August 16, 2011 - August 31, 2011
Hitler Lives!
Doctor Who survives a questionable gimmick
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August 30, 2011, OTTAWA — I feel almost shell-shocked.
After eight episodes of Torchwood: Miracle Day, I had almost forgotten that a television program set in the Whoniverse can actually be fun, that it can move.
As a bonus, Steven Moffat has slipped a pretty major change into that universe's cannon, one likely to upset both traditionalists and racists alike.
Of course, it's not all roses. To my mind, Steven Moffat's Who still suffers from a disregard for world-building and characterization that has been the sadly surprising hall-mark of his run as show-runner on the venerable franchise.
For the good, the bad, and the frustrating (with spoilers), Let's Visit Hitler.
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Torchwood's End of the Road hints at on-ramps passed by
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August 28, 2011, OTTAWA — What in the world is going on with Torchwood: Miracle Day? For a wonder and, admittedly, grading on a steep incline, the latest instalment, End of the Road, was actually kind of entertaining, and left this viewer mildly interested in finding out what happens next.
Yes, there was too much techno-babble, but the story actually moved, at least in comparison to what's come before.
If there was still too much filler in End of the Road, for a starving fan, tinned ham beats rice cakes any day.
No skin, a little less snark, but just as many spoilers and structural analysis as ever, all at Torchwood: Mediocre Day.
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Sins of the Show-Runner?
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August 21, 2011, OTTAWA — A commentator at the Tor.com discussion of The Middle Men passed along a "strong rumour" that Torchwood: Miracle Day was originally meant to be a five-episode series, but was expanded to ten, "so that Starz could get subscribers for longer".
Like any rumour, I take this one with the proverbial kilo of salt, but it does offer a credible, if not fully explanatory, hypothesis for the remarkably slow and inept story-telling to which we have been subject lo! these past seven weeks.
Less subtle than an average episode of South Park, the seventh episode is the best outing of the series so far. Or perhaps I should say, the least bad.
Immortal Sins at least boasts some action, some humour, some sex and even some romance.
On the other hand, the sex and romance is at best only as good as the merely competent fan-fic it will no doubt inspire, the action was counter-balanced by long, gruesome minutes of torture that would delight Mel Gibson and — of course! — a secondary plot and characterization that make no sense and which are in any case mostly negated by episode's end.
For skin, spoilers, stereotypes, structural analysis (and, yes, snark) see Mel Gibson comes to Torchwood or, The Passion of the Jack. Probably not safe for work.
But if I understand correctly
But if I understand correctly with the talk of the writers room and breaking the story, MD wasn't a script written on spec by a newcomer to scriptwriting. Surely Starz didn't say "write 5 eps" and when they were turned in, say "Oops! Five? We meant ten! Tee-hee!" Even if they did, competent, experienced script writers should be able to take the existing scripts, re-space the existing scenes over the additional ep time, and weave an additional story strand around and through those existing scenes. (No, it wouldn't be the easiest thing to do, but it shouldn't be a totally new concept to any of these writers.)
No indeed
Russell T Davies is definitely no newcomer!
I agree it sounds unlikely that Starz sprung a super-sizing of the series on Davies without warning, though I can easily imagine that they offered him the extra five episodes while the deal was being negotiated.
And I also agree, as a seasoned pro, he ought to have been able to fill the extra space.
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