An Hour of Who a Day

June 5: "End of the Road" (TW)

It's odd; on the one hand there's a sense of finally getting somewhere with the storyline, as we learn about the Families and the Blessing, but on the other hand I'm not sure we actually learn much of anything new by the end of the episode. Well, I mean we've learned a lot of things -- Angelo had been watching Jack from afar all this time, those three men forming a partnership for control of Jack maintained their relationship as the Families, Angelo's worked out a way to die, Charlotte Wills is working for the Families -- but there's little here in the way of major revelations. Or, to put it in Doctor Who terms, we're eight episodes in and we're still basically in part two of a four-part story.

There are some nice moments here -- the picture of Jack with a moustache is particularly great, and I like the way CIA official Allen Shapiro (John de Lancie, probably still best known as Q from various Star Trek series -- so yes, another well-known genre actor) immediately takes charge from the second he appears. This is a man who will brook no nonsense and doesn't care who knows it -- the way he has Gwen deported just to get what he wants, without a second thought, is a perfect example of this. And it really is special how Jack slowly comes to the realization that no, Angelo really is dying from old age, in defiance of everything we know about this new death-free world.

Esther and Rex listen to Jack as he operates the null field
panel. ("End of the Road") ©BBC Worldwide, Limited

Of course, this leads to the big moment at the end. Halfway way through the episode, it finally looked like Torchwood would have to stop running, as Shapiro seemed willing to listen without locking them up or killing them. (Well, except for the "deporting Gwen" thing, but that was to gain leverage against Jack.) But then they discover the null field generator panel thing -- "I knew this stuff the second I saw it," Jack tells Rex and Esther. "Yes, it's alien technology. The only examples of it on Earth were in the Torchwood hub. They were buried in the ruins. ... [Angelo] must have salvaged it, knowing the Miracle was coming" -- and Jack knows he has to head out on the run with the piece that makes the generator work, lest it fall into the wrong hands, as the generator could give people "control over life and death, and we've seen that that doesn't work." So it's back to being a fugitive for Jack and Esther -- although Jack's been shot while trying to escape, so that might go badly in the next episode.

But despite things like this, we don't actually learn much. We confirm that those three men making the agreement are behind the Miracle and that they're known as the Families, and we learn that their last names are Ablemarch, Costerdane, and Frines (and that they've been incredibly good at erasing those names from all records), and that the Miracle is tied to something called the Blessing -- which might be related to Jack but isn't actually his blood. And that's really about it. It's an entertaining episode, and it does feel like they're finally getting this story back on track, but those hoping to learn what's really going on will have to wait.

June 4: "Let's Kill Hitler" Prequel / "Let's Kill Hitler"

And so after a brief hiatus we're back with the second half of series 6, which begins with possibly the best prequel they've had yet. It's a simple, straightforward one -- shots of the TARDIS console room, while Amy talks over the Doctor's answerphone, asking if he's found Melody yet and to please call back -- but the final reveal, that the Doctor's been listening to the message and simply can't bring himself to talk to Amy, is quite touching, addressing the question of the infant Melody Pond far more than the actual episode does.

The episode itself begins with a suitably action-packed opening (as Amy and Rory's childhood friend and frequent troublemaker Mels hijacks the Doctor and TARDIS at gunpoint, leading to the TARDIS crashing into Hitler's office in 1938 Berlin -- thanks to Mels testing the Doctor's "temporal grace" story and revealing it to be simply a lie (thus answering that long-standing question)) that then gives way to something far more character-driven.

Steven Moffat must have taken a perverse pleasure in naming an episode something as provoking as "Let's Kill Hitler" (still to date the least Who-ish episode title ever -- although that may partly be because time and familiarity have robbed us of the impact of names like "Small Prophet, Quick Return") and then limiting Adolf Hitler's screentime to something like five minutes, before Rory locks him in a cupboard, not to be seen for the rest of the episode. Instead we focus on the character of Mels, who is accidentally shot and starts to regenerate -- revealing that she is in fact Melody Pond. "I named my daughter after her," Amy says about Mels. "You named your daughter... after your daughter," the Doctor replies. And so Mels regenerates into River Song -- but at this point River has been brainwashed into being a weapon designed to kill the Doctor; this is not the River that we know.

The Doctor fights to save Amy and Rory while the Teselecta
and River look on. ("Let's Kill Hitler") ©BBC

And so what follows is driven by two characters, the Doctor and River, as the Doctor tries to fight for survival against River's poison, while River starts to see how much the Doctor cares about others. Stuck in the middle of all this is a shape-shifting robot piloted by miniaturized people who travel through time bringing criminals to justice. "I have got to admit, I didn't see [that] coming," the Doctor remarks. The Doctor has some interesting moments, such as when he tries to find an appropriate visual interface for the TARDIS and dismisses each of the tenth Doctor's companions that are offered with cries of "guilt" and "more guilt" -- which is both funny and telling. We also see him try desperately to save both the life of River -- who, it should be remembered, has recently poisoned him -- and the lives of Amy and Rory, trapped inside the Teselecta. It's these acts that seem to cause River to begin to warm to the man she's been instructed to kill, and after the Doctor whispers a message for his friend "River Song" to her (since she doesn't think of herself as River yet), and then she sees who River Song is (thanks to the Teselecta), she's willing to give up her remaining regenerative energy to save the Doctor's life. "Just tell me. The Doctor, is he worth it?" River asks her mother. "Yes! Yes he is!" Amy replies. (And lest anyone think that the Doctor is being incredibly manipulative here, he at least has the decency to protest: "River. No. What are you doing?" Unless you want to see that as more manipulation -- but the 11th Doctor is hardly the 7th.)

It's a surprisingly intimate episode, and despite the big title and the showy beginning, this is a story about how River came to be and what happened to Melody Pond after her regeneration in 1969.²³⁴ It doesn't really feel like a story in its own right so much as part of the continuing storyline of series 6, and that does harm it a bit -- it's not the sort of episode you're likely to watch out of sequence, like you can do with so many others. But it is filled with charm and honesty and care, and for that, if nothing else, it's worth your time.

²³⁴ Except that Mels is shown to be a little girl at the same time as Amy and Rory (i.e., 1996 and later), which leaves a rather large gap in which Mels either didn't age at all (which seems to be a thing she can do, based on River's comments about taking "the age down a little, just gradually" -- and yes, this is clearly meant to be an explanation for why she looks younger in "Silence of the Library" / "Forest of the Dead", but we can still use it) or she regenerated back into a little girl after having grown up for a while. Or possibly she did a bit of time travel. Regardless, it's a gap that's left unexplained.

June 3: "Immortal Sins" (TW)

So the last episode ended with Gwen's family being held hostage until she delivers Jack to a certain location. This episode sees Gwen tying Jack up and taking him to the arranged place. But that's just a small part of "Immortal Sins" -- the main part is an extended flashback, showing Jack in New York in 1927 and what he got up to. It's a bit of an odd flashback, however, in that it's for the benefit of the audience, rather than Jack remembering -- he still doesn't know what he did "so long ago" that led to the Miracle.

Angelo and Jack. ("Immortal Sins") ©BBC Worldwide, Limited

The flashback is kind of interesting -- Jack befriends an Italian immigrant named Angelo Colasanto (played by Daniele Favilli) and then quickly takes him as a lover, before getting him involved in Jack's life of strange happenings. They're rather sweet scenes and nicely character-driven, even if they are a tad slow-moving -- but then, this flashback isn't about the story, it's about the relationship between the two men. It seems to be going well for a while -- Jack even contemplates taking Angelo along as his "companion", much like the Doctor does (and hey, our first explicit mention of the Doctor in Miracle Day), and even shows him an alien lifeform that's going to be used by "the Trickster's brigade" (so not just a Doctor Who reference, but a Sarah Jane Adventures one too) that Angelo copes remarkably well with. So of course it goes wrong when Jack is shot in the head by the police in front of Angelo, who's taken away to prison for a year.

But when Angelo is released, Jack's waiting for him, which leads to the second part of the flashback, as Angelo thinks Jack is the devil, as he can't die. This leads to Jack strung up and tortured by people who want to see what happens to the immortal man -- and it also leads to people collecting his blood and making an agreement to own him (which they make with an odd handshake that looks, from above, like a triangle -- so we're clearly meant to make the connection between them and the mysterious "Families" behind the Miracle). Angelo sets him free, but apparently the fire has gone out of the relationship for Jack. He says it's because he doesn't want to watch Angelo grow old and die (which is an awful lot like the Doctor's comments to Rose in "School Reunion"), but one gets the feeling that it's really because of Angelo's betrayal, even if Angelo feels remorse about what happened. "They said you were the devil, but other people said you were a blessing," he tells Jack (which seemingly ties him into the "Blessing" mentioned last episode by Stuart Owens). But it doesn't matter how Angelo feels; Jack disappears, leaving Angelo alone.

So, given this extended flashback, it's hardly a surprise that the woman who told Gwen to bring Jack (played by Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Nana Visitor -- boy, they got all the genre actors in this series, didn't they?) is working for Angelo. It's nice how Torchwood regains control of the situation at the end, though; "Next time, just ask for help," Rex chastises Gwen, after having followed her and trained a gun on Jack's would-be kidnappers. "I'm sick of Torchwood acting like amateur clowns."

It's an interesting episode that provides us with some useful background, and it fills in some details and finally gives Jack the opportunity to take center stage (after having spent a number of episodes in the background). If it weren't for the fact that "The Middle Men" also gave us an extended pause, this would be a good break from the action. As it is, while "Immortal Sins" is nice, Miracle Day had better pick the pace back up soon.

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.

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.

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.)