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

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I must say, Peter Capaldi played a blinder. It was a bit odd after watching 'In The Loop' this afternoon though!

Zagreb




And it was such a simple 'Star Trek' resolution...reverse the polarity, the oldest TV sci-fi solution in the book...apart from shagging the alien if it's James T Kirk.

Oh, great another hidden post. I was only half way through it too...looked an interesting critique...

Yes, Roy, Capaldi was excellent. A shame his character died uselessly in the name of forced melodrama and getting people crying.

To me Jack killing his son was simply due to the writers realising they had a weak ending and thinking killing the kid would hide the fact in the emotional roller-coaster they knew most of the viewing public would be going through and hence not look at the actual resolution itself.

I will say it has shown that interest can be kept over 5days for a series and the build up was excellent...would be nice to get a Dr Who episode like that with a good resolution.

Sorry, Dr Who story like that over a more than to episodes.

Great acting??? Sorry, Alice seemed to have only one facial expression.

And I did yell at the TV screen during her impassioned "Why oh why!" tearful clutching of dead child - it was just explained "why" to you, you stupid woman!

Very hard to believe the evil PMs delivery of the news to Frobisher. And indeed Frobisher's subsequent actions.

I realise I sound like I'm in the minority here, but I really won't be bothering to watch Torchwood again

I'm not sure there'll be a Torchwood to watch after this: Ianto dead, Jack gone, Gwen devastated and heavily pregnant. I think they've killed off the series.

It was incredibly dark and Frobisher killing his kids and wife made sense to me: he was a civil servant, a functionary. To try and do a runner would have never occurred to him - Bridget basically says as much to Lois. He sees wreck and ruin that he's a party to, it's totally against his nature to try and fight back otherwise he would have allied himself with Jack and Torchwood.

I think the PM was just an evil , which is why he told Frobisher of the plan early. He thought Frobisher would just accept it, as he had done all the other horrors.

I think the resolution made a lot more sense than the standard RTD reset: as Zagreb said they'd set up the use of the children and the use of a certain frequency to kill, all it took was people smart enough to figure it out and they brought Jack, that black-ops woman and Dekker (still not sure how he survived) together. There was thought that went into it and it was alright.

I thought one big mistake they made was Gwen's recording. It was powerful at the start because we didn't know what was going to happen - they could have easily killed everyone - but as soon as you saw Gwen making the recording the tension was lost: you saw things were bad but not yet catastrophic.

Eve Myles' acting has come on leaps and bounds since the early days - I hated her at first but she carried large chunks of the five days.

And I'm still at the loss of Ianto: I was so hoping they'd find a way to bring him back.

RTD stories are like having a date with a beautiful woman only to find it she's a ladyboy. You have a great evening of dinner, talk, flirting enjoying every minute and then right at the end, to round it off, they pull something out of the hat that's both a shock and out of place and seems 'wrong'. Thing is you aren't sure whether it's ruined the whole evening or just the end...should you forget about the enjoyable rest of the evening?

So, there you go RTD gives us a beautiful woman only to find out she's a lady boy when she thwacks her todger out on the table.

Well ep 4 was my favourite, the final episode was somewhat disappointing.

As a point of correction - Jack did not kill his son, it was his grandson.

I wanted to see what the 456 actually looked like too, so was disappointed that we didn't get a proper look. Gwen has come on lots and I love her even more than I used to. I will be sad if they don't do another Torchwood but like HonestIago I wonder if they have now killed it.

For me - a great "series" but once again disappointed by the ending.

Yes, Jemstone I realised that after I had written it...and no edit function!

There's no real way they can do another TW without Cap'n Jack: humans against aliens would be the humans winning everytime in the Whoniverse.

Gerry Anderson did UFO which was humans against aliens but the aliens weren't able to drag the Earth into other dimensions or take kids over.

Yes, we have the Sarah Jane Smith Adventures (which I think are great) but in TW they have set a standard for aliens etc which requires some off-worldly being Dr/Jack to sort it all out at the end.

well it certainly seems to have had quite some impact. Mostly positive.
Quite a few less than geeky places are all talking about it. Was it scifi for non-scifi fans? Or was it something else and did actually cross the barrier into being just good tv (not, question probably not applicable for those that didn't like it!).

Of course it was sci-fi, aliens, a body reforming from a head, contact lens cameras. Thing is it didn't 'feel' like sci-fi to many. Just like Dr Who these days isn't sci-fi.

One of the best comedy-dramas of the past 10years or so was a sci-fi programme: Goodnight Sweetheart, at it's core was a time-traveller.

oh not disagreeing it was scifi it is just the reception it has got in general makes me wonder if it was something else as well.
Many seem to be hailing it a classic already and questioning all sorts of things about british tv making.

p.s. you liked Goodnight Sweetheart???

>>Just like Dr Who these days isn't sci-fi.<<

Ahem! Moffat Who is most definitely sci-fi.

For me the best sci-fi uses the science fiction bits as a foundation to tell a broader story: compare DS9 with Voyager. DS9 was all about seeing how people cope under stress, far from home and when at war and the sci-fi was just a platform for these stories. Voyager seemed to be a series of sci-fi capers with a new monster and McGuffin of the week.

Last week's Torchwood did that. The story was ultimately about how people react when facing utter disaster: the Torchwood team represented the heroic, though possibly foolish/reckless route while the government represented the pragmatic, brutal side that might well have been the sensible course of action. You saw the sacrifice of the heroes and the defeat of the villains and you got to see gray people, the neutrals who picked sides or didn't.

Torchwood was a very good human story with a sci-fi engine.

Ictoan

It wasn't 'something else as well' it was sci-fi. It is just that most people thing sci-fi is simply Star Wars and shooting bang bang stuff - and do not understand what sci-fi can do. It isn't what sci-fi does is allow writers to explore social issues, human reactions/problems etc by creating a situation which isn't real world. It actually makes it easy to do such a thing than in 'real life' drama. Although I think the reason the aliens wanted the kids, for a fix, was a poor reason it did bring up the question, how far would the world go to save itself, stand and fight, 10% of kids, 1 kid?

The only problem with this series was RTD put forward the question how far would some people go but then showed the army dragging kids off...that is not the army's job, they probably would not have done that due to since the Nuremburg trials 'I was only following orders' is not an excuse for doing something illegal...which is what the government was doing.

And I have to say it isn't a classic although good and it does question things about British TV programme making...i.e. the country can cope with drama and doesn't need to be force fed reality TV shows all the time.

Also, it does say to a few people who realise it that the plot was a rehash of a Quatermass plot and hence has British TV run out of plot ideas?

Oh, and yes I like Goodnight Sweetheart! Which is obviously a programme about bigamy and whether even if the women live in different time periods, is it right? Gary really was a *Y&"£*& in the show when you analyse it.

Also, DS9 was definitely a proper sci-fi show. The two outstanding episodes were:

'The Wire' a near two header between Garak, played by the amazing 'Andrew J. Robinson' (baddy from Dirty Harry) and Dr Bashir (Alexander Siddig) which was 'just' about Bahsir trying to find out about an implant in garaks head that could kill him and Garak trying to help/hinder him. We find out about Garaks past we think especially at the end when Garak says everything he has told him is and that they are all true, especially the lies. Very little sci-fi in that apart from the implant.

The other one was 'The Visitor': Captain Sisco gets caught 'out of time' by a warp drive probelm and keeps appearing to his son Jake. That pretty much is the sci-fi bit and sets up a heart-wrenching drama about a son giving over his life to saving his father and the final conclusion (which still makes me well up). It has been regularly mentioned as cast/crew/publics favourite epsiode and justly so as it about dedication and personal sacrifice not about space stuff.

<>>Just like Dr Who these days isn't sci-fi.<<

Ahem! Moffat Who is most definitely sci-fi.>

Ahem! 'These days' not in 'one years time'

Although Moffat has said he's not going to make huge changes, it will be interesting to find out whether it gets more sci-fi'y and whether the new fan-base still like it when it's not a soap opera with a time-traveller who somtimes pops in.