Torchwood: Mircale Day – Finale

(Index to previous Torchwood reviews here.)

I feel like I’m the only person on the Internet who’s going to say this, but I thought this was non-stop bad-ass awesome. I simply don’t comprehend the level of vitriol this season has sparked, but I more than respect people’s right to feel disappointed when a show doesn’t meet what they wanted from it, so I’m not interested in debating the matter. Such different readings of the same piece can only come from wildly differing starting points that are never going to agree the foundations for a discussion, and even if they did they’d keep tripping each other up when it turned out some other assumption was being made that was not initially acknowledged. Whilst I have never said that this season was perfect (it’s still Torchwood, and it would almost be a betrayal of the programme’s premise if they stopped throwing so many things in the pot that inevitably some would be spewed up as awesome and some painful) so many things have been heart-stoppingly brilliant I can only feel it’s a shame that it doesn’t seem that they will be recognised, from the reception I’ve seen on the net. It’s for this reason I couldn’t bring myself to blog about it last night, and was in two minds about finding the energy for doing it today. But, fuck it, just looking at an image like that to the above is enough to get the excitement juices flowing again.

Plot

Having located the Blessing on both sides of the world, Jack, Gwen, and Oswald head for the one in Shanghai whilst Rex and Esther head for the one in Buenos Airies. Rex decides the time has come to call in the CIA, which proves to be a monumental mistake, as they still have a mole, Charlotte. Charlotte shows her 1ee7 traitor skillz by arranging for a suicide bomber to be on the truck of CIA dudes sent to help Rex and Esther invade their Blessing end. He blows up the truck with all the CIA dudes on it, along with a briefcase full of what seems to be all of Jack’s blood that they have on that side of the world. Meanwhile, Gwen sets off to track the Blessing her own and finds it out the back of an old Chinese shop (?) or restaurant (?). Anyway, there’s an old Chinese lady who’s all ‘Noooo, go not into the Evil Alleyway, can you not feel the bad juju?’ and Gwen’s all ‘Got no choice, old Chinese lady, got a world to save. Can I buy my way into this Evil Alley?’ and the old Chinese lady’s like ‘Yeah, sure, OK. But I DID warn you. No idea why I keep my business here when I hate this alley so much, but apparently I make good money out of letting people enter it for dosh’.

So, Gwen goes into the alley and backs straight-the-fuck out. Yeah, that’s one Evil Alley. And the old Chinese lady’s like ‘I told you. Can I get you some tea?’ and Gwen’s like ‘Fuck it, I don’t know how you’re not in the pay of the Families living so close to the Blessing and all, but I’m too freaked to worry about this being poisoned’. (It’s not poisoned, it’s just that I was assuming the old lady was a Families spy, and she totally wasn’t. Maybe they don’t need to protect the Blessing that well – it’s clearly fucking scary.)

Gwen calls Jack and Oswald to get their bottoms in gear and come down to the alley whilst Rex and Esther are busy pretending to be dead and invading the Blessing on the other side of the world. Back in the CIA Q Shapiro is finally all ‘WTF? Who is my fucking mole?!’ and releases a trace that identifies Charlotte – sadly, not before she can plant a bomb and run away.

Torchwood enters the Blessing from both sides and ends up in a stand-off. In Shanghai they strap bombs to Oswald as a threat to combat the fact that they are extremely outnumbered by people with guns. In Buenos Aires Rex and Esther are captured. The Families try laughing in their faces, as they’re not afraid of death, and the blood of a mortal man needs to go into the Blessing from both sides at once, and Rex and Esther’s supply got blown up. But it turns out that they transfused all Jack’s blood into Rex as a precaution. Rex and Jack get shot at the same time and their blood pours into the Blessing, but not before Esther gets fatally wounded. The Miracle ends and all the category ones die, including Gwen’s dad. Jack and Rex die, but some combination of Jack’s blood and proximity to the Blessing means that they regenerate. Gwen, Jack, and Jilly escape, as does Rex, but Esther is dead, Dave, totally dead.

Some days later, we see a slightly dishevelled looking Jilly waiting on a bench in the hope of seeing her Family contact again. Amazingly, it works, and he reveals that this was just the first run of the Famillies’ plan. They have a Plan B… and they want her in on it.

Torchwood, Esther’s family, and the remaining CIA agents (including Charlotte von Evil) go to her funeral. Data from the exploded CIA trace is recovered just in time to reveal Charlotte’s betrayal as she runs from the funeral. Rex gives chase and is shot and killed. In a (not that shocking) twist, Rex comes alive again, Jack-style. And we are left hanging with the question – what will this mean for Torchwood’s future?

My thoughts

Was it perfect? No, but so much of it was awesome that I don’t care. It was fast paced and dramatic and everyone was playing top form on the acting (except maybe Bill Pullman, who continues to struggle with the nuances the role requires). I don’t know whether I like that the mystery of the Blessing was never solved or not. It raises the very interesting question of the limits of our knowledge in a way that SF shows, and especially Doctor Who and its spin-offs, usually avoid like the plague in the name of making their characters seem cool by spouting techno-babble. Similarly, audiences expect perfect resolutions, and I enjoy it when that’s upset a bit. On the other hand, with so much hanging on this, and with so much excellent, carefully thought out consequences for Miracle Day itself, it feels like a bit of a cop-out. I’m torn. As an epistemologist I’m fascinated by the tension between the human desire to know and the threat of scepticism – the possibility that some things may simply be unknowable. It terrifies me and frustrates me, and draws me to fight it, and I like that the unknown is being displayed in an SF show for our confrontation, and not then immediately fathomed. The Blessing is the ‘nothingness’, the ‘gap’, the ‘unknown’, and Jack cannot explain it. But it’s also an implausible hole going straight through the Earth and everyone’s surprisingly at ease with their inability to explain it.

I also have dual feelings about the Blessing being a thing that reflects your own idea of yourself back at you. It is an interesting idea, but it was more interesting when I first saw it on the Red Dwarf episode, ‘The Inquisitor’, where the crew are each judged by themselves and sentenced accordingly. Doubtless it had been done before that, as well, but for me that’s the classic iconic instance. When Jilly points out that it maybe wasn’t a good idea to bring Oswald in covered in explosives and then show him his soul, it’s an interesting moment, but whilst Oswald’s declaration that he’s ‘used to sin’ works as a resolution of the issue and allows the plot to continue, I would have liked a little more from the interesting questions raised about his possible guilt throughout the season. Everyone finds a way to be at ease with what they see, and it sort of takes the bite out of that aspect of the Blessing.

I’m also not sure how I feel about Gwen’s comment to Jilly as they fight, about ‘how much lipstick can you wear?!’. On the one hand, I’d sort of felt that way myself – there is far, far too much pressure for women to wear make-up constantly, especially as a mark of looking ‘professional’ or ‘taking care of yourself’. I regularly receive derogatory comments of this nature for not wearing make-up, or pressure to wear it more often on the occasions that I do – like I’m finally behaving and people want to reward my good behaviour with positive ‘encouraing’ comments, rather than genuine compliments. It’s always ‘wow – what a difference’ or ‘you should do that more often’ or ‘I don’t understand why some women don’t make more of an effort when you see the difference when they do’. It’s not like I’m a slob when I’m not wearing lipstick. I like that Gwen has looked 100% stylish throughout without ever having to look ‘made-up’. On the other hand, it’s a perfectly legitimate choice for a woman to want to adopt the sort of look that Jilly employs. It’s an expression of herself and how she wants to be perceived. And having one woman bashing another for their choice of lifestyle and expression of self in a way that was entirely besides the point to the action and that focuses on appearance is kind of not cool.

Similarly, I sort of wanted Jilly to come out of it fighting in the sense of still preserving her sense fo style and showing her survivor teeth in forging a new life without the Families. Having her run off after them like a dog, adopting the nude-make-up look endorsed by Gwen, was not at all what I would have imagined she would do. When people make those back-handed compliments about me it makes me want to wear make-up less, in defiance. If someone knocks Jilly’s choice in this area I expect a corresponding defiance in affirming her self-expression.

On the other hand, given that she’s been walking around in full on scarlet being unashamedly morally dubious, I pretty much expected her to be made to die for such behaviour at the end in accordance with TV rules. But she didn’t, and hearing how she had to fight her way out of Shanghai, selling her jewellery and clawing her way back home does speak somewhat to her spirit.

In some ways it’s a shame that we’re keeping Rex over Esther, who was by far the more interesting character, showing more growth across the season. It’s a shame to see the shy girl get killed off once she’s grown into strength. On the other hand, it would have been equally bad to kill off the black guy, and we’ve had plenty of other strong women, some of whom did survive. Whilst I can’t help but feel that having two immortals around will make Jack’s condition much less interesting, it is really cool to have a black person fulfilling this role. Doctor Who and its spin-offs have enough of the whole immortal, powerful, know-it all, wealthy white male who always saves the day, thing. This is not the sort of role that would usually go to a person of colour. Whilst I think a more powerful statement might have come to giving this to Esther, as she had more of a growth story, and I feel like women have an even harder time getting cast in such roles, it’s not the Issue Olympics, and I can’t deny that there are far more white women on telly than black men.

And never let us forget the awesomeness that is Gwen. Gwen and freakin’ Eve Myles. Absolutely flawlessly stonking from start to finish, whether she’s kicking butt or despairing or having quiet moments with her husband – every second of her screen-time was wonderful, and I want to make the BAFTA-or-similar call-out again. Also for the writers. With the exception of a couple of really rocky episodes early on, and a somewhat awkward tendency to highlight Jack’s homosexuality at the expense of his omnisexuality, this has been a tour de force. It’s been a long time since I saw original science fiction like this on British TV. I hoped that Outcasts would form the back-bone of a resurgence in original SF drama on British tellies, but I can’t deny that it did not fulfil my expectations. Torchwood: Miracle Day on the other hand has been full to bursting with original ideas fully explored. I thought I was someone who thought about apocalypse SF a lot. I thought I was a person who explored the boundaries of immortality in fiction. Torchwood: Miracle Day has taken me through so many different things I never thought of. Wonderful.

I also want to praise the political science. Absolutely on the fucking pulse. And given that this will not have been written to coincide with current events, praise should be given to the writers for reading the times and projecting what would strike a chord. Even in the last few episodes where the tightened focus on the main plot reduced screen-time for the global consequences of Miracle Day, a few comments here and there have kept the economic and political issues in sight. The attitude of the Families, anticipating the financial breakdown but predicting with confidence that a new world will surface to their satisfaction. Sure it will hit the poor hard, literally killing them off, but won’t that just make the world a better place anyway? Can’t help but feel the thrumming accord with austerity measures to cut the deficit. Especially as balance is maintained. The Famillies are unquestionably evil, the governmental measures are undoubtedly harsh and disturbing, and yet, floating in the background, raised especially by the health workers in the camps, is the question: what else could they do? Maybe the answer is ‘Something not quite this extreme, surely’, but there’s no doubt that it’s simply naive to think they could have gotten away with doing anything that wouldn’t hurt a lot of people.

All in all I have to say that despite its rocky moments, this season of Torchwood has been the most original, most strongly acted and scripted, most gripping and exciting. I know that puts me in the minority, especially as I’m praising it over Children of Earth, and that’s widely excepted by even most Torchwod-sceptics as being Good. Oh well. I can only report on how I saw it, and I feel there are a lot of things that deserve praising somewhere, even if it’s only on this blog.

Torchwood: Miracle Day, Episode 9

Wow, that was really something.

Plot:

Time has passed. The UK has gone into what the news are calling the Great Depression. Despite continued protest, the camps have been reopened. Gwen has ceased open defiance in favour of clandestine raids on pharmacies for drugs people are now too scared to go to the doctors to access. She and Rhys are living with her mother in Wales, protecting her father, who is alive, but unconscious, hiding in her basement. But she’s under surveillance and subject to regular checks, suspected of harbouring her father, who is known to be missing.

Esther and Jack are in hiding Scotland. Apparently Jack survived his wound, and Esther is regularly harvesting his blood, trying to figure out how he’s linked to the Miracle.

Rex has a lead – the Families are untraceable, but he finds a short story that seems loosely based on what happened to Jack in the meatlocker. The writer’s younger brother was killed, and the murder weapon, covered in his blood – his DNA – has escaped the Families’ record scrubbing. Unfortunately, Charlotte persuades Rex to use analysts under Family influence, and manages to stub Rex’s lead.

Jilly has been working in her new position under the Families, but it isn’t all she imagined, until, that is, she gets a summons to Shanghai, to see The Blessing for herself.

Meanwhile, Oswald has tracked Gwen down as a person who has access to Jack. He wants protection in exchange for information. Information about who Jilly is working for. Only it turns out that ‘Harry Bosno’ is a code world for a certain sort of spin, and not a man at all. Nonetheless, Oswald’s information isn’t entirely useless. They track the Families by working out what exactly Jilly has been spinning, and why. They find the Families have interests in both Shanghai and Buenos Aires… which happen to be on exact opposite sides of the world.

As Jilly is visiting The Blessing in Shanghai, Gwen’s father is discovered and taken from her house. She vows revenge and seeks to take the fight to the Famillies in Shanghai.

Once there, it is revealed that Jack’s wound is not fully healed, and actually getting worse. And Oswald notices that the blood is being drawn off in a particular direction – towards The Blessing.

How awesome was it?

Very awesome. Originality and talent have come together in these last few episodes, but never more so than now. If only the fat could have been trimmed from some of the earlier episodes this would have been an indisputably awesome piece of television. As it stands, this is certainly the most original and imaginative science fiction I have seen in a very long time on the small screen, maybe ever. No arguing that it cannot claim the sort of polished across-the-board high standards of the early seasons of the new Battlestar Galactica, but it must be confessed that BSG was not this original in science fiction terms. This episode in particular contained the realisation of so many interesting ideas that my little plot summary can’t even hope to do them justice.

The actors are also all on top of their game. Mekhi Phifer has been disappointing throughout, but ensconced solidly in a CIA world of flashy tech, performing subtle inferences, and having tense, charismatic conversations with the wonderful John De Lancie, he’s right at home.

Similarly, Bill Pullman has struggled throughout to bring the complexity of Oswald’s character to screen. He’s been caught up playing ‘creepy’, struggling with the more human aspects the script wants to inject. Tied-up and beaten and surrounded by people none of whom are prepared to pretend he’s anything but a monster, Pullman seems to have been freed from the responsibility of making clear to he audience that Paedophiles Are Bad. With this safely clear, Pullman brings a personality to the role and confronts us with the uncomfortable reality of Oswald’s intelligence and skill as an online predator.

Meanwhile, Jilly’s reaction to The Blessing, in the context of the revealtion that it can send you mad if you have something to hide, is enigmatic, terrifying, and wonerful. I really, really hope they explain it, but it’s a nice end point. What exactly was she right about? She seems both satisfied and upset. It’s been clear from day one that there must be something in Jilly’s past that’s broken, something that reforged her into the sort of woman who could deal with the job that was required of her, caring for Oswald Danes.

Gwen continues to be nothing but sheer pleasure on the screen. If she doesn’t at least get a BAFTA for this, Eve Myles will have been robbed. Can I start a campaign? The scene of her beating on Oswald without hesitation in response to finding him holding her baby is a thing of beauty. As is Rhys’s intervention. I love that Torchwood has quietly reversed the gender roles between Rhys and Gwen without in any sense emasculating Rhys. There’s no question of his status as a large, hulking, physically intimidating man as he turns back to Oswald and issues his own threat. The fact that he has not been trained to fight and chooses to refrain from violence makes him a good man, and not weak. I can think of several large-yet-loveable men that Rhys reminds me of strikingly – the sort of men that we almost never see on screen, except for when someone needs to be unlucky in love. I’m loving his representation.

Yet at the same time Rex dismisses Rhys’s comments (even though they are relevant) as those of ‘the husband’ in the way another programme might have dismissed Gwen as ‘the wife’. Rex does this because Gwen is the known entity to him – proven useful – and it’s in Rex’s character to be somewhat over-directed, focusing on the elements he perceives most likely to be successful. What’s really nice is that he’s still wrong to dismiss Rhys on the basis that he’s the primary carer for their child whilst his wife takes on the world. Gwen’s presentation as a strong woman is not reduced to an over-simplified role-reversal that still roots value in the stereo-typically male role.

It’s not without its flaws. The Blessing turning out to be something that looks like nothing so much as a giant rock pudenda, giving life to some, but threatening to suck the world inside it to destruction… almost certainly not intentional, but very unfortunate, and someone should have noticed. I’m also annoyed by the ridiculousness of the ‘hole straight through the Earth’ phenomenon. I really hope they give a nice bit of technobabble to explain that. Can’t help but feel if something like this had existed in the Earth all this time, it would have had even more alien visits than it has under the Doctor’s supervision.

But with so much yet to play out, and with the admirable rigour and imagination with which the consequences of Miracle Day have been unfolded, I’m willing to suspend my disbelief until next week. Looks like it’s going to be good.

Torchwood: Miracle Day, Episode 5

(Index to all Torchwood posts here.)

Now that’s more like it.

Plot:

Governments around the world agree on emergency measures to place people in three different categories: three, two, and one… alive, ill, and dead. Categories two and one are shipped off to camps for containment and treatment in the face of rampant disease in the hospitals, Gwen’s father amongst them. Dr Vera Juarez sets her doubts aside and joins the Torchwood team in disgust at the actions of the governments of the world. Living people are being categorised as dead, disposable, objects.

Torchwood discovers that hidden ‘modules’ are a part of the camps around the world, and they infiltrate two camps – one in the States and one in the UK. Gwen tries to free her father, but the stress of the escape triggers a heart-attack, relegating him to category one. Rex infiltrates the State-side camp as a patient, whilst Vera uses her position on the medical panels to pose as an inspector and Esther enters as clerical staff.

Meanwhile, Jack tries to appeal to Oswald’s conscience to persuade him to use his media attention to expose PhiCor.

How was it different?

Suddenly Torchwood seems like biting political commentary. Healthcare being turned over to big business under the radar. Political freedoms being curtailed in response to a crisis. ‘A new age of care and compassion’ sounds very much like the sort of thing our current Prime Minister might say whilst categorising groups of people cleanly away so that they can be disposed of.

And yet the cutting undercurrent of this is that it is a genuinely desperate situation. It’s entirely understandable that people would agree to any plausible solution that sought to bring to control a situation rapidly becoming apocalyptically chaotic. It’s telling that the writers tacitly recognise the remarkably terrorist aspects to Torchwood’s activities. They’re operating outside and against governments to infiltrate and sabotage in the cause of freedom. It’s a surprisingly balanced and intriguing view that encourages us to weigh up the options and the sides and identify with aspects of disparate groups. I’m even warming to the presentation of Oswald Danes in his uniquely challenging fight for survival. He’s still a repulsive figure, but they’re starting to move him into a depth he lacked at the beginning, and I approve. I suspect we’re setting up this human complexity against a complete othering of an Alien Evil, but it’s still an unusually nuanced take.

I haven’t talked about it much, but Miracle Day has also been delightfully and understatedly inter-racial throughout. Yes, there’s a predominance of white main cast members, but we also see multiple black, Asian, and Latino people. I’ve mentioned before that the treatment of women is pretty good – there are lots of them, and the frequently kick ass, but they’re also vulnerable and believable in turn. Esther’s character’s had a rough ride, but Gwen and Juarez are consistently both interesting and strong. Perhaps the most peculiar thing, for Torchwood is that one of the least comfortable aspects of the show is its treatment of homosexuality, which seems to have been reduced to Jack making bad jokes to make Rex uncomfortable. It’s forced and unnatural and a little uncomfortable to watch.

Quite apart from the themes, though, this episode was fast paced, tense, and believable in a way the previous two episodes weren’t. Someone spoiled the ending for me by Googling key terms that brought them to my blog, if you would believe it, but it was still shocking and rather impressively horrible. Everything feels like it’s coming together, and I’m eager to watch the next episode next week. Hurrah!

Torchwood: Miracle Day, Episode 4

(Index to all Torchwood posts here.)

It continues.

Plot:

So, Torchwood and friends are on the run and trying to dig up info on PhiCorp, the Über Eval drug company that may have orchestrated Miracle Day. They’re doing pretty well on the info front, but they’re doing lousy at the lying low. Esther actually drops by her sister’s and reports her to social services as an unfit mother. Gwen wanders around in the bright sunshine on her phone calling Rhys. And, having chastised Esther and Gwen, Rex shoots off to have an angsty-lack-of-reconciliation with his dad (and steal some of the painkillers his dad happens to be stock-piling). Unsurprisingly, they pick up a suspicious dude with a telephoto lens.

Torchwood learn how to break into a PhiCorp databank by obtaining the fingerprints, vocal patterns, and retinal image of a top scientist. Their tail does the same, in less humane ways, and lies in wait for them.

Meanwhile, a new News Star is on the rise, as Tea Party darling Ellis Hartley Monroe steals the limelight from Oswald Danes with her ‘Dead is Dead’ campaign, arguing that those who have died-but-not-died should not have equal rights to the properly ‘living’. At the same time, hospitals are persuaded to shove their emergency cases off to one side in a woefully under-equipped ‘plague-ship’ style hospital. Oswald steals the stage back by entering the disease-ridden building, making a speech, and holding a baby.

How was it?

I don’t know. I want to be more blown away by it than I am. I think the biggest problem is that, having started the series with an ass-kicking bang, Torchwood and friends are continuing to be disappointingly rubbish. I know it’s what keeps the plot going, but I can’t help but feel like there ought to be a Better Way. Also, much as I like seeing mental illness explored, there seems to be a conveniently unlikely amount of close-relatives-with-extreme-paranoia running around. It’s not entirely clear to me exactly what sort of mental illness these people suffer from, and at the moment it just all seems like a push towards heightened melodrama that’s hardly needed in the context of everything else that’s going down. It makes any discussion connected with these things feel like a throw-away-convenience.

Some elements of the plot are still working quite well, but I sort of feel uncomfortably unbalanced between something hard-hitting and clever and something surface level and pulpish. Where the opening couple of episodes really got the mix of old Torchwood fun and Children of Earth grimness right, it’s feeling more like an uncomfortable see-saw to me at the moment.

I don’t know how I feel about the Oswald Danes plot. It’s either brilliant or awful. I don’t like it. I’m deeply, deeply uncomfortable with how easily people seem to be swayed into forgiving him and even worshiping him. They had a child molester hold a baby for Christ’s sake! I know we’re meant to be all ‘isn’t public opinion fickle’, but I’m not convinced it is as fickle on issues like this as is being portrayed. People really, really don’t like child molesters. Yes, one or two people stand up and say it’s sick and they see through him, but I’m fairly convinced there would be a lot more. People would have snatched that baby right out of his arms once they realised who he was, charisma or no charisma. And, frankly, despite how much I usually adore him as an actor, I’m just not finding Bill Pullman’s performance that compelling.

What is interesting is his relationship with his PR lady. I liked the reveal that she is thoroughly disgusted by him, but she’s doing her job anyway. There are a couple of really nice moments, like when Vera tells Jilly that the media circus and Jilly’s excitement about it is disgusting, and Jilly delightedly responds ‘I know’ – a very nice piece of acting from Laura Ambrose. I also really loved the moment in Oswald’s hotel room as he crouches quietly by his mini-bar, cracking bottle after bottle just to hear the carbonated hiss we presume he’s been denied all these years. But overall, I’m just not sure. Mostly I feel like I’m being poked to talk about Oswald’s story because ‘gosh it’s so edgy’, but instead it feels overblown and implausible in a way that cheapens the edge. I am torn on this one, but it shouldn’t be mistaken for the sort of story that’s good because it sets your emotions and intuitions at war. This is no Dexter. Rather, sometimes it verges on something genuinely interesting, whilst at other times its crass and unbelievable.

In a similar way, bringing in a Tea Party Sarah-Palin-alike figure is in some ways quite daring and a nice piece of dry wit. But she’s introduced and thrown away in one episode, fitting in with my feeling that there are a lot of interesting ideas here, but they’re just being thrown in for colour rather than being really explored.

Perhaps I wouldn’t mind so much if the Torchwood focused stories were stronger. Credit must be given for Eve Myles’s consistently strong performance and the continuing believable emotion she brings to her familial relationships. However, the plot with her father being shipped away was so obvious it just bored me, rather than heightening the tension.

Still, I remain interested in seeing where it goes. The Jack plot is really intriguing, and I thought the bit where the hitman won’t kill him because he’s the last mortal man is a nice touch even if it’s also a fudge to explain why we get to keep our leading man when really he ought to have been killed. Keep it up, Torchwood, I’m still with you, but I’d like to see just a little bit more competence resurfacing soon.