracle Day
Anything else
Season 1

 

[Australis]

The consensus has it pretty much right.

Season 1: awful mostly, a few good moments.

Season 2: not so serious, so it does work better.

Season 3: stunning, just stunning, especially compared to what had gone before.

Season 4: stretched and floppy in places, tight and convincing in others, but overall entertaining, with some good genre casting.

Cyberwoman is about the worst, so it's a slow uphill climb from there.

 

[Mr Light]

I agree with the rest. 1=terrible. 2=alright. 3=great. 4=meh.

 

[intrinsical]

I see. Well I do want to get to season 3 so I will prob. force myself to slog through.

Season 3 is an independent story and does not require you to be very familiar with Torchwood. The only thing you may need to know are the team members who died.

Spoiler: The deaths

Toshiko Sato and Owen Harper dies at the end of season 2.

Since you already know Jack Harkness, Ianto and Gwen (rookie girl cop), you can just click the spoiler button above and jump directly to season 3: Children of Earth.

 

[Starkers]

Of course by omitting certain names from that list you're basically telling who died whether someone clicks the spoiler or not

 

[CmdrAJD]

1. Terrible, tries to be adult and fails, curious mixture of really serious and adult themes with an adolesent's take on sex/language. The teenage kid who giggles cos he said a naughty word.

That's exactly how I felt about Season One. I usually describe it as adult science fiction as envisioned by 12 year olds.

Season Two was indeed an improvement, and Season Three, as others have said, is fantastic. REALLY dark, but fantastic.

I just watched Miracle Day over the course of the last week. For the first 6 episodes, Jack seemed to have become a supporting character on his own show, while I got to watch the adventures of the two most idiotic CIA agents ever. It was scene after scene of characters doing incredibly stupid things with occasional bits of repetitive filler to add a dash of monotony to the proceedings. The last four episodes were a little better, but still not great. Overall, the whole thing felt disjointed. Plot elements were brought up that went nowhere, main characters ended up having no real reason to be in the story at all, and the ending was very unsatisfying.

 

[Starkers]

^In fairness I let her off doing idiotic things because at the end of the day she wasn't a field agent, she was an analyst (and she was cute) Rex on the other hand was supposed to be this experienced super agent (plus he wasn't cute)

 

[OmahaStar]

1. Terrible, tries to be adult and fails, curious mixture of really serious and adult themes with an adolesent's take on sex/language. The teenage kid who giggles cos he said a naughty word.

That's exactly how I felt about Season One. I usually describe it as adult science fiction as envisioned by 12 year olds.

Pretty much. Can't really disagree. Although you "might" add "as envisioned by 12 year olds who have just now discovered how to say naughty words."

 

[Cyke101]

I just watched Miracle Day over the course of the last week. For the first 6 episodes, Jack seemed to have become a supporting character on his own show, while I got to watch the adventures of the two most idiotic CIA agents ever. It was scene after scene of characters doing incredibly stupid things with occasional bits of repetitive filler to add a dash of monotony to the proceedings. The last four episodes were a little better, but still not great. Overall, the whole thing felt disjointed. Plot elements were brought up that went nowhere, main characters ended up having no real reason to be in the story at all, and the ending was very unsatisfying.

^In fairness I let her off doing idiotic things because at the end of the day she wasn't a field agent, she was an analyst (and she was cute) Rex on the other hand was supposed to be this experienced super agent (plus he wasn't cute)

I can't disagree with either of these points, but I want to add that I liked the interplay between Jack and Rex. It was nice seeing two alpha males verbally duke it out basically every episode (and for fans of the show, it's great to see Jack not only hold his own in the spy biz, but dominate Rex when the insults fly).

I still can't get over this tendency for Brits to name Americans Rex, though

 

[Iamnotspock]

I still can't get over this tendency for Brits to name Americans Rex, though

Yeah, what's that about? I've never understood it and I'm a Brit.

Series 1 can be summed up by this spoof;

[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqFFFgdo1Zc[/YT]

And this;

[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spZYGHd0mdg[/YT]

By Series 2 they had listened to the criticism and the show had pulled its socks up to a large degree. It still wasn't perfect but the good to bad ratio was arguably the inverse of the first series. It was certainly much more self-aware and, consequently, fun.

Children of Earth is one of the best pieces of TV drama of recent years IMHO, of any genre, and at times it was hard to believe it was the same show. Understandably it was what they used to entice the likes of Bill Bullman and Mekhi Phifer to join the show for...

Miracle Day, which didn't work for me for many of the same reasons that CmdrAJD put forward.