After I got over the God awful acting from the blow fish guy and the usual 'let's over use the double entendres and make everythin about sex' from the rest of the show, I thought it was OK. (Although Jack looked very uncomfortable while dead on a bench!)
It was okay. I thought those extra 8 minutes didn't do it too many favours, it could have done with trimming for pacing.
Very little evidence of them 'learning lessons' from the first season, unless they meant by that transplanting a popular Buffy (and later Angel) character into the series. Talking of which, I'd been slightly spoilered about the kiss (something about Marsters having his girlfriend on set, ready and waiting, for after the Jack kiss - just to get the taste out of his mouth, or something!) Nonetheless, could that have been any more sign posted? That's when I thought 'oh god, it's still the old Torchwood...'
As for the blow fish chap. I didn't really notice the bad acting too much. It was more that there was a man with a fish for a head. Not a fish-like head but an actual fish! What?! What sort of evolution makes a fish sprout a human body but leaves the rest of the fish intact, tail and all? Some genetically engineered circus freak from the future? Let's hope Jack and co don't visit that era!
Despite all that silliness it was okay. Obviously a first episode of a new series - plenty of reminders about who they all are. The Jack can't die demonstration. That Tosh wants Owen tosh. That odd business between Jack and Ianto (and the ever present stop watch) that I fear we'll find out more about than we ever want to know at some point. Then Gwen and Jack... Eugh, it's worse than soap opera!
We shouldn't forget Owen's superhuman abilities to get over gunshot wounds (is that the third he's had now?)
Anyway, despite all that too, it was okay. Can't immediately think of anything greatly positive to say about it but, at the time, there was something in there that counterbalanced most of that...
Let's hope thing settle down after this reintroduction episode. The last line of the season trailer at the end was funny, though. End of the world. Owen: "Let's all have sex." Ianto: "And I thought the end of the world couldn't get any worse." Oh, and the other good line was Spike's, er, I mean Captain John's: "Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi..."
Adam J Purcell wrote:Very little evidence of them 'learning lessons' from the first season
Yeah, pretty much my thoughts too.
I thought they missed a trick with blowfish guy. After the old lady was heard muttering "bloody Torchwood" I was expecting him to turn out to be just a boozy chav in a mask, the idea being that winding up Torchwood employees had become a sort of local game on a Friday night.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous." - Alfred North Whitehead, philosopher.
Episode two was much better! An interesting storyline with potential, a moral dilemma or two and some of the cast actually seemed to be ACTING (well, almost) and I think they'd have done themselves a few favours by leading with this one rather than last week's lightweight effort.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous." - Alfred North Whitehead, philosopher.