Torchwood: Miracle Day - Dead of Night

(Originally written 30/1/14)

Ugh, how many British-to-American translations can you fit into one episode? One scene? One line? Thankfully these got out of the way fairly quickly, leaving me to enjoy the rest.

Vera continues to be amazing in her blunt, down-to-earth attitude, especially telling off the pro-life Catholic. Maybe it’s the fact that Rex shares this no-nonsense approach which attracts her to him? Pity about him breaking into her house, though – when did he ever get her address?

This leads me to the sex scenes – both Rex/Vera and Jack/Brad. There’s something about them I really like – the up-close shots of the naked bodies seem not explicit, but simply honest. Yep, this is what sex looks like, and people are often naked when they do it. No slow mo, no lingering – just bodies. Plus, it results in the funniest line so far: when Rex, who doesn’t want Jack to have his painkillers, argues, “You weren’t impaled”, Jack quips, “You should have seen the other guy.”

But there is also a tragic side to Jack’s liaison, because it is followed by his heartbreaking call to Gwen. He needs to assure himself that they are still friends, because she’s all he has right now – Ianto is mentioned as someone they wish the Miracle could have saved, and Brad clearly means nothing to him. But as Jack whispers that they don’t need anyone else, Rhys and Anwen pop up on Gwen’s computer, and she forgets all about him. Poor Jack.

It’s a bit of a surreal moment when Jack and Oswald meet for the first time. Oswald becomes the creepiest he’s ever been, talking about the pleasure he felt from assaulting Suzie. It’s pretty confronting to get inside the mind of a paedophile. What’s even creepier is the fact that he’s not always like this – when he’s making the presentation about Phicorp, he comes across as really confident and not-rapey. And suddenly it’s not that hard to believe that he was a teacher for so many years within anyone questioning his behaviour.

We also learn a little more about Esther in this episode – in her personal life, she has an older sister, who can’t cope, who she takes care of. In her professional life, she “reads blogs”. So what is her position within the CIA, exactly? Why did she join? Did she want adventure? And most importantly, does she only wear those giant impractical heels so she’s roughly the same height as everyone else in Torchwood?

Finally, this episode introduces the Soulless, who we will (hopefully) learn a little bit more about later on. And I guess they get their masks from the same place as Spider-Man, because they don’t look like they should be able to see in them.

Torchwood: Miracle Day - Rendition

(Originally written 22/1/14)

So there’s going to be a DVD intro before every episode? Well that’s just great for my spoilerphobic dad, who's watching this season with me for the first time...

I’ve always recalled this episode as being “the one set on a plane” and “the one that could have been condensed”. But I’d forgotten how genuinely exciting some of the scenes were, and how much the characters develop. We learnt last episode that Esther was curious, but here she’s also a quick thinker, using her smarts and her charm (friendliness as opposed to sexiness) to escape the CIA. Of course this was foreshadowed earlier in the episode when she was told something like “you can’t sit back and watch” and “you have to take sides”, but this wasn’t too annoying.

Meanwhile, on the plane, Jack’s been talking about morphic fields, and I quite enjoy John Barrowman’s delivery. But now he’s been poisoned by Katya from Neighbours (named ‘Lyn’ here but that wasn’t obvious enough to me), who just happens to carry arsenic around with her for handy assassinations. She acknowledges this towards the end, but it still seemed a bit convenient for me. Never mind, because it was fun watching everyone on the plane work together to cure Jack, and more importantly work with Vera and the panel. Why is Vera so amazing, and (spoiler) why must Torchwood lose yet another potential doctor??

I admit that Rex acted like a bit of a dick at the beginning, splitting up Gwen’s family (even if his intentions were good, he didn’t need to act so callous about it). But I didn’t mind him attempting to bribe Danny the flight attendant, saying he’ll let him feel him up if he can have a vodka. Rex comes across as a very heterosexual person, but he’s willing to let that slide a bit if he can have some pain relief. However, Danny’s constant denial about being gay, and everyone else’s insistence that he is, gets pretty old. He’s a flight attendant, so he must be gay! He has a favourite tie, so he must be gay! And then he admits “it was one time!”, and seems ashamed of it. The dude didn’t need people practically bullying him into coming out.

Danes continues to be weird, interacting with people in that creepy way yet fully aware of what’s going on (e.g. how he should grab food while he can because no one will ever want to give him a job). I know from later episodes that he isn’t sorry about the murder, so I wonder how he manages to pull off the crying stunt – has he been practising? Then he meets Jilly, whose bubbliness makes her a breath of fresh air (even though we later learn her motives aren’t admirable).

I appreciated the action in this episode and look forward to seeing how all the different characters will work together. It’s getting better.

Torchwood: Miracle Day - The New World

(Originally written 15/1/14, modified 22/2/14))

It’s been 2 ½ years since I saw Miracle Day, but I thought my memory of wasn’t that bad that I’d forget Captain Jack breaking the fourth wall in the opening scene. Turns out it’s part of the DVD, with John Barrowman and RTD excitedly introducing us to the series. That was unexpected.

After such a jovial start, we’re off to watch Oswald Danes’ execution. And I can’t describe Bill Pullman’s performance as anything less than weird. I think it’s the way he doesn’t show his teeth, thus making himself look older than he actually is and removing any chance of a smile. He doesn’t quite seem like a real person yet, but we’ll see how we go.

Another new regular is Rex. I loved Rex the first time round, but I admit he comes across in his first scene as a bit of a douche. He’s talking on the phone, while driving in the rain, about how he’s so happy he got a promotion because someone else’s new wife got leukaemia. But... then he’s really determined to continue working, even getting himself to the UK despite his not-death. And then he complains about not only not-dying from being impaled but ALSO having to pay for the bridge to Wales, and I can’t help but laugh. I think he’s gonna be fun.

Talking to Rex throughout his ordeal is Esther. She’s a bit spunky and curious, although I can’t quite figure out, if she wanted info on Torchwood, why she ran away from Jack when she knew he must be involved with Torchwood? Then she just becomes something for Jack to bounce his exposition off, and gives a pretty unconvincing reaction to hearing about aliens. Yet she has some awareness of the 456? Do the people of Earth still remember that being a thing?

This leads me onto Jack himself, who apparently broke into Esther’s house and dumped her sleeping body there? He also calls himself “Owen Harper”, which I appreciate.

Now for the Williams clan, and unless something happened off-screen, Rhys seems a little too keen for Gwen to avoid Torchwood. Doesn’t he remember that feeling of wonder he had at the end of Meat? Was the experience with the 456 the last straw? Or is it because he now has a daughter? (A daughter who looks so adorable in her little earmuffs, protecting her against the sound of Mummy’s gun.) A friend of mine thinks it might be a bit of both, stating, "Firstly, a lot of children were under threat there. Secondly, Jack himself proved he was willing to kill his own grandson if needs be."

If I didn’t mention a character, it’s because they didn’t particularly interest me this episode. Let’s see if that changes over the course of the season.

Torchwood: Children of Earth - Day Five

(Originally written 5/1/14)

There are so many moments in this story which just go the extra mile to make their impact even more brutal. The death of Frobisher is the standout – I didn’t have to hear the gunshots to know what would happen, but the fact that I did makes it so much more real. And we always knew what the 456 were doing with the children would be bad, but using them to get high is the last straw. This is a fate which is completely unacceptable for the children of Earth.

Then there are the moments which have impact in hindsight. It’s tragic to watch Alice tell Johnson they need Jack, because we all know how Jack ends up solving the problem. On a lighter note, it’s cool to watch Bridget with the pollies, when Denise says she can’t imagine anyone wanting to be there, and there’s a close-up on Bridget’s face – a face which, we discover later, is recording everything through the contact lenses.

(So what exactly was Bridget’s relationship with Frobisher? I had thought she might be a former lover, especially when he kissed her on the cheek, but her talk with Lois implied that she hadn’t gotten as physically intimate as Lois apparently had. Maybe she always wanted to, or they both did? Whatever the case, it doesn’t make her any less awesome.)

But Bridget’s takedown of the PM isn’t quite as good a moment as I remembered it. Perhaps due the absence of Yates, Green is once again the most unlikeable character, in this case due to his sacrifice of Frobisher’s children. But while it’s good to see him get his comeuppance, Denise then steps in and implies that she’ll probably be taking his place as PM. This is the woman who last episode came up with the idea of how to remove the 10% – Green just went along with it. Am I supposed to feel comfortable with this woman taking over? I do find it interesting that the women in this miniseries are either fundamentally good – like Lois, like Bridget – or have shades of grey. Even Johnson is not pleased to find out what she’s been defending, and is genuinely upset when Steven is sacrificed. And while none of the men show enthusiasm for the 456’s plan, it is arguable that many of them show no emotion at all, instead focusing on how to deal with the situation.

(Though while the inoculation idea was a good cover story, it makes little sense to me why the government sent armed soldiers to collect the kids and they didn’t think this would look a bit suss. I suppose they wanted to make sure the kids didn’t resist, but the government’s plan to look like victims themselves wouldn’t really hold water after forcibly removing children from their schools and homes. Mind you, as soon as the children sent their final broadcast to kill the 456, the soldiers just stop, apparently completely aware that the enemy has been dealt with?)

Dekker is about the only one who carries on with a smile on his face, that same slimy smirk, apparently proud of himself for surviving for 456’s attack (which really shouldn’t have been possible). His most sickening moment is when he, rather than anyone else, suggests the use of Steven. Jack never wants to – it’s only when he’s pressured into it that he agrees.

So we’ve reached the end of Children of Earth, and what have we learnt? We’ve learnt that when faced with challenges, it’s important to fight for what you believe in – literally in the case of Johnny and his mates. You may have to step outside your comfort zone while doing so, like Andy (and Rhys, but especially Andy). You might not make it through to the other side, like Ianto and Frobisher. And you may find yourself doing things you never wanted to do, like Jack. But at the end of the day, forgiveness is important, because without that the world really would be ripped apart.

And Gwen taught us that working for Torchwood apparently makes the Pill ineffective, yet the employees are not warned about this.

Torchwood: Children of Earth - Day Four

(Originally written 5/1/14)

How many ethical discussions can you pack into one episode?

In 1965, we have Jack’s actions – as Clem says, “The man who sent me and my friends to die can’t die himself!” And while it was rough of the woman in 1965 to imply that Jack “doesn’t care”, I do find myself wondering what right Jack has to be leading Torchwood and saving the Earth. Do his decision-making processes tally with those of someone whose own life is at risk?

This nicely segues into the discussion of the politicians to hand over the children. At first Denise appears to be the most moral, thinking of the kids as kids – and not just her own kids, but those of her brother. She questions the right of those without kids to contribute to the decision – but then, she becomes something of an elitist, wishing to sacrifice those kids from failing schools (her comment on the school league tables seems especially harsh), because again, there’s no one from that background to stand up for them.

But what do you achieve from standing up to your enemies? In this episode, not much. Jack stands up to the 456, and he causes the deaths of Clem, Ianto and hundreds of others by doing so. There is a cruel irony here in that Ianto told Jack he should have “stood up to them” back in 1965; so it could be argued that Ianto caused his own death. And what a death! My tears flowed thick and fast for Ianto (as well as for Clem). This was especially thanks to the sadness, the desperation, I could hear in Jack’s voice.

Speaking of voices, at first I found it difficult to take the presence of Nick "Big Finish" Briggs seriously. But then suddenly his Rick Yates is being absolutely awful, showing little emotion during the discussion (which I choose to put down to callousness rather than bad acting) as he brings up the positives of the 456’s request. I said the PM was the most unlikeable character last episode, but the torch has now been passed to Yates – in fact, the PM redeems himself somewhat this episode, stressing that he is not a willing participant in events. Again, I’m choosing to see this as him having something of a heart, rather than just being a coward who’d rather not deal with it – or maybe it’s a bit of both.

Some minor technical questions for the episode: why did the 456 accept eleven of twelve children in 1965; and why do the contact lenses suddenly transmit people’s actual voices this episode? I’d also like to have a vague idea of how the 456’s technology works, but that’s not going to happen, and hey, it was cool watching it send its message through the kids, repeating the numbers before we hear the kids say the exact same thing.

Torchwood: Children of Earth - Day Three

(Originally written 3/1/14)

The 456 have arrived, and the moral dilemmas with them. This episode’s dilemma largely belongs to Lois, who struggles deeply with the idea of committing treason. This makes her a more believable character for me, not just immediately trusting the strange people who ask her to help them.

I do have two problems with Lois’ visit to Thames House though. There’s the fact that though she’s lying about Frobisher’s affair with her, Bridget confirms that he has in fact slept around. (Why must this story keep reminding me that Frobisher isn’t as good a person as I remember him to be? And why would he do such things in the first place? I can only imagine that it’s to deal with the stresses of the job.) Secondly, I don’t really see any point in Bridget (and Lois) following Frobisher at all. They don’t do anything except sit or stand there.

The Prime Minister appears to face no such dilemmas, flat out admitting to the others that he’s quite happy to sit back and let Frobisher face the 456. He is such a coward and definitely the most unlikeable character (even assassin Johnson is willing to be blunt with her victims). Meanwhile, the offscreen American president is furious that Great Britain is handling the meeting. This a pattern that tends to repeat itself in the Whoniverse.

Other bits of the episode are just fun. The thieving montage shows the team getting up to a bit of mischief, and when Alice goes all badass in order to escape from her house, she very much has echoes of her father in her.

Speaking of “fun”, I must have completely forgotten the fact that, in this episode, Gwen and Rhys admit they use the contact lenses as sex toys, and Ianto implies that he’s done the same. This just comes straight out of nowhere, especially inserted into such a dark plot, and is also in complete contradiction to Jack’s rules about not taking tech outside the Hub! Isn’t that... bad? At least if it was between Jack and Ianto, that would most likely take place in the Hub.

(Speaking of between Jack and Ianto, why did Gwen have to sit directly between them? Her and Rhys are continually cockblocking them throughout the episode. It is bloody annoying.)

Finally, the 456 are wonderfully creepy, with Simon Poland’s voice sounding very like Gabriel Woolf’s. And yet, towards the end of the episode, I couldn’t help taking them less seriously than I should have...

 

Torchwood: Children of Earth - Day Two

(Originally written 2/1/14)

The thing I really like about this episode is that every character has useful skills. Gwen fighting her way out of the van is obviously amazing, and shows just how far she’s come since her early days of being the damsel in distress every second episode. But even the supporting characters contribute in significant ways.

Rhys is a wonderfully supportive husband, offering to carry the bag to keep Gwen’s trigger-finger free, and adorably considering that he should bring a book when going into hiding. But he’s also able to take charge, using his haulage know-how to get himself and Gwen into a truck bound for London. And Rhys isn’t the only supportive husband – when Rhiannon needs to see Ianto, Johnny bands together everyone else on the estate to rock the surveillance party.

I want to see Lois as the Doctor’s companion, dammit. Like Donna, she works an office job, where she’s gained skills through gathering data and eavesdropping. She does all this with a natural yet quiet curiosity – as no one pays much attention to her, she can get away with just about anything. Wouldn’t it be amazing to watch her come out of her shell on Doctor Who, as opposed to current companions/characters who start off strong and sassy?

And then there’s Mr Dekker, whose useful skill is making me unsettled thanks to the creepy smile forever on his face. What is he so happy about???

Missing for the majority of the episode is Jack, who very slowly and gorily comes back to life with a blood-curdling scream. But why do they collect the pieces of his body in the first place? I guess I understand that they want to see if he can properly die now, but wouldn’t it have been easier to just burn the pieces or something? Burying him in concrete seems a lot of effort – and I’m pretty sure it would take at least 24 hours for that concrete to start setting, by the way. And after he was rescued from this horrific ordeal, he should have had a proper onscreen reunion with Ianto, complete with dirty cuddles and kisses. Dude’s just been blown up – he should be allowed to act a little vulnerable.

I perhaps wasn’t quite as engrossed in this episode as I have been previously, given that it mainly sets things up for the next day. Hopefully I’ll have more to say tomorrow.

Torchwood: Children of Earth - Day One

(Originally written 1/1/14, modified 9/2/14)

This episode is no less exciting now than the first time I saw it. It sets up the supporting characters nicely, blending them in with what appears to be random extras, so it’s only later that we find out their connection to events and to Torchwood. And if you know what happens already, there’s a nice (read: tragic) bit of foresight when Alice tells Jack she will never let him experiment on Steven.

Then there are some genuinely shocking moments, like when the kids start screaming, and the incredible impact of the last word of the episode: “We are coming... back.” It was enough already that they were repeating themselves, but unlike, say, a Steven Moffat cliffhanger, which would go no further than this – “Mummy?” “Hey, who turned out the lights?” “Donna Noble has left the Library...” – RTD adds one extra word which changes the meaning of the sentence completely.

And while we’re talking about the end of the episode, can I just mention how amazing Peter Capaldi was? He was already giving a wonderful performance as a quiet and reluctantly dutiful civil servant. But then he witnesses his kids speaking those words, and suddenly he’s screaming, pleading with them to stop. This pushed me over the edge and moved me to tears – and it’s only Day One! It gives me hope that perhaps he’ll be able to salvage the Moffat scripts he’ll be saddled with later this year. (BTW, I can’t help but wonder how Moffat would have handled a concept like this one. How much more emphasis would he have put on the innocence of the children? Steven might have even survived, due to being related to the immortal Jack or something.)

Despite this episode being wonderful, I do wonder what the others Defenders of the Earth were up to at the time. Jack mentions that UNIT were performing some tests, but apparently Torchwood can’t have a relationship with them without Martha being there? I also would have been interested to see what the SJA gang got up to – while they are all too old to be affected, perhaps Mr Chandra would have had to deal with some late-blooming high school kids.

Other things remain unexplained. The Torchwood van gets conveniently stolen (we never find out how), which means Ianto doesn’t need to explain to his sister why a company car for the civil service has the name of a secret organisation blazoned on it. And while Clem is brilliant, I don’t understand how, apparently through avoiding the 456, he gained a super sense of smell which is able to detect truth, enemies and pregnancy.

(Later he'll apparently detect Ianto's sexuality, which is problematic for me. Ianto tells Rhiannon in this episode that "it's not men, it's just him", suggesting the complicated nature of his sexuality. Two days later, Clem asks "Who's the queer?", and because his nose is magic, we have to accept its word. A friend of mine argued that maybe he can smell traces of partners on people's bodies, but if this were the case, he should have recognised the smell of Jack, who he only detects later as the Man who kidnapped him. But I'm getting ahead of myself...)

One thing which didn’t need explaining, for the first time, was the significance of Frobisher handing Bridget a blank page. I always guessed this was just code for “orders to kill”, but I’d clearly forgotten his conversation with the Prime Minister where he literally requests that Britain receive a “blank page”. It’s funny – Frobisher is approving assassination here, yet I’ve never thought of him as a killer (or Bridget, for that matter). RTD is so good at balancing shades of grey in this story, and I absolutely look forward to spending time with all these characters again (before crying over their deaths).

Torchwood: Exit Wounds

(Originally written 16/12/13)

This episode is intended to close off arcs which have stretched back throughout the season and, in many cases, it does. We see another side to Captain John, who gives various hints throughout the episode that he doesn’t really want to hurt anyone. We also meet Jack’s long-lost brother, who has not only managed to escape “those creatures” (they couldn’t think of a name for them?) that took him when he was a child but has also devised a plan to get revenge on Jack, yet despite all this he couldn’t find the time to change out of his rags.

Owen and Tosh get standout moments, with Owen finally coming to terms with his death and Tosh giving everything she possibly could before hers. This is the Tosh I saw in Fragments – doing incredible things under dire circumstances. Though I did wonder why they even bothered breaking her arm in Fragments when it doesn’t affect her in the slightest this episode – I think it’s just so we know why she has some industrial-strength painkillers handy and so she can tell Owen, as she’s clutching her bloody stomach, that it’s “just my arm”. I also wonder why their Torchwood staff photos look like they’ve been snapped at random.

One arc which I don’t think is sufficiently covered in Gwen/Rhys/Andy. Of course there’s an emergency on so there’s not much time to talk, but as far as we know, the last time Gwen saw Andy she was fobbing him off and telling him he couldn’t join Torchwood. Now he’s quite happy to call in her help without a word about the incident – about the only follow-up to that episode is that he insults Rhys and calls him a “lucky sod”. Then, the “amazing” Gwen, having given orders to all of Torchwood and the cops, proceeds to do absolutely nothing. I know some people are leaders, and there was some crap about Gwen needing to stay at the station, but with Cardiff in tatters (by the way, those shots of the Weevils coming out of the sewer in slow-mo were so cool), surely Gwen could have done something more to help.

Gunshot count for the season: 4. On average, that’s almost one every three episodes.

This season took me longer to get through than Series 1, so I can’t quite remember all of it. It seems that it was more consistent than the first series but less ambitious – many episodes were quite good but didn’t evoke much emotion from me (unless they involved Janto). Series 1 allowed me to feel emotions both negative and positive, especially during its surprising moments of brilliance.

One thing’s for certain: the emotions will run high during Children of Earth.

Torchwood: Fragments

(Originally written 6/12/13)

This episode has a bit of a contrived way of getting the team to the warehouse (they think they’re tracking life signs but they’re actually bombs? What sort of technology’s in that?). And now that I’ve seen Firefly’s Out of Gas, I agree that the two episodes are uncomfortably similar. But it’s all worth it to get some insights into our characters (does it count as character development if it happened in the past?).

Victorian Jack appears to be his old cheeky self, and I like to think he was deliberately written as a less world-weary version of his 100+ year old self. The lesbians were a lot more understated than I recall (probably a result of my exposure to Jenny and Vastra), though I’m not quite sure where they were going when they said “You know how we deal with threats”. Yes, you kill them. And you’ve just demonstrated that Jack can’t die. So... what are you going to do? I am also slightly disappointed that they didn’t use New Year’s Eve to make a TV Movie reference.

Unless I’m mistaken, this is the first episode since Greeks Bearing Gifts where Tosh isn’t defined by someone she’s in (or wanting to have) a relationship with (and obviously the pendant came packaged with Mary). It’s a real shame they didn’t do with her character; in fact, the supposed amateur we see in Fragments appears to show a lot more brilliance than Tosh in the present day, who pretty much just sits on computers all day doing clever things. Why couldn’t we see more of the Tosh who improvises her way through building sonic resonators? Why couldn’t we see more of her relationship with her mother? For that matter, why does Jack say she can only have limited contact with her (postcards), when Gwen got to have the whole family round (unless that was an exception for her wedding)?

It seems appropriate that I move straight from Tosh to Owen, aka the only character who is completely out of character in their backstory. And all I can think about is how these revelations affect Tosh’s crush on him. She was already employed by Torchwood when Owen arrived, presumably still grieving for his wife, so at what point did she fall in love with a(n almost) widow? How did this environment turn Owen into (effectively) a misogynist? Maybe it was Suzie’s doing – we know they were shagging, after all!

And the story that made me feel like an 18-year-old Janto shipper again? Nothing to say on the actual relationship apart from ‘awwwww!’, but just a technical question. Jack says in Everything Changes that they don’t know the real names of Weevils – they just call them that. But Ianto calls them that too, so does that mean all the branches of Torchwood call them this made-up name? Also, Jack’s Weevil scratch heals almost instantly in this fragment, but after being beaten up in Owen’s fragment he stays bruised throughout their conversation.

Season finale next week, after which point the Torchwood experiment will become a lot less fun and a lot more teary.