June 2: "The Middle Men" (TW)

The big problem with "The Middle Men" is that it has almost nothing new to say.  Its most interesting scenes only take up something like five minutes of screen time, and the rest is filled with people being horrible to each other.  But we've already seen humanity being awful last time -- this doesn't add anything to our understanding of the bigger picture, and none of the conversations we witness deepen our appreciation for the story.

Stuart Owens is confronted by Jack. ("The Middle Men") ©BBC
Worldwide, Limited

The best scenes involve Ernie Hudson (probably still best known as Winston Zeddemore from Ghostbusters) as Stuart Owens, the chief operations officer for Phicorp, trying to find out more about the Miracle.  He only gets two scenes here -- one at the beginning where he tries to get more information about some property in Shanghai, and one conversation with Jack -- but they're far and away the most interesting thing on display here.  He's as much in the dark as Torchwood, but he also wants to know what's going on.  "I'm not a bad man, Captain," Stuart says.  "I'm not a good one, either.  I'm a middle man in every sense of the word. ... You don't believe me.  You think I'm the epitome of evil, the devil in a three piece suit."  "In my experience, that's how it works," Jack replies.  "Your experience must be rather simple," Stuart says.  "You have a rather archaic view of good versus evil, don't you?"  It's an interesting conversation that moves the story forward more than the rest of this episode's running time.  "I'm sorry, Captain, but Phicorp isn't controlling this.  Profiting, yes, but this is part of a much larger design way beyond any of us."

The rest of the episode involves the aftereffects of the events of "The Categories of Life": Rex is trying to sneak out of the San Pedro Overflow Camp with the video evidence he's collected, while Gwen is still trying to get her dad out of the Cowbridge Camp in Wales.  Gwen is railing against the doctor who's employing the Nuremberg Defense as she marks people for burning, while Rex is caught and handed over to the camp's director, who decides he has to take care of Rex as well, after Rex mentions that he has evidence that Vera was murdered.  The San Pedro portion adds nothing to the overall story, other than showing us that Colin Maloney isn't happy about what he did but doesn't want to be caught and having Esther turn Colin into a Category 1 patient -- except we find out that she didn't actually, and it's only the actions of Maloney's attaché Ralph that save Esther.  And while it's exciting how Gwen blows up the ovens at Cowbridge, it doesn't really add much to the narrative.

In other words, most of this episode is simply spinning its wheels, content to do little more than reinforce points made more eloquently and subtly (if such a thing can be believed, as "The Categories of Life" was hardly subtle in its approach) in the previous installment.  Perhaps the events witnessed here will have a larger impact down the line, but as it stands now, "The Middle Men" is largely redundant.

June 1: "The Categories of Life" (TW)

The last four episodes of Miracle Day have been about this Miracle and the conspiracy of people who brought it about, with Torchwood trying to uncover them and reverse it back, and while we've had updates of how the world is coping with these new rules, they frequently take a backseat to learning more about who's behind things.  But now we've almost reached the halfway point for the series, and Miracle Day chooses to focus not on the conspiracy but on the human cost.  This is a story about how we cope, and the answer that comes back isn't encouraging.

It's easy enough to watch Torchwood do its thing, but the advent of these "overflow camps" is independent of Torchwood and feels entirely like scared people doing the wrong thing.  Sure, they attempt to tie Phicorp into them, but you're no wiser at the end of the episode than when we started -- even the plausible "they're using brain dead people to experiment on so that they can unleash new diseases that they can then sell medicine for" idea isn't true, and you start to wonder why Phicorp was brought up at all.  Because this doesn't feel like an evil faceless corporation's act; no, this is just how people react.

Esther and Vera infiltrate the San Pedro Overflow Camp. ("The
Categories of Life") ©BBC Worldwide, Limited

The clever thing about "The Categories of Life" is how it turns the actions of the people calling themselves Torchwood back on themselves.  Gwen's father has another heart attack because Gwen tries to get him out of bed and out of the overflow camp.  Vera's work on how to treat patients in this new world has been subverted into deciding who has to be moved into the camps and how to classify people based on their current medical condition.  Rex is responsible for Vera coming out west to help Torchwood, ultimately putting her in danger.  We saw last time that actions have consequences, and that's brought home here.

The biggest "event" (for lack of a better term) in this episode is Vera's inspection of the San Pedro camp, which is being run by a racist, sexist paper pusher named Colin Maloney (no, it's not exactly a subtle character) who's been hiding all the problems with the camp (such as sticking people without insurance in buildings on filthy beds and leaving them unattended) and is in fact willing to commit murder (or the nearest equivalent post-Miracle) to avoid prosecution.  It's a shocking moment, watching him shoot Vera, and it's even more shocking watching him place her in the mysterious modules that the Category 1 patients (aka the brain-dead and unresponsive) are being kept in, and turning on the incinerator.  It's a dark secret -- the Category 1 patients are being burned alive -- and it's one that hits home, as Vera is trapped inside and Rex (who's also snuck into the camp to find out what's going on) can only watch and film her demise, presumably so that he can use it as evidence.

The "next time" trailer makes it clear that the situation at San Pedro isn't over by any means, but "The Categories of Life" doesn't exactly feel like the sort of episode we've expected from Miracle Day.  It's a far more straightforward exploration of how low humanity can sink, but it's handled with reasonable care -- to the point where the scenes with Danes and Jack, which are more how the rest of the series has been, feel somewhat intrusive.  I don't know that the show could sustain another episode like this one, but "The Categories of Life" is an episode definitely worth doing.

May 31: "Escape to L.A." (TW)

Hmm.  Torchwood: Miracle Day seems to have slowed its story down rather, as this is another episode that's largely concerned with setup.  However, the events of "Escape to L.A." largely play out as a consequence of Esther's actions at the beginning, as she goes to visit her sister, who "can't cope", in her words.  And because she does so, Torchwood is followed, from Washington D.C. to the west coast of the United States.

Oswald Danes decides to speak up for those who should be dead.
("Escape to L.A.") ©BBC Worldwide, Limited

But for most of the episode, the primary concern is the rising concerns of what to do with the people who should be dead but aren't.  There's a rather awful woman named Ellis Hartley Monroe -- described as "the darling of the Tea Party" -- who advocates segregation of those who should be dead with her "Dead is Dead" campaign.  She seems to be in this episode for two reasons: first, to act as a spokesperson for the less compassionate point of view that would likely arise in such a situation, but more importantly, to act as a foil for Oswald Danes, a counterpoint to him as he continues his rise.  We're meant to see how his message of acceptance is more powerful than Hartley's more hateful message, and that's ironic, given Danes's past and the conversation he had with Jack at the end of the previous episode.  It's a child murderer who Phicorp are using to get their message across, a message of acceptance that will of course also lead to more sales of pain meds for Phicorp.

But of course Torchwood is working against Phicorp, trying to work out what they're up to, and slowly but surely they're making progress.  Now they know that they have to steal a server out of Phicorp, which is what the second half of this episode is about, and this is the part where the person hired by the Delta group (my term for them, since they seem to contact people with a direct line that has a capital Greek letter delta on the display) starts to take out Torchwood.  "This is all your fault!" Rex yells at Esther after she reveals she went to visit her sister -- and it's true that three people nearly...well, not die, because the Miracle, but end up in really poor shape (and, of course, Jack could die).  It's here that we also get a hint that Jack's connected to this, thanks to an event in his past.  "What did you give them so long ago?" the assassin asks Jack, but Jack doesn't know, and before the assassin can give some names to help jar Jack's memory Rex shoots the assassin through the throat.  But at least they know something.

It's an exciting sequence, but it does start to feel like Miracle Day is starting to just spin its wheels as it concentrates on filling out its ten episodes.  As with the previous episode, "Escape to L.A." isn't bad (and it looks like Esther learned an important lesson), but I hope they start things moving soon.

May 30: "Dead of Night" (TW)

This episode isn't quite as good as the last two, as it's primarily an episode in a holding pattern.  The biggest advancement of the plot is that the drug company Phicorp (and note the similarity to real-world pharmaceutical company Pfizer) has been stockpiling pain medications for a long time: they knew the Miracle was coming and they were ready for it.  But we learn this in the first 15 minutes, and then the rest of the time is spent waiting, it seems.  It's a nice reveal, to be sure, with the gigantic warehouse filled with painkillers, but after that there's a sense of wheel-spinning.  Jack goes off to get drunk and laid, while Rex quits the team, gets laid himself, and then comes back.  I suppose if you're a fan of butts this is exciting stuff, and I suppose they had to show Jack's lifestyle, but in terms of the larger storyline it feels rather irrelevant.

Jilly Kitzinger and Dr. Vera Juarez. ("Dead of Night") ©BBC
Worldwide, Limited

I get that this episode is moving pieces into position for further down the line, as Vera realizes that pain medications are going to be the next big need, Oswald Danes starts his media ascendancy, Jack has a confrontation with Phicorp (via Danes), and Gwen steals some information (hopefully) on Phicorp.  But it's a rather joyless episode -- not that this storyline is particularly happy, but there've been flashes of cleverness.  Here, however, it's more an exercise in plot functions, and little here is particularly surprising or exciting.

I suspect I'm making things sound worse than they are.  It's not a bad episode by any means -- it remains entertaining throughout, and toward the end, as Gwen infiltrates Phicorp while Jack goes to find Danes, things start to pick up.  It's just not up to the high standards Miracle Day had set for itself, as it does start to sag in the middle.  But if a bit boring is the worst things get, they should be just fine.  Just so long as this isn't the start of a slow slide into mediocrity.

(Oh, and I keep meaning to mention it, but... with all the media coverage we've seen within this series so far, where's Trinity Wells, the newsreader who would always show up on Doctor Who, Torchwood, and The Sarah Jane Adventures to let us know how the world felt about things?  It feels like a weird omission, given that they've gone to the trouble to get so many other recurring characters from previous series in this.)

May 29: "Rendition" (TW)

Torchwood continues strong with this second episode of Miracle Day.  "Rendition" (or "Renditions", if you're going by the iTunes intro) is primarily about two things: Jack and Gwen's flight across the Atlantic (Rhys gets left behind with Anwen), and Rex's CIA colleague Esther Drummond being pulled into this Torchwood conspiracy and set up as a patsy.  Sure, there are some other things going on involving the consequences of the Miracle (such as Vera working out that they were treating patients in the wrong order, now that no one can die), and we're introduced to the character of Jilly Kitzinger, a public relations representative who's so perky and calculatedly scatter-brained that it kind of rubs you the wrong way, but those often feel like background details while we focus on other things.

Jack is poisoned. ("Rendition") ©BBC Worldwide, Limited

One of those things is a conspiracy within the CIA against Rex and Esther, purely because of their investigation of Torchwood -- somebody out there really doesn't want people to learn about the connection between Torchwood and the Miracle.  Not that Torchwood understands it yet either.  But as Rex says, "I don't think you actually know anything. ... What you are is connected.  And someone has made a link between that old Institute of yours and the Miracle.  And now they want to kill you for it.  So we work out what the connection is, and then we start to solve it."  Jack has a theory, involving morphic fields²³³ being reversed (which is why he can be injured and not heal -- as Rhys puts it, "Everything mortal becomes immortal, so everything immortal becomes mortal"), but as of right now it's little more than a theory.  It's enough to worry the conspiracy, though (whose face is currently that of CIA agent Brian Friedkin, as played by Wayne Knight -- perhaps still best known as Newman from the sitcom Seinfeld), so they try to poison Jack, which leads to an exciting sequence on the airplane as they try to save the only mortal man left alive on the planet.  I like the way they're tearing up the plating on the plane to get what they need to save Jack, and how Gwen punches out the awful smug Lyn Peterfield with one right hook (sorry, Dichen Lachman was recently on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and I have some issues with her character (not her acting -- she was good) that I'm still working through).  It's a good sequence.

And this conspiracy definitely don't want Torchwood finding out what's going on, so not only do they try to kill Jack but they also start taking care of anyone working on the Torchwood case.  So not only is Rex set up, but Esther makes the mistake of telling Friedkin that she'd been working closely with Rex on the Torchwood case, which makes her a target as well.  That's also a tense scene, as she steals a fellow agent's badge to get out of the building before the conspiracy's men grab her -- but Esther is smart (for now), so she makes her way out of there unscathed.  It's a nice way of showing her thrown into this fugitive role that she was completely unprepared for but still able to think intelligently about her situation and thus get away.  (Sadly, this won't last.)

Those are the main parts of the episode, and they're easily entertaining enough to keep this story going.  As Gwen says at the end, "Welcome to Torchwood", and it's hard to think of a better introduction than what we've gotten these past two episodes.  Keep it up, guys.







²³³ Morphic resonance is a "theory" from Rupert Sheldrake that suggests that all members of a species are linked together and influenced by special morphic fields, which means that if someone does something somewhere then it's more likely that someone somewhere else will do/learn the same thing.  It's supposed to provide an explanation for how you can sense that someone is looking at you behind your back, among other things.  It's not accepted by the scientific community because it can't actually be tested experimentally and seems to be unfalsifiable.  About Time 5, while acknowledging that it's generally nonsense, advance it as a possibility for how evolution works in the Doctor Who universe, so they were probably pleased by this confirmation.

May 28: "The New World" (TW)

It's the thing I'm not really sure anyone expected.  Torchwood: Children of Earth ended pretty definitively; yes, they'd saved the planet and the children, but the cost to Torchwood had been dear and Captain Jack had in fact left the planet at the end.  A bleak ending, to be sure, but it was an ending.

But then an American premium cable network, Starz, decided to co-produce another series with the BBC (after a rumored deal with Fox (which had aired the Paul McGann movie in the US) fell through), and so Torchwood was back, now in a trans-Atlantic form but still helmed by Russell T Davies.  And, understandably but something of a first, new episodes premiered in the US a week before they aired in the UK.  (However, I'll be conforming to UK airdates where relevant, in keeping with earlier non-UK shows like K-9.)

This first episode is an impressive opening, to be sure.  Miracle Day is clearly intended to be a mini-series like Children of Earth was (albeit twice as long), and "The New World" does a good job of setting up the basic premise while keeping everything taut and involving.  It's a simple idea -- suddenly, no one in the world can die -- but it's explored with some thought.  The most obvious exploration is the character of CIA agent Rex Matheson, who is impaled through the chest but doesn't die.  "You should've died last night," Dr. Vera Juarez tells Rex, "but when this thing happened, the Miracle, it gave me time to fix you.  Without the Miracle, you'd be dead."  What's not clear, however, is whether Rex can actually heal, and what will happen when the Miracle ends.  "Do I die?" he asks Vera, but she doesn't have an answer.

We also see the aftermath of Children of Earth for Gwen and Rhys, as they're living in a farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere, continually worried that someone will find them and either take them away or kill them.  The scene where Gwen is talking to the two hikers with a gun held behind her back is evidence that Gwen is still dealing with extreme paranoia.  (Correctly, it turns out, if the knowing looks the two hikers give each other afterwards are as significant as they're made to appear.)  But Gwen and Rhys have a beautiful daughter, Anwen, and they need to make certain she'll be safe.

Rex, Jack, Rhys, and Gwen watch as a helicopter is about to
crash into them. ("The New World") ©BBC Worldwide, Limited

But as I said, it's the exploration of the idea of immortality that makes this interesting.  Not only do we have Rex, and the discussions between Gwen and PC Andy Davidson (Hooray!  Another returning cast member) pointing out that this miracle is targeted specifically at humans but that this will cause the world population to explode exponentially and all the problems with food and space that that entails, but we're also presented with the character of Oswald Danes, a convicted pedophile and murderer who was about to be executed by lethal injection when the Miracle happened.  They've gotten in Bill Pullman to play Danes -- no mean feat, given the star quality he brings -- and he chooses to play Danes as slimy and conniving; even when he's being executed he gives off an air of unlikability, and afterwards he's even more distasteful.  Then there are things like the man sent to kill Captain Jack, who is at the center of the explosion at the CIA Archives but is still alive, despite being horrifically burned -- and as we learn in a quite gruesome scene, even when his head is removed from his body he remains alive.

However, this is Torchwood, and so of course Torchwood is somehow at the heart of it all.  A message went out around the world that simply read TORCHWOOD at the exact same time the miracle happened -- it's not a coincidence, but it wasn't from Torchwood themselves, either.  It got Captain Jack's attention, though.  Someone clearly wants to tie the Miracle to Torchwood, but who and for what purpose remains a mystery.  Still, it intrigues Rex enough to go find the surviving members, so that he can extradite them to the United States in connection with the Miracle...

Gorgeously scripted and shot, with fine acting all around and a story that intrigues and doesn't let up, "The New World" is a stylish new beginning for Torchwood.  If they maintain this level of quality over the next nine episodes, Miracle Day will be an absolute winner.

May 27: "A Good Man Goes to War" Prequel / "A Good Man Goes to War"

The prequel is just a quick scene, showing Dorium selling security software to the Headless Monks and cautioning them against angering the Doctor for stealing his best friends' child, but it definitely puts you in the right frame of mind for the main event...

This is a bit of an odd episode to judge, as it's not really a story in its own right; rather, it's part of the overarching plot of series 6.  Except even then it's not quite; we get more information and resolution regarding Amy and Rory's baby Melody, but the big question lurking in the background -- that of the Doctor's death -- is only briefly alluded to.  We'll have to wait for that.

But what "A Good Man Goes to War" does is pull off its troop-gathering with considerable style.  We get some highly incongruous characters -- Rory dressed as a Roman centurion, presumably as a symbol ("the Doctor's idea", Rory tells River), an Earth reptile stopping Jack the Ripper in Victorian England, a Sontaran soldier acting as a nurse by way of atonement for his "clone group" -- all being brought together to fight a war against an enemy whose sole purpose is to stop the Doctor.²³¹  They're terrified of him, and they're preparing for an onslaught.  It's not dwelled upon -- there's the moment where the soldiers are quizzing each other regarding psychic paper, and there's a sign about the sonic screwdriver which reads "REMEMBER: 1. It's not sonic. 2. It's not a screwdriver" -- but it's definitely there.

Because we've had flirtations with the theme before, but this is the first time where they unequivocally state that the Doctor makes enemies and terrifies people, and not just the villains; here we see members of the Church of England, who were the Doctor's allies in "The Time of Angels" / "Flesh and Stone", now working against him out of fear.  Fear of what, we don't exactly know, but fear nonetheless.  Note how Colonel Manton has to reassure the troops that the Doctor "is not the devil.  He is not a god.  He is not a goblin, or a phantom or a trickster.  The Doctor is a living, breathing man", because that needed saying.  The Doctor is a dark legend, and these people are scared of him even as they try to stop him.

Strax, Rory, Lorna, Vastra, and Jenny prepare to fight on
behalf of the Doctor. ("A Good Man Goes to War") ©BBC

However, this is still the Doctor and we're still on his side, and the other side has done worse things to his friends, so it's not like there's a question as to who actually holds the higher moral ground.  And so what we get is a thrilling action sequence, as the Doctor reveals himself in the midst of all the soldiers and then gets them all to leave without killing anyone, all in his pursuit of Amy.  It's a good moment, even if it's later compromised by all the people killed when Madame Kovarian springs her trap.  Plus there's the stuff with Amy and Rory's baby, the suggestion that she's been experimented on (presumably while still in the womb) in order to create a Time Lord to use as a weapon.  "Why would a Time Lord be a weapon?" the Doctor wonders.  "Well, they've seen you," Vastra replies, leading to a slight crisis of conscience for the Doctor, it seems.  But it's still an interesting idea, and the cheat of the Ganger Melody is a good, albeit heartbreaking one.  Madame Kovarian has gotten away for another day.

It's a good, solid episode, with some cool ideas floating around, even if it's not exactly a complete story in its own right.  And it's a hell of a cliffhanger they send off this first half²³² of the season on, with finally the reveal of just who River Song is -- she's Melody Pond, all grown up.  Of course, we still don't know why she's in prison (although we can hazard a guess, based on the clues they've been dropping...), but that will come in time.  "A Good Man Goes to War" remains an entertaining, albeit somewhat transitional, episode.







²³¹ Apparently Ood Sigma was also going to make an appearance but it was cut for time -- but that's why Russell T Davies is credited as the creator of the Ood in the credits.  It seems they also offered a spot for Captain Jack, but he was busy filming Torchwood.
²³² That's something of a first, breaking up a series American-style into multiple runs -- as opposed to a small break over Christmas, which had happened before.  This was allegedly for storytelling reasons, but some have wondered if this was a knock-on effect of the 2008 financial crisis followed by Britain's adoption of austerity, requiring the BBC to have to spread the money out a bit to make it last.  Note how series 7 is also split into two halves but spread over two years, while series 8 (made after the UK eased back a bit on austerity policies, which contributed to some growth for the UK's economy) was back to one single run (albeit an episode shorter).