Where was the logic assuming that the other countries of the world would give up their ten percent of children? How long could the government's complicitness have remained even remotely secret? How could the UK complying have gotten them off the hook? Were the US going to go ahead as well? They were aware of the demands too.

That's my big hole, much bigger than LeN's.

yes.

I was wondering where the "show of force" was. Gassing a building, killing 100 people is not going to cut it. I assume we are to believe the other countries were so freaked out by all the kids speaking as one that they feared reprisal.

I understand from reading LJ that some TW fans are so upset they're sending very nasty messages to the writers. Possibly including death threats.

Which, you know, that's not on.

I thought the entire series was very well-done, with some egregious plot-holes and a bit too much patriarchy. Also, I have no patience at all for Jack Harkness' Man Pain. But Gwen and Rhys and Lois and Johnson and Alice and Bridget and Ianto's family were all awesome. Oh, and Andy!

In the end, it's all just fiction. And definitely not fiction that deserves death threats, if any fiction ever does. People need perspective.

It left a sour taste in my mouth, but I get it. I got it the whole time. I just don't like what it did to the show and the team. I hope the series is done with, because I lack the imagination to imagine it day forward as even a shadow of its former self. But that is probably just one of the many reasons I'm on this side of the creative divide.

you know, I was hoping that they would have hired at least 2 new people for the team before this miniseries started up. I could see watching another miniseries. I'm a glutton for punishment. Maybe having a brand new team? I hope that the whole team survives, that Gwen and her child and husband survive. You can have dark without it going into Spooks territory with every outing. There's a reason why I stopped watching Spooks.

I can't see mommy Gwen throwing herself into danger's way every week, though. I saw her pregnancy as just a different way for Jack to lose her from his team.

It occurs to me that they never found out about Rupesh, did they? I guess it's not so important in the grand scheme of things.

Some people on LJ were saying that Ianto's death was well foreshadowed because of the "watch me die" speech he had, but in the Dead Line radio play he has a much longer "no one in Torchwood dies of old age" speech he gives to Jack, and wants a comatose Jack to not see him as just a blip in time, so it was all lost on me, since the CoE speech was so much less impactful than the radio play one. Did you guys feel the foreshadowing?

Re. the TW & Spooks comparison: I actually liked that aspect of the show -- the thorny, difficult politics, and compromises that get made, and the cravenness of the people on the top. That conference room talk in episode 4, in which that female cabinet member calmly talks about taking the 10% from the Undesirables, chilled my blood completely. I thought that was fucking brilliant, especially for being Right on the Money. And when they killed off everyone in the Thames House, my first thought was OMG YOU DID NOT JUST FUCKING KILL HARRY PEARCE. And Ros and Jo and Malcolm! No!

'Suela speaks for me in that I, too, thought the series was well done, other than some major moments of egregious stupidity and plot illogic. I also had a lot of problems with what happened to the Frobishers, even though I agree with some people that it was the logical end dictated by the story. If you think of the whole thing as a Greek tragedy (you can make a very good case for it, I think), it was all about the paying for one's sins with the blood of the innocent. So the convention of the classic tragedy dictates that Frobisher must sacrifice his children for the role he played, and Jack must do the same with Stephen for the role *he* played back in the '60's. Not that I liked it -- as a matter of fact, I was completely gutted by what happened to the Frobishers, even more so than by Ianto's death (which was affecting but Jack's plan was SO STUPID that the sheer irritation won over the sadness.)

Positing a question:

if you lived to 300, and subsequently all of your former lovers died, your children, your grandchildren (great-, great-great-, etc.), how would you experience loss? There's got to be a point when the individual deaths wouldn't have the same impact as the first few did.

I was sad for Ianto for Ianto's sake and his family. I was a little mystified at how hard Jack took it.

This is all to say, I didn't see his death telegraphed. I actually thought Jack's daughter was going to bite it.

Well, it's hard to judge foreshadowing since I knew about it going in, but what jumped out at me was that within the first ten minutes Jack jokes, "You get killed, not me! You die like a dog."

LeN, I think that Ianto is supposed to be extra special to Jack, moreso, than say, his daughter's mother. This I'm gathering from the radio play reaction as well as CoE.