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Archie
Registered: 05/11/06
Posts: 66
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 Thursday, November 23 2006 @ 11:04 AM EST |
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Okay I'm going to say it - that was 50 minutes of the most scary TV I have ever seen! I typically don't do horror movies (although I did see and liked Dog Soldiers). This was a real shock.
The whole idea that humans could be so bad was psychologically terrifying and as a regular newspaper reader (yes we are out there) sadly too true. Half way through my wife said - could it just be really bad humans and I said, oh no they must be aliens...because I wanted them to be! Eeck they weren't!
Good use of all the characters and what a line "Who protects us?" Finally a sci-fi character has voiced a realistic thought about the ridiculous danger they face every week.
Poor Gwen, I don't approve of her affair but I can understand her motives.
Brilliant TV. Not one I will rewatch often though - far too scary...maybe because I just moved out to the country! I'm certainly never going camping!!
Oh and finally jacks line "Celebrate your uniqueness." Great line. Lovely subtext. Well done Russell T. |
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Practice acts of random kindness.
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Linquel
Registered: 03/22/06
Posts: 729
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| Sunday, November 26 2006 @ 03:42 PM EST |
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I'll edit my post and add more details after I go through and read the rest of the thread, but I just wanted to post a quick reaction to Countrycide which we watched last night. In a nutshell, I'm rapidly losing interest in this show. It had such potential, but it's not living up to my expectations. This particular episode started out creepy and interesting, but as it went on it lost it. My wife summed it up with the question "Do they know the term Jumping the Shark in England?" The crew seemed more bumbling than anything else. I'm finding that I really can't stand Owen anymore. I don't know why they are trying to make him the stud of the group. We already know from episode one that he apparently can't get laid without resorting to some alien pheromones. Gwen hooking up with him is just ridiculous. The story was completely unimaginative. I know in the Declassified RTD said they were going for The Hills Have Eyes, I just don't understand why they would want to. They really need to fully establish their alien fighting creds before they try to expand the show to include this type of story. I'll read through the rest of the posts now, but I'd be surprised to find someone who actually liked the show. Considering that it aired a week ago and there only appears to be two pages of posts tends to back my suspicion.
-L
 -meh
/edit/
Ok..it appears there are a few people who liked this ep. Interesting. Here are a few replies to various posts from the thread...
[Quote by: whodovoodoo] Tosh was cleverly used, we saw Own pull out his Doctoring skills (which had so far been pointless), and I'm all for more Ianto screen time.
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I still don't understand why they aren't using Tosh in the doctor situations as it was established in DW Aliens of London/WW3 that she has a medical background. This just feels like poor writing. Or lazy writing.
[Quote by: Mawdryn] I guess I'm on the side of liking this one. While it had some familiar elements (reminded me a bit of the X-Files), I was entertained.
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I thought X-Files did it much, much better in the episode with the Peacock family. That was creepy as all get-out.
| [Quote by: mad4plaid]They are TORCHWOOD! And they have keys to their cars? Why don't they have some biometric scan? They are TORCHWOOD! And they don't have communication devices that can work in rural Wales, so they've no way to communicate with each other? |
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I think that helped feed my overall feeling that the Torchwood team are more Keystone Kops. All the alien tech at their disposal and they can't maintain communications out in the country? More and more I'm wishing we were seeing the London Torchwood team in action. |
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I'm going "Full Circle" and putting my avatar back to what it was when I first joined. :)
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seanhuxter
Registered: 08/27/05
Posts: 825
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| Monday, November 27 2006 @ 08:06 AM EST |
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I can answer all of those, some with questions:
1) Is it established that Tosh is the same doctor we saw in Season 27? I wasn't sure that was true. I'm assuming she's a totally different character.
2) The X-Files episode "The Family" was not about village-condoned cannibalism, it was about incest.
3) I thought the loss of the Torchwood vehicle just shows they were human and not two-dimensional perfect beings as we often see in police shows on THIS side of the pond.
Sean.
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One solid hope is worth a cartload of uncertainties.
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Archie
Registered: 05/11/06
Posts: 66
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| Monday, November 27 2006 @ 08:36 AM EST |
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Losing the car was stupid but that's what happens in real life - stupid mistakes. Just think about the last time you locked yourself out of your house or mislaid your car keys when you were in a hurry.
Bumbling in the face of danger seems real to me. |
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Practice acts of random kindness.
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Linquel
Registered: 03/22/06
Posts: 729
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| Monday, November 27 2006 @ 09:49 AM EST |
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[Quote by: seanhuxter]
2) The X-Files episode "The Family" was not about village-condoned cannibalism, it was about incest.
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Yes, but my point was that there was no supernatural or alien being behind the deaths. The evil was of a human variety. |
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I'm going "Full Circle" and putting my avatar back to what it was when I first joined. :)
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seanhuxter
Registered: 08/27/05
Posts: 825
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| Monday, November 27 2006 @ 09:56 AM EST |
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Ok, sure, but that's the same of a bunch of X-Files episodes. Sometimes the monster is us, and I really liked this episode for reminding us of that.
Sean.
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One solid hope is worth a cartload of uncertainties.
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mad4plaid
Registered: 02/02/06
Posts: 880
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| Tuesday, November 28 2006 @ 10:39 PM EST |
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[Quote by: seanhuxter]
1) Is it established that Tosh is the same doctor we saw in Season 27? I wasn't sure that was true. I'm assuming she's a totally different character.
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Strangely, it's the same character. She went from being a doctor/lab tech/Dr Quincy to being a compute whiz. Maybe she was in Aliens of London, but the impression given was that she was a doctor. |
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supremacy is relative
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merlin_mccarley
Registered: 07/30/06
Posts: 733
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| Tuesday, November 28 2006 @ 11:19 PM EST |
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[Quote by: mad4plaid] [Quote by: seanhuxter]
1) Is it established that Tosh is the same doctor we saw in Season 27? I wasn't sure that was true. I'm assuming she's a totally different character.
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Strangely, it's the same character. She went from being a doctor/lab tech/Dr Quincy to being a compute whiz. Maybe she was in Aliens of London, but the impression given was that she was a doctor. |
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I will need to go back to the original episode to make sure, but IMDB  credits her (in "Aliens of London") as Dr. Sato so it is quite possible. But don't forget that in "Small Worlds" She did the quick visual COD determination of the pedifile in the jailcell. I guess she is the "Backup Doctor" here beacuse of what we saw in "Greeks Bearing Gifts". But it is possible that Owen has an anthropological background as well so he might be better at testing the long dead. |
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I'm a Time Traveler, I point and laugh at archaeologist.
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DarthSkeptical
Registered: 03/11/06
Posts: 1129
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| Wednesday, November 29 2006 @ 02:58 AM EST |
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On the case of the two Satos, I think, and it's entirely speculation, that RTD and company screwed the pooch.
I think that Owen and Sato switched their originally-intended roles starting with this episode. I was totally shocked in this episode by Owen's sudden medical credentials. Far as I can see from previous episodes, he pulled the MD out of his ass. If you'd asked me in the first few episodes who was the computer geek and who was the "able to use computers because of collateral studies in another field" geek, I would've said Owen was the former and Sato was the latter. I think they suddenly switched that in this episode, merely because it gave plot motivation for Owen to start an affair with Gwen.
On the episode as a whole, I liked the fact that we had the crew together in an unfamiliar setting. Campgrounds are always good for bonding, and, given what we saw in Episode 7, this will probably be seen historically as the start of the crew beginning to come into their own.
That said, I don't particularly "buy" the Owen/Gwen relationship. It comes from literally nowhere. Sure, I get it from Owen's side, but Gwen? She's got a reason to want an intimate relationship with someone in Torchwood, but hardly Owen. Their li'l snog in episode 4 is a paper-thin pretext. I'm not saying it could never have happened, but we haven't been given nearly enough setup to go along willingly with it. I like what they're trying to do with it, by setting up a Gwen/Owen/Tosh triangle. But they didn't set it up. They just made it happen. They told without showing.
I found Owen's transformation from loser to lover absolutely incredible. Granted I'm male and straight, but I don't look at Owen and put him within 50 yards of an orgasm.
Now, all this plays out interestingly in the next episode, but that still doesn't excuse this episode of its dramatic responsibilities.
On the other hand, we did have some nice Tosh/Ianto moments, which could well be used later to some great romantic effect, if necessary. Nothing like surviving the threat of being eaten alive to turn the lava lamp on. But what was good, here, is that they didn't just fall into each others' arms. We got a hint that they, at least, have a shared moment before the zippers come down.
The plot? Silly, not scary. Fine, it had me until the end. The reveal that it was just ritual cannibalism? Blah. Been there, done that. Don't know why it was such a big deal to Gwen that she find out why it was happening. Some humans are cannibals. Been happening for thousands of years.
So, overall, a half-step in the right direction for character motivations, but definitely the weakest plot of the first seven episodes. |
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"I think of myself as ambitious in casting terms, and I know that Bonnie [Langford] has the potential to make the part totally unirritating . . ." — JNT, 1986
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mad4plaid
Registered: 02/02/06
Posts: 880
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| Wednesday, November 29 2006 @ 06:00 PM EST |
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| [Quote by: DarthSkeptical] Granted I'm male and straight, but I don't look at Owen and put him within 50 yards of an orgasm. |
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I'm female and straight and pretty much agree with you. Not exactly my idea of romantic material. Then again, history has proven that women like the badboy / horse's behind. |
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supremacy is relative
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Magpie
Registered: 06/29/06
Posts: 519
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| Friday, December 01 2006 @ 03:07 PM EST |
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| I guess nobody seems to think this episode was that scary but I did! But then, I find "The Things That Men Do" (to quote The Satan Pit) more frightening than aliens. |
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If Worzel Gummidge and the Third Doctor had a fist fight - who would win?
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Archie
Registered: 05/11/06
Posts: 66
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| Monday, December 04 2006 @ 08:12 AM EST |
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| Magpie - as I posted above - definately frightening! |
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Practice acts of random kindness.
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DJ
Registered: 07/20/07
Posts: 25
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| Monday, July 23 2007 @ 08:05 AM EDT |
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I'm not a huge lover of Torchwood but it was a way of filling the DW shaped hole whilst waiting for it to return.
I admit I missed a few episodes and borrowed a mates Torchwood DVD last night, I only watched the ones I missed ie/ Countrycide and the one just after it (the name escapes me  )
I have to say that personally speaking, Countrycide was the best one ever, gory and gruesome, scary and spooky and made even more frightening by the fact it was humans and not aliens (as mentioned by another poster)
I hate to say it, but I think I maybe a fan |
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