Category Archives: Doctor Who

Doctor Who, General, Movies & TV

Torchwood So Far

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Since various people have been asking what I think of the series, and indeed my brother-in-law commenting on the fact that I hadn’t commented!

Interestingly when Charles made his comment, I answered that we were quite enjoying it – not the best series ever, but not bad. That was before the show on Sunday, Countrycide, which was truly dire, and only served to amplify some of the issues I’ve had with the show since the beginning. Countrycide was essentially going for the horror genre, but really missed the mark, coming over as a cheap imitation of numerous B movies. It started off with the classic blonde alone in a car getting got, and went down-hill from there.

In terms of the other episodes, we’ve quite enjoyed Ghost Machine and Small Worlds, with Cyberwoman being a bit disappointing.

The biggest issue I have with the series is that for a top secret organisation, it seems decidedly non-secret. For example the team quite often walk into places by saying that they’re Torchwood. They get past the Police in a similar way, and yet in the Christmas Invasion this organisation was apparently so secret that the Prime Minister wasn’t supposed to know about it, and yet everybody in Cardiff seems to know about them. Having said that, if you were driving about in a vehicle that looks like theirs, complete with ‘Torchwood’ stencilled on the side, it’s probably not a surprise that they’re well known. However in terms of the concept, it’s like James Bond driving around with ‘007 Licence to Kill’ written on the side. Considering their hidden base, you would have expected that their vehicle would be a lot less obvious – plus the amount of time they spend rushing around waving guns would again attract decidedly more attention than a secret organisation would want.

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Hopefully the series will pick up a bit later on, as the actors and writers get used to the characters, otherwise I suspect it might well only last a single series.

If you’re in the mood for a bit of Doctor Who though, I’d recommend taking a trip over to the BBC Wales Radio Player to listen to the excellent Doctor Who – A Celebration, a concert of music from the series in aid of Children in Need. Just enough to whet your appetite for the upcoming Doctor Who Soundtrack methinks.

Doctor Who, Movies & TV

Good News and Sad News for TV Sci-Fi

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The award shelf at BBC Wales must be straining under the weight of awards, with the show having had another clean sweep at the TV awards last night. However in sad news, it has been announced that Nigel Kneale, often considered the father of TV sci-fi having brought us Quatermass back in the 1950’s, has died at the age of 84. Certainly the original TV serial of Quatermass And The Pit stands out as a fantastic example of how to do compelling TV sci-fi within the confines of the medium, and is something I enjoyed watching years after it was first shown.

Doctor Who, Movies & TV

Torchwood Take 1

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So we’ve had the first two parts of Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood – and it’s already gone one better than the only previous spin-off, K-9 and Company and managed two episodes rather than one!

The two episodes were shown as a double bill, a wise move I think, as the Russell T Davies pilot episode was definitely the weaker of the two. It will be interesting to see how it is greeted, as this is definitely not Doctor Who. Yes there are quite a few references – although never by name – but this is definitely an adult show, with occasional swearing, some gore, and well with the plot of episode two being about an alien entity that absorbs energy from orgasms (which I know sounds like the plot of a porn movie) quite a bit of sex. It will certainly be interesting to see if there is any sort of outcry from parents who had let their Doctor Who obsessed children watch it without checking it out first – certainly Beth is aware of pupils who are fans who were going to tape it.

As to whether it was any good, it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t fantastic either. When Doctor Who came back it had the benefit of the key elements being almost embedded in the national psyche, so in general it didn’t need much exposition. The thing is that as a concept I don’t thing Torchwood quite works – I mean they’re fairly visible for a secretive organisation – dashing around waving guns around and in the most conspicuous car imaginable, which looks for all the world like a drug dealer SUV only more cheesy and yet conversely after the massive numbers of personnel that were visible when the London base appeared in Doctor Who, they now seem to have a staff of five at their base in Cardiff.

Having said that, most sci-fi shows tend to take a while to find their feet – and I suspect this may be no exception. However I do think that it might have been better not to saddle it with quite as much of a link to Doctor Who – especially as this is a very adult show spinning off from a show with a family audience. Quite apart from that I’m slightly concerned that with Sarah Jane Adventures coming along too the Doctor Who ‘franchise’ doesn’t go the way of Star Trek in that it spins so many shows off that it gets lost in it’s own continuity.

Doctor Who, Movies & TV

Doctor Who Record Non-News

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Earlier in the week I commented on an article on the Doctor Who web site about the latest Guinness Book of Records, and the fact that Stargate SG-1 had been awarded the longest running (consecutive) record.

The website article implied that it would be updated, which it has been, but not quite in the way fans were expecting, indeed in some ways it is still the same story. Whilst we have a picture of David Tennant with the award, and even an equivalent article on the main BBC News site, the book is still maintaining that Stargate SG-1 has been running without a break since 1997, without actually explaining how the ten series of Stargate SG-1 – which incidentally included a complete change of channel at season six – differs from the 26 series of Doctor Who which from 1963 to 1989 were produced every year by the BBC. The only argument I could possibly come up with is that they are taking account of the way that series are shown in the US where a series is spread over the entire year by showing blocks of new episodes, then repeats. Of course when the same series are shown in the UK and many other countries they would get shown in one run, with a gap. Also like any series in the US they aren’t continuously producing episodes either, they will get filmed in one block, much as with Doctor Who, and then the production team will be preparing the new series during the rest of the year again as was the case with Doctor Who, giving the actors a chance to go and do other work. Indeed if the award is for having episodes shown every week, surely the award should go to one of the Star Trek series which have been continuously repeated for years.

Anyway, I doubt that the Guinness Book of Records are going to give any ground over this – the 2007 version will be around until this time next year – however some more explanation about how they actually calculate the consecutive record really needs to be given – unless of course they can’t actually come up with a reasonable justification, in which case I guess they’re probably keeping their fingers crossed that the BBC and the fans stop making a fuss…