TV Club reaches the end of the first series of Torchwood, the demon Abaddon has been summoned and it is truly the End of Days. What are the true intentions of the enigmatic Bilis Manger?
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@deltaandthebannermen you had put this in the Audio Club. I thought about commenting on it before I moved it, that would have granted me an exclusive badge. But I was a good mod and did not use my powers for evil!!!
Love this one. Surely, maybe they bite off more than they can chew in terms of CGI Abaddon, but it feels properly epic to me. Bilis Manger is a really charismatic villain
I adore this episode, itâs so cool and epic and just so much fun to watch.
I love Bilis too
So this is how series 1 of Torchwood ends, not with a bang but a whimper.
Did anyone even for a second think we wouldnât get a patented âJack Harkness exaggerated coming back to life inhalationâ at the end? Itâs his whole schtick! (Well almost, but I donât see Abaddon getting brought down by innuendo)
I am not really sure why people think Bilis Manger is such a good villainâŚ
2,5/5 
from me for the Kaiju rampage of Cardiff
Yeah, itâs just a big guy thinking he could snatch Jackâs soul but overestimated how much he could suck out and just couldnât take it anymore. Nope, no innuendos to be found here.
This episodeâs an absolute mess but I kind of love it.
Gwen gets some great material, I love Bilis even if he is dropped unceremoniously.
But christ, it really needed to pick one story line and stick to it
6/10
Yeah, this finale is fine. Pretty underwhelming, to be honest. CG Abaddon is an uglier Beast, and Bilis, as much as I find him creepy, is just not in this much. The tension between the team members is the best part, easily.
Itâs a 6/10 from me.
End of Days aims for epic, emotional, and explosive, but ends up rushed, muddled, and strangely small. While it gives us some fine character beatsâespecially for Gwen, Owen, and Jackâand boasts a chilling performance from Murray Melvin as Bilis Manger, it fails to build up or sustain real finale-level stakes. Abaddon is a damp squib of a monster, the reset button is hit far too casually, and the pacing doesnât do justice to either the personal stories or the larger narrative.
A finale that wants to be the end of the world, but feels more like a therapy session hijacked by a half-rendered demon.
Youâre welcome to read my full review below (spoiler alert!):
I love this one. Prior to this, none of them knew Jack was immortal either, and that is so sadâŚ
And then he leaves for 3 months (or a week- depends on the source).
In both situations I think the team shouldâve been a bit more hostile to his lying and abandonment.
Also Abaddon just looks like a big Fallout Deathclaw lol
Now that you say that, I can totally see it.
Of all the Torchwood innuendos, this is surprisingly one of the most innocent ones tbh.
(Iâve just read a book where a character purposefully similar to Ianto is infantilized and refers to other characters as âmummyâ sooooooooo, it can always be worse 
)
Visual comparison. Love my Torchwood Deathclaw like a son
I also once met GDL whilst dressed as a vault dweller so yay!
(Everything changes- apart from war, War Never Changes)
I just finished my rewatch of this and yeah it is bad. Sorry but there is just too much going on and it just doesnât make any sense. Donât like Bilis either.
Some positives. Gwen is good in this. I like that Owen gets fired even if it is just for a short moment. I like Andy and Ryhs but they need more time on screen.
I rate this 2/5
I am not much of a Finale Person, while I get they exist and there is certainly Appeal, especially when itâs a great one, they often fall a bit flat with their Ambition and do more than they really can chew on. This Episode is kinda a good Example of that, and yet I still quite like it. It is messy. Yes, that CGI Monster hasnât aged too well, and I donât think it would have looked all that great even back then, and yet I do think itâs kinda a perfect Finale for Series 1 of Torchwood. This Series certainly needed to find its footing and can be at times quite messy with a great Idea but a poor Execution of said Idea.
Of course there is a bit too much happening, and ideally I would have taken a âLess is moreâ-Approach, but there are some genuinely great Bits to it in particular with our Characters such as Gwen for example. A bit of a mess, but one that I enjoyed watching quite a bit.
Well, that was certainly a finale!
Literally laughed out loud when Abbadon showed up, and laughed through most of the climactic finale. It was probably meant to be serious, but, you know, definitely didnât manage it.
(And yes, of course I called that opening the rift was a bad ideaâŚ)
Incidentally, what was the correct way to resolve it, that they should have done instead of opening the rift?
This was a total miss of a finale for me. It doesnât do anything interesting. This show, for all its faults, at least is interesting and different, but with this finale it just feels by-the-numbers and uninteresting.
2/5
Well, I did find Abbadon hilarious, at least, even if that wasnât actually what they were going for. Jack fighting Abbadon was pretty funny, too, if you werenât trying to take it seriouslyâŚ
And so ends Torchwood (for now), as a final that was pretty whatever. The episode introduces a fair few plot elements that ultimately donât do anything other than to show how bad opening the rift is, which is fine but pretty eh. All of this culminating in a big CGI monster (what do you mean this wasnât written by RTD???), that is then defeated with the power of Jack Harkness. As for the monster, a very out of left field villain that is defeated unsatisfactorily, It would have been better if it didnât exist at all. I wouldnât consider this a bad episode, but itâs just a soso episode, a disappointing follow-up to such an amazing previous episode, Iâm almost willing to believe that finals are just cursed. This is probably a good place to take a break from Torchwood until the TV club for next season starts.
