Ten Statements About....TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY Episode Eight 'End Of The Road' (2011)

Oh, if only John Delancie took over the entire show the way
he takes over this episode....

"Go get me a sandwich. Tomato and swiss on sourdough. Let's see how well you cope with that...and then you can find me a prostitute."

1) So lemme get this straight--we build up Angelo, do everything but say outright, 'hey, he's a key component in the mystery of the vampir--EXECUTIVES! I mean executives causing Miracle Day', and then in the first five minutes Nana Visitor's Olivia tells us that no, he has nothing to do with this, he just wants to keep Jack SAFE? And you went through all the trouble of kidnapping Gwen's family and all to do this?

I am still shocked that Jane Espenson didn't get up and call shenanigans on Russell T. Davies for the blatant bait-and-switching. But then, I'm still shocked Espenson and John Shiban didn't walk out by this point out of sheer frustration.

2) God...did Nana Visitor have a bet with Lauren Ambrose as to who could give the most annoying performance in this season? Because her sing-song sarcasm is making me want to choke a former-Star-Trek-guest-star....

Either Nana Visitor is stunned at the awfulness of this script, or
she's been hypnotized by the shiny buttons on Jack's coat.

3) I just paused this episode at the 7:21 mark...and I have to wonder how incredibly stupid the Torchwood gang is to not make the obvious connection to Oswald Danes after hearing that one of the three families that 'purchased' the secret of Jack's Ressurection was the Danes family. I mean, I'm with Alyssa of the Big Red Podcast in considering Torchwood the most incompetent agency in the world, but even they can't fail to realize one of those names is identical to the pedophile lunatic they spent two, three episodes chasing around!

4) Okay, I've now found the second character in this whole misbegotten season I like--I like John Delancie's turn as Shapiro. Delancie has enormous amounts of fun in the driver's seat, and I even laughed at his line about Jack's dress styles. He provides a much needed dose of energy to a show that's been lacking it even with all its running around screaming about how exciting it is.

5) Davies has spent almost ninety minutes of screen time trying to convince us that Jack's love of Angelo is as deep as his love for Ianto was...and I simply don't buy it. There's a sense of artificiality to this thread in the story (well, greater artificially than most Torchwood plot threads)...and evoking Ianto's name in his farewell to the aged Angelo only throws that artificiality into much sharper relief.

6) The sight of Bill Pullman doing that rigor-mortis smasmo-dance will haunt me in my dreams for weeks. And I know his ordering Lauren Ambrose to find him a redheaded woman is supposed to come off as creepy...but it's just silly, and continues to expose how amazingly, stupidly inept this storyline is at its core.

"So you've found a way to make the audience even more
weirded out--AND I get to dance all herky-jerky?  HOT DOG!"

7) So now Jilly has a mini-me in Constance Wu's Shawnie Yamaguchi? Good Lord, this is the storyline that just. Won't. Stop. Sucking. I just hope Shawnie reveals herself as CIA soon and puts bullets into the head of everyone involved in this whole ick-making plot thread.

No, wait, scratch that. Should've known she'd get killed because keeping Shawnie around made too much sense.

8) You know what I really like about Sharpio? In less than an episode, he's gotten more done than the Torchwood crew did in seven...and he's also the apparently the only person who is able to get into Jack's face and get him to actually do something constructive as opposed to bulling around everywhere.

9) Why is Russell T. Davies convinced he can still build sympathy for Oswald Danes after having everyone act all disgusted and disapproving around him for seven episodes. I honestly think that he expects the audience to feel bad that the prostitute is rejecting him and hinting that there's 'Category Zero' in store for him. Surely somebody must have expressed some trepidation at this scene when they were at read-throughs or something....

10) I'm sorry...but having Esther Drummond break down crying about how she doesn't know where she's going doesn't make much of a cliffhanger because, quite frankly, I just wish she'd crash into a tree and end this already.

Overall...the bright spot of John Delancie's Shapiro nonwithstanding, it's more of the stupidity and lack of attention to logic that's been this season's trademarked. But at least this episode is 'The End of The Road,' right? So there's no more...

What? Two more? Damnation...

(and incidentally, the last episode is called 'The Blood Line'...because it's about vampi--EXECUTIVES! I mean executives...)