Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Truth be told, I haven't watched the Doctor Who series, so I'm not sure if that show is similar to Torchwood. I do know that Torchwood is a spin-off. That being said, I watched the first season and the fourth season. A few episodes into the second season, I stopped watching because it was boring. A few of the episodes made me wonder if I skipped an episode in between. I'm really not sure how else I can explain why I didn't enjoy the entire series.Redeeming factor: Miracle Day! I was hooked after the first episode. I already loved John Barrowman but adding Alexa Havins, Mekhi Phifer, and Bill Pullman to the cast was gold. The plot was better than the previous seasons (mind you, I skipped most of season two and all of season three). I'm glad I sucked it up and watched the final season.

This is how I see Torchwood, your opinion may differ, so if you have not seen it, but the premise is interesting, give it a go. As many have said the seconds serial (or season or whatever) is better than first. In my opinion, not much, but still better.Good:Some scripts were clever and dealt with matters not seen too often. E.g. much hated second episode of series 1. Acting is mostly good.Largest flaws IMO:Character development is next to nill. OK, the one character changes to glorified zombie, so he cannot drink or have sex, but even that forgotten after one episode. Also, Gwens act of infidelity was forgotten and it was totally meaningless to whole series.Scripts try to be dark and adult, but because writers don't want to change characters, scripts remain shallow. There are dark and huge revelation (e.g. in Adrift), but those affect nothing, so drama is mostly lost.Scripts have some large plot holes, which may annoy watchers.Characters don't act coherently. Instead of character growth which happens during episodes of series, character demeanor changes randomly between episodes.Nothing characters do have any long term consequences. (ok this is a kind of lie. There are actually one or two cases where something has consequences, mainly Owens resurrection, but even that is flattened by the fact he is practically normal human until his real death.)Absence of series long story arcs.

Torchwood is an odd series with many flaws yet still entertains most of the time. The show neglects character development yet tries to include heavy emotional scenes regularly. You have to first care about the characters before throwing heavy emotional plots at the audience and expect them to care. The overall purpose keeps changing from the stated one, but there are plenty of episodes that are fun to watch. There are also ones that are insulting such as the goofy half converted human/robot woman that made me think of Flash Gordon special effects laced with heavy emotions regarding characters we don't even know? Most of the time the special effects are not a big part of the show, and when included good enough. But the first season states that the team is getting ready for the 21st century to protect from the coming aliens. What? The first season deals with gizmo's of unknown origin, purpose, that are locked up because the team doesn't know how to use them. Aliens aren't really part of the stories, but there are still episodes that are good entertainment. The second season they ditch the getting ready for aliens and use the tag line that Torchwood is who you call to deal with aliens. Thing is there aren't aliens to deal with so much as people coming through a time rift and committing crimes. There are some aliens, but mostly not, and god help us if they are going to protect us. Season 3 is an episode in 5 to be continued episodes in which our protectors at the first sign of an actual alien attack, although "above the police, government and law" are ordered to be wiped out by a low level government official with the backing of a large contingent of military personnel that the military leaders don't seem to have any knowledge of. Then the episode that should bring closure to the story does a really bad job of leaving us with any sense of what actually happened and why after collecting all the intelligence on the actions of the British Government they just blow off going public with it? What? Jack just pulls a rabbit out of his hat that makes the aliens go away with no definitive explanation of what he did that made them turn tail and run instead of wiping us out. Not to mention that the whole world goes along with a plan to give up 10% of the worlds children to these aliens with no good reason given? I think reality would be closer to world war III or world wide rebellion when people were told to cough up their kids to be taken away forever with no reason given. But we are instead isolated to the actions of 3 or 4 people who in the world stage wouldn't have the power to assemble a world wide swim team much less world wide conspiracy to steal 10% of the worlds population of children to give up to aliens. A season long insult that I saw through to the end simply because I thought at least they were going to release the video condemning the politicians in their effort to protect their own but give up other peoples children. Didn't even get the satisfaction of seeing their down fall at the hands of what would realistically be a population in rebellion. I don't know if I have it in me to watch the final season. There seems to be just enough entertainment that I continue to watch, kind of like not being able to turn away from looking at a bad car accident.There are positives, enough that I've watched, but a lot of shortcomings to. Of the shows in the Genre there are many ahead of Torchwood worth spending the time watching. But it has been just good enough that I have watched it, and found some episodes entertaining in spite of the flaws. Might just be Gwen's eyes to.

This is one of the few shows that I regret deeply being done with and even think about watching all over again. The lower rating is only due to series 4, which I struggled to get past. The two new characters that are introduced aren't Torchwood at all and I couldn't develop any feelings beyond annoyance towards them. While I wish the series would come back, I'm not sure if it would be as good as it used to be, with all that happened in the three previous seasons.But let's talk about the real deal and just pretend Miracle Day doesn't exist: the first episodes aren't the best, but as the characters develop and you get to know more about the world around them, it becomes more and more interesting.I, personally, find it better than Doctor Who for the simple reason that I see a deeper development in many points. While the Doctor is the only one who has very substantial changes in his personality (apart from some of his companions), each and every character has their own space to improve as time goes by in Torchwood. Ianto was my absolute favourite, because he starts as a coffee boy and develops into an essential member of the team, conquering his space and voicing his opinions. And he has some of the best lines.I also see more diversity in the personalities (mainly in the women) of Torchwood's characters and I find it very interesting that Davies explored matters that aren't explored in Doctor Who, such as homosexuality. It is amazing how there are two women kissing or two men in a relationship and everyone there just treats it as natural - and eventually finds it rather sexy. It's just a "background" romance as any other, it comes in various types and it doesn't necessarily enforce or contradict any stereotypes - considering Queer As Folk, you can see a huge development in Davies' way of expressing the matter.The plot is rather different from Doctor Who; it's set on Earth, and it's not only about saving the day, it's preventing humanity from knowing of the existence of alien dangers while they save everyone. Torchwood is packed with action, but it also has drama, so that you watch it to see what's happening in the corporation and what's going on in the characters' lives.It is very curious that the series showed how some types of work simply consume one's life, yet some people are still capable of coping and living healthily in the outside world. It also explores the dependency some have, and how work becomes more than merely a part of someone.The most amazing part, in my opinion, is that Torchwood overcomes fiction, something I don't see Doctor Who doing. The latter shows aliens in situations we know could never be real, but the former manages to show how aliens could be influencing our everyday lives without us even knowing. While in Doctor Who there are spaceships in the sky of London that can only be explained as aliens, a Weevil appears and Torchwood convinces the world that it was just a criminal. It's manipulation "for the people's good". It is hard to believe that Doctor Who is real, but it's not impossible to wonder if Torchwood is.