Ten Statements About....TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY Episode Six 'The Middle Men' (2011)

Ladies and gentlemen...the only actor who actually tries to
act well in this misbegotten story....

"If schemes and conspiracies are being plotted,they must be seen only as patterns, waves. Shifts that are either too small or too vast to be perceived. Someone is playing the system right across the planet with infinite grace."

1) Okay, that pre-credit teaser may have been the best moment in this wretched series to date...and notice that there wasn't any of our regular characters involved in it, just Ernie Hudson on the phone to some guy. Yes, there's the usual icky Russell T. Davies 'Everyone-Must-Have-Sex' aesthetic for a second...but the rest of it is reminiscent of some of the better X-Files teasers of their heyday.

...which is the first evidence that someone other than Davies (namely writer John Shiban) had a hand in this episode.

2) You know, I get that stuff like Rex finally admitting he's Torchwood is supposed to get us cheering and on his side and all that...but when you spend the last five episodes of your show setting him up as a nationalistic Ugly American Douche, you haven't earned the right to manipulate us like that.

3) Yep, just as I figured out last episode....this is a gigantic Holocaust/Concentration Camp metaphor. Now all I have to wait for is the inevitable shot of the Space Cannibals/Vampires/Whatever in the Nazi-esque uniforms sprinkling cremains on their Post Toasties, and the bad taste in my mouth will be complete.

4) In a season known for hiring bad actors, and for eliciting bad performances from great actors, the performance of Mark Vann may very well be the absolute worse. I don't know if Russell T. Davies told him to play the role as The World's Evilest James Carville Impersonator or not, but he is thoroughly dreadful and couldn't convincingly cover up that he forgot to pick up the dry-cleaning, let alone murdering and cremating one of the major characters of the first five episodes.

You call it a gratuitious shot of someone pushing a pen into
a splattery make-up effect; I call it a graphic representation of
exactly how watching this crap feels.

5) I have always been sympathetic toward Gwen Cooper for the bulk of this series--primarily because Eve Myles is an amazingly good actress, and also because the chemistry between her and Kai 'The Jason Segal of Wales' Owens is so supremely good it sheds light into an otherwise dour series...but the scene where she harasses Dr. Patel simply loses all that goodwill. Part of it is because Myles has the unenviable task of spelling out the Concentration Camp Metaphor in Big Gaily Colored Building Block Letters so even people in a coma can get it, but mainly its because she's taking on this Holier-Than-Thou attitude that the show has not earned. Hell, quite frankly Rex's actions are doing much more good in this episode than hers are.

6) Wow...if you want to get someone to help you, mocking you about the affair you're having with your boss and your prowess at your job after proving you've done your stalker homework is not a good strategy, Jack.

...and of course it works...because, as we've mentioned before, Russell T. Davies has no conception of how human beings actually interact.

7) God Help Us, Ernie Hudson didn't get the memo to overact and play his character in only the broadest strokes. He's trying to give us an honest-to-goodness decent performance! And the scene with his Stuart Owens having a sit down to talk conspiracies is perhaps the single best scene in this season so far.

For those keeping count, that's two good moments in an episode...both of them involving Ernie Hudson. Coincidence? You decide.

8) Our heroes are real, real crap liars. I don't think any of the characters in this episode--not Rex, not Esther, not Rhys--are effectively deceptive on any level. At least give Rhys points for trying to sass his way through....

9) So Esther is like, what, a MMA fighter able to triangle choke Evil James Carville to...well, not death, since we know what happened to Dichen Lachman and her extreme neck trauma in Episode Two...sorry, don't buy it. And Evil James Carville going all Jason on her is perhaps the most expected shock revival of all time.



Yeah, I'd hide my face if I appeared in
this episode, too.



10) WAIT! We get this whole self-righteous speech from Gwen earlier about how they're killing people in these Overflow Camps and that poor doctor should be ashamed of herself for allowing it to happen--and then she turns around and BLOWS UP THE CAMPS? WITH EVERYONE INSIDE, SICK PEOPLE SHE WAS DEFENDING INCLUDED? WHILE JACK LAUGHS IN ENCOURAGEMENT?

I...I am speechless. I cannot imagine what Davies expected our reaction to be....did he think we'd not realize that one of our main characters is as big a murderer as the villains are?

Overall...I cannot believe how miserably bad this show is. Even for something produced by Davies, this is stunning in its awfulness. The only thing--the only thing--that eve vaguely redeems it are those two scenes with Ernie Hudson. His nuanced performance actually kept me from punching a hole through the laptop screen.

If you're defending this program, or giving it a pass due to your love of Davies' run on Doctor Who...well, shame on you.

Ten Statements About....TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY Episode One 'The New World' (2011)

I don't know...I'd almost bet on Gwen Cooper kicking Sarah
Conner's ass in the Sci-Fi Mom Sweepstakes...

".First I knew they were calling from the morgue, they were laughing. They said, 'what's happening up there, you all on strike?' Turns out no one had died. 24 hours since this hospital had a death. Not one. Not from old age, not from injury, not from sickness. All day long."

1) I have a really, really bad feeling that Mekhi Phifer's Rex is going to never rise higher than being The Ugly American. Except for a couple of moments (one of which we'll cite below), he's so broad in his 'fuck Wales, fuck everything, I'm the man' attitude that it takes away from the flow of the story.

2) God, how I missed the interaction between Eve Myles (still looking hot-but-approachable) and Kai 'The Jason Segal of Wales' Owens. Those two, and their interactions with the other supporting cast, have always been the secret weapon of this show, and seeing them still having that divine chemistry is a joy. Even if Davies has decided to Sarah Conner the both of them....

3) What's more annoying that someone saying the name of a movie in the movie? Several people saying the name several times over the space of ten seconds...just like when you have everyone mention Torchwood...you know, 'cause this is about Torchwood, right?

Torchwood.

Get used to this face...'cause this is pretty much the only
emotion Mekhi Phifer is allowed to have.

4) Jesus Christ...I feel so sorry for Bill Pullman, who is a good actor, playing this thoroughly one-dimensional monstrosity. He seems to be in this season for much the same reason Billy Connolly's charcter was in that awful X-Files: I Want To Believe--giving him this extraordinary status solely so that Davies can have people rail at him for being a child-killing monster and make everyone in the show seem better for disapproving of him.

5) I do give Davies credit for having the courage to keep Captain Jack offstage until the twenty minute mark, and not playing him right away in a positive light. Hell, I know the history of the character and even I found his first appearance here borderline creepy.

6) I'm beginning to think that Davies strength is not characterization--because I find almost all of his characters broad and ill-formed, lacking any sort of subtlety--but his ability to spot people who have the right qualities, both alone and in concert with others, to bring those characters the depth he in incapable of giving them. Seeing John Barrowman's Captain Jack interact with Alexa Havins' Esther Drummond brings her character--up until that point a very bog standard innocent bystander--to life, and gives both of them the same sort of vitality that Gwen and Rhys have.

7) Okay, that autopsy scene? Veeeeery creepy, and helped by the very quiet cutaways to Mekhi Phifer's reactions to what was going on. It's prolly the high point of the episode.

That blur at the bottom?  The single creepiest thing in this
episode....

8) I know I talked about her above...but God, I hope the greater distribution of this will show the world what Eve Myles is capable of, and get her more work. Lots more work. The scene with her parents, where she goes from comedy to tragedy seamlessly but logically is brilliant.

9) Admittedly, the idea that the one thing that puts fear in Captain Jack is the fact that he can be injured is pretty cool.

10) The final action sequence that brings our cast together again? Pretty. Damn. Choice.

Overall...this thing seems to be a step down from the nearly pitch perfect 'Children of Earth, and suffers from an extreme need to remind us over and over about what this series is about. It smacks a bit more of Season Two, which was uneven but got better as it went along. I'm not ready to throw up my hands and walk away just yet, but I'm not exactly