Rate and Discuss 4.10: The Blood Line

[Anthony Williams]

Well, it's aired in the USA now, so here's the thread and poll. Some of you in Britain may have seen it slightly early, too

So... let us know what you thought!

[Alex]

Well, I'm quite surprised as I sort of enjoyed that. Whilst not as satisfying as it could have been, at least it was pretty action packed, and gave us some answers - even if those answers were quite bizarre. The scenes between Oswald and Jack were really effective, I felt sympathy for Gwen and her father (finally), didn't dislike Rex as much as usual, and the resolution didn't feel cheap or too silly, and the final 20 minutes were a lot of fun.

I gave it 7/10 - which is pretty high given my recent votes, but at least it didn't leave us feeling confused or frustrated or, even worse, with too many unanswered questions.

Over all as a series I could only give it 4/10 though, as a five parter (and with some tighter writing and plotting) it could have been really effective, but there was so much filler and plain rubbish in it that I can't rate it higher. And I've no urge to see anymore Torchwood now, I'd have no issue with Gwen or Jack turning up in Who, but that's the only time I'd like to see the characters again if RTD can't come up with anything better than this.

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

Managed to see this last night but in hindsight wish I'd waited as it's somewhat clouded my thoughts about The Girl Who Waited (which I really enjoyed). As an individual episode I've given it 7/10 however one good episode sadly doesn't redeem a rather disappointing series (bottom line if they'd condensed Miracle Day to another five parter it would have been a lot more satisfying). As most people won't have seen it yet I shall avoid discussing specifics at this stage as basically I agree with all the comments Alex has made and will have more to say post UK transmission. Suffice to say that the story for the last episode is credited to RTD so I suspect as with most of his Who episodes there will be mixed reactions.

[Anthony Williams]

I really, really enjoyed it.

But, then again, I enjoyed pretty much all of Miracle Day. There was some absolutely wonderful stuff in this. I've always believed that RTD has a real talent for writing fantastic dialogue, and I felt that that shined through here. I think that the new style of writing Torchwood (locking all the authors in a room together and thoroughly plotting it out), along with being co-written by Jane Esepenson, seriously helped avoid his classic ending of "pull the solution out of thin air", which meant that this fundamentally worked.

It wasn't rushed, it wasn't messy. It just worked. We saw Oswald Danes go full circle. We found out how the whole thing worked. It was just so well done, and a great way to end this all.

If you haven't seen it yet, you should know by now that this thread WILL contain spoilers. So, don't whine at me if I now spoil it for you.

I was really sad that Esther didn't make it. I was honestly hoping that she would survive, being my second-favourite piece of eye candy through the whole series. But, beyond that - nothing too devastating happened. This wasn't Children of Earth-style depressing.

I also LOVED that elements were lined up for a sequel series. The family are still out there, Jilly Kitzenger (yum) is still working for them. And now Rex has supposedly got Jack's immortality, too.

I really hope that Starz recommission this. While the writing/plotting hasn't always been perfect, this has been a lot of fun. And I loved it.

I give this episode 8/10. Not perfect, but very, very enjoyable.

About a week after this has aired in the UK, I will be starting a thread to rate the season as a whole.

[Awesome Wells]

Can I ask how people are seeing this pre- UK transmission? (other than Ant, obvs)

[Alex]

I fly over to watch it with Ant each and every week.

But in all seriousness, I know that you know how. Though I'm not admitting it on a public board!

[Awesome Wells]

Hahahaha, I just wondered. There are legitimate ways of watching things pre-transmission.

(Which, of course, is what you meant - right?)

[Alex]

Ah, I wish I was a critic and had them sent to me (though I believe they're stored online now, and people are given a password to access them?) but alas not. And, erm, I pay my licence fee. So don't feel guilty. Though I can't quite explain my enjoyment of recent episodes of Futurama the same way.

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

The BBC previews for journalists etc. are now put on a website (once upon a time they used to send out DVDs which were easily copyable - somewhere I have a version of Army of Ghosts which has a subtly different opening narration and ends abruptly with a caption to say the final scene has been witheld until transmission). I can't say any more on this subject without the risk of being category oned but suffice to say I did see a legitimate preview version although as I'm not currently called for rehearsal I probably will be rewatching in HD on Thursday.

[Awesome Wells]

(though I believe they're stored online now, and people are given a password to access them?)

Mostly this, yes.

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

A couple of things that bothered me about this episode (this is partly in response to the comments about the new team members in the Friday poll thread):

Didn't like Jack's throwaway comment about being in China for the Boxer Rising -this was quite a nasty episode in history and I don't think it needs trivializing.

More specifically I was rather bothered by seeing Charlotte at Esther's funeral. Obviously it was about maneuvering her into position so she could shoot Rex at the end of the episode and so ultimately was dramatically justified but it still felt disrespectful at the point when I was watching thinking that she'd gotten away with it.

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

I'm re-watching this on BBC One at the moment so may post some additional comments:

First up I get that no one likes Oswald but Gwen's line about "Murder's coming back" seems callous even for her.

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

Watching the scenes with Rex and Esther a second time their behaviour makes is perfectly consistent with the reveal coming up...big tick.

However, aside from John de Lancie getting the best line in the episode I don't like this business with killing off Shapiro, Noah and the other girl who Charlotte sends to join her colleagues out of shere spite.

Love the scenes with Rhys and Andy in the camp.

I haven't made up my mind about Oswald yet.

[shada pavlova]

I can't wait for next year's series.

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

More specifically I was rather bothered by seeing Charlotte at Esther's funeral. Obviously it was about maneuvering her into position so she could shoot Rex at the end of the episode and so ultimately was dramatically justified but it still felt disrespectful at the point when I was watching thinking that she'd gotten away with it.

On second watch it still bothers me. I like this ending even though scientifically speaking it's a load of cobblers but I'd have rather it didn't take place at Esther's funeral. If we had to see a funeral I'd have preferred Geraint Cooper's. If we do get series 5 I hope Rex is in it.

[Dino]

Well that was a good end to the series. Could of done with some more peaks, but as a closer. It satisfied me.
And here was me thinking we wouldn't get another series.

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

It's by no means certain we will get a fifth series but I'd like to see it. If they can bring back Gilly without the Families that would be ideal, if it's a scientifically implausible as Miracle Day I really don't want to know what "Plan B" is. Also more of Rhys and Sergeant Andy please!

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Rex: Sir! I need to fly off to Buenos Aires, but can we keep this just between us? If there is a mole in here I don't want them knowing anything about it.

Q: Absolutely, we'll keep this strictly between us.

Rex: Thank you sir.

Q: Although I'm afraid only until the end of the episode. By the start of the next episode I'm afraid absolutely everyone will have to be in on it and we'll be videolinking on a massive screen and...

Rex: But sir, the mole!

Q: Oh I'm sorry Rex, them's the rules, you'll just have to live with it.

Rex: That seems massively irresponsible to me sir. But at the very least, you WILL be careful won't you?

Q: How do you mean?

Rex: Well, just for instance, if you're seconds away from discovering who the mole is, and announce to everyone in the room that you are seconds away from discovering who the mole is, you will at least keep your eye on everyone, look out for any suspicious behaviour, especially anyone who suddenly stands up and leaves the room?

Q: You're such a suspicious boy aren't you Rex, I don't think there's any need for that sort of rampant paranoia.

Rex: But sir!

Q: No more protests Rex, I'm in charge. Incidentally, did I tell you what I found out about that statistic of the average human life span of 68 years, 5 months and 33 days?

Rex: Sir... 33 days is actually longer than a month, so really wouldn't it be better to say 6 months and 2 days rather than...

Q: Oh be quiet Rex, it's becoming clear to me that you don't know the first thing about Intelligence.

Rex: In what sense sir...

Q: That's it, you're fired.

[Larry]

well I think we'd all pretty much guessed that it was Jack's imortal blood that caused the miracle so it follows that his imortal blood would put things right. Ok there was an element of the re-set switch we've seen in several episodes of new who when RTD, was in charge but I think I can forgive him that as this one . It was by a pretty decent episode but I do have a problem with Rex - one being how much of Jack's blood did he inject into himself and the bit I don't understand is that if it was Jack's mortal blood then Why did Rex, become immortal.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

I'd have liked it a lot more if it was over 5 nights again, and if a lot of the superfluous stuff had been cut out. And, to be honest, we're not really any more enlightened about what cause the Miracle than we were in week one. It's a magic crack that's been there forever that can do strange things for no apparent reason. Well, okay then.

I think I also find Gwen to be just about the most annoying character in the history of television now as well, so it's a shame that she's the only memeber of the team who will seemingly never get killed off.

[Perry Vale]

Oh dear, it sort of fell apart at the end, for me.

It always looked like it would be tricky to resolve everything in one episode, and I felt it lurched into some very obvious territory and became like something out of Austin Powers where the super-villain explains all their plans whilst not shooting the people who have come there to stop them.

If they'd had the balls to actually make this the end for Captian Jack, they might have salvaged a great series from the slightly ordinary, but then they went further the other way with Rex becoming immortal too.

And yes, the stuff with Rex being undercover (as highlighted by Mr. Hamson) was just plain daft.

The most enjoyable part of the episode was Gwen fighting in the lift with the redhead.

It promised much early on, but 10 episodes was too much IMO. Pullman was the highlight of the run, and as I may have said elsewhere, most of this year's guest cast were great, it's just a shame they didn't have better material to work with.

[Martin Curnow]

66 years, 5 months and 33 days? Why not say 66 years, 6 months and 2 days.

How come everyone else died when the blessing flipped back but not Oswald Danes?

Think it's gonna require a re-watch to get my head round the whole idea of what was going on.

[Andrew Curnow]

How come everyone else died when the blessing flipped back but not Oswald Danes?

Oh yes, good point! (i've just now watched it on the Sky+ m'self.) Maybe there's some sort of latent 'residual effect' near to the Blessing - which would account why Esther made it out alive, but didn't survive? Maybe...

I quite enjoyed it, but did find myself actually moaning at the TV during what seemed like forever when the bad guys stood calmly around waiting for the good guys to talk and plot and psych themselves up to foil the evil scheme. There was even a long shot of the set up in Singapore at one point, showing 'shoulder pad lady' and Jilly just standing there. The singapore guys could certainly have followed Buenos Aires' lead and shot Gwen; and in both places, surely the guards would have tried to grab Jack and Rex and just drag them away? Frankly, if you're just going to stand around while people calmly discuss how to foil your dastardly plot, you don't deserve to succeed!!

I realise the ending was supposed to be a big OMG, but am I the only one who'd already assumed that - when Jack and Rex both came back after bleeding out, I took it as read that Rex was now immortal, and until the end had assumed that the characters all thought so too!

That was a nice 'reverse' mind you - given he was 'killed' in part 1, I've been assuming all along that at the very end Rex would die, and Esther survive (for a possible next series). So the twist there wasn't expected by me.

What else... Nice to see Jilly survive unscathed at the end, although why go to the trouble of showing her clearly in the explosion if you don't want to harm her in any way?

The CIA Mole bit - agree totally with ZH above, but also if it only takes about two minutes for the trace to run, why bother delaying? It clearly didn't need to wait until the phone was active, so why wouldn't you do it ASAP. And for that matter, given how careful they are about removing their names from history, and hiding street names, etc, etc... why would the Families let Charlotte Wills register her super-secret-special mobile under that name.

So it was a satisfying conclusion in plot terms, in that there seemed a 'good' reason for the Families having done this (I dreaded it being some kind of lame "well, we can now sell lots of medicines to sick people who never die, and get really, really, really rich" explanation), and no major loose ends being tied up.

Just checking though - the people trying to kill Gwen and/or Jack way back in part 1... was that the Families wanting to make sure Jack was taken out of the way? How did they even know he would be mortal at that stage? And likewise, was the guy in "stealing the company server" episode sent by the Families to kill him as well - he seemed to be asking a lot of questions for an assassin?

So.... it was OK.

[Jason Thompson]

How come everyone else died when the blessing flipped back but not Oswald Danes?

If normal life processes have continued (which would be suggested by Rex's slow healing) Oswald's system probably purged the lethal injections some time ago and he's now perfectly healthy.

As a resolution that episode was not too bad. Overall the series was too long and rambling, but that one episode was pretty good, I thought.

Just one thing: The Blessing is a crack in the Earth running all the way through the planet, with openings at the antipodes, and has apparently been there the whole lifetime of the Earth. If that's the case, Iwonder where it was located before, and how it dealt with the small matter of continental drift....

Also, why was it in a vertical rock face in both locations and not in the ground going downwards, like an actual tunnel through the centre of the Earth would go?

And no-one found these two whacking great cracks until the information age allowed them to crunch the numbers and deduce something was there? Really?


But that's being picky. It's a mysterious thing that no-one understands, and that's fine for the story.

[Larry]

The most enjoyable part of the episode was Gwen fighting in the lift with the redhead.
.

yep I was sitting on my sofa going yes girl now punch her lights out..