There are fairies at the bottom of the garden…
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4 Likes
You remembered!
This is what I wrote when I saw it last week:
I think that this is my favourite TW episode so far. It might be because it mainly focuses on Jack and Gwen. The fairies are kind of good villains, and even if the stepfather is a bit of a parody of an evil stepfather, he is a good final kill for them. It is interesting that the girl just laughs when it happens. Still, it is a bit of a basic story and nothing special. 3/5
9 Likes
Sorry @Tian, but I have… different opinions to yours.
It’s the worst Torchwood episode I’ve seen.
After getting used to Torchwood, and understanding what the series is like, we have this episode, which is very different in tone to previous TW episodes, which I would maybe have appreciated, but it just does not work here.
And don’t get me started on the fairies…
6 Likes
I personally didn’t like this episode, and it’s sandwiched in-between two episodes I love. I think Jack’s arc is good, I like him with Estelle, but this story does get re-made with COE, which outshines it immensely lol
6 Likes
Can I though? Get you started I mean? 
What’s your problem with the fairies? They are not that bad are they?
This might be why I enjoy this one a bit more than most of the others of this season.
Yep. This is why it is one of the better ones of the first season 
3/5 
from me.
And it’s a bit of a palette cleanser after Cyberwoman…
6 Likes
I don’t remember much about this story, especially given that it comes between the worst and best stories of the season. I do like the idea that fairies just exist in the Whoniverse, but the story itself is rather middling.
2 Likes
This is a lie, I completely forgot about Random Shoes
5 Likes
Is everyone here watching the same show? I don’t think this and Random Shoes are all that bad, especially compared to the likes of Day One and Cyberwoman.
I suppose we can talk about that when we reach Random Shoes.
2 Likes
This is how I feel in the threads all the time…
3 Likes
There’s a lot I like in all four episodes (Day One, Cyberwoman, Small Worlds, and Random Shoes), but I think at the very least you have to admit Random Shoes doesn’t feel like a Torchwood episode.
Like it or not, it’s completely tonally jarring
6 Likes
But that doesn’t make it a bad story. I have Random Shoes at 3.5/5, which is kind of high for my TW s01 ratings. I don’t remember it well enough to say more about it. But a lot of the time, a series’ highest-rated episodes are the ones that break the series’ conventions. Just look at Heaven Sent; it is really not a typical DW episode.
5 Likes
In my mind, it’s a fine story, but a bad Torchwood story
But we’ll get to that when we get to it
6 Likes
This is good! I needed a new TW episode to look forward to now that Cyberwoman is done.
7 Likes
This is all reminding me, I really do need to actually rewatch Cyberwoman, and this!
6 Likes
Here’s my thoughts from when I watched this episode back in June:
3 Likes
Another “meh” episode. It’s an interesting idea, but it just doesn’t go anywhere.
3/5
4 Likes
I’m in the meh crowd for this one. It’s a good character piece for Jack, but the fairy stuff feels like it is pulled from a BF Main Range story, and the family at the heart of the episode is like Torchwood trying to emulate Doctor Who at the time. It’s a mishmash of ideas that make for a slower episode and one that ends up a bit forgettable. 6/10.
5 Likes
There’s two big things this episode has going for it:
- The Faeries
- Exploring Jack’s Past
Unfortunately the CG really isn’t great, and the exploration of Jack’s past is done so much better in later stories (Captain Jack Harkness, Children of Earth (thinking more the stuff with his daughter, but also the 456 stuff), and Immortal Sins come to mind)
With those kind of falling a bit flat nowdays, it’s very much a ‘meh’ episode, and a 6/10 for me
6 Likes
Also as a point of comparison to my other 6/10 story we’ve done so far, I think this is a very consistant ‘meh’, where Ghost Machine has some really great moments, but is brought down by some jarring tonal shifts
5 Likes
Rewatched this yesterday.
It’s a “meh” from me.
This is one I usually skip if I’m rewatching Torchwood. It’s just so dull and I find it doesn’t fit in with the rest of the show.
The scene with Jack telling Gwen about the fairies is the worst scene in all of Torchwood so far:
GWEN: What do you call them?
JACK: They’ve never really had a proper name.
GWEN: Why not?
JACK: Something from the dawn of time. How could you possibly put a name to that?
GWEN: Are we talking alien?
JACK: Worse.
GWEN: How come?
JACK: Because they’re part of us, part of our world, yet we know nothing about them. So we pretend to know what they look like. We see them as happy. We imagine they have tiny little wings and are bathed in moonlight.
None of this makes sense. How does Jack know this? It sounds like he is speaking from some experience about creatures from the dawn of time but there’s no way he could really know this, unless they study them at Time Agent Academy or something.
JACK: […] like something out of the corner of your eye with a touch of myth, a touch of the spirit world, a touch of reality, all jumbled together. Old moments and memories that are frozen in amongst it. Like debris spinning around a ringed planet. Tossing, turning, whirling. Then backwards and forwards through time. If that’s them we have to find them, before all hell breaks loose.
This whole sentence is just awful, sounds like he is trying to sound like the Doctor here but he’s really just making stuff up.
In my headcanon the fairies are aliens that come to Earth to steal children. Any other explanation is just painful for me lol!
2.5/5
4 Likes