Episode 4

[kcracken.livejournal.com]

There was one line that really irritated me from last night. Not really a spoiler, just incorrect, which makes me feel like RTD doesn't even know his own show. And I hope I'm quoting this correctly. I just remember getting upset about it because it didn't sound right.


Jack says, "Well, when you've been around for thousands of years..."


I know it could be taken different ways, but new viewers are going to take it that he's been alive for thousands of years, not traveled IN thousands of years. I've watched all the episodes, mainly because it's like a train wreck, you can't look away. I want to see if it gets resolved. I don't think it will, unless all the subplots are resolved in one sentence each. Six more episodes and we hardly know anything as it is. Maybe that's why Starz doesn't think it's a "yearly" show.

Comments

[amythest-n-ice.livejournal.com]

He has; when Grey and John Hart showed up, Jack was sent back to prehistoric Cardiff and buried alive, he wasn't dug up for millenia, by Victorian Torchwood, I think.

[kcracken.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten about that (because I haven't gotten that far in the original series, mainly because I'm afraid of things that happen), but still, the context in which it was used, it doesn't make sense. But then again, when does RTD make sense?

[amythest-n-ice.livejournal.com]

I have said for many years, RTD and continuity/logic have been through an acrimonious divorce, and are no longer even on speaking terms, let alone willing to co-operate on anything.

[slns7552.livejournal.com]

I don't know if those years would count. He spent 1000 years buried, waking up and suffocating again, and then 1000 years frozen. He really wasn't around experience-wise for that time.

[slns7552.livejournal.com]

The 2000 years should count agewise I guess but not experiencewise. He was buried for 1000 and then frozen. He wasn't experiencing anything except for waking up and suffocating again.

[charie-caphine.livejournal.com]

He was buried for ~1900 years and then frozen for 106 or thereabouts.

Any way you look at it, those 2k years don't count, as you say, experience-wise - and not even age-wise if one prefers the idea that Jack had been sort of suspended in time via John's ring while underground; otherwise it's a bit odd that the coat had survived intact through all of it.

[dr-doomsduck.livejournal.com]

Six more episodes and we hardly know anything as it is.

SPOILERS!!!





This is one of the problems with Miracle day, we are almost halfway through the story, but the plot hasn't even really started yet. We have no real leads, not even a good reason to suspect that phicorp has anything to do with it, fine, so they stacked up on painkillers, perhaps because they want to legalise them in supermarkets...I don't see how any of that should automatically be related to the Miracle and not just an independent plan from a big pharmacutical company. Maybe I'm missing something here, because I'm not watching it but the only solid things there seem to be, are that someone wants to get rid of Torchwood (presumably Starz or RTD) and that people don't die anymore. Then there's the vague talk about morphic fields and don't even get me started on what the hell Oswald Danes and Kitzinger are doing there?

We have about six episode to solve the whole mess, which just isn't enough. My guess is that the answers are going to be slap bang and plotholey. It's trying to be 24, but fails because it only has 10 episodes and places the emphasis on the wrong things.

[iamme-ur2.livejournal.com]

I took loads of fiction writing classes at college (and loved them) and the FIRST thing I was told by each professor was this:

Don't tell me 'I know it starts slow and/or is dull but it gets really interesting starting on page 34!'. If that's where the interesting stuff starts, then delete the first 33 pages. And if the information in those first pages is important but NOT necessary, find a way to add it in LATER.

-----

I get that RTD has to reintroduce things for his new viewers (obviously not fans) but if 3 or 4 episodes have aired and NOTHING is really going on, he could easily have condensed those into one episode. If it applies to written stories, it can apply to visual too! If it gets too dull, people change the channel!

[satanassa.livejournal.com]

Exactly! A good story should grip the reader/viewer right from the beginning.

[littleatem.livejournal.com]

RTD is trying a new style. It was originally done by Lost, but he saw what a success that was and decided to do the same, however he wasn't promised 6 seasons so he decided to cram it all into one. It would be a major success, he just knew it! Besides, everyone was watching for Gwen, she just had to be the focal point on everything going on around her, Torchwood universe meet your new Sun!(Please excuse my sarcasm it's been a long work day for me)

[dr-doomsduck.livejournal.com]

Never apologize for sarcasm, it is one of the few things that will get us through Gwenwood.

[slns7552.livejournal.com]

And I only watched the first season of Lost. I tried to watch the second but it was too much for my poor little pea-brain.

[stlscape.livejournal.com]

We have about six episode to solve the whole mess, which just isn't enough.

No, no. It's *plenty*. Jack, after futzing around and acting OOC for most of the past five ten episodes, will, in the last 30 minutes of the last episode, pull a solution out of his ass, sacrifice his grandson Gwen or some kid for the greater good, reveal he's not actually American, but from Boshane, and transport off planet again with his handy-dandy Vortex Manipulator that hasn't worked right since it got all bloweded up in COE.

[dr-doomsduck.livejournal.com]

That sounds realistic, except it would involve Jack actually DOING something..which just goes against the premise of Miracle Day. It's Gwen who's going to pull a deux angst machina out of her ass and sacrifice Jack to restore the world to it's former state, because he is just a sleazy damsel who only brings trouble.

[kamiandcat.livejournal.com]

The clearly have no idea (or they don't care) what happed in the past. Another example? That "if MD had happed sooner Ianto would still be around", speech. Big LOLs because in that case Jack would have died in his place. *fail*

[wanda1969.livejournal.com]

Now, perhaps I wasn't taking enough notice (probably true as MD is just not catching my interest properly, due to being CRAP), but quite a few of these new characters seemed to have failed to see the children chanting "We are coming" only a year (or whatever) before. Did Phicorp put Retcon in the world's water supply, or did I miss something?

[charie-caphine.livejournal.com]

Ahem, Anti-Gwen Allies? Not anti-MD, as such. Even if quite a few here are.

Anyway, thanks for the other way to view that phrase about 'thousands of years'! Makes much more sense the way you suggest to interpret it. But it didn't really bug me that much, mainly because I'm still bothered by Ianto's words from the famous 'Dead Line' monologue - 'you've already lived a thousand lifetimes' - therefore, nothing new in regards to, um, artistic exaggeration.

On the subject of MD moving along and having a resolution, I think it will at least honestly attempt to tie everything up, and judging from the teaser trailer and some promo comments about the fifth episode, that's where the first answers are going to come in and quite possibly markedly propel the plot.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Well, I am anti-MD. I'm against the whole existence of Miracle Crap. I'm anti-CoE, too. Due to the fact that both stinking piles of horseshit center around the Gwenninator. So, that makes me an anti-Gwennite, IMO.

[slns7552.livejournal.com]

I could buy the "you've already lived a thousand lifetimes" after all how many times did Jack change names and move to a different planet, solar system, country?

[hydrojen90.livejournal.com]

This whole episode made me want to vomit. Gwen just seems to be getting worse as the series progresses. And I know this isn't an anti-Eve Myles com, but seriously, some people see her as a sex symbol? When she had that suit on, I don't think I've ever seen her looking as ugly. I just don't get how people can say she's really attractive.

Anyway, the thing that made me want to vomit the most was Jack and Gwen pretending to be a couple. At least it made me realise how wooden and awful they are as a couple though, Jack looked like he couldn't wait to pour acid on his hand.

Vomit-enducing scenes aside, I saw my family today who have seen the new series and also think it's shit. My brother even said, 'It's all Gwen's fault.' Best moment of my evening :P

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Your family is apparently very observant. :)

And Jack and Gwen never had any real chemistry onscreen. The so-called UST scenes between them were utterly ridiculous. I always had the impression that Jack was mind-controlled by the evil overlord Rustoid via telepathic beams or whatnot, and the tiny part of him that was being himself wanted to get out of the sticky situation by all means necessary.

[slns7552.livejournal.com]

On the Ugo website, there was a picture of her and the gun and the baby at the broken window but it was a straight on shot. She looked awful straight on. They need to keep taking her pictures where she is turned a little bit.

[jennelldhalrbj.livejournal.com]

RTD is trying a new style. It involves just writing complete crap without doing any research or checking anything that happened before for continuity.
As for Eve Myles appearance, I have always thought she looked fairly ordinary. You know, a person who can look good if dressed up and expertly made up. (As long as she keeps her mouth shut that is).

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

The Rustoid writing crap counts as a new style? Dammit, and I thought that was what he did during DW and TW for years!

As for Gwen's rather plain looks, that was the only part I actually liked. I hate those artificial Barbie dolls we get to see in practically every Amercian show: a body like that of a starving rat, because they're hysterically afraid of gaining weight (and that makes them look 20 years older than they actually are) and a Botox-inflated face that has no expression at all.

[kcracken.livejournal.com]

I didn't expect this to blow up like it has, but I'm pretty proud that it did. I love everyone's take. I'm so glad I'm not alone.