So there’s been this series on Starz now for a while calling itself “Torchwood.” And to Americans who weren’t previously familiar with the series, they might well have accepted it at face value. Me, I found it interesting enough and I kept coming back. But as week after week passed, I started to become increasingly discouraged because with the sidelining of the key Torchwood operatives of Gwen and–even worse–Jack, it was Torchwood in name only.
That’s changed over the past two weeks and it couldn’t have come soon enough.
The series’ endless focus on FBI agent Rex Matheson or uber creepy Oswald Danes, to the point of ignoring Torchwood mainstays Gwen and Jack, was truly wearing on my patience. Intellectually I had to admire the depth of thinking that went into what would happen if death really did cease worldwide and all the ramifications of it, but intellectual admiration only takes you so far. Especially when you’ve been looking forward to continuing the saga of the Torchwood characters to which you’ve become attached and you instead wind up straining to recall if they’ve even been in the episode. But that all turned around with last week’s entry in which a frantic functionary desperately tries to cover up his cold-blooded murder of one of the new regulars, intercut with Gwen’s desperate endeavor to free her father from one of the death camps (as ham handed a parallel to Nazi Germany as could possibly have been drawn, even though the similarities weren’t a fair comparison. There’s a difference between executing Jews for political gain and disposing of permanently comatose people who are presumably suffering endlessly.)
This week’s, though, finally–FINALLY began to feel like an episode of “Torchwood.” By startling lack of coincidence, it focused heavily on Jack and Gwen, nearly to the exclusion of every other dámņëd character who had been hogging center stage. Oswald and the annoying Lauren Ambrose character were thankfully nowhere to be seen (my prediction: when the world resets, as it invariably must, Oswald is the first one to die). Instead, as Gwen struggles with a horrific ultimatum with her family’s lives on the line, we have an extended flashback depicting Jack Harkness back in the 1920s, having a prolonged (for him) love affair that goes off the rails and ultimately spirals into one of the most horrific sequences testing Jack’s ability to come back to life, ever.
And just to raise the geek love level to 10, the “Star Trek” contingent is suddenly arriving, with Nana Visitor showing up this week and John DeLancie in for the first of a climactic three episode run next week (Q! We should have KNOWN he was behind all this!) So for those who might have given up on “Torchwood: Miracle Day” or maybe DVRing it with the notion that they might get around to watching it at some point, now’s the time to hop right back in.
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I’ll stick with Doctor Who.
And yet, Jack did mention his friend, The Doctor.
Yeah, I understand the shows exist in the same “universe.” But I’ll stick with Doctor Who. Torchwood is much too dark a show for me.
Jane Espinson really did bring her “A” game this week. Now that we’re a little more than halfway through, I’m expecting a fast ride to the finish, with more of a Torchwood flair than we’ve had so far. (Seemed ’til now that even the alien aspect of the show’s universe was swept under the rug ’til this week’s episode, with just advanced technology setting Torchwood apart from any other agency, a couple of mentions of their original agenda aside. Hëll…it even seemed like Rex and Esther aren’t aware of the events surrounding the 456 from Children of Earth, even if their was a reference to Torchwood info being classified under “the 456 Protocols” or somesuch.)
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–Daryl
And this is a big problem I’m having with the season.
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Yes, I’m enjoying each episode individually, but it just feels disconnected. That’s it’s just shy of actually being Torchwood.
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Oh, sure, references have been made to things like the 456. But why, then, after Children of Earth, would Gwen be shocked in the least by the notion of governments disposing of people? You really think burning people who aren’t quite dead would be any worse than sacrificing children? Disconnect.
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So, not only that, but you have the usual “did events happen, or did they not happen?” that has constantly been there between Torchwood and Doctor Who, and now apparently even with Torchwood and previous seasons of Torchwood.
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I’m also scratching my head on how Danes, a central figure in the show through the 1st five episodes, can not be seen and only mentioned once in the last two episodes. The hëll?
What we saw in this week’s episode regarding Jack’s ability to come back to life… it was horrific, but I still think he probably suffered worse at the hands of the Master during the Year that Never Was (even if we couldn’t see it because it was family TV).
I liked the first few episodes, then it started to get off the tracks and concentrate on the American characters too much. The guy who ran the camp was too annoying to me. But it seems that Jack and Gwen are finally being given more to do, since they are the main characters! I’ve gone into Torchwood overdrive: I had watched the first six episodes on DVD, but switched to FiOS last November and taped the rest of the episodes off BBC America, finishing just in time for the new series. It was interesting how it evolved from “Doctor Who with sex” into a compelling show. And Eve Myles doesn’t hurt the show, though you would never see an American actress allowed to keep the gap in her teeth! 🙂
As much as I would love to see what all the fuss is about, I only have basic cable and have to wait for BBC America to pick it up in reruns.
But I do wish the series well and hope there is enough interests to spawn a season/series 5, although Starz has allegedly already said “no” to the possibility.
Starz hasn’t jumped the gun and green-lit another season, no.
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But it sounds like they’d prefer to wait and see what Russell T. Davies wants to do, and RTD has talked about moving on to other things.
As much as I like Jack when he appears in Doctor Who I have yet been able to really like Torchwood. I’ve netflixed to the second season where Martha shows up, but I had to get to that point and it’s been exhaustingly bad. I’ve taken a year break and just haven’t gotten back to it. I’m told that this is a turning point for the series for the better…I hope. Torchwood feels so heavy handed and trying to say we are adult science fiction because we can have sex(gay, straight, alien) and attempts at being shocking. I just would like more clever writing and Jack to be more badass.
Really? I didn’t think it was trying to be shocking at all. I am used to shocking, as I am a big fan of HBO shows.
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Torchwood was the first British TV show I watched and it was interesting to see how much relaxed in relation to sex matters the British are. The sex scenes never gave me that “we’re doing something nasty!” vibe that I get from American productions that feature sex.
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If anything, it’s unrealistic in how relaxed everyone is. It’s like Torchwood is set in an alternate universe were bisexuality is far more common and far more socially accepted than in our universe.
I’m bi and even I thought it was a bit over the top that by the end of Series 1 everyone had kissed both a man and a woman and nobody thought it was unusual. (Well, with the exception of Tosh saying “I don’t normally do this sort of thing”)
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Having said that, I feel like Jack’s not being portrayed as very omnisexual this year. There’s been the occasional flirt with Esther, but other than that he hasn’t gotten involved with any women at all. It’s starting to feel like another case of bi-erasure, which is very disappointing, because bi male heroes are tough to find.
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Speaking of which, allow me to give you a long-overdue thank you, Peter, for Rictor and Shatterstar. I’ll confess I hadn’t been reading X-Factor, but I tried it out recently just because I missed reading comics written by you. I’d heard about Shatterstar and Rictor’s relationship of course, but everything I’d heard referred to them as gay. So I was pleasantly surprised that the first issue I read (#219) had Rahne and Shatterstar discussing that Rictor was also her ex. And the “she does have a great body” comment was just priceless. As I said, bi male heroes are tough to find, so thank you.
And Tosh counts too, since she pined a lot for Owen even though she didn’t get to kiss a dude.
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I was a bit amused. This show is more bisexual than an Anne Rice novel. Except with Anne Rice you can explain it out as it’s becoming a vampire that makes them bi.
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It’s unrealistic, but still cool, when you consider decades of bisexuals being invisible in pop culture.
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And yeah, PAD is to be commended. In fiction, whenever a guy that used to date women starts to show an interest in guys, it’s always the “I’ve always been gay but now I’m out of the closet” situation and never “I’m trying guys now, but I’m still attracted to girls too” situation.
I guess by shocking(poor choice of word in retrospect) I meant they really abuse characters being gay/bi/omni to such a degree that it seems like they feel the need to shoe horn it in at every given moment even when it’s not relevant. Now this may not be the case beyond the first season. I personally don’t care about a characters sexuality or whether they show it or not, but it needs to serve a purpose or be natural to the story.
To add to some of the other comments: I love what’s happening in X-factor in relation to Shatterstar, a fantastic book to read. Long live x-factor.
In ALL (or nearly) Anne Rice novels not just the vampire ones are the characters gay/bi. Why she did that in so many of her books…not sure. I don’t recall it being a distraction, but after a while it sort of became a joke which I suppose isn’t good either.
I’ve been enjoying the series. I even had a convo about it with a work collegue this morning. She was upset about the lack of ‘torchwood’ cast… i told her that the new members are just that .. new.. and we should have a little bit of character development with it. The scene with Jack… horrified me. But.. leave it to Jack to bounce back.
Grey
Lot of Whedonverse connections – the camp director was the guy who played the creepy doctor on Angel who gave Gun his lawyer implant; the woman with the reversible head was Dechan Lachan from Dollhouse, the parallel more-or-less animated series that’s available through iTunes features the voice of Eliza Dushku, and then there’s Espenson.
THAT’s where I’d seen the camp director, before; thanks, mike.
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As for T:MD — certainly agreed that this past week was a huge, huge step up, but I can’t agree about the previous one. I thought it focused on the least interesting characters and most obvious situations, and fell way too heavily into the “our characters do something stupid to get them into a situation” trap. “Middle Men” made me think that watching the final four parts of the season were going to be a huge chore; “Immortal Sins” made me hope otherwise.
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And what’s your beef with Oswald Danes? Other than the veteran characters of Jack and Gwen (and Rhys), I think he’s easily the most interesting thing in the season. I’ll never look at Bill Pullman the same way again, that’s for sure.
Tim, you may also recognize him from CSI, where he’s had a recurring role as Conrad Ecklie since season 1, originally the day shift supervisor, then overall supervisor of the crime lab, and is now the undersherrif.
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–Daryl
I’ve never seen CSI, so that’s not it — thanks, though!
My beef is the focusing on Danes to the exclusion of heroic characters in whom I have a vested interest. And I also associate him with what I consider the absolute Jack low point of the story thus far. Jack has maybe five minutes of screentime in the episode, which he spends primarily on trying to get Oswald Danes to turn against the drug company…and fails spectacularly. So jack gets almost no time in the episode and the time that he does get is wasted. I don’t have any grudge against Pullman; I think he’s nicely creepy. But a little Oswald goes a long way and we’ve had waaaaay too much of him.
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My problem with the Oswald character is, I don’t buy him becoming a media sensation/cult leader. Hëll I don’t even buy him being let out of prison. He was a child molester/murderer and yet the governor lets him go free because of fear of a lawsuit. Does anyone think that under the extreme circumstances of the miracle that kind of lawsuit would fly or if it did he would win, (especially since a few episodes later the government has no problem burning people, morals and laws be dámņëd). It would take years for his case to even get to courts. The answer to his threat of a lawsuit should have been, “yeah, you’re a child killer who any jury member with even a small slice of decency will be prejudice against, and these are extreme circumstance and even the most liberal judge in the country is going to realize that this is an unusual situation and the normal rules don’t apply so have your lawyer file away, I look forward to it being laughed out of court”, not “OK Mr Danes, you’re a free man”. I can accept alien and the entire human race becoming immortal, but not common sense being thrown out the window.
Yeah, that bugged the hëll out of me. We were watching it and Kath said,”He could contend that the sentence was carried out and he’s now free to go. He could threaten a law suit.” And I said, “Sh’right; that would fly with exactly no court anywhere. He’s a murdering pedophile; if nothing else, no judge in the land is going to break sweat over keeping this guy locked up until the whole miracle business sorts itself out. There’s no impetus to free him. None.”
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Next thing I know, the schmuck’s a free man just as Kath predicted, even though it was preposterous. And I’m going, “Really? REALLY?”
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Peter, It’s been years since I read it so I’m a little fuzzy on the details, but didn’t you have pretty much the same situation in an issue of Captain Marvel once? That was actually the first thing I thought of when I saw the scene.
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This character who was in death row was executed by lethal injection but then came back to life a moment later (as he said he would), and by claiming that the sentence had been carried out as ordered, he managed to get released. I don’t remember if there was any other difference between the two cases, other than, I guess, the fact that in the comic the guy was declared clinically dead.
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Also, somewhat related, I seem to recall reading somewhere that, in the old west, if a hanging failed because the rope broke, the prisoner was free to go. In Torchwood they mentioned the possibility, but said they’d just try and hang the person again. Anyone here knows what was really done? I’m just curious about it.
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And count me in on the side that feels that this season is just off somehow. It doesn’t really feel like Torchwood to me. Couldn’t put my finger on exactly why if asked, but it doesn’t.
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Btw, anyone else in here feeling as much antipathy for the Rex character as I do? That I know exactly where it’s coming from. Anyone who was ready to go out to celebrate the fact that a co-worker’s wife got terminal leukemia, because it meant he’d get a promotion, is someone whose death I would shed no tears over.
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Raphy
Hmm. Okay, I can see that. I don’t agree — to me, the blunted focus is due almost entirely to Rex and Esther, and Oswald is an interesting which-way-will-he-jump antagonist. Jack’s had a few low points, certainly, but Oswald was at times one of the few points of interest in an episode.
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Regardless, this last week was absolutely a major step forward in all kinds of ways — at least that we all seem to be agreeing upon!
If you’ve never seen “Working Daze” before, it’s a pleasant addition to the “Dilbert/The Office” genre. One person has “awesome management powers” that are out-and-out magic, geeks of varying degrees of geekness, and some very funny gags. Anyway, I thought some of you might like this one for Saturday, August 13:
http://www.gocomics.com/working-daze/2011/08/13/
By the way, regarding the camp director — what, you thought Frank Burns couldn’t father children?
Some thoughts on Oswald Danes: I have some real problems with him as well. Pullman does a tremendous job making him awesomely creepy, but I don’t have any desire to see him as much as he’s seen. Regarding his whirlwind release from prison, the least fantastic idea I have toward that end is that the mysterious forces behind PhiCorp and the miracle arranged for his release and expedited it with their vast political and financial powers. Now supposedly they didn’t show an interest in him until he showed that he could be a useful face for their agenda, but that really doesn’t fit the extreme degree of planning that we’ve seen in every other aspect of the Miracle operation. If they had Danes pegged as a spokesman before the Miracle, they’d be ready to apply as much pressure on the Governor as they needed in just the right place to get him out, making him the instant celebrity that he is. A twofer.
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The other possibility that I see that helps explain Danes and his part in all of this is that his incredible presence and powers of persuasion are not entirely natural. I base this on how rattled Jack seemed to be after their first meeting. Jack’s older than the Doctor now. Granted most of that life was several thousand years spent buried alive, but that only reinforces my point that there should be almost nothing that can rattle him. If Danes’ powers of persuasion aren’t just the extreme high end of human charisma, then his ability to convince people that it’s in their best interest to free him makes more sense. It also opens up possibilities for him to have a role in the events as they play other than mouthpiece of the bad guys who has absolutely no redeeming values. I’d like Bill Pullman is sure to have a lot more screen time as the series wraps up and I’m heartily tired of the Danes character at the moment. It doesn’t help that the sparse reading I did about the Season before they aired it left me thinking the Danes was going to be a member of the Torchwood team. I liked the idea of the team having to deal with someone who was an absolute monster that had something useful to contribute to Torchwood would be an interesting dynamic. Unfortunately, there’s very little in interesting team dynamics at all in Miracle day.
I just had an interesting thought. Does anyone remember what happened to the second Resurrection Glove? *BEGIN PRIOR SEASON SPOILERS* The one that they used in Series Two to bring back Owen; not the one that they destroyed in Series One to save Gwen from Susie. *END PRIOR SEASON SPOILERS* It just occurred to me that whatever that thing does will have been radically altered by the Miracle. It might even be able to kill people now. I was even briefly wondering if it was somehow involved in starting the Miracle, but what’s going on is sort of the exact opposite of what it does.
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For those people who don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s a metal glove that resurrects a dead person, but it has major drawbacks. The subject essentially became an animated corpse. Their intellect was fully restored, and they could walk around and talk and such but they didn’t heal from even the slightest injury, couldn’t eat and I’m not sure if they could even sleep. It was a pretty miserable existence whose only consolation was that you weren’t quite all dead.
I’ve wondered if something like the second glove might be in play since the first episode, when Jack name-checked Owen as his alias to Esther.
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–Daryl
I’ve been having a hard time with Miracle Day as a series myself. Looking at the series as a whole, Torchwood has always started out goofy and plunged into a totally believable emotionally harrowing story; the second half of season 2 and the Children of Earth mini-season were incredibly good. In comparison, Miracle Day just seems to meander around. It feels like Starz network heads said “yeah, they’re Torchwood, and you’re starting from where we last saw them, but we want to make a clean break from your BBC continuity.” Or maybe there’s some legal issues between BBC and Starz that keeps all that off the table. In either case, this whole season thus far seems to be missing the beat, Torchwood in name only as someone else mentioned. At the very least, Jack deserved a good walloping smack in the mouth from Gwen upon his re-appearance which (huh?) never happened. Apparently all that juicy unresolved interpersonal drama evaporates once you have a baby…?
With regard to Oswald, I’d like to believe that there’s some kind of at least partially redemptive note in store for him, or some kind of paranormal plot twist with regard to his inexplicable charisma, but I think it’s just going to end up being a lackluster statement on how completely unconditional fame has become to Western society. (Though I have to agree that Bill Pullman makes a disturbingly effective murderous child molester… wow, the guy just oozes creepy!) All I’m getting from this season is every government in the world is ready to capitulate without condition to corporate greed at the drop of a hat, the media can make anyone a star regardless of how heinous they are, and Rex has some serious abandonment issues. I’ll stick with it through the end, but I’ve been underwhelmed by the show’s performance thus far. Hopefully the last half of the season will be the slam dunk we’ve come to expect.
In comparison, Miracle Day just seems to meander around. It feels like Starz network heads said “yeah, they’re Torchwood, and you’re starting from where we last saw them, but we want to make a clean break from your BBC continuity.” Or maybe there’s some legal issues between BBC and Starz that keeps all that off the table.
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Before Starz signed on, when RTD was in discussions with Fox to bring Torchwood to the US, there was talk that it could be a full reboot, starting from scratch with no Doctor Who connection, or a fourth season continuing the story, with an eye towards being “new viewer friendly” for those who hadn’t seen the first three seasons. Starz appears to have gone with the latter approach, downplaying what made Torchwood Torchwood too much, in favor of that “good jumping-on point.”
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–Daryl
So, THE week I decide I’ve had it with the show and didn’t watch it, it gets better.
Fine. I’ll check it out, then.
I was wondering about the Ressurection Glove too…
And after the bit with Gwen and the lenses I was wondering if Torchwood 4 (the one that disappeared) had anything to do with the Miracle.
I was watching Torchwood on Netflix’s Starz Live.. downside is you have to actually be there when its on to watch it. I missed a week and then another and found I had no desire to catch up. I am glad to hear that it does start to resemble Torchwood again.
Sadly.. I’m about to go religious topic. I listen to Christian Talk Radio. Last night, they talked about Torchwood. I can hear the sighs already from those of you reading. I was very disappointed with what I heard. First, they spoke highly of Doctor Who. That part was ok.. then they got to Torchwood. Apparently they don’t fact check much or have even watched the show. Apparently Bill Pullman’s character is a member of Torchwood (although to be honest, I think I did hear that at one point before the series began)… and that Torchwood is trying to make him a likable pedophile/murderer as part of some agenda. Ug..
I have to agree with you, Terry. I’ve caught prior Torchwood seasons here and there on various stations and was excited to see that it was going to be on Starz. Gwen and Jack ARE Torchwood, and by underplaying their characters, they’ve missed the appeal of the previous seasons on other networks. Last Friday’s episode saw a resurgence of their dynamic, and it was most welcome. I hope they continue what has worked in the series as a whole.
My cousin works on the show and let me know that if there is another season, it won’t be for a little while as Russell T. Davies is just too busy at the moment.
Any thoughts on the series now that it is completed?
I think it was a solid ending that was hampered by the fact that they could have done the whole show in half the episodes.
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