Okay, can I be first to say - what the fuck was that pile of shit that I just watched? Can I have the last 50 minutes of my life back please? That has to be the worst episode of Torchwood that I ever watched, worse even than Countrycide from season 1.
Ridiculous premise, poor execution, some of the campest acting I’ve seen outside of a musical and yet another attempt to make Jack all mysterious in a way that doesn’t work. Ooooh, Jack used to be in a travelling theatre, and someone sent him to investigate the night players but it’s a long story so he won’t tell us who, ooooooh! :rolleyes: As for the whole “Who knows, they could come back one day…” ending - don’t even get me started otherwise I’m liable to vomit all over my keyboard.
The only redeeming feature that episode had was the highly cute actor who played Jonathan, although his butchering of a Welsh accent grated quite a bit.
1/10
I have to agree the basic premise was ridiculous and there didn’t seem much they could do but keep playing along.
Kudos to the actors for doing their best with what they were given. Shame on the writers.
I don’t know if I’d give it a 1/10, but it was pretty bad. It had so much potential, too – look what Ray Bradbury did with evil carnies in Something Wicked This Way Comes. The highlight of the episode for me was Owen’s delighted smile after Gwen said she liked the strong man’s leotard in the film, and I don’t even like Owen so that wasn’t much of a highlight.
I agree. It was horrendously bad. I thought maybe Russell T Davies had written it, because it had that same feel of “lots of ideas but no satisfying way to tie them together, so let’s just kludge it and hope nobody notices it’s all a bunch of shite with more holes than swiss cheese” that he often writes.
It was actually written by a 70 year old who has been in TV since the 60s, and I think it shows. He also wrote the first season story about the fairies at the bottom of the garden that were hideous child-stealers.
Ringmaster and “mermaid woman” escape from a piece of film. For some reason. Steal people’s breath. For some reason. Jack figures out that if they’re filmed again, they’ll be captured. For some reason. Jack used to be part of the same Sideshow, but unconnected to these weirdos who he has never met before. For some reason. If they even had anything to do with it; It’s not even explained why there’s a Sideshow in the story at all, their behaviour didn’t seem to relate to it in any way.
Big steaming pile of nonsense with no point.
Have to agree with the above comments. There have been episodes of *Torchwood *where things seem barely stitched together, and this was one of them. I think I’ve seen enough of the “movie characters come to life” type of story, and the melodramatic appearence of the villain, even down to the long twirlable moustache didn’t help. I didn’t realise, until following GuanoLad’s link, that the writer was the same one who did Sapphire and Steele. As I recall, that series could get more than a little weird as well – and included an episode of spooky stuff to do with photographs across the dimensions, IIRC. Sadly, then, this looks like a rehashed storyline.