Torchwood: Miracle Day

I know that this is a blog about Doctor Who, not Torchwood; however, since I have been so disappointed by the turn that Doctor Who has taken, I waited and waited for Torchwood: Miracle Day to air, only to be disappointed by that, too.  And I need to get this all off of my chest, or I'm going to explode.

There were so many flaws with Miracle Day that I don't even know where to begin.  This show did not feel like Torchwood.  It was more CSI than sci-fi.  We only ever saw one alien, and that was only just an alien tentacle, which was on screen for no more than ten seconds.  The first two series of Torchwood weren't very good.  They certainly cannot compare to Doctor Who.  There were episodes that were really bad, and there were episodes that were really good.  It wasn't consistent; however, it was always either fun or scary.  When the third series, Children of Earth aired, it was minus two of the main characters (who died at the end of series 2).  We also lost Ianto in the fourth episode, leaving the series with only Gwen Cooper, who I never liked much, and Captain Jack Harkness.  I would have loved for them to have pulled in Martha Jones (although, Freema is involved in another show) or Lois Habiba, who assisted them in Children of Earth.  Instead, we are ripped out of Wales and transplanted to the good ol' USA, where weak characters become the focus of the first half of the series.

To me, Children of Earth wasn't the same as the first two series; we see so much from others' perspectives that it almost gives the game away.  Miracle Day suffered the same problem; when we know who the baddies are, the show loses its edge.  That was one of the great things about the original Torchwood run - we may have seen scenes with the baddies, but we never really got invested in them, we mostly learned things as the team did.  With Children of Earth and Miracle Day, I feel like we don't have any element of surprise.  We know more than the team, and I don't like that.

Without going into an entire review of this 10-episode series, I'll take a look at some of the things I had a real problem with.

Characters:

There are almost too many characters to know what to do with, and it shows.  While Oswald Danes and Jilly Kitzinger are prominently featured in the first few episodes, they suddenly disappear halfway through the series, just to reappear at the end.

Gwen Cooper:  This is the first time I've liked Gwen, actually.  She doesn't take crap from anyone.  She's always been this way, it's just that now I like it.  I don't know if it's the way she's being written or if Eve Myles is doing something different, but I like Gwen.


Captain Jack:  I have always preferred the Jack on Doctor Who to the Jack in Torchwood.  However, in the past he's always seemed mysterious and like he's holding back, and now I don't really get that.  Yes, he's keeping secrets, but at the same time, I'm not sure how much I care.

Rhys:  Rhys is always fantastic, and I was very pleased to see his role expanded in this series a bit.  He was very well-written, and it was obvious that he is the one who holds the family together.

Andy:  It was great to see PC Andy again, and the fact that he got to be a hero was really great.

Oswald Danes:  At first, Oswald is a really powerful character.  Well, throughout the entire series he's great.  He's creepy, he's disgusting, he makes your skin crawl.  He's probably the most interesting character out of them all.  Bill Pullman did such a great job that I'll never be able to watch Independence Day again without being slightly disturbed.  However, there is no real point to Oswald Danes.  Yes, he survived.  Yes, he achieved this weird level of fame.  But in the end, he just tags along and then blows himself up.  It was so disappointing.

Jilly Kitzinger:  In my opinion, Jilly is the second-best character on the show.  She's driven, she's ruthless ... but ... we don't know why.  We never know why she does the things she does.  She clearly cannot stand Dane.  She seems terrified of the families.  So, who is she, and what motivates her?  That is the one thing that makes no sense.  The only point of Jilly is for us to see The Blessing before Jack and Gwen do.  She really adds nothing to the story besides being an interesting character.

Esther Drummond:  Wow, could there be a more fragile, weepy girl?  She spends half her time being all trembly and squeaky-voiced.  She's so unsure of herself, even though she's petite and gorgeous and blond.  When she died, I was a bit shocked, but not really upset.

Rex:  He is the most unlikable character ever.  I have zero sympathy for him from start to finish.  I couldn't even summon up a bit of empathy for Rex.  Of all the people to become immortal, why him?  I wanted to punch the TV when he came back.

Vera:  She's not blond, but she's the stupidest character on the whole show.  She keeps taunting the guy at the camp until he kills her.  How on earth did she think that was a good idea?  I wasn't glad when she died, but her absence really wasn't felt.


Major Plot Holes:

1)  The main theme of Miracle Day is that no one dies.  At first, people are getting blown up and they're still conscious.  Sierra gets her neck broken, and she staggers around backwards chasing Rex.  Rex has a gaping hole in his chest.  In episode 4, a woman gets crushed in a car, and her eyeball peeks out at us.  And yet, by the next episode, a simple heart attack renders a person completely incapacitated.  Such a big deal was made about living forever, being conscious of all your pain, being so alive, and yet halfway through the series, it is suddenly forgotten.  Quite honestly, once they started burning people who were unconscious, I really didn't have a problem with it.

2)  One of the major questions is, "how is the world going to continue?"  Well, besides burning people, that question wasn't really addressed.  There was a brief mention at the beginning of episode 9 about rationing and dictatorships, but nothing else.  What a missed opportunity!

3)  In the very last episode, it is revealed that the Three Families sent the Torchwood message to everyone around the world - however, they don't say why.  Really, what was the point of that?  Yes, let's get Torchwood involved so they can solve it?  Or let's kill Torchwood, because they can solve it?  It makes no sense.

4)  Gwen and Rhys are in hiding in South Wales.  After Rex shows up at their cottage, they are attacked by an unknown helicopter.  When I met him at Wizard World Chicago Comic Con, I asked Kai Owen about why Gwen and Rhys were hiding.  He said that the government might be after Gwen because she knows about the 456, but he didn't seem too sure of that answer.  And who are the people in the helicopter?  The government?  The Three Families?

5)  Jack is omnisexual - he'll shag anything that walks upright.  And yet, they only show his relationships with men.  At one point, Gwen does ask him how many children he has, but that's the only time that there is a reference that he might like girls, too!

6)  Esther's sister is mentally unstable, so Esther turns her in to DCFS.  The sister is put in a hospital, and over the phone she tells Esther that she's volunteering herself and her children for Category 1.  This becomes Esther's motivation to shut down the Miracle.  However, I find it highly unlikely that a woman who is in a mental hospital would be given the right to make that decision for her children.

7)  The whole point of the Miracle is weak.  Apparently, the families want to control the world.  Okay.  I get that; after all, they are mobsters.  However ... really?  They want to take over the banks and the governments, just so they can become the Fourth Reich or something?  It's very weak.


8)  The giant vagina.  Yes, The Blessing looks dirty.  Also, it's supposed to be in the center of the Earth, and yet they look across at it.  Last time I checked, gravity still works inside the Earth - shouldn't they be looking down at it, if stuff is getting sucked through the way it is?  If I tunneled straight down a mile right now and then looked across, I wouldn't be looking at China, I'd be looking at the ocean.


9)  Apparently the Three Families are in the birth control business now, because they invite Jilly to help them with Plan B.  Really?  I don't think I can take more of this world domination crap.  Bring back the aliens!!


10)  Rex is immortal.  The insinuation is that Jack's blood made Rex immortal.  That makes no sense; Jack's blood has nothing to do with it.  My husband says that they mentioned how the Blessing went too far by making everyone immortal, maybe it went too far the other way.  He says that maybe the Blessing was trying to reward Rex for making a sacrifice and meant only to heal him, but went too far and made him immortal like Jack.  Or maybe it's because Jack went back to being immortal, so the Blessing thought Rex was supposed to be immortal, too.  Either way, I don't care.  Rex shouldn't be immortal.  At least we won't have to watch him chew pain killers like a horse anymore.  Jesus, could he have made a bigger show about chewing those damn things?  ETA:  In writer Jane Espenson's live tweets for the UK audience, she explains that yes, it was The Blessing that made Rex immortal and NOT Jack's blood.  However, the fact that every week she's had to explain so much in her tweets demonstrates that they should have done a better job of writing the damn show.

11)  That whole Null Field thing?  Jack said that it was scavenged from the Hub after it blew up.  That means that 1) Angelo had some idea that it was there, or 2) he knew what to look for.  The Hub was a big place - I have a very hard time believing that someone could waltz in and find what they were looking for in the rubble.

Things that appear, but then we never see again:

1)  The mysterious helicopter people who try to kill Gwen and Rhys.  If they were really after Gwen, why didn't they also come after her when she was with her parents in Cardiff?

2)  The mass stockpiling of drugs by PhiCorp.  So, all this time we think that PhiCorp is the baddie, but it turns out that they're just taking advantage of the situation.  However, that doesn't explain why they have an entire warehouse full of these medications.  They must have been in on it, but that never gets resolved.

3)  Danes tells the world about PhiCorp's painkiller legislation.   Oswald becomes the spokesperson for PhiCorp, and Jilly is his PR girl.  However, we never really come back to the whole "everyone deserves drugs!" storyline.  Again, another potentially interesting thing that gets tossed to the wayside.

4)  Rex has a father.  The only time we see him is in episode 4, Escape to LA.  The subject is never revisited again.  I suspect that this is because Rex's father is actually Mr. X, who didn't die, but is now hiding out in Los Angeles.  (Okay, it's not Steven Williams, but it looks a lot like him.)

5)  Dead is Dead.  This is a huuuuge campaign by Ellis Hartley Monroe.  The idea is that once you're in a state that would normally equal death, you're considered legally dead.  We never really ever come back to Dead is Dead.

6) The hitman who is left for dead.  So Torchwood steals these hard drives, right?  And they're all super secret about it, right?  And then they shoot a man and leave his dead body for everyone to find, right?  Wait a minute ... they never address what happens to the hit man.  Seriously, did they just leave him there?  Did they dispose of it?  Did Ianto and Tosh come back from the grave to take care of it?

7)  The New World Order that the hitman mentions.  Is this the same thing that doesn't get referenced until the last episode?  Very confusing.

8)  What's the deal with PhiCorp?  PhiCorp drugs and "kills" Ellis Hartley Monroe because she's taking the attention off of Oswald.  Okay ... so do the Three Families own PhiCorp?  Is this whole thing a big scheme for the Three Families to get rich off of drugs?  It is all so murky ...

9)  People are less and less alive.  In The Categories of Life, the Category 1s are essentially dead.  They are unconscious, they show no signs of life.  So what happened to running around with their heads on backwards?

10)  Where did the Angels go?  In Danes's big speech, he says that humans have evolved into Angels.  This is never addressed again.

11)  The Soulless.  People are walking around with masks.  This is the only time we see the Soulless.

12)  The pointless COO.  In the PhiCorp building, a COO asks an associate in Shanghai to investigate a site.  The associate then jumps to his end-of-consciousness.  When confronted by Jack, the COO explains that PhiCorp is just a pawn.  We never hear about this again.  If PhiCorp is actually owned by the Three Families, then no, PhiCorp is not a pawn.

13)  No one cares about the ovens.  Gwen goes through all this trouble of filming the ovens, and then making them explode.  She gives a big speech about it, too.  We see it on the television once, but then everyone seems to forget that the ovens exist.  There is virtually no follow-up to the entire episode.

14)  Jack is referred to as The Blessing.  In Immortal Sins, Jack is repeatedly killed by people in Angelo's neighborhood and his blood is collected.  He is referred to as "a blessing".  However, we find out at the end that Jack is NOT The Blessing, even though his blood is what activates the Miracle.  In addition, the Three Families "buy" Jack.  They are referenced later, but it's never clear what "buying Jack" is.  Why didn't they just "buy" his blood?

15)  Angelo has a Null Field around his bed.  When Jack kisses Angelo, he dies.  Apparently this is due to the platform that the bed was resting on.  Turns out the bed was on a Null Field, and I guess this is how Angelo was able to die?  Still not clear on that.  He takes part of the device and convinces Rex and Esther to help him escape.  The Null Field is never again mentioned, so Jack taking part of the technology was pretty pointless.  In addition, if it takes Jack's blood to nullify the Miracle, wouldn't the Null Field actually need his blood?  So confusing.

16)  A CIA mole becomes Jilly's assistant.  This lasts for all of half an episode, when the Nazi dude from the Three Families shoots the mole and gives Jilly a promotion. So ... what was the point of the mole, again?  Add her to the list of pointless characters that are introduced and killed off in one episode.

17)  Esther has been removing blood from Jack.  Now I don't know much about giving blood, but I do know that my mother gives blood, and she can't do it more often than every six weeks.  And yet, Esther has taken pints from a very ill Jack.  Where is he getting all this blood from, and why have they decided it's necessary?

18)  Jilly goes to Shanghai.  Also, she is now "Lucy" and has been hired by the Three Families to write world history for them.  First, we haven't really seen much of what Jilly actually does; second, this seems pretty dumb to me.  Sorry, that's the best I can do.  I feel like if they were going to do this, they should have done it much, much earlier.  Essentially, Jilly has no point now.  The only reason she went to Shanghai at all was so that we'd see The Blessing before Jack and Gwen.  It really would have been more of an impact if we'd discovered it at the same time as the Torchwood team.

19)  The blood leaves a trail.  When the drop of blood falls from Jack's bandages, it travels across the room, and it leaves a trail behind.  So ... shouldn't the blood run out a few feet from the bandage?  If it's leaving a trail, then it's leaving part of itself, which means that soon there won't be any more drop of blood.


20)  Morphic fields.  So apparently everyone became immortal because of the morphic field, but again, that was never really explained.  For all the giggling that The Mother did, she certainly didn't make things any clearer.

Final Thoughts:

I actually cried when Rex came back to life. Because RTD crushed my soul. Miracle Day was terrible as a whole, and Rex's resurrection was the last straw.  I clearly don't enjoy Doctor Who since Moffat took over, and I was looking forward so much to Miracle Day. And now I feel like I'm disappointed in everything in the Whoinverse, and even knowing what happens in Miracle Day kind of sours me on the rest of the series. I do NOT want another series, unless they can resurrect Tosh and Owen and Ianto and bring back the Hub and make it like it was before. Torchwood was never a GREAT show - it will never be Doctor Who - but it had some really great episodes, and it was fun and scary.  Miracle Day was neither fun nor scary.  I didn't enjoy Children of Earth very much, but at least it had Ianto and Wales.  Also, the kids chanting "we are coming" was one of the most terrifying things ever.  The Blessing?  Ooh, a big hole in the ground, I'm trembling.

And where were the aliens, for pete's sake?

I really, really could have done without all the Americans. I'm just so disappointed, and I know it's stupid to be upset over a TV show, but I don't watch a lot of TV and I am very invested in the few shows that I do watch. I love the expanded universe material from Torchwood (radio plays, books, etc) but I just need to pretend like Miracle Day never happened.