Torchwood: Miracle Day #10 SPOILERS

[Admiral_Young]

I have to admit to being underwhelmed by the finale. I am starting to agree with those who have complained about the lack of pacing and plot in some of the episodes. I liked the series overall and enjoyed the themes and concepts that it attempted to explore since I'm interested in those subjects, but ultimately I have to admit the execution was off. It didn't have to be nor did it set out to trump COE but it should have been at least consistently entertaining. The first half was entertaining to me, the back half felt clumsy and cluttered. All kinds of stuff happening that felt crammed in and rushed. I hope that if Torchwood returns and it is under the Starz partnership...that RTD fine tunes things. That all being said I'm still glad that we got the show and I did like the new characters....I think Bill Pullman pulled off one of his most bravest roles of his career frankly. I'm also glad that we never got this on Fox because I think it would have been an entirely different series and much more horrid.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I have to admit to being underwhelmed by the finale. I am starting to agree with those who have complained about the lack of pacing and plot in some of the episodes. I liked the series overall and enjoyed the themes and concepts that it attempted to explore since I'm interested in those subjects, but ultimately I have to admit the execution was off. It didn't have to be nor did it set out to trump COE but it should have been at least consistently entertaining. The first half was entertaining to me, the back half felt clumsy and cluttered. All kinds of stuff happening that felt crammed in and rushed. I hope that if Torchwood returns and it is under the Starz partnership...that RTD fine tunes things. That all being said I'm still glad that we got the show and I did like the new characters....I think Bill Pullman pulled off one of his most bravest roles of his career frankly. I'm also glad that we never got this on Fox because I think it would have been an entirely different series and much more horrid.

Honestly, I don't think they explored those themes very much at all.

Remember those people in the masks? THAT was interesting... and discarded VERY quickly. Which is sad. Because wouldn't this miracle shake things (like religion) to the very CORE of things?

Instead, things seem to be just a little more authoritarian than normal. We had a two month gap and things didn't get THAT much worse.

I wonder if it was just a budget issue. I would hate for it to have been a lack of imagination, but I can't stop thinking it was.

Things were brought up and then dumped. Themes, characters, plot.

What about that oh so important device under the floor in that guy's house. I was sure that the piece Jack took would be important. HE made it sound like it was important. But, of course, just like everything else, quickly forgotten.

Ridiculous.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Any show that can twist things around so much that I'm giggling along with a bomb-laden pedophile at the thought of him chasing underage skirt in Hell must be doing something right.

I wonder if they were worried about Oswald accidentally becoming too sympathetic, like a Spike or Gul Dukat, where people are taking their side even when they really aren't supposed to. They never let us forget why he was infamous, but at the end, that was just... wow. That was "Waltz" in one amazingly fucked up monologue.

I really don't get the point of that character at all or Jilly for that matter. I thought they were setting him up to be this major player where he and his followers would be a major third player in the power struggle between Torchwood and Phicorp over the Blessing. Maybe along the way raise some talking points about celebrity, religion and redemption. Instead we got a bunch of Bill Pullman sneering into the camera. Maybe I shouldn't say "we", I certainly didn't get much out of it.

Similarly, I don't know what dramatic purprose was served by the death of Esther. Just to add to the collateral damage?

It all moved along OK, and there were some parts that were entertaining, I just wish the big picture would've been more cohesive. I think it could have had a more satisfying aftertaste if there was more to chew on.

It was good to see Aceveda again.

I was trying to figure out if that was him but wasn't quite sure. Too bad he was relegated to window dressing but a job is a job.

 

[Kelthaz]

Pretty much everything in the mini-series wasn't needed and only served to pad it out to 10 episodes. You know, I think this whole mini-series could have easily been a 45 minute episode during season 2.

It starts off with Gwen's dad dying, but the new miracle keeps him alive. A bit of investigation later and Owen & Tosh sneak into the overflow camps while Jack, Ianto, and Gwen go after the vagina. Throw in some short scenes with PC Andy and Rhys showing the chaos that eternal life brings and it's a wrap. The episode ends with the miracle stopped and the death of Gwen's father.

 

[David cgc]

I thought they were setting him up to be this major player where he and his followers would be a major third player in the power struggle between Torchwood and Phicorp over the Blessing. Maybe along the way raise some talking points about celebrity, religion and redemption. Instead we got a bunch of Bill Pullman sneering into the camera. Maybe I shouldn't say "we", I certainly didn't get much out of it.

I was disappointed that he didn't end up being the Costerdane heir. Given that we were only seeing representative of two of the three families, I kept hoping they were going to whip that one out at the end, but I guess it was just the computer nerd who represented Costerdane (or Frines).

There were a lot of blind alleys and missed opportunities in Miracle Day. It's like a first draft, but they didn't go back and weave everything together. I think it actually adds up to be less than the sum of its parts.

 

[Technobuilder]

Part of me is wondering if it wasn't that they had to decide what to fit into the budget to determine what they could do onscreen, but instead that they had MORE money than they normally do and as a result forgot to focus on the story elements and instead went for flashy explosions and SFX shots.

I don't know.

Overall I was underwhelmed with this series of Torchwood and even though there were moments of awesome, they came too few and far between the rest of the meandering crap that composed Series 4.

Also, why can't we have a Torchwood team anymore? They've knocked off Owen, Tosh, Ianto, and now Dr. Vera & Esther (the two best candidates for new team members)

WTF. Torchwood as an organization is a decrepit joke. They've no longer authorized under the Monarchy, they've lost access to every piece of alien technology save a pair of contact lenses and Jack's Time Agent Gauntlet (which is always useless except in flashback)

They have no base of operations, they're not funded by any particular means, they're wanted fugitives every other Thursday, and still they expect us to take TORCHWOOD seriously?

RTD needs to get over it and realize that he painted himself into a corner years ago.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

It certainly bore out all the fears of the show becoming "Americanized". I had really hoping that wasn't going to be the case.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

WTF. Torchwood as an organization is a decrepit joke. They've no longer authorized under the Monarchy, they've lost access to every piece of alien technology save a pair of contact lenses and Jack's Time Agent Gauntlet (which is always useless except in flashback)

Memory drug as well.

I agree about wanting a team. Would have been nice to officially establish it at the end here.

 

[I am not Spock]

I was hoping both Rex and Esther would live at the end, so we would just have a team again.

 

[Guartho]

Yeah. For a minute there I thought the CIA traitor was going to join Jack, Gwwn, and Rex as the new "Torchwood"

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Yeah. For a minute there I thought the CIA traitor was going to join Jack, Gwwn, and Rex as the new "Torchwood"

I was kind of hoping they were going to leave her fate unacknowledged just to add a bit of disquiet.

 

[Servo]

Meh, it killed an hour a week for a while I suppose. There was no way they were going to top Children of Earth, to be honest, but I was at least expecting something as good, or as near as possible. Sadly it was not to be with this series. A number of interesting characters, ideas, and scenes are dotted around the 10 episodes, but inevitably they are eclipsed by a meandering story that took 10 weeks to go pretty much nowhere.

Here's hoping next series, should there be one, they return to the 5-episode format. Or at least split a 10-episode season into two stories. Hopefully then we'll end up with tighter writing, better pacing, and better stories.

 

[Captain Dago]

A moderately entertaining ending to an absolute steaming pile of a season. I won't be watching whatever STARZ has for the Family's "Plan B." Call me when Torchwood goes back to being just a BBC production and I'll consider it.

Well, "Starz" didn't exactly write those episodes. People employed by Starz did. Like Russell T. Davies. Switching back to BBC won't change that, unless BBC would decide to fire Davies.

True, but I'm relatively sure that STARZ insisted on the 10 epi season, which, IMHO, was the major cause of the problem. True, RTD might have delivered a crap 5 epi season but he did ok last year with Children of the Earth.

 

[23skidoo]

An open letter to Space and Shaw Cable and anyone else using digital transmission.

Bastards.

I couldn't see the last 10 minutes of TW because someone farted in some transmission facility and the image and sound broke up making it unwatchable (fritzing, stuttering sound, slide-showing, the whole shebang). I'll be able to download it so that's not an issue. I thought digital was supposed to be an improvement but instead its faults wrecked the episode.

It nearly wrecked Girl Who Waited for me too. They really should have worked out the bugs before foisting this on people.

Alex

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Here's hoping next series, should there be one, they return to the 5-episode format. Or at least split a 10-episode season into two stories. Hopefully then we'll end up with tighter writing, better pacing, and better stories.

Other than needing some convoluted reason to explain why Jack and Gwen were in the US I think this Miracle Day cast and setting might have worked better with a season of standalone plots.

 

[David cgc]

I'd kind of like if Torchwood went back to a more conventional structure, myself. Season 2 hit their stride with a balance between being deadly serious and yet not taking themselves that seriously. I mean, for just compare "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" to "Day One." "Day One" was just a complete mess. Sex gas! It should've been a crazy romp, but they just had to be so freaking grim about it, it was just weird. Now, "Kiss Kiss," from the beginning with the joyriding blowfish, the barfight, and Captain John wanting to nail a stray dog was appropriately over-the-top and self-aware. Even an episode like "Sleepers" which was some freaky, disturbing shit had one of the funniest bits in the show with Ianto's reaction to Owen not being able to understand what "the phones are down" means.

"Children of Earth" was season-one grim, but it was grim about things that should've been grim, so it worked. "Miracle Day" started to get some of the season two spirit back into it, which is probably most of the reason I'm going easier on it than I should be.

A season 5 of standalones, or mini-arcs, or even a more subtle, Doctor-Who-style season-long plot would be a much more enjoyable Torchwood for me, I wager, and it'd be easier to produce for a longer run of episodes than trying to keep everything tight for what should've ended up being a ten-hour movie but wasn't.

 

[Servo]

What was odd was that Rex's original chest wound didn't magically heal until after Charlotte shot him at the funeral, where it healed along with his bullet wound. So, if he was immortal since the transfusion, or at least since they reset the blessing, how come it hadn't healed already?

 

[Locutus of Bored]

What was odd was that Rex's original chest wound didn't magically heal until after Charlotte shot him at the funeral, where it healed along with his bullet wound. So, if he was immortal since the transfusion, or at least since they reset the blessing, how come it hadn't healed already?

Because it wasn't time for the big twist at the end of the episode yet. I think that's literally all there was to it.

 

[Australis]

Forgot to say, Bill Pullman was excellent.

And de Lancie's character must have survived the explosion, because that was before the Blessing ended. And there was just a second between him saying "oh, fuck!" and the bomb going off, enough time to get flat, but out of the picture and unable to influence what happened next. Maybe, just maybe, he also survived afterwards, after getting medical treatment. I hope so, I really do.

Which raises a point I thought about all series. Do injured people heal? If they do, even the most badly injured, if the body's healing mechanism isn't impaired, can come back from Cat 1 to Cat 2 or 3.

 

[Professor Zoom]

Forgot to say, Bill Pullman was excellent.

And de Lancie's character must have survived the explosion, because that was before the Blessing ended. And there was just a second between him saying "oh, fuck!" and the bomb going off, enough time to get flat, but out of the picture and unable to influence what happened next. Maybe, just maybe, he also survived afterwards, after getting medical treatment. I hope so, I really do.

He's dead. He was right next to a rather large explosive. If burning bodies apparently "killed" people, I think being atomized by a bomb would probably do the same thing.

Even if he wasn't atomized, he would have sustained life ending injuries, and once the Blessing stopped working, so will he. His life ending injuries would kill him. Just like Esther.

He's dead.

Which raises a point I thought about all series. Do injured people heal? If they do, even the most badly injured, if the body's healing mechanism isn't impaired, can come back from Cat 1 to Cat 2 or 3.

You would think in the 10 hours they would have answered that question. Gee, if they only had a main character who was really badly injured right as the Blessing happened who was around the whole time (2, 3 months later) we could have known that. But, I guess they just didn't have time to clarify that... so much other things to do...