Rate and Discuss 4.3: Dead Of Night

[Dino]

Well after finding out the title of this episode... what are your views on "Dead Of Night"?

[Dino]

Ahhh! 4.3! Ok, my mistake.

There was a lot more going on than last week. Jack going clubbing wasn't as thought out as the producers thought it was.
But I don't think it deserves to overshadow the whole episode.
The story of Oswald Danes carried on. And PhiCorp mystery set up nicely.
The cult seems a bit weird to suddenly appear, unless that get explains by the last episode.

I voted 8. I'm seeing on other sites people saying how this isn't a patch on Children Of Earth and should never have been attempted, but I like it.
The tension looks like it's going to be ramped up and hopefully all the doubters will be shown up by the last few episodes... or I get proved wrong.

Not sure how they'd be able to make another series of ten episodes around the same story. So get it while it's hot!

[Rob McCow]

Things are rolling along nicely, but is that good enough? I'm enjoying this a great deal, but intermittently.

Highlights:

Seeing Bill Pullman in a diner instantly made me wonder whether he'd ordered the Space Soup or The Space Special. (Spaceballs!) He was also astonishingly good in most of his scenes.

Si pointed out that Gwen probably wrote the word 'TORCHWOOD' on the side of their stolen vehicle. "That's how we do things in Torchwood!"

Lots of great spy-style shenanigans.

Negative side:
I think the previews and trailers have utterly ruined it. We all know where Oswald Danes' trajectory is heading.

Vera is being treated as a convenience. Rex leaves Torchwood, so he can be with Vera, then instantly re-joins Torchwood. I didn't find his change of heart terribly convincing.

Overall:

Good, but not brilliant.

[Anthony Williams]

I'm still enjoying this!

Thus far, this is a lot less grim than Children of Earth. Which is good - while I thoroughly enjoyed Children of Earth, it did leave me extremely depressed at the end.

Here, we have the fun of the first two seasons of Torchwood, combined with the more serious nature of the third. And that's emphasised in this episode. We have the gratutious sex scene. We have Gwen and Esther's "oh, we're lost, can you help us... -BAM!" scene.

But at the same time, we have an evil transnational corporation that's certainly knew about the miracle, if they weren't the ones who perpetuated it. We have Jack dealing with his mortality (the condom comment!), Rex still dealing with his injury.

And Oswald Danes and Jilly Kitzenger continue to delight. Danes is such a wonderful character, while still being utterly, utterly reprehensible. Jack's interrogation of him gave us some fantastic character development, for both Jack and Oswald.

I just feel that it's coming together so well, in a way that previous series of Torchwood didn't. There's such wonderful detail to continuity.

Yet again, I was left wanting MORE MORE MORE! At least I only have to wait until tonight for more...

This week: 8/10. Again.

[Alex]

Just a 6/10 from me, and it was a game of two halves really. I found the first 30 minutes to be pretty dull, with nothing new really going on, and the sex scene was pretty laughable stuff. The final 22 odd minutes were much more fun and the scene between Oswald and Jack was electrifying, but they need to cut to the chase now and ramp up the levels of tension more. And whilst I'm liking Rex, finally, generic blonde needs to do something interesting / get killed if you ask me!

[Larry]

but they need to cut to the chase now and ramp up the levels of tension more.

no what you mean it's begining to feel like one of those typical Pertwee, 6 parters good opening 2 episodes then a few episodes of padding and not a lot happening before we get into the big finally . I get the feeling the next couple of episodes will be more of the same don't get me wrong I'm really enjoying things but I'd just like to see a bit more action from the Torchwood team.

7/10

[Awesome Wells]

DISAPPOINTBALLS.

[Andrew Curnow]

For me, it's still in the shadow of Children of Earth, which (IMHO) was a slicker, more immediately engaging, far more gripping and involving story. Admittedly, there's twice as many episodes this time, but when they start reusing things like the contact lenses, it kind of highlights the difference - Gwen breaking into PhiCorp didn't seem anywhere near as tense as whatsername doing similar in CoE.

But next week's looks like a change of location, and a widening of scope, so I'm still holding out high hopes that the show will kick into top gear soon.

[Andrew Curnow]

Oh! Also meant to say, I think they really overdid the 'English person not understanding US' bit - really, would Gwen actually drive on the wrong side? And even worse, is there anybody in the UK who DOESN'T know that Americans mean trousers when they say pants?

[SiHart]

Gwen just came across as dim in that scene. Come on, everyone knows that stuff, even if people in Wales.

This has been the episode I enjoyed the most, despite the sex being gratuitous, despite the return of Gwen's eyeballing while working on a PC and the sill contact lenses being back.

However, I'm having the problem i have with most of Torchwood- I watch it and its fine, and then I sit back and think, well, that actually wasn't very much cop really.

[Awesome Wells]

Oh! Also meant to say, I think they really overdid the 'English person not understanding US' bit - really, would Gwen actually drive on the wrong side? And even worse, is there anybody in the UK who DOESN'T know that Americans mean trousers when they say pants?

I "TOTES" AGREE WITH THIS.

[Rob McCow]

I think that bit was for the benefit of the US audiences only.

[Si Hunt]

I thought it was terrible. It was worse than bad, at least the sex monster episode was watchable - this was just BORING. Nothing happened. Two characters sloped off to have sex with someone for absolutely no reason whatsoever. The special effects are now a long distant memory, as this has turned into a very long hour-long show with lots of people talking to each other. There was a lengthy set up of the contact lenses (already recycled from a previous series) and then they wern't even used, apart from to warn her to get out. It was as if she'd be sneaking into the conference, but someone else did that and simply took a phone in!!

I don't really understand what they're trying to do with Oswald - are we supposed to be feeling sorry for him?

The most we got for plot advancement this week was finding out that a drugs company may be behind it - scant reward for an hours worth of viewing. Not good enough.

I've reached the decision to stop buying "Torchwood" on DVD. Previously it falls under the category of "Doctor Who related so need to own it" but I can't ever, ever imagine us wanting to sit down and re-watch this boring bit of bland television.

Si.

[SiHart]

That's how I feel about most of Torchwood, not just this one.

[Perry Vale]

After a good opening episode, the second one had been something of a comedown, but I thought episode 3 was much better and very enjoyable. The plot moved along very well, and the cast across the board work well. 8/10, just.