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Doctor Who Club of Australia
45
Celebrating the 45th anniversary of Doctor Who
Sunday Nov 23rd at Drummoyne RSL Victoria Rd Drummoyne
11 am to 6 pm
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| My favourite Torchwood series 2 episode was... |
| Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| Sleeper |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| To the Last Man |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| Meat |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| Adam |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| Reset |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| Dead Man Walking |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| A Day in the Death |
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50% |
[ 2 ] |
| Something Borrowed |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| From Out of the Rain |
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25% |
[ 1 ] |
| Adrift |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| Fragments |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| Exit Wounds |
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25% |
[ 1 ] |
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| Total Votes : 4 |
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| Author |
Message |
Greg
Site Admin
Joined: 26 Jun 2005
Posts: 1824
Location: Canberra
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 Posted: Mon Dec 01, 2008 7:04 pm Post subject: 20 - Favourite Torchwood story, series 2 (2008) |
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With Torchwood coming to the end of its run on TEN HD (the last episode screen on 8/12/08, so those watching this broadcast might want to wait a week) and the series 2 box set having been out locally for some time, now is a good time to see what people thought was the best of the series.
If you haven't watched series 2 yet, you might not want to read the replies below!
Please feel free to post your reasons for selecting the episode you did!
(Note: I have treated all the episodes as separate stories. There was some follow on between some episodes, but they were far more stand alone than being a multi-part story...) |
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montypython
Joined: 25 Jan 2006
Posts: 865
Location: My own little world
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| Posted: Mon Dec 01, 2008 10:34 pm Post subject: |
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Hmm... I found just about all the stories to be consistently good this year. The ones I can remove from the list are:
Sleeper - too much angry Jack and yelling
Meat - no particular reason
Dead Man Walking - too much Owen
A Day in the Death - " " " "
Fragments - good, but just not the best
Exit Wounds - no particular reason
Normally I like funny episodes, so Something Borrowed would be good on that front. But I liked the scary/supernatural element of From Out of the Rain, so I'll have to go for that.
Honourable mentions to Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang for the Janto date, To The Last Man for the Janto pash, Adam for the Janto trust, Reset for the Janto UNIT cap scenario, and of course Adrift for the Janto-why-was-the-damn-pot-plant-in-the-way scene.
Another good point about From Out of the Rain is the amount of time that Jack and Ianto spend together...
I have a problem.
EDIT: How could I forget Something Borrowed for the Janto flirting and the Janto dance?
Last edited by montypython on Tue Dec 02, 2008 10:18 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Sulp Niar
Joined: 07 Nov 2005
Posts: 787
Location: Where You Only Live Thirteen Times
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| Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 12:27 am Post subject: |
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| montypython wrote: | | Honourable mentions to Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang for the Janto date, To The Last Man for the Janto pash, Adam for the Janto trust, Reset for the Janto UNIT cap scenario, and of course Adrift for the Janto-why-was-the-damn-pot-plant-in-the-way scene. |
This is the best sentence I've ever read.
This season definitely was more consistent than the first. The real problem with the first was its seeming lack of direction; as it happened, it did have a direction, it's just that it didn't flow between the episodes and was often obscured by bizarre character-continuity bungling.
It's a shame, because looking back, the whole Gwen-degenerates mini-arc, which begins at the end of 'Ghost Machine', comes to the fore when she starts seeing Owen and ends with Rhys' death, was really good. Except... the stories surrounding it fudged it up, throwing it all over the place. 'Random Shoes' is a wonderful thing, but it tells us nothing about Gwen we didn't already know; whereas 'Love & Monsters' is a wonderful thing (IT JUST IS, DAMMIT!!!!!!!  ), but gave some idea of where the Doctor and Rose were heading. Even though they were hardly in it.
In TW S1, every character had their own arc. It's just that they're almost impossible to see clearly, which is annoying in what's clearly a character-based show rather than an explicity sci-fi show. When Owen and Gwen's arcs are the most coherent of the lot, then you're in trouble.
S2 on the other hand made it really, really damn obvious that each character was undergoing a change, an arc. We got 'Fragments', for example. That's the kind of story that works really well in context, but not elsewhere. And in a way, that's what S2 is like in general. The TW teams' interactions are perfectly interwoven into the stories, but the cost is that the stories themselves aren't really all that interesting. So whereas in S1 you can make cases for over half of the episodes being really interesting, in S2...
The Tommy one's dull. It's only there for Tosh's arc. 'Meat's dull. It's only there for Gwen and Rhys' arc. 'Exit Wounds' does fascinating - or at least, pretty good - things with its characters, but I don't think even those who like it say that the plot's any good. It's all over the place.
So for me, there was only two stories this season that actually managed to get the balance perfectly right... 'Adam', and 'A Day in the Death'.
I'd say 'Adam's better, but I actually prefer 'ADitD'. It redeems Owen, without making him an excessively nice person (which would be a cop-out-and-a-half). It's got some nice themes about death, about holding onto life, about how holding onto life can be both a horrible and a beautiful thing, depending on the situation.
Arguably its plot's a bit cacky too, but unlike the others in the season, it isn't pretending its plot is amazing ('Reset', for example, seems to genuinely think it's original. Dear god...); it just gets on with its themes, its brilliantly-written script, its powerful direction and its powerhouse performance from Burn Gorman.
...also, it helps that a) I really, really do like Owen [in the sense that I think he's a great character; not that I think, "He's a nice bloke! I'd hang out with him!"], b) Joseph Lidster wrote this, and he's a master of fascinating characterisation (and not-so-great plots), and c) the music, particularly Owen's theme, is wonderful.
[I probably sound really down on TW throughout this rant. But I actually really like it. Honest.] |
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