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I never really saw the first two seasons - it looked good at first, but the character of Jack wasn't as interesting as in New Who and, without any real conscious decision, it never got taped. I guess for me it just show up that RTD - writer of some of the best drama of the last dozen years - was no Joss Whedon.
And so, after a couple of impressive looking trailers, and some unwise bleating from Barrowman, we get the five part miniseries; I watched the first four episode back to back and then episode five.
Well?
The slimmed down team works well, although I suspect some teasing was being done about potential new recruits (the dishy young doctor, the mark 2 or 3 Martha, the tough army woman even) throughout. The fact that a doctor can be shot in cold blood rather sets the tone to be dark - if the world being in peril is to mean anything, sometimes the show has to step over the abyss. And when characters can be brought back from the dead, there's nothing to play for. Procedural corners were clearly cut to slim the action into five days, but that made for taut, gripping drama.
I liked the political edge - Green is not Brown, but...; the use of league tables; the cynicism of politicians, Gwen's line about the Doctor looking away in disgust (and the resonance of the question of an intervenist God and the death camps lingers behind this).
I liked the vagueness with which the aliens were depicted. Let us imagine them.
But...
Tone down the bloody music. We know how to feel.
There seemed to be some dodgy loose ends - the stolen Torchwood van (ok, the beginning of the unravelling of Ianto) (and I wonder if the show's attitude to the people on the estate isn't a little conflicted in its representation of an underclass when then showing politicians as dismissive). I felt Lois was being set up as a mole in the ministry - an embedded journalist, or someone there to betray them. I always felt that Alice knew more than she did - almost as if she phoned on someone else's mobile to ensure she was captured (but if so why?). What was Dekker's background?
The casting of Peter Capaldi... obviously I spent time wondering whether his family were descended from Pompeii, but equally I was waiting for the tirades a la Malcolm in In the Thick of It. Very brave to cast him in another political role.
Paul Copley was excellent as the survivor of 1965 (with a very PMish name) but I didn't get how he was affected by the aliens - perhaps he simply got too close. Nicholas Farrell seemed to be doing a Bill Nighy impression - not in itself bad.
More ups than downs - but so soon after the cybermen need our children episode: it's just a lazy macguffin to repeat it so soon.
And so, after a couple of impressive looking trailers, and some unwise bleating from Barrowman, we get the five part miniseries; I watched the first four episode back to back and then episode five.
Well?
The slimmed down team works well, although I suspect some teasing was being done about potential new recruits (the dishy young doctor, the mark 2 or 3 Martha, the tough army woman even) throughout. The fact that a doctor can be shot in cold blood rather sets the tone to be dark - if the world being in peril is to mean anything, sometimes the show has to step over the abyss. And when characters can be brought back from the dead, there's nothing to play for. Procedural corners were clearly cut to slim the action into five days, but that made for taut, gripping drama.
I liked the political edge - Green is not Brown, but...; the use of league tables; the cynicism of politicians, Gwen's line about the Doctor looking away in disgust (and the resonance of the question of an intervenist God and the death camps lingers behind this).
I liked the vagueness with which the aliens were depicted. Let us imagine them.
But...
Tone down the bloody music. We know how to feel.
There seemed to be some dodgy loose ends - the stolen Torchwood van (ok, the beginning of the unravelling of Ianto) (and I wonder if the show's attitude to the people on the estate isn't a little conflicted in its representation of an underclass when then showing politicians as dismissive). I felt Lois was being set up as a mole in the ministry - an embedded journalist, or someone there to betray them. I always felt that Alice knew more than she did - almost as if she phoned on someone else's mobile to ensure she was captured (but if so why?). What was Dekker's background?
The casting of Peter Capaldi... obviously I spent time wondering whether his family were descended from Pompeii, but equally I was waiting for the tirades a la Malcolm in In the Thick of It. Very brave to cast him in another political role.
Paul Copley was excellent as the survivor of 1965 (with a very PMish name) but I didn't get how he was affected by the aliens - perhaps he simply got too close. Nicholas Farrell seemed to be doing a Bill Nighy impression - not in itself bad.
More ups than downs - but so soon after the cybermen need our children episode: it's just a lazy macguffin to repeat it so soon.
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