Before writing to Labour Leader Ed Miliband it is time to catch up on my other activities and interests over the past week.
It annoys me that I cannot remember what Torchwood was all about and the new series refuses to explain or indicate if what happened in previous series has anything to do with the situation in the present. So I have resorted to consulting Wikipedia. As with Dr Who which spawned this series it was a Welsh based production originating for two series in the mid part of the past decade. It then reappeared with the help of American money for a five episode over one week series in 2009 which centred on a government decision to agree to sacrificing some children to satisfy the needs of an alien race as a compromise to being troubled on a greater scale. I have some memory of this although may have confused with Dr Who.
Only two main characters survive from the previous series. Captain Jack Harkness who was an immortal living on earth for the past couple of hundred years with supernatural powers and who is also gay and appeared in a Dr Who series. There is also Gwen a Welsh superwoman who has settled in secret with a husband and child on a remote Welsh coast Idyll.
As explained with the first episode she and Jack are brought out of retirement so to speak when suddenly on miracle day everyone stops dying although this does not stop people have dreadful accidents, being murdered and having painful existences, it is just that they cannot die and remain self conscious self aware. No one better personifies this predicament that a man due to executed because of having sex with a young girl he then cruelly murdered. He becomes something of a celebrity and is taken up by a vivacious pubic relations woman for a pharmaceutical company who in this third episode is found to have been stockpiling pain killers for years and years and which is now leading a campaign that drug medication should be available over the counter without prescription.
The first twist in the series is that because humans have become immortal, Captain Jack has become human and is aging and susceptible to human experiences and ailments.
The second is that because of American money from a Murdoch USA TV company the action has moved from the UK to the USA with the Torchwood pair being taken to the USA under extraordinary rendition by the CIA only to find that an attempt is made on the life of Jack before they arrive and then the CIA man sent to bring them over and his USA assistant are also attacked. The four together with the separated/divorced wife of the CIA man who is a doctor taking special interest in what is going on set out to discover the cause of what is happening and save the world.
It is still not clear who is behind this world wide development, surely some alien force in league with the drug company? Or why the Torchwood pair and the CIA pair are regarded as such a threat to whatever is going on. I cannot say that I care much but will stay with the series to see what happens as other series being watch come to an end.
The first of these is the Chicago Code where the decision has been taken not to renew after the first season and which explains why the two big issues are sorted in the double episode finale.
I begin with the death of the brother of Jason Wysocki, the Polish American detective who is given carte blanche as to which cases he takes on under the overall command of the first female police Superintendent Teresa Colvin. As with the other series set in New York, Blue Bloods, the death of the brother is assumed to be something to do with his secret work to uncover corrupt links with the criminal underworld which appears to govern most American cities. In this instance the brother was working undercover in one of the two gangs which are said to have dominated the criminal underworld in Chicago, not the Italians for a change, but the Irish and the Russians. What Jarek learns in these two episodes he does not want to know and his father does his best to steer him from finding out the truth. What he finds is that the brother was on the take from both gangs leaving a large cache of notes with his mistress as his wife would be covered by a pension. Jarek’s niece who has become a Rookie cop has had to cope with finding out that her father had a mistress and now she has to cope that he was corrupt and killed as part of a feud between the two gangs.
Jarek learns this as the net closes around the main subject of the series the complex Alderman Ronin Gibbons the most powerful man with twenty years of wheeling and dealing including complicity with the crime gangs and their murders. He uses the power and money gained from the position to help the poor and the deprived groups in the community which for a time affected the current undercover cop Liam Hennessey who joins the Irish mob in the hope it would lead to the outing of the Alderman. He makes progress and has witnessed the death of a fixed Juryman by the head of the Irish mob. The mobster has a daughter who takes to the undercover man and who reveals that she controls the official books. This leads to a deal being brokered with the Irish mobster to protect the daughter if he gives up the Alderman. The Alderman one step ahead arranged for the mobster to be killed and in turn his daughter attempts to kill the undercover man who survives and is able to come out of the cold and impress his parents who thought he had become a low life thug.
Having accomplished the elimination of everyone who could bring him down, the Alderman turns his attention to getting the City Council to end the contract of the Police Chief. However he has inadvertently provided the means of his own downfall by telling Jarek that he could reveal who had killed his brother. This leads to the mistress showing Jarek the remaining cash which the brother accumulated and this in turn leads to where he kept records and proof which enables the Alderman to be arrested and prosecuted. Jarek and his niece come to terms with the behaviour of the brother/father. The police Chief is able to relax and contemplate having a life outside of her work commitment. What is not known if this was the planned first series ending or a rushed ending because the series was to end for good?
Having dealt a blow to the Irish Mob, the Russians were conspicuous by their absence in the Chicago Code, but the fate of the Italian Mafia continues to engage season two of the Sopranos. Tony has a continuing problem with Ritchie Aprile, the long lost boyfriend of his Tony’s sister Janice and when Uncle Junior reveals that Ritchie has decided to go for Tony, Tony is faced with a dilemma as Janice is excited by preparations for her wedding. Fortunately it is resolved by Janice herself who in a fit of rage after Ritchie hits her; she shoots him to death in the chest. She calls on Tony to help and he arranges for the body to be dismembered using meat cutting equipment from the pie shop! This is undertaken by Christopher and Furio. He gives a one way bus ticket to Janice having had another bout of recrimination and counter recrimination with their mother.
Tony has decided to end his relationship with his Russian mistress, first trying to persuade that she needs to find someone she can marry and start a family. She becomes desperate and contact Tony at home and then attempts to take her own life. Carmela is not amused even though Tony says the relationship has ended and pays off the girl so she can start a new life with her mother. At the end of the episode Carmela announces that she is taking a trip to Rome with the widow of Jackie Aprile and where they hope to see the Pope, She tells Tony he is chauffer A J while she is away and find their daughter a suitable tennis camp advising Tony that she might commit suicide if he objects.
Carmela who nearly had an affair with Vic Musto he friend relative of the couple who run the restaurant and he apologies for not coming round for lunch as planned, She thanks him for being honourable but hints her situation could change in the future. He admits to a contact his lucky escape after finding out that Carmela is married to Tony the Mafia boss.
It annoys me that I cannot remember what Torchwood was all about and the new series refuses to explain or indicate if what happened in previous series has anything to do with the situation in the present. So I have resorted to consulting Wikipedia. As with Dr Who which spawned this series it was a Welsh based production originating for two series in the mid part of the past decade. It then reappeared with the help of American money for a five episode over one week series in 2009 which centred on a government decision to agree to sacrificing some children to satisfy the needs of an alien race as a compromise to being troubled on a greater scale. I have some memory of this although may have confused with Dr Who.
Only two main characters survive from the previous series. Captain Jack Harkness who was an immortal living on earth for the past couple of hundred years with supernatural powers and who is also gay and appeared in a Dr Who series. There is also Gwen a Welsh superwoman who has settled in secret with a husband and child on a remote Welsh coast Idyll.
As explained with the first episode she and Jack are brought out of retirement so to speak when suddenly on miracle day everyone stops dying although this does not stop people have dreadful accidents, being murdered and having painful existences, it is just that they cannot die and remain self conscious self aware. No one better personifies this predicament that a man due to executed because of having sex with a young girl he then cruelly murdered. He becomes something of a celebrity and is taken up by a vivacious pubic relations woman for a pharmaceutical company who in this third episode is found to have been stockpiling pain killers for years and years and which is now leading a campaign that drug medication should be available over the counter without prescription.
The first twist in the series is that because humans have become immortal, Captain Jack has become human and is aging and susceptible to human experiences and ailments.
The second is that because of American money from a Murdoch USA TV company the action has moved from the UK to the USA with the Torchwood pair being taken to the USA under extraordinary rendition by the CIA only to find that an attempt is made on the life of Jack before they arrive and then the CIA man sent to bring them over and his USA assistant are also attacked. The four together with the separated/divorced wife of the CIA man who is a doctor taking special interest in what is going on set out to discover the cause of what is happening and save the world.
It is still not clear who is behind this world wide development, surely some alien force in league with the drug company? Or why the Torchwood pair and the CIA pair are regarded as such a threat to whatever is going on. I cannot say that I care much but will stay with the series to see what happens as other series being watch come to an end.
The first of these is the Chicago Code where the decision has been taken not to renew after the first season and which explains why the two big issues are sorted in the double episode finale.
I begin with the death of the brother of Jason Wysocki, the Polish American detective who is given carte blanche as to which cases he takes on under the overall command of the first female police Superintendent Teresa Colvin. As with the other series set in New York, Blue Bloods, the death of the brother is assumed to be something to do with his secret work to uncover corrupt links with the criminal underworld which appears to govern most American cities. In this instance the brother was working undercover in one of the two gangs which are said to have dominated the criminal underworld in Chicago, not the Italians for a change, but the Irish and the Russians. What Jarek learns in these two episodes he does not want to know and his father does his best to steer him from finding out the truth. What he finds is that the brother was on the take from both gangs leaving a large cache of notes with his mistress as his wife would be covered by a pension. Jarek’s niece who has become a Rookie cop has had to cope with finding out that her father had a mistress and now she has to cope that he was corrupt and killed as part of a feud between the two gangs.
Jarek learns this as the net closes around the main subject of the series the complex Alderman Ronin Gibbons the most powerful man with twenty years of wheeling and dealing including complicity with the crime gangs and their murders. He uses the power and money gained from the position to help the poor and the deprived groups in the community which for a time affected the current undercover cop Liam Hennessey who joins the Irish mob in the hope it would lead to the outing of the Alderman. He makes progress and has witnessed the death of a fixed Juryman by the head of the Irish mob. The mobster has a daughter who takes to the undercover man and who reveals that she controls the official books. This leads to a deal being brokered with the Irish mobster to protect the daughter if he gives up the Alderman. The Alderman one step ahead arranged for the mobster to be killed and in turn his daughter attempts to kill the undercover man who survives and is able to come out of the cold and impress his parents who thought he had become a low life thug.
Having accomplished the elimination of everyone who could bring him down, the Alderman turns his attention to getting the City Council to end the contract of the Police Chief. However he has inadvertently provided the means of his own downfall by telling Jarek that he could reveal who had killed his brother. This leads to the mistress showing Jarek the remaining cash which the brother accumulated and this in turn leads to where he kept records and proof which enables the Alderman to be arrested and prosecuted. Jarek and his niece come to terms with the behaviour of the brother/father. The police Chief is able to relax and contemplate having a life outside of her work commitment. What is not known if this was the planned first series ending or a rushed ending because the series was to end for good?
Having dealt a blow to the Irish Mob, the Russians were conspicuous by their absence in the Chicago Code, but the fate of the Italian Mafia continues to engage season two of the Sopranos. Tony has a continuing problem with Ritchie Aprile, the long lost boyfriend of his Tony’s sister Janice and when Uncle Junior reveals that Ritchie has decided to go for Tony, Tony is faced with a dilemma as Janice is excited by preparations for her wedding. Fortunately it is resolved by Janice herself who in a fit of rage after Ritchie hits her; she shoots him to death in the chest. She calls on Tony to help and he arranges for the body to be dismembered using meat cutting equipment from the pie shop! This is undertaken by Christopher and Furio. He gives a one way bus ticket to Janice having had another bout of recrimination and counter recrimination with their mother.
Tony has decided to end his relationship with his Russian mistress, first trying to persuade that she needs to find someone she can marry and start a family. She becomes desperate and contact Tony at home and then attempts to take her own life. Carmela is not amused even though Tony says the relationship has ended and pays off the girl so she can start a new life with her mother. At the end of the episode Carmela announces that she is taking a trip to Rome with the widow of Jackie Aprile and where they hope to see the Pope, She tells Tony he is chauffer A J while she is away and find their daughter a suitable tennis camp advising Tony that she might commit suicide if he objects.
Carmela who nearly had an affair with Vic Musto he friend relative of the couple who run the restaurant and he apologies for not coming round for lunch as planned, She thanks him for being honourable but hints her situation could change in the future. He admits to a contact his lucky escape after finding out that Carmela is married to Tony the Mafia boss.
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