Ten Statements About....TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY Episode Five 'The Categories Of Life' (2011)

I don't know which is more horrific--the fact that Dr. Juarez is
about to be burned alive, or that she has to spend so much time
with this dumb racist James Carvell lookalike...

"Whatever you're doing to fight this miracle, count me in. They just took control of life and death."

1) Look, I trust Jane Espenson as a writer--besides the many good episodes she contributed to Buffy, she co-created and wrote material for a show I rather liked called Point Pleasant. I trust John Shiban, who wrote some exceptional episodes of The X-Files. Did no one listen to what Russell T. Davies had in store for this bloated ten hour mess and say, 'Russell, you need to rethink some of these ideas. Okay, most of these ideas.'

Okay, all of these ideas."

2) I thought Gwen and Captain Jack were listed as of Episode Two as, at the very least, Persons Of Interest, and would have their photos pasted all over airports by The Mysterious Agents Of The Mysterious Vampi--CORPORATION! I Mean Corporation That Pulls The Strings Of The Miracle. And yet Gwen just waltzes back into Wales to have comedy flirty time with Rhys?

3) At this point, I think we really need to drop the 'Jack teases Rex with intimations he might be gay' thing. It was old about two episodes ago.

Lord knows I understand, Mr. Barrowman...I want to lie down
and die after watching this episode...

4) Okay, we get this big scene where Dr. Juarez says she wants in on Torchwood, she gets kinda, sorta inducted into the crew...and then, when she wants to flounce off and 'investigate' at the facility Rex went undercover to investigate, she starts saying she's not Torchwood. Is anyone reading these scripts for continuity? We're talking about contradictory information separated by less than ten minutes here!

5) My GOD, did they just pull a variation on 'Oh, you're a WOMAN Doctor' thing with Dr. Juarez and the Overflow Camp administrator followed by a Nazi joke? I'd expect that of Davies, who always displayed no sense of how humans interact in the real world, but Espenson?

Oh, wait. Look at statement one. Never mind.

6) You know what one of the major differences is between this and 'Children of Men'--besides of course this one sucking and the other one being the best thing Russell T. Davies was ever attached to? This one keeps forcing humor in at the most inopportune times...and every gag about Hillary Duff and bit of flirty-flirty between Juarez and Rex, or Esther and Jack, stops the flow of the story dead. Not only that, it dissipates the tension built up in the story prior....resulting in a show that has to keep re-earning its thriller status by rebuilding the thrills that made that tension in the first place.

7) I have this very weird sense that Davies is using the whole Overflow Camp angle to address all the panic some Americans had over 'death panels' when Obama tried to pass nationalized health care. While there is a proud tradition of writers using science fiction to address modern concerns in this country, Davies' ham-fistedness, tendency toward broad villains and inability to plot coherently may very well make him the last person I want trying to make any political statements.

"..and I promise you you'll be able to murder children and make
a killing in the real estate with no money down..."

8) So Oswald Danes has gone from child murderer to, what? The world's greatest inspirational speaker? Huh?

9) So now you're doing a whole Concentration Camp riff, Davies? Really?

10) At least Arlene Tur is now finally free of this thing, even though I'd categorize her end as overkill in the extreme.

Overall...I'm just dumbfounded at how this show seems to be getting worse and worse with each successive episode. My theory that Davies intentionally set out to create a season so dire to dare everyone to watch it remains intact. And thinking we're only halfway through this bloated turd makes my blood run cold.

Ten Statements About....TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY Episode Four 'Escape To LA' (2011)

Noooo!  Mare Winingham--Run!  Run or you'll be Davies-ized!

"George Elliot wrote this chapter in Middlemarch. She said that if you take a piece of metal with random scratches on it, and hold a flame up to the metal, the scratches look like they're forming patterns circling around the light...and that's Oswald. He's blazing away. The patterns are starting to revolve around him and all we have to do is keep watching."
 

1) I suspect that the opening scene with Esther and her sister is supposed to make us have some form of sympathy for her...never mind that we already have sympathy for her be the sheer dint of her being one of the only people we don't want to punch in the face. But given how Russell T. Davies has never shown any conception of how people actually interact with each other coupled with her damned intention of showing how he thoroughly researched his premise, the scene just. falls. flat.

2) I can understand why C. Thomas Howell was dragged into this...but Mare Winningham, playing a shrewish mayor demanding that the people who should have died be isolated? WHY? She actually, you know, still has a career and stuff.

Noooo!  They shot Soul Man!

3) Okay...after that icky phone exchange with Rex, I now want to punch Dr. Juarez in the face.

4) Thank the Lord for Kai 'The Jason Segal of Wales' Owen. Rys' scenes with Gwen actually brings some genuine lightness--as opposed to forced cutesy-poo romantic comedy dialogue or lame-ass gender-bending barbs--into what is a dour, lifeless series.

5) I'm sorry...but you can't keep hinting that Lauren Ambrose is part of some greater power manipulating things, hinting at her being something sinister...and then have her turn around and give this self-righteous speech about how she can't stand the sight of Oswald Danes' hands. It doesn't give her any dimension. It doesn't drive home how loathsome Danes is, because it already figured that out. The scene just lies there inert, something we're suppose to think is significant, but can't because of all the argle-bargle that happened before.

6) It occurs to me that the majority of this episode is designed to make us understand the motivations of our new characters better. But these scenes fail because by this episode, we should care about them enough to want to understand them and the time we should have spent getting to know them has been taken up by Russell T. Davies proving he knows how to Google. We don't care about Rex at all, so knowing he has a destitute father means nothing to us. While we do care about Esther, finding out she has a mentally ill sister doesn't add anything to her character. This deep into the season is not the time to start going 'hey, we need to fill out these guys.'

Eve Myles tries to get her agent to remove her from this
sinking ship....

7) I'm with Jack...as much as I love her, Eve Myles should never, ever attempt an American accent again. She prolly shouldn't ever have her hair up, either.

8) This whole new angle of Danes literally trying to pass himself off as some modern-day Christ for the Miracle Day afflicted is stomach churning--not because it's blasphemous, but because it's 'what the fuck?' level stupid. I simply cannot believe Davies intended this to be a major plot point.

9) LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS???? What, did Davies just raid his Brat Pack database?

10) Alyssa from the Big Red Podcast was right; the scene with Rex wheezing and huffing up 66 flight of stairs was ridiculous..especially since to make it work, we had to have Professional Killer In Black C. Thomas Howell go all Bond Villain on Jack and Gwen and start spouting soliloquizes...

Overall...I'm beginning to wonder if Davies is actively daring us to get through this increasingly ludicrous story. We have another script by someone who knows how to write effective television, James Shiban, which sounds exactly like a Davies script. There is a level of sheer awfulness to this that I am afraid I may not last until the end before taking an axe to my laptop.

Ten Statements About....TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY Episode Three 'Dead of Night' (2011)

After watching three episodes of this season, I want to put
on a mask and cry, too....

"Now, technically, we both know I can't kill you. But you see, the beauty of this miracle is if I shoot you just right, then maybe you might live in agony for who knows how long...maybe a thousand years. Now you think about that."

1) So we're supposed to root for Rex because he, what, threatens to torture Wayne Knight in full Newman mode? Somehow, it just makes him look like a bully. But then, since I find both Rex and Knight's Friedkin detestable characters...I just don't care.

2) Ooooooh....so there's a secret organization that's been pulling the strings for decades and knows everything. Like I didn't see that one coming.

Yeah, I'm going to need some of those painkillers if I'm to keep
watching this season, Jack....

3) Well, I guess we should not get attached to Esther any time soon. We all know what happens to people on Torchwood who actually, you know, know what they're doing, right?

4) I know the script is written by Jane Espenson of Buffy and Point Pleasant fame, but...it still feels like a Russell T. Davies script. Hell, it feels like RTD's Greatest Hits...which makes you wonder why the Stephen Moffats and Paul Cornells of the world were able make their Doctor Who scripts still uniquely theirs.

5) I am so relieved we've still got Arlene Tur's Dr. Juarez around...about the same amount I can't stand that she's sharing scenes with Lauren Ambrose's Jilly Kitzinger. It's like watching Roger Delgado's version of The Master having lunch with John Sims'.

6) The basic problem with the dramatic confrontation between Rex and Jack is simple--while Mekhi Phifer is a better actor--a much better actor--than John Barrowman, the scripts for this season has not done any work to make Rex anything other than an asshole whereas Jack has been made to look a whole lot more accessible and friendly. Thus, when Rex stalks off after having their little blow-up, the viewer isn't worried in the least. Hell, they're relieved the jerk is gone.

7) Contrast the Rex/Jack interaction with that of Esther and Gwen. There is such an easy chemistry between Eve Myles and Alexa Havins that you can believe they'll have each other back no matter what.

As bad as this season has shaped up to be, I can at least
take some joy in rhe interplay between these two.

8) My GOD, they're not building a romance between Rex and Juarez? Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised given Russell T. Davies inability to see male/female relations in terms other than romantic or fruit-fly-esque. But then again, the idea of Juarez willingly jumping into bed with a patient she knows has a damaged heart--literally--makes her less of a doctor, right? Right?

9) My GOD Part Two....was that whole sequence featuring Danes running from two rednecks wanting to hurt him for being a child-murdering pedophile into the arms of two cops that beat him to shit designed to make us feel sympathy for him? I get that the whole idea is to make us feel duped when Danes shows us his true colors...but it's done in the typical hamfisted Davies way, which means the effect falls flat.

10) It just occurred to me watching Ambrose interact with Pullman...Jilly has her own uniform. Not only that, it's a uniform that's in direct contrast with the color palette of the entire show, with the bright red coat. hair and lipstick. I think this is Russell T. Davies' idea of a subtle clue that Jilly may be more powerful than she seems....Hell, that she may in fact come from the same organization that Captain Jack Harkness and Captain John Hawk used to work for.

Notice the operative phrase is 'Russell T. Davies idea of a subtle clue.

Overall....this has rapidly degenerated into the awful excesses of the first season--lots of inappropriate sex made even smuttier since it's being done for American cable, characters that simply don't behave in any way like human beings do, sinister corporations...only this time with the added overlay of Davies proving he did a lot of googling to extrapolate his premise. And even the rare character I like, such as Dr. Juarez, is made somewhat questionable thanks to her questionable actions. I'm dancing on the edge of saying 'Fuck this season.' Dancing a lot.