THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => ENJOY => Topic started by: Mark7 on 23 Oct 2006, 21:13
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Not only was it bloody good but it also set a new record for a non-sport British show on digital television :mrgreen:
Torchwood scores record audience
The opening episodes of Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood drew the largest digital channel audience for a non-sport programme, says the BBC.
The first two instalments of the series, starring John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, also attracted BBC Three's largest ever audience.
The 2100 BST episode had 2.4 million viewers and a 12.7% audience share, the 2145 BST one had 2.3 million (13.8%).
Two football matches in 2004 and 2005 earned larger digital TV audiences.
BBC Three controller Julian Bellamy said the audience figures for the new sci-fi series were an "incredible achievement".
"I'm delighted that last night's Torchwood was such a big hit," he said.
The series follows a team of investigators solving alien and human crime and is aimed at an adult audience.
It has been written by Russell T Davies, who scripted the comeback series of Doctor Who as well as earlier hits including Queer as Folk and Bob & Rose.
Torchwood is set in Cardiff and also stars Welsh actress Eve Myles as Gwen Cooper.
The first two episodes will be repeated on BBC Two on Wednesday.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/entertainment/6077078.stm
Published: 2006/10/23 12:09:50 GMT
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By the end of the first episode I had already invented a Torchwood Drinking Game. :-D
It was awesome.
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And what, pray tell, is the nature of this game? :-)
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Amazing.
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I absolutely loved it - and I didn't think I would, I never liked Jack much and the last season of Who was a bit iffy. But this - this was perfect. Particularly loved episode 2, it really appealed to my sense of humour, or lack of it, I would suppose.
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And what, pray tell, is the nature of this game? :-)
To be fair, you'd pretty much be drinking nonstop throughout the episodes as it was things like "take a shot whenever Jack refers to his sexual prowess or his numerous past sexual partners" and "take a shot every time Jack sleazes on someone" etc etc...
Basically never stop drinking. ;)
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Your liver will hate you :-P
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I don't drink, it's everyone else who is in trouble. ;) And I can make up new rules with each new episode!
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You're evil :evil:
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Ohsnap, I had totally forgotten when this was going to air, despite having looked forward to it for months now. It's nice to know that it was such a hit, as I cannot wait to watch it.
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Repeated Wednesday at 9 on BBC2 :wink:
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Finally saw the premiere, and it was pretty darn interesting. There was some things that could have been better, some of the dialogue sounded quite cheesy, but I won't judge until later on. I liked the whole 'alien technology corrupts' angle they tried to pull off there. There's not much more I can say, I liked it and I'll continue watching it, though I will say that Captain Jack Harkness never really impressed me before, but now I think I could grow to like him. Though, while Torchwood supposedly exists 'beyond governments' and such, it's pretty interesting that an "American" is leading an organization created by Queen Victoria - I'm really curious as to how Jack landed the job. Did he have to show off his time-travelling credentials, or what? Knowing my luck, this has probably already been revealed and I just haven't found the information yet.
Oh. And that city, Cardiff? looked beautiful. It really did. Now, I've totally got to visit there one of these days.
Either way, this should hold me off until the new Doctor Who season starts.
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It'll never be as good as Doctor Who but I think that's pretty much a given! First episode introduced it well but I think they tried to cram waaaaay too much into the second.
Whenever Captain Jack makes some kind of comment relating to how great he is, I feel a strange emotion I can only describe as part-cringe part-swoon... No? Just me then.
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I don't watch much tv so didn't think I'd like it but I thought it was really good!
Kaktion: Cardiff really is a lovely city, esp at night. My bf and I stay there as often as we can. If you do decide to go, PM me if you want and I can give you the name and number of a nice little hotel in the city centre and a 5 min walking distance from the train station!
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It was quite good, a great fill-in while doctor who isn't on? :lol:
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It. Was. Smegging. Awesome. Oh, and Captain Jack will return in Season 3 of Doctor Who, as well.
[Nitpicking mode] Captain Jack is in charge of Torchwood 3. Torchwood 1 was the tower that basically got wiped out at the end of Doomsday/Army of Darkness. Torchwood 2 is the "original" site in Glasgow, and Torchwood 4 is "missing."[/Nitpicking mode] I think all Captain Jack would have had to say is "I travelled with the Doctor for a while..." and they would have hired him on the spot. My question is how come Torchwood only seemed to come to prominence after most of UNIT was killed?
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When was most of U.N.I.T. killed? So far they've lost about 3 members (the two U.S.A.F. personnel electrocuted in Aliens of London and the Major in The Christmas Invasion). I seriously doubt that's "most" of them.
As for Sunday's episode, wasn't the scene in old man Morgan's house a corker? 8-)
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If you're going to nitpick, I don't think Torchwood 2 in Glasgow is the "original" site, if by "original" you mean the Torchwood House/Estate from Doctor Who, as that was in the Scottish countryside, not Glasgow.
I heard that they came up with Torchwood in a way because they weren't allowed to use the name "United Nations" in the series in that context any more, so needed a replacement, but I'm not sure how true that is. I think they're allowed to use "UNIT" if they don't say "United Nations" but are trying to minimise their involvement to keep out of trouble, so Torchwood will probably replace them as UNIT is phased out, but that's just a guess.
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Interesting tidbit for those who don't know it yet:
'Torchwood' is an anagram for 'Doctor Who'. :-D
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It was also the codename on the tapes for the early episodes of the first new series so people wouldn't thieve them or whatever.
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When was most of U.N.I.T. killed? So far they've lost about 3 members (the two U.S.A.F. personnel electrocuted in Aliens of London and the Major in The Christmas Invasion). I seriously doubt that's "most" of them.
As for Sunday's episode, wasn't the scene in old man Morgan's house a corker? 8-)
I was under the impression that most of the people killed by the Slitheen at that meeting at the end of Aliens of London were UNIT.
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No, just the two with UNIT patches on their uniforms.
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Oh Ianto!
Edit now it's finished: oh man, that was so good! Totally the best episode so far!
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I was literally on the edge of my seat :-o
And nearly in tears :cry:
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I am very jealous. They are not playing Torchwood here, yet they play Doctor Who anyway. I'd really like to be watching both, since I am really enjoying Doctor Who.
Since Doctor Who is just now playing here, it's been really fun to buy some of the DVD's of older episodes. I was just watching the 'Genesis of the Daleks' arc from the IVth Doctor which I'd ordered.
I guess if I'm gonna watch Torchwood, they shall have to release it on DVD for me to buy...
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With the second episode of Torchwood I had lost some of the faith I had put into this series originally, it just seemed a bit too silly and tried to hard to be, I suppose, 'edgy, sexy, look what we can show!" as opposed to serious scifi. The third episode completely restored my faith, because man oh man, did that have me on the edge of my seat.
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That was the fourth :wink:
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That was the fourth? :wink:
Fourth? Nope, it was the third. The fourth's 'Cyberwoman,' right? Haven't watched that one. Thanks for reminding me about that one, though.? ?:lol:
Edit:
I've seen the fourth, my opinion has not changed.
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Torchwood is so terrible. It's like Doctor who with swearing and sex through the eyes of a ten-year-old.
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I don't care. It's trashy and I love it.
Cardiff looks way better on screen though.
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It's a lot cheesier than I expected (and a lot of the dialogue is downright terrible), but it's still kinda fun.
Also, it's pretty funny how they can't seem to go a week without someone shagging an alien and bringing it to their super-secret headquarters to wreak havoc. :-D
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I think it's hilarious when people criticise TV for things like 'It's cheesey! It's trash! It's poorly written!'.
Those people who say that are complete idiots. Because that's what television is for. Cheap entertainment.
As far as I'm concerned, if you're not watching the news on TV, then you're watching trash. If you're watching the news on tv, chances are you're probably watching trash. Viva la BBC.
Now, as for my opinion on Torchwood...
Love it. It's laugh out loud hilarious for the most part. Didn't laugh at the episode with the cannibals though...
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OH MY GOD THEY KILLED SUZIE! :-o
Again :lol:
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I think it's hilarious when people criticise TV for things like 'It's cheesey! It's trash! It's poorly written!'.
Those people who say that are complete idiots. Because that's what television is for. Cheap entertainment.
Ok... so what about the 5% of television shows with good writing? Are we ignoring them because you think that medium is beneath you?
I don't really see how your opinion of what television is for impacts my ability to tell a well-written show from a crappy one.
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I never said that 'the medium is beneath me'.
Quite the opposite, I LOVE television, I get like 5 hours of it a week.
I was saying that people who dismiss TV shows for being trashy are like people who buy food from fairground vendor and expect it to be the most amazing thing they've ever tasted.
And I didn't say 'trashy' meant 'bad writing'. A throwaway trashy tv show can have good writing. Great writing. But I was thinking about people who dismiss a TV show because 'It's not intelligent enough'.
TV snobs are like music snobs in many many ways.
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The first couple of episodes weren't too bad, but that third episode was crap. The stories aren't terrible, they're basically Dr Who stories with more sex references, but it would help if the cast could actually act, the actor who plays Jack and the actress who play the asian woman, can't remember her name, are ok but the rest of cast, particularly Gwen and Owen, are truly awful actors.
Torchwood I find that I think 'I guess I better watch it'. This series doesn't seem to have delivered for me yet and I doubt it will as Gwen has be the most annoying character on TV and the actress playing her seems to have somehow gotten even worse at acting than she was before
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I never said that 'the medium is beneath me'.
Quite the opposite, I LOVE television, I get like 5 hours of it a week.
I was saying that people who dismiss TV shows for being trashy are like people who buy food from fairground vendor and expect it to be the most amazing thing they've ever tasted.
And I didn't say 'trashy' meant 'bad writing'. A throwaway trashy tv show can have good writing. Great writing. But I was thinking about people who dismiss a TV show because 'It's not intelligent enough'.
TV snobs are like music snobs in many many ways.
So we aren't allowed to say that a crap TV show is crap?
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well the world is too pc friendly maybe we have to be gentle about bad tv shows!
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But I was thinking about people who dismiss a TV show because 'It's not intelligent enough'.
Nobody was saying that. We were just pointing out that the show is poorly executed.
That doesn't keep me from ejoying a couple of the episodes, though. Just because the enjoyment of something is subjective, doesn't mean you can't objectively talk about it's quality.
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In the first episode of Torchwood I saw one of the main characters got gut-shot at point-blank range by a shotgun and seemed to barely suffer any ill effects. Generally I like a leeeeeeetle bit more realism in my T.V. series. Even the sci-fi ones. Still, based on the two episodes I've watched it seems diverting enough.
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The "They Keep Killing Suzie" episode was SO good. I think it really hit it's stride with that episode.
If the one with the shotgun you're referring to is the one I'm thinking of, they kinda explained it by saying the buckshot stuff just nicked her side, and the doctor of the team did try to fix her up immediately. Plus, it's sci-fi, maybe they have a supermagic shotgun-shot healer. ;)
This weeks episode is most definitely the Torchwood equivalent of the Mr Blue Skies episode from the last series of Doctor Who in my opinion.
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they kinda explained it by saying the buckshot stuff just nicked her side
Heh, emphasis on "kinda" . . .
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"Kinda" is enough for Torchwood! ;)
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Poorly executed, yes, very poorly acted, definitely.
But crap? Nay! Almost crap, but still not crap!
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I think Torchwood would be a lot better if they didn't put sex in, purely because they can.
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Sex that wouldn't even be arousing to a 12 year old who'd never seen a tit before.
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I think Torchwood would be a lot better if they didn't put sex in, purely because they can.
That, and would it kill them to get a tit in, here and there? It's supposed to be an "adult" show, after all! :-P
That being said, I thought the "plane from the past" episode was surprisingly decent. Maybe because they didn't have them run everywhere for no apparent reason.
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I can't wait for this to show here.
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The cannibal episode was damn spooky, especially that line at the end. You know the one i mean.
Also, wtf was up with the penultimate episode? "hmm, i found something in the baddies house that he couldnt possible have, i'll just stick it in the most expensive and powerful machine in existance"
Bilus Manger was terrifying though.
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i love when people argue the validity of things in sci-fi and fantasy movies/books/tv shows ect.
watch the show. is it meant to be taken a realism? no? then stop whining when something isn't realistic. this happens all too often and it bugs me whenver i see it.
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I think Torchwood would be a lot better if they didn't put sex in, purely because they can.
That, and would it kill them to get a tit in, here and there? It's supposed to be an "adult" show, after all! :-P
That being said, I thought the "plane from the past" episode was surprisingly decent. Maybe because they didn't have them run everywhere for no apparent reason.
That episode was actually my favorite. The finale left much to be desired, really, it just went everywhere too damn fast. They didn't explain who Manger was, or why he could do what he could do, or why in the hell he'd want to release that big demon thing. I don't know. The only redeeming values were that all of Torchwood pretty much went batshit insane -- Gwen, it was your own damn fault, -- and got hundreds killed, but then they got away with it because everything just seems to work out for them, and then the light and whirring noise made of major win at the very end.