WAS THAT IT?

[tencrush]

Fuck me, Moran, that was it? I GOT FUCKING ANONYMOUS FANS OF YOURS COMING ON TO THIS JOURNAL TELLING ME THERE WAS GOING TO BE A FUCKING TWIST. WHERE WAS THAT, THEN?

Sorry, did I miss something? That was unmitigated shit. And just like Children of Earth, it wasn't shit-because-I-don't-appreciate-srs-drama, it was shit because it reached a dramatic peak about 3/4 of the way in and then fizzled out into absolute bollocks. It's like you build something seemingly quite elaborate up and then suddenly you get bored and just kind of kick it for a bit until your mum tells you to clean the mess you made the fuck up.

I expected the ending to be unsatisfying and predictable, but even I, cynical as I am, did not expect it to be this bad. Well done. You've exceeded my expectations.

As I said in the comments earlier, how Moran thinks a prequel could ever be made into a series GIVEN THE FACT THAT WE KNOW IT ENDS WITH A GIRL WITH TWO FUCKING DEAD PARENTS, is absolutely beyond me. You talk shit, Moran, you really do.

Comments

[siege-ofcahoots.livejournal.com]

Please. The whole thing was what, less than twenty minutes and utter fail. What is completely beyond me is all the yapping about getting out a DVD for purchase. You want proof of self delusion, there you go.

[tencrush]

Yeah, if he really thinks that's DVD-worthy, he's got delusions of grandeur. I don't really understand how he reckoned those last 3 minutes were episode-worthy, to be honest. It boggles the mind.

[radiant-pip.livejournal.com]

What is completely beyond me is all of the praise this has been getting on Facebook.

[ella-caramella.livejournal.com]

You want to see some serious ass kissing, come over Twitter.

But I must say it's better not to even talk about it and just ignore the crap. I don't want to give Moran the satisfaction to mention it not even to criticise it.

The only thing worth watching it for was the acting.

[siege-ofcahoots.livejournal.com]

God, yes, don't encourage him.

[kelticbanshee]

I was going to write something about this, but, I think you got it rigth here!

[tencrush]

Absolute bollocks.

[kelticbanshee]

Yep. Very nice summary. I think the only reason I kept watching was GDL, to be honest, cos I like the way he plays conflicted characters (Ianto was never better than in Cyberwoman, IMHO)

[aresnz.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately the ending wasn't anything special. Shows have had lunatics like this guy on before who play mind games with the detectives. It started out promising but to me the ending wasn't anything special. Too bad cause this could have been something good.


Lori

[tencrush]

They could have cut the last ep down to about a minute and a half if Boylan had just said "I'm having an old friend for dinner" and been fucking done with it. Lame, derivative shite.

[radiant-pip.livejournal.com]

Right. And with a short format like this, I don't think it was unreasonable to expect some interesting mind games, some dramatic back-and-forth, some POINT in watching this.

Film school productions are better than this script.

[lorelei-chase.livejournal.com]

Am I the only one who found that absolutely hilarious and for all the wrong reasons? I was in hysterics all the way though, particularly episode 5. I'm not sure what that says about me as a person heh.

And can someone point me in the direction of the twists please because I predicted every single contrived plot turn. The the direction was so obvious, we had none of the real cat-and-mouse games between the good and bad guys you'd expect. They just thought "hell, let's rip a kid apart and then get some poor bugger to shoot himself in the face, that'll be shocking enough. We don't need plot."

Quite frankly, they should have all killed themselves and saved us the trouble of watching it :-p

Then again, it made me laugh at the ridiculousness of it so maybe it wasn't all bad, though I don't think that was the writer's intention.

I love dystopia, I love things where everything goes to shit and the bad guy gets away with it, but this was just a little silly. Really rather silly.

[satanassa.livejournal.com]

The wee girl Holly did survive then? Not that I care very much at this point, having stopped watching after the first episode and being utterly horrified to hear about the child dismemberment.
If, and this is a very very very big if, Ianto is ever brought back in a future series of Torchwood, I earnestly hope Moran is not allowed within smelling distance of the scripts.

[radiant-pip.livejournal.com]

Yes, but now she's an orphan. Isn't that great?? Isn't that dramatic!!

Gee, no one JM signed off on the "brilliant" Ianto death in COE. He thinks this stuff is good.

[radiant-pip.livejournal.com]

^ one = wonder

Oy.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

I expected something like this based on the genre, but...

how could the killer stop or start anything related to the girl's predicament when he's CHAINED TO HIS CHAIR.

Matheson didn't think this through, and it wasn't like... hard.

I fucking hate plot holes.

[radiant-pip.livejournal.com]

EXACTLY. But he was just too distraught over his daughter's predicament to rub two brain cells together.

Whatever.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

And yet he thought to leave that mobile/note for his colleagues.

[radiant-pip.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a lot of good that did him. He's down interrogating a major serial killer suspect (who just took another victim while in custody) and nobody notices him climbing up to turn off the camera, the no-longer-displaying monitor, or the post-it until his partner comes back. Yeah, Boylan, it's really impressive you keep pulling one over on these guys...

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

And you'd think that after people knew he had Matheson's kid, that the entire force would have probably called their families...

"Doesn't your wife have yoga tonight?" OMGLOL.

[radiant-pip.livejournal.com]

The thought would never occur to them...not even to that guy. He's probably thinking, "Funny, you don't look like the yoga type".

[radiant-pip.livejournal.com]

The biggest twist was he enticed us all to watch it. Ha ha!!

[tencrush]

Yeah, that was fucking hilarious. He has a talent when it comes to hyping himself (just like RTD), just no talent for writing anything original or groundbreaking. Or for finishing things. (Again, all of these things just like RTD.)

[stuffphile.livejournal.com]

Well, your updates throughout kept me from watching any further than episode 1, which I'm very glad of. So, thanks!

[venusinchains.livejournal.com]

I was wrong. Oh, well.

Let that be a lesson...

[caledonius72.livejournal.com]

...to us all.

James Moran = not very good drama. The 'literary' equivalent of premature ejaculation.

And what have we learnt kids? Mmm?

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

Oh the angst...not. WTF - is that all you've got Moran. He's not even a one trick pony, more like a pony with a bladder infection. And no pies. That would have been much more interesting IMHO.

As for a prequel - why? As you pointed out we already know the ending - and after what, 20 minutes its not like we're invested in the character or anything.

I want my 20 minutes back.

[kel-reiley.livejournal.com]

wait... the prequel is meant to be the series? damn, i thought it was going to be about yvonne and the serial killer

[tigercheetah.livejournal.com]

I found Matherson's death even more depressing than Ianto's, which I never thought would be possible. At least Ianto wasn't being asked to shoot himself in the face, knowing that he'd never see his parent-less daughter ever again.

At least Watson will be safe, right, RIGHT?

Interestingly, Gareth told someone at his last convention that he's got work lined-up for about a year, which could indicate that he's got something planned in the summer. Since Casimir Effect films in March, I wonder of they could be planning a GN9 prequal?

[love-jackianto.livejournal.com]

'And just like Children of Earth, it wasn't shit-because-I-don't-appreciate-srs-drama, it was shit because it reached a dramatic peak about 3/4 of the way in and then fizzled out into absolute bollocks.'
Oh it looks like some went to the RTD school of writing.

[tigercheetah.livejournal.com]

Someones made an interesting point that the main star of the show was always meant to be Boylan, with the writers hinting that his character may return. Had Matherson and Lyndon not been played by known actors, fewer people would have gotten attached to them by the end.

[tencrush]

That was fairly obvious by his Hannibal Lechter style exit, but he just wasn't interesting enough or likeable enough to be a character that you'd want to follow. He had nothing redeemable about him. He pulled little girls' limbs off, for fuck's sake.

[rathead.livejournal.com]

Whatever parts of it that weren't predictable were awful. The website stuff wasn't even interesting. And Matheson is like, the worst cop EVER. Because cops always do what suspects tell them to do. That's standard procedure.

As happy as I was to see GDL, I think he is far too young for that part.

[tencrush]

I think it was just an awful part, he just fell apart and did what he was told for no discernible reason. It wasn't even a climax in the story, it was just death for the sake of it, followed by absolutely nothing. Moran's good at that.

[tigercheetah.livejournal.com]

Watching Matherson be in agony for the whole of episode 5 was just, agony, emotional torture without even getting the happy ending to go with it.

I think Gareth's chances of getting a happy ending in The Casimir Effect are 50/50 at best, depending on whether the writer likes happy endings or realistic and bittersweet endings, not that the writer could possibly be as evil as James Moran.

[tencrush]

It was just, much like Ianto and Steven's deaths in CoE, emotional torture FOR THE SAKE OF EMOTIONAL TORTURE. There was no payoff for us as an audience or for ANY of the characters for going through the emotional torture. I like to get rewarded for sitting through emotional torture, and Moran doesn't want to reward me, so he can go fuck himself.

[sugarberi.livejournal.com]

Aw, I didn't think it was that bad. Totally elevated by Gareth's performance. I think it's a nice little show reel for GDL and James Moran as a director. The thriller elements in the last eps were done well.

But more? Not for me. The psycho was nothing special and I just could not buy any seasoned cop trusting and believing the scumbag. Also he was mad at Matheson for hounding him down, but this is the guy who shlebs in late with little interest in the suspect. Was that supposed to be ironic or was that a glaring inconsistency?

Another problem with these watch at home web thrillers is my cat picks the worst time to be naughty! "Is he? Don't do it!!! Damn it Freddie!"

[tencrush]

He schleps in late with little interest, yet for some reason the implication (which I've seen those who thought it was brilliant bandying around) from the end and from the twitter logs seems to be that, unbeknownst to Matheson, Boylan is the guy who killed Matheson's wife, then started killing the girls, and then gets Matheson to kill himself, allegedly because Matheson was hunting him down. Why on earth, chronologically speaking, would Matheson be hunting Boylan before he killed the girls? The whole thing just doesn't make any sense, the ending was poor and clichéd, there were no redeeming features in the psycho to make him the sort of Lechter-type that they were obviousy aiming for. The tension in eps 4 and 5 was pretty well done, but then the ending totally let it down and, for me, turned it into a suckfest. The acting was good, but ultimately, I didn't give a rat's arse what happened to any of these people.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

And frankly, I shouldn't have to read twitter logs to know what's going on. I'm glad I didn't - still would have been a waste...of even more of my time.

[radiant-pip.livejournal.com]

Hmm...wouldn't Boylan tell Matheson that, though? Wouldn't that give Matheson even more angst? I would think Boylan would love the fact that Matheson wants revenge for his wife, but can't kill him, because if he does he loses his daughter. I don't see why he wouldn't play that card. Sure, it could backfire on him and Matheson could actually kill him, but that would seem unlikely since Matheson said since his wife died Holly was all he had left. And no one else would've been there to witness his "confession". It also might've helped with the whole 'Matheson not being able to think straight enough to ask anything about how chained psycho would be able to free his daughter in a locked room if he's dead' thing. Might've. Eh.

Sorry, but that extra possible layer doesn't help, only hinders IMO.

Yes, none of this made sense and yet the acting is supposed to be enough to make it work, apparently.

[sugarberi.livejournal.com]

I didn't follow any tweets so was 'unspoiled' but it was still easy to see where it was going.

I took a totally different meaning from the wife comment at the end. I thought it meant he had that cop's wife trussed up somewhere and the whole damn thing would go on & on.