h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Why did you have to put it in this thread? It's free to create new ones ...

Haven't got round to watching the Torchwood thing yet ... would prefer not to have it spoiled and I did subscribe on to this for Dr Who discussion ...

Read the title before the content

>Evil Alien: Or we could slaughter your armies effortlessly and take ALL the children. Problem solved.

I think the point was that for the aliens fighting a war isn't a breeze or a pushover: poisoning a building is one thing, fighting the whole world is another. They'd rather do things the "peaceful" way because it's a lot easier for them.

There have still been some of the "good old" Torchwood plotholes, though. I was a bit annoyed that the cabinet immediately assumed the 456's claims to be able to wipe-out humanity were true at face value despite them being given an ultimatum they clearly found very hard to accept (perhaps they've reasons for thinking this but would it have been so hard to let the viewer know that?).

Additionally, if the purpose of the "bottom 10%" was to weed-out tomorrow's "non-productive" citizens surely choosing kids who had criminal convictions or were troublemakers would have made more sense than those who didn't perform well at school - poor academic achievement early in life is hardly evidence of being a future burden on the state. Yes, I know that scene was supposed to re-enforce the "politicans are evil" thing but it didn't ring true that the politician's idea of the kids they would "miss least" would be the ones not doing so well at their times tables. I also thought the fact that the whole group around the table acquiesced to the idea without argument was completely unrealistic.

Oh, and something that's really bugged me over the last two episodes, why did the Americans send a general to negotiate with the British government when in reality they'd have sent their Secretary of State or (at short notice) their ambassador in London?

The thing with the bottom 10% was that the the cabinate members were trying to protect their own

>The thing with the bottom 10% was that the the cabinate members were trying to protect their own


Not quite. They'd already agreed that none of their own kids would be up for handing over to the 456. The argument for the "bottom 10%" thing wasn't that it would protect their families (that had already been agreed at) but that it would remove future citizens most likely to be a burden on the state.

But there was a subtext that they needed a palatable reason to hand to voters about why their own children were not included. The 'bottom 10%' was a rationalisation of this - none of *their* children were in failing schools.

I was struck by how easily the Americans conceded British authority here. 'Oh, your PM won't be personally involved? In that case, fine, get your Civil Service to run the whole show, no probs.'

Gif

"Read the title before the content"

Yup I did ... the thread title on My Space is Dr Who ... so I keep clicking on it because it has new posts about Dr Who ... except they're all about Torchwood ... and I can't even read through the posts properly as I'm going to watch the Torchwood episodes at the weekend ... so while there might actually be some Dr Who posts of interest to me I can't actually tell without spoiling my weekend ...

So how does reading the title before the content help me?

The title at the top of each post reads
"Warning! This Thread Contains Spoilers

Bright Blue Shorts

I saw a news headline earlier about Lindsay Duncan being in the next Doctor Who but I can't find it any more, so now I'm having to scan this thread carefully so as to miss all the Torchwood stuff whilst spotting anything to do with actual Doctor Who discussions. Perhaps I should have posted this on the petty hates thread?

Deb

"But there was a subtext that they needed a palatable reason to hand to voters about why their own children were not included. The 'bottom 10%' was a rationalisation of this - none of *their* children were in failing schools."

But they made clear that they wouldn't be explaining to the British people that they were taking their kids, let alone why. The whole thing was to be covered up as an innoculation program to stop the aliens possessing them (with their subsequent disappearance to be blamed on the aliens and outwith their control). That's why Torchwood had to record the whole thing - to make sure the population knew what was really happening so they wouldn't hand their kids over.

"I was struck by how easily the Americans conceded British authority here. 'Oh, your PM won't be personally involved? In that case, fine, get your Civil Service to run the whole show, no probs.'"

On the contrary, I thought that was the only point it felt realistic. The idea that the Americans would send a *general* to negotiate with the British Prime Minister (rather than the Secretary of State) and that then he'd come out with things like "you will hand over all the information on the 456!" (which was begging the response "Or else what, exactly?") was more than faintly silly and simply playing to the audiences preconceptions of how the US behaves (with tiny South American tinpot client dictators, probably, with important allies who are also world powers, no).

> 'Oh, your PM won't be personally involved? In that case, fine, get your Civil Service to run the whole show, no probs.'

A reason for this was given, though: the PM represented the elected part of government whilst the civil service represented the unelected part so by de jure handing over negotiations to the civil service the sitting government avoided direct association should they go wrong. The American representative understood this.

Should we take this somewhere else then? There's another thread where this is being discussed.

'Why did you have to put it in this thread, it's free to create new ones...'

Yeeeees, but there seems to a concerted move toward making the various spin offs tie in with events in the main Doctor Who story plots so I would say that there is a good argument for saying that all Torchwood, Sarah Jane etc should be discussed here too.

I take your point about the spoilers but seriously, did you really expect to be able to read a thread like this one and not hear a plot mentioned somewhere? If I have to work on the day of a Who show I make damn sure I have the radio off all day so DJs can't ruin it with their commenting, avoid anyone who might tell me what happened and even fill up with fuel the previous night to avoid the possibility of hearing it in conversation before I get to watch, and I wouldn't dream of saving them up until the weekend in the hope of not hearing about until then, because it just won't happen.

I've made no secret of the fact I didn't like Torchwood when it first came out but I felt obliged to watch the new (short) series because the whole lot now seem inseparable from each other. That said, I think this series of TW is the best one so far. The unexpected (FILTERED FOR SHORTS) etc. have a sense of RTD tying up the loose ends he would have liked to develop if he'd stayed on while clearing the way for Moffat to start with an RTD-unencumbered Whoniverse. I am now actually looking forward to whatever series comes next with an anticipation I haven't had in a long time.

>Should we take this somewhere else then? There's another thread where this is being discussed. I think that might be a good idea: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F79498?thread=6735715&latest=1

umm *sort of spoiler but not really*

check out The Big Picture on the entertainment page of BBC news today...

and no it's not Torchwood related

I really enjoyed the new Torchwood mini-series and have comments but I'll put them over on the other thread to save this thread from me. Plus I'm too tired to do that all now.

What I did think was interesting though was how this affects Dr Who as a show, because the way I see it, RTD/DT Dr Who is over, and that's the show that spawned Torchwood and SJAs. I don't know what's going on with SJAs as I don't watch it, but Torchwood could very easily never come back because of a) how they left Torchwood itself at the end of this mini-series b) the Dr Who period that spawned it is over, and do we really want RTD Whoniverse coming back when Moffat's in charge? Obviously I don't know how Moffat and Matt Smith are going to do it, but if it is different significantly to how RTD's done it would Jack coming back into it fit?

I think with the new Doctor there's a lot that's going to stop coming back. Old monsters maybe, and particularly, I reckon, old companions. It's been said already that Moffat always wanted to be the Doctor and RTD wanted to be the companion, so there'll possibly be a very different slant with far fewer companion reappearances and stuff. So I reckon it's bye bye to Martha and Jack, and I doubt we'll get that fleeting glance of Donna in her new life as a normal person, so other than Sarah Jane, who's got her own show now anyway, it's a clean slate for Moffat/Smith and the show is going to be noticeably different, probably less Earth centered (especially for season finale's, 3/4 involving Earth under RTD) and being less soap-y.

Also, if the new companion fancies the Doctor like Rose and/or Martha then I'm going to have to punch something.

Huh, so much for too tired to write my thoughts right now.

Having watched last seasons Sarah Jane it's pretty much old school Who...which I found more interesting than the new style 'proper' Dr Who.

Nothing will affect the new Dr Who. If Moffat doesn;t go for the big affecting the whole world stories like RTD did the tension will still be there as a) if it's set 'now' people will still be scared even if they know aliens exist and b) he doesn;t need to set stuff 'now' though budgets may make him do it.

Or he will just ignore the fact that everyone knows aliens exist and just make good old fashioned stories....hopefully.

'Smaller' stories are far more interesting than world destroying stories as you can;t destroy the world so the tension isn't there but you can destroy a group of people or small hamlet etc and overall the world will carry on as normal. RTD went for the planet killer major city stories which lacked tension as you knew they would be defeated.

Also, the reason why there was so much story about the companions is that RTD always wanted to be the companion rather than the Dr, whether that's a 'gay' thing I am not sure, however, no other story editor has concentrated on the companions rather than Dr Who becuase the programme is called Dr Who.

Whether the new lot of Dr WHo fans start complaining that the companion is just a companion and not the star of the show as in the RTD days we will have to see.

I think the fans would prefer it if captain Jack could return once in a while though... it's always quite fun when he's about...

I want to see a fourth series of Torchwood where Gwen and Rhys are running it out of Ianto's sisters living room. All the estate would be in on what was happening and would chuck bricks at any government lackey that tried to interfere. 'They're trying to take our weevils boys! Get 'em!'

More seriously, how about bringing Anna-Louise Plowman back as Goddard, the head of the Van Statten institute (I never did buy that idea that she would just encase the lot in concrete as soon as the Doctor left, she liked being in charge too much for that). She could buy up the land that Torchwood was occupying and start excavating to recover all the buried alien artifacts. As each object dug up unleashed more chaos she would be persuaded to recruit Gwen and Rhys, then reform Torchwood using Van Stattens millions to fund it. Anyway, didn't Torchwood own property all over the country? Who owns the deeds to all that now?