Torchwood 4 Confirmed

[Carlito]

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/cult/s8/torchwood/news/a224000/torchwood-confirmed-for-fourth-series.html

I’m happy.

Topic

[Seb Patrick]

I hear it’s going to have the original cast and be filmed in front of an audience, right?

[Nick R]

Torchwood: Miracle Day trailer, in Access Hollywood 4:3-o-vision.

[Jonsmad]

Cheers for that.

I’m sure it will be great. But that action packed helicopter shooting trailer, looks like a bad parody of the original show done as a cod action movie. Felt like some of the worst bits of the doctor who TV movie, especially gwens bits. I’m sure thats the macho trailer not the feel of the whole show though, as the story sounds real interesting and going to have depth.

[Ben Paddon]

Especially with the likes of Jane Espenson involved. I doubt that trailer is truly indicative of the quality of the show.

[Jason aka Smeg4Brains]

Do we have a UK airdate for this yet?

[si]

The BBC have, apparently, confirmed an airdate for the UK Broadcast. At Last.

Thursday July 14th, six days after the US transmission, on Starz. (Although the US and UK broadcasts will both have exclusive scenes, apparently).

Anyway, more news here: http://bit.ly/j0MqzQ

[Tarka Dal]

> (Although the US and UK broadcasts will both have exclusive scenes, apparently).

That doesn’t sound at all like a gimmick.

[si]

I reckon it’s so that all the UK viewers who’ll be downloading the US version will still watch BBC One.

[Ridley]

http://twitter.com/#!/TomSpilsbury/status/83935636431704065

For US, it’s for timing, not censorship AIUI. The UK versions will have some material ‘censored’ (if that’s the word) for the BBC

[Ben Paddon]

“It’s not censorship…! We’re censoring the show.”

[pfm]

Seen it. Not bad, though new cast are a touch shite (apart from Bill Pullman who’s brill).

Something to note…it’s been shot with NTSC framerate, so the BBC1 broadcast will have sped-up sound like any other US import! I’m not sure why they didn’t shoot PAL 50Hz, considering at least 4 times as many people will be watching the episode on 50Hz PAL TVs….

I’m guessing that was in the deal with Starz – first-run broadcast date and NTSC framerate.

You all care about this, right?

[si]

I wasn’t too thrilled with Mekhi Phifer, but agree that Bill Pullman is great, playing against type brilliantly. The regulars are great, obviously.

Watched a download Saturday afternoon, but looking forward to watching it properly Thursday night.

[Pete Part Three]

I liked it, but not really sure that this can sustain 10 episodes as this opener felt a little padded.

[Ian Symes]

With the disparity between the US and UK airtimes, there’s a potentially tricky spoiler situation in this thread. I suggest: talk about the US airing in a vague non-spoilery way, and don’t discuss plot details until it’s been on in the UK.

[Ben Paddon]

What about two threads? One for people watching it on US time, and the other for people watching it on UK time?

[Ridley]

I liked it, but not really sure that this can sustain 10 episodes as this opener felt a little padded.

At the moment it feels like episode two will be another season opener for me.

[Jonathan Capps]

> What about two threads? One for people watching it on US time, and the other for people watching it on UK time?

Not sure it’s worth splitting the conversation like that. It’d work for a large forum, but not here.

[pfm]

I’m still coming to terms with the dad from Casper being…what he is in Miracle Day! :D

If you look at some of the shite he’s appeared in over the years (the best thing he’s been in in the last 10 years could well be the Ant and Dec film, ‘Alien Autopsy’!!) Torchwood was definitely the right move for Bill.

[pfm]

So we didn’t get the PAL speedup. Instead we got…no proper PAL conversion at all!! Bravo BBC for putting out the worst picture quality ever with blurry, mouse trails motion!

They’ll have to do the conversion for the BBC DVD release or else they’ll be a laughing stock.

[ChrisM]

I saw it a bit earlier.

I didn’t notice the poor quality, but then I have a fairly old CRT TV with dodgy colouring. (It works well enough for me to enjoy, but maybe this sort of thing would be more noticeable on an HD set. Or maybe I’m just blind to that type of thing.)

Minor spoilers:

Not bad. Something about the delivery of certain characters felt off. It actually reminded me of the Doctor Who McGann film in that regard for some reason. I’m not sure if it’s bad acting or something to do with American delivery of British written scripts (not that I’m saying the British actors are better). And it’s certainly not all of them. The villain who survived execution was delightfully horrible.

Interesting premise though and the story so far isn’t bad. “The old Rhys tells Gwen to keep away” thing is understandable, and probably needs to be there to provide realism, but I found it a bit irritating.

Good overall, but I’m concerned how it well it will work over 10 episodes (is it really 10?) too. It feels like this thread should be a 3 parter. Still, we’ll see. Maybe they’ll mix in some other stories along the way and leave this as the arc. From the preview I get the impression they’ll stick to this thread though, albeit issues surrounding. Fair enough, we’ll see how it goes.

I thought they gave away too much information in the preview at the end. I know they didn’t spoil any plot resolutions but I’d have liked to have encountered those threads when they came. (Still I could have switched it over/off at that point, I guess.)

[si]

>It actually reminded me of the Doctor Who McGann film in that regard for some reason.

It’s the American hospitals. Notice how the US hospital were full of glamourous staff, and the Cardiff one had a corridor with a cleaner in it?

I didn’t notice the poor picture quality either – watched it on HD, don’t know if that made any difference.

[Ian Symes]

Picture quality was piss poor, even on HD. It’s the NTSC framerate what does it, but the shitty blurry filters didn’t help either. A combination of the two made it look cheaper than it probably was.

[Carlito]

I’ve seen the whole series. For those who want to know, spoilers below.

In episode one, no one died. In episode two, no one died. In episode three, no one died. In episode four, no one died. In episode five, there was the incident with the pigeon. In episode six, no one died. In episode seven, no one died. In episode eight, no one died. In episode nine, someone died. In episode ten, no one died.

The above is based on a true story, but certain facts have been changed to make it no longer representative of reality.

[Pete Part Three]

*Applauds*

[Ben Paddon]

I’ll just point out that the picture quality here in the US is fine, so I imagine the BBC are either doing something or not doing something with the conversion.

I’d also like to point out that PAL to NTSC conversion is typically awful, so see how you bloody well like it.

[Ben Paddon]

Episode 2 was much stronger, and Eve Myles was on top form throughout.

[si]

Yep, watched ep 2 this afternoon, and Gwen had a cracking episode.

The second episode is a lot stronger than the first – Bill Pullman has another great show, and by the end of the episode, you’ve got more of a sense of how the dynamic of the main characters will work.

As for the question of how ‘Americanized’ the show may or may not have become – whilst there are some scenes and lines that are unmistakably Torchwood, I would say it’s as though the British show is crossing over with an American show. Miracle Day as a concept could be the premise of an entirely new show, and Torchwood is included to give it wings, to flesh it out a little.
But it certainly looks like being a great series.

[pfm]

My god, Lauren Ambrose from Six Feet Under!! She totally counterbalances the (IMO) shite of Alexa Havins, who plays Esther. Seriously, I do not know why they cast Alexa. You could tell Barrowman was struggling a little in their scenes in episode 1 because…er, she can’t really act that well!

[Ridley]

Episode 2 was much stronger[…]

Agreed.

—-

That two sentence email needed padding out for the way the scene was played.

[Nick R]

I watched the first episode today. It had one really good scene, the examination of the splattered remains of the bomber, which was a great way of addressing the big question of the limits of the whole high concept behind the series.

But other than that, it wasn’t much better than the likes of the godawful FlashForward (of which I withstood two episodes, I think) – it definitely wasn’t any less silly. But I’ll stick with it, because now the exposition’s out of the way it’s a concept that has a lot of potential.

(And I too would like to applaud Carlito’s No One Died post above.)

[Alex]

I’ve seen the whole series. For those who want to know, spoilers below.

In episode one, no one died. In episode two, no one died. In episode three, no one died. In episode four, no one died. In episode five, there was the incident with the pigeon. In episode six, no one died. In episode seven, no one died. In episode eight, no one died. In episode nine, someone died. In episode ten, no one died.

I surely can’t be the only one who read that with the voice of Steve Coogan’s swimming pool attendant charecter in mind.

[Ian Symes]

[Pete Part Three]

I second Ian’s comment.

[genericnerdyusername]

I third his comment and second Pete’s*.

*I don’t watch Game of Thrones and have missed all of Torchwood so far, so there’s little else for me to post lately :)

[si]

Okay, got Torchwood on at the mo, noticing the picture quality tonight. Hm. :/

[pfm]

> noticing the picture quality tonight. Hm. :/

Yep, it’s dodgy as owt, ain’t it? I wonder if the BBC even care…

[ChrisM]

SPOILERS for episode 2.
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I enjoyed the second episode, although the ‘do it yourself’ antidote bit was silly (but not in a bad way). It occurred to me that the young lady CIA agent (she from Doll House) probably should have been paralysed… but then I remember that body parts seem to function apart from the brain in this scenario (judging from the arm). That moment was actually pretty freaky!

I still don’t really buy the paedophile rapist character being set free -albeit he’s been watched- but I didn’t really buy the CIA agent just being given a gun, just like that, on British soil last week either.

It’s enjoyable stuff though.

[Pete Part Three]

Dichen Lachman pisses me off so I was hoping someone would kill her as soon as she turned up.

Then I remembered what the show was about.

[Ian Symes]

That episode was truly woeful – back to series one standard. Eve Myles was utterly abysmal, the making-the-antidote scene was stupid, annoying and dull, *none* of the CIA people are remotely believable, and it contained the sentence: “the interview has you trending on Twitter – and the hashtag says forgive!”

Aside from the piss-poor writing and acting, it’s also extremely badly made. The continuity is shocking – when Claire from Six Feet Under was having a fag with Superdoctor, her cigarette changed hands after every single cut. Then there’s the picture quality, which makes BBC One HD look like a dodgy torrent that’s been captured at the wrong frame rate. An utter embarrassment.

[Jonathan Capps]

A thousand times this. What a fucking shambles and a massive drop in quality from the already slightly iffy first episode.

[Dave]

>I didn’t really buy the CIA agent just being given a gun, just like that, on British soil last week either.

That’s actually quite realistic.

[si]

I enjoyed it, myself. And thought Eve Myles was brilliant. Nowhere *near* as bad as series one.

[Ridley]

I still don’t really buy the paedophile rapist character being set free

Danes is the best thing on it.

This is one hell of an assumption or incredibly disturbing fanon.

—-

What I find moronic is a doctor going for a smoke (for the benefit of the plot) after she’s just figured out she could get cancer forever.

[ChrisM]

>Danes is the best thing on it.

I agree, he’s a great character, but that doesn’t change my belief that I don’t think he would have been set free that easily.

>I didn’t really buy the CIA agent just being given a gun, just like that, on British soil last week either.

That’s actually quite realistic.

I’ll admit I don’t know much about the procedures there, but thinking about it, I believe you. (Not being sarcastic.) Maybe I’d change my sentence to “I’d like to think they wouldn’t give the CIA a gun just like that on British soil.”

It’s worrying.

[si]

Just watched episode three. Jane Espenson doesn’t disappoint. I know opinion, both on here and in Twitterland, seems to be divided on this series, but I’m enjoying it. There’s certainly lots to like, I think, about this episode. :)

[Bob Loblaw]

I’m enjoying it, too. It’s a lot different in tone from CoE but I don’t think that has to be a bad thing.

I feel like I’m getting too distracted by recognising the American actors to actually decide whether they’re any good.

‘It’s Pratt from ER! It’s Newman from Seinfeld! It’s Claire from Six Feet Under! It’s that woman from Dollhouse!’

[si]

I still see Wayne Knight and think ‘3rd Rock From The Sun’. I never watched Seinfeld.

[Pete Part Three]

ah-ha-ha you didn’t say the magic word…

[Carlito]

And what IS the magic word, Doctor Venkman?

[Danny Stephenson]

…Please.

Goddamn! I hate this hacker crap…

[Author]

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