this is my response to my friend sarah when we were discussing series 3 of one of our favorites Torchwood, the Children of Earth miniseries. contains spoilers, so read at your own risk if you have not watched it yet.

i wanted to love series 3, i truly did. i waited very long to watch it, anticipating the promised greatness. unfortunately, the series ended up being comprised of situations the writer/exec producer admits as "never seen on television, no one has done before."
 
i honestly feel he took these great characters viewers were so invested in and wrote these scenes in order to boast "i was the first to do this." ianto's death was, as you said, utterly gratuitous--there was no need to have him die the same way hundreds others in the building did. 
 
i understood the deaths of tosh and owen--technically he was frozen at the end of series 2 but with the destruction of the hub i guess he's dust now; they were demonstrating how even core characters are not immune, although two such deaths in the same series is overkill, no pun intended. ianto's death should have been in another scene if it was so essential to the plot. i personally feel it was not essential, and i am not a big fan of the ianto character at all.
 
and the ending. wow. i sat here staring at the screen when they discovered the ultra-soundwave to kill the 456. deus ex machina, anyone? like they couldn't figure out how to end this abortion, so they use the old greek hand of god method. and in the last, what?, ten minutes of a 6 hour series--i know, i know, probably 5 hours after you omit the brief commercial periods. it felt so rush, so hurried, i was hit by an immediate was of disbelief. wow. i honesty couldn't believe the cheese factor.
 
and i thought this was going to be an awesome series after watching day one. on day two though i felt the slide begin. day three was actually the episode where the slope went down rather quickly.
 
as an end for this show, it's not the wonderful, mindblowing, fantastic series the writer/exec producer hyped it to be. at least not for me.
 
a series 4? i'm not interested. at all. there's no coming back from this. it's not even about jumping the shark. not when the entire show was built around fantastic concepts. it's about the horrendous 5 day event that turned out to be nothing more than an abortion.
 
i deleted it from my dvr. i really want series 1 & 2 of torchwood. but i don't think i could ever bring myself to buy series 3. or any after that. not unless there is a way to undo most of series 3.
 
i've talked to several people just tonight i met on facebook and so far the majority is series 3 at best was mediocre. i have never been so bothered by someone screwing up a televison show; this is a first for me, but i guess i got so invested in this show.
 
what did i expect? i mean seriously. look what they did to primeval series 3. that show was axed--i knew it wouuld be after seeing the first 3 episodes of series 3--after they'd shot all the episodes but had only shown about half of them.
 

nighty-nightmares,

F~