Torchwood episode 4

[delericho]

Well count me as one who's glad they got rid of the gold weakness and also not mentioning it. I found it horribly cheesy, and so too would modern audiences. And honestly, if the Doctor tried something like that, wouldn't it come off as a bit daft?

DOCTOR: Haha! (throws gold paint over Cyberman)

(Cyberman merely shrugs it off, and continues advancing towards him.)

DOCTOR: (eyes widen in surprise) Oops.
ROSE: What are you doing?!
DOCTOR: Funny, it worked the last time.
ROSE: (screaming) Would you just stop mucking about?!

Sure, but you don't do it like that. What you do is in the second episode, once they've escaped the first Cybermen attack, and are deciding what to do next, is have the Doctor bring it up in the discussion meeting, "I've faced these things before. They suffocate when exposed to gold."

Then you have one of the characters try it, fully confident it'll work. It fails, the character dies, and you cut to a shot of the horrified Doctor's face.

Whether mentioning the gold weakness is goofy or effective depends entirely on how it is done. (Besides, 'gold paint' is hardly gold, is it?)

Um, the Cybermen were introduced way back in 1966, a whopping 23 years before the intro of the Borg in 1989. Add to that the many similarities that they share, and I'm afraid the case for the Borg being original isn't strong.

I never made that claim. I was pointing out that the Borg are not a recent addition to Star Trek, they're now a relatively early element. I'm well aware that the Cybermen came first, and by quite some time. Hell, I remember watching them on Doctor Who before there was a Star Trek: the Next Generation.

 

[Narsil]

Um, the Borg are now actually a fairly early Star Trek element. They were introduced in season 2 (or perhaps 3) of Next Gen. So, that would be the 5th (or 6th) season overall, out of 28 (3 OS, 7 TNG, 7 DS9, & Voy, 4 Ent).

That was a 1989 episode. The Cybermen appeared in the exact same story that introduced regeneration in 1966, which was the fourth season of Doctor Who. It's not exactly the first of the ever-constant ripoffs, just an earlier one.

The Jem'Hadar (first appearance: 1994) are drug-addled lunatic warrior clones, so are the Sontarans (first appearance: 1973). That's a difference of twenty one years.

The Q (first appearance: 1987), who are immensely powerful and mysterious beings which live in another dimension, tried their most prominent member for 'meddling' and sentenced him to exile. Later repealed. The Timelords (first appearance: 1963!), who are immensely powerful and mysterious beings which live in another dimension, tried their most prominent member for 'meddling' and sentenced him to exile. Later repealed. That's a difference of twenty four years.

In Star Trek: Enterprise, second season, the crew encountered a time-travelling ship from the thirty-first century that was bigger on the inside than the outside. It made its first appearance in the year 2003. The Doctor travels in a time-travelling ship, probably from the future, that is bigger on the inside. It made its first appearance in 1963. Difference of forty years.

EDIT:
I've noticed a trend; all ripoffs tend to be TNG-or-later. TOS lacks the ripoffishness of later Trek. I Blame Berman and Braga

 

[BrooklynKnight]

You know, its kinda fun watching Who S2 and Torchwood S1 at the same time, the timing parallels quite nicely for me.. The last 2 weeks were Cyberman eps, and this week was a torchwood cyberman ep.

So, we learned that the Cyberman from the Alternate Universe somehow crossed into ours, which to quote the Doctor "Is impossible!". Clearly it happened. Which means there is a chance for it to happen again. We might even see Micky again in Season 3, or maybe even Torchwood later on.

 

[delericho]

That was a 1989 episode. The Cybermen appeared in the exact same story that introduced regeneration in 1966, which was the fourth season of Doctor Who. It's not exactly the first of the ever-constant ripoffs, just an earlier one.

Allow me to re-iterate: I didn't claim the Borg predated the Cybermen. That would be stupid, since I watched the Cybermen in Doctor Who before ST:TNG existed.

I merely made the point that given the lifespan of Star Trek, the Borg were a relatively recent addition, being added in the 5th (or perhaps 6th) season out of the 28 existing seasons.

As for the rest... Simpsons did it. With so many Doctor Who stories in existence, and so many Star Trek stories in existence, of course there are going to be some common elements, and several 'rip-offs', deliberate or otherwise. Frankly, I couldn't care less about the originality, I just want to be entertained (that Star Trek has utterly failed to do that since the end of DS9, apart from the occasional episode here and there, is another rant).

 

[Cthulhudrew]

The Q (first appearance: 1987), who are immensely powerful and mysterious beings which live in another dimension, tried their most prominent member for 'meddling' and sentenced him to exile. Later repealed. The Timelords (first appearance: 1963!), who are immensely powerful and mysterious beings which live in another dimension, tried their most prominent member for 'meddling' and sentenced him to exile. Later repealed. That's a difference of twenty four years.

Completely aside from the thread topic, but I always thought the Q Continuum were based on Trelane from TOS more than anything. (Peter David even wrote a TNG novel tying them together.)

 

[Plane Sailing]

Back to Torchwood, when I was watching it and Jack gave the girl the device that would 'open any lock in 45 seconds', I couldn't help wondering why on earth they didn't use it to unlock the weapons locker, if it would unlock the (also powered) outer doors...

I also couldn't understand why Jack would let an obviously bonkers Ianto run around. I'd have knocked him out or tied him up or something - anything rather than just let him run around!

Mostly I'm with cthulhudrew here though - I just didn't care about Ianto. We hadn't had anything to make us identify with him in the previous episodes, so in this episode he wasn't someone that I really cared about.

 

[TheNovaLord]

first three had been pretty good.

this one seemd very poor and stretched a decent idea lasting 15mins into a 45 minute episode and it showed!

JohnD

 

[Cthulhudrew]

I was thinking about this a little more while watching the latest episode. I think that even if they had just had a few more flashbacks to Ianto and Lisa together- showing us their love in the past- it might have had more resonance than it did.

 

[horacethegrey]

I was thinking about this a little more while watching the latest episode. I think that even if they had just had a few more flashbacks to Ianto and Lisa together- showing us their love in the past- it might have had more resonance than it did.

Agreed. Though I wouldn't have gone the flashback route. What they could have done was have some foreshadowing of sorts in the previous episodes. Say Ianto looking forlornly at a picture of Lisa, and Gwen takes notice of this. When she asks who she is, all Ianto will say is that she died some time ago. And then, in another episode, Ianto recieves a call while the whole team is away, and during the conversation he blurts out Lisa's name and that she hasn't much time. After which we finally arrive at the point where Lisa makes her appearance, and much to our horror and surprise, she's a partial Cyberman. It would have been such a big payoff had they built it up like that, don't you think?

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Definitely would have been a worthy payoff. They really needed to do something like that, rather than just throw it all at us at once, and it would have helped to give us some sympathy for Ianto.