Le Nubian, hope I did not come off as lecturing. I think the key difference in your reaction is one that probably says nothing, but if it say an anything says something good about you. You did not let yourself be manipulated emotionally into complicity which was the means by which COE told its story.

For the fans of Arthur and Merlin:

Brokeback Camelot

Thanks, Vortex. I'll have to remember that after work.

None of the stores I went to had The Middleman in stock. What's up with that?

The B&N I went to had two copies of Torchwood:CoE. My pre-ordered Life On Mars also got here today.

There will be much BBC-age going on 'round these parts.

None of the stores I went to had The Middleman in stock. What's up with that?

It's already sold out! I don't know. They sold out at Comic-Con before the signing was even over on Thursday (and they had only arrived Thursday morning), and they had to order some more that didn't get in till Saturday.

It's possible the stores you went to didn't even order it, maybe?

Costco, where I got Pushing Daisies, didn't have The Middleman, but then that was Sunday....

I got the Torchwood:CoE DVD set at Best Buy today. The Best Buy limited edition includes the CD for the "Lost Souls" audio drama. If I had known about that earlier, I wouldn't have bought the "Lost Souls" CD when it came out a few weeks ago! Also, the packaging notes the the music for episode 5 differs from the broadcast version, but I can't imagine it's anything particularly noticeable.

ETA: According to forum posters over at Gallifrey Base, the DVD version of episode five is actually a preliminary version. It features slightly different edits and temporary music. Because the DVD release was so soon after broadcast, they weren't able to finalize the episode before the DVDs went into production.

SyFy is including DVR data in its numbers now:

The series premiere of Warehouse 13 added nearly 500,000 additional viewers with Live +7 data factored in and was seen by 4 million total viewers (1.9 million adults 25-54 and 1.5 million Adults 18-49) with a 2.8 household rating. It ranks as the 3rd highest original series premiere in Syfy's history.

Eureka's audience increased by nearly 700,000 total viewers with the addition of 7-day DVR playback data to reach 3.3 million total viewers and a 2.3 household rating. Eureka was the #1 program in cable for the day in Adults 25-54 (1.8 million) and Adults 18-49 (1.4million).

I'm caught up in Boxed Set shows for once (or at least the ones I follow), and I just have to say that Torchwood broke my heart into tiny pieces and then stomped on them for awhile. Then spit on the remains. Bleak with a side of bleak, someone said, right? Yeah.

Don't get me wrong--I did think it was stunningly acted and well-written, and I understand the writers' reasoning behind Ianto's death and the sacrifice of the grandson separately, but they didn't entirely work for me as plot devices together. I think this is partially because because I didn't see that Jack had a full investment in the grandson in the scope of the mini-series. I needed more substance to that relationship to make it be the gut-wrenching turnabout it was meant to be. That combined with, as many of you have said, the incredible stupidity of Jack's "plan" made both deaths almost anticlimactic (not so much in terms of the pain they cause, but more so in terms of the purpose behind that pain) for me personally. I mean, I get logically the idea that Ianto's death had to happen in order for Jack to be willing to sacrifice the boy, but...I don't know. Too much.

I also want to agree with comments earlier about not buying the complete capitulation of all of the world leaders (or everyone in that room) so quickly. I thought the dialogue was often exquisitely painful, especially the discussion of the "Undesirables," and I buy that some people would just bargain 10% of the world's children away like that, but all of them? Without even really trying anything else? It just felt like the writers making a point rather than a believable scenario.

I know it sounds like I hated it, but I need to say that I didn't. I thought it was brilliant overall, in no small part because of its hard truths. I'm glad I watched it, though I will never do so again.

I have lots of theories as to why I think the same effect could have been achieved without that degree of pain, but I don't think I'm going to articulate any of them particularly well right now. Suffice it to say that I think there is a way to break a viewer's heart and force them to face cold realities without sacrificing the heart of a show. I can handle flawed heroes. I love them, in fact. But regardless of whether it was the "right thing" to do, I can't ever invest in Jack again, and that makes me really sad.

BSG broke my heart over and over, and God knows the heroes of that show often behaved in despicable ways, but there was at least a little glimmer of hope in the end, even with immense loss. I know life isn't like that sometimes, and I know Americans in particular are used to happy endings, but I just wanted something, anything, to hang onto in the end. I didn't feel like Gwen and Rhys were enough, no matter how much I love them. I think I would feel a lot differently if this mini-series was self-contained, but I can't see subjecting myself to Torchwood again after that. (In fact, as I reread this comment, I suspect I would have had an entirely different response had this been a series without a history or future.)

Anyway, apparently I had a lot to say. I won't deny it made me think a lot. I'm just very glad that Eureka and Leverage were also on my Tivo to cheer me up after I finished watching it.