Category: Television

Well, I’ve been watching the new series of Torchwood for the last three weeks, and I still can’t make up my mind about it. While it seems to be getting good reviews Stateside, I’m not convinced that all the American money that has been pumped into it has actually improved things. The production values are extremely glossy, and the storyline is intriguing, but it all feels as though everything’s been turned up to such a pitch that something has been lost. Sometimes, less is more.

Take last night, for example. There was a scene between Oswald Danes and Captain Jack, which drew a connection between the motivations of both men who have each brought about the death of a child. Danes gloried in the fact while Jack has an almost unbearable sense of guilt. It was a powerful scene, with good writing and acting, but I wished that they could have got rid of the music that kept thumping away. In trying to build tension, the music actually destroyed the horror and power of the scene for me.

Still, there are some good things in it. There are good ideas in it, starting with the deceptively simple theme of “no one dies” and building out from there. And the writers have clearly had some fun with the exchanges between the characters – last week’s comic relief of the air steward insisting that he wasn’t gay, or last night’s cutting remark from Rex telling Jack to act his age, when of course there’s another level of irony there that Rex is currently unaware of. Serious moments, too, as when Jack desperately wants reassurance from Gwen that their partnership means something, but while she initially gives him that, she is soon distracted by the sight of her husband and baby, and leaves Jack talking into his phone by himself, unaware that the connection has been lost.

I’m not entirely convinced by all the new characters introduced in this series. Most still feel one-dimensional to me. But I do particularly like the character of Jilly Kitzinger, played by Lauren Ambrose. With her flaming red hair, bright red lipstick and red clothes, I wonder who – or what – Kitzinger is. The devil in disguise, probably.

Update: I see that the Guardian has raised the question of whether this series of Torchwood is any good or not.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s a patch on Children of Earth. But then, that was an unexpected treasure, given the rather hit and miss results of the earlier series of Torchwood.

I’ve stopped watching Miracle Day. I really can’t be bothered. Mind you, I still think that Lauren Ambrose was mesmerising.

I see that Torchwood is returning to our haunted fishtanks next month. While I’ve been pretty disparaging about the series in the past, I have to say that I thought that it redeemed itself with the Children of Earth series.

Now, however, there is some faux controversy being drummed up by a certain Dan Martin over in a Guardian blog. He is fulminating over the fact that viewers in the US get to see the show a whole six days before viewers in the UK:

We get the culture we deserve, really. But it’s hard not to think that the BBC is treating a big show – a show that it developed and established – recklessly. Yes, of course, contracts are contracts. But a two-day broadcast gap worked perfectly well for Game Of Thrones. Why the long pause here?

Shock. Horror. It’s six days, Mr. Martin. Get over it. Deferred gratification is a good thing, and a sign of maturity in a human.

Last Saturday night saw the mid-season finale (who came up with that particular twist?) of Doctor Who, Series Six: A Good Man Goes To War.

Actually, because we had visitors, I didn’t get to see it until the repeat on Sunday, and then I watched it straight through, twice, without stopping.

While it seems to have divided the viewers, I loved it from beginning to end. Yes, there was an awful lot going on, the sounds of multiple kitchen sinks being thrown in, but they all seemed to have a purpose. The anchor is the quality of Steven Moffat’s writing: the plotting, the one-liners, the sly references to things outside the Who Universe. And then add into that actors who can deliver the lines with believability and panache, and I was on the edge of my seat with a huge grin, and/or tears, on my face.

I particularly savoured the “Lady Penelope” exchange between the Victorian Silurian, and lesbian, Madame Vastra and her hansom-cab driver:

“Thank you Parker, I won’t be needing you again tonight.”

“Yis Me Lady.”

There was Moffat’s playing to the gallery humour of “by special dispensation of the Papal Mainframe, Herself” from Colonel Manton of the Clerics, and then there was the look on Rory’s face as he attempts to offer some comfort to the dying Commander Strax, the Sontaran warrior, and Strax spits back the fact that instead of dying as a warrior, he dies forced to be a nurse as penance for his crimes. Rory is, of course, a nurse.

There’s lots more in there. The episode repays multiple viewings and I look forward to doing just that. And the final joke by Moffat is the next episode to follow this one in the Autumn. He seems to have deliberately invoked Godwin’s Law. The episode’s title? Let’s Kill Hitler.

I wrote about how much I was looking forward to the opening episode of the next series of Doctor Who. So I suppose I should write a few words on what I thought about it. Well, look, I’m not very good at this sort of thing, so I’ll just hand you over to the review by Teresa Jusino over at Tor.com. She seems to have read my mind pretty well.

Warning: it has spoilers (© Professor River Song).

I thought that it was brilliant, but I can understand that some would miss the references – I’m not sure that I caught them all. But how refreshing it is to have a writer (Steven Moffat) who does not dumb down everything to the lowest common denominator. Can’t wait for next Saturday, when I’m parked on the sofa again.

Sad news today that Elisabeth Sladen, better known as Sarah Jane Smith, has died at the age of 63. Damn.