Torchwood: Miracle Day

Any word on the American characters also all being crazy bisexuals?

For people outside the US (why on Earth would the YouTube video be blocked for everyone else? Dick move, Starz.) try clicking here.

 

The gap in quality between what little I saw of Torchwood's first two seasons and "Children of Earth" was so wide that it may have caused a rupture in the space-time continuum. It would be really nice if they could maintain that. It's kind of funny that this switches instantly to being an American series with a single British (sorry, Welsh) cast member.

 

Is Russell T. Davies still involved?

Yikes.

 

That looks bad, and I'm one of the idiots who endured the first and second seasons of the original run. Looks incredibly cheap, which is amazing considering how cheap the original Torchwood was. 

 

 

I dunno, Captain Jack actually looks like he might be fun in this, which would be a marked change from the series so far. And it's definitely an interesting concept, though Davies has a bad habit of leaving his interesting concepts unexplored. Also, Bill Paxton! I mean Pullman!

Is..is that how it works if there's a botched execution?  The prisoner just gets to go free? 

Heh. Well, technically speaking, if you did everything you could to kill someone and they got up and walked away, you could argue they'd fulfilled their legal obligations...

 

Wasn't there a Batman comic with that premise?

See, I always thought the first was alright, except towards the end of it when it started getting hinky if I remember correctly. The second season was garbage. Beginning to end, garbage. Children of Men was unexpected genius. I'm hoping to god that this new one maintains the last series level of greatness. I also hope that they give some valid reasons to tie the new setup in the US and the old series back in the UK. Last we saw, Captain Jack was teleporting off and heading out into space.

It's been a while since I've seen it, but didn't the first season of the show pretty much show that all the members, kinda sorta barring Jack, fairly despicable people who really weren't all that good at their jobs?  I guess they got better at the whole alien hunter thing.

Yes, Russell T Davies is still running the show here, both writing and producing.  It's a Cardiff-LA production.

 

I was mixed on the first season and bailed about 10 seconds after that Cyberwoman started marching around.  Children Of Earth was fabulous TV, everything the concept should have been from the beginning.  They destroyed the show to save it.  Davies has said in interviews that they learned from the success of COE and are using it as a model of format and tone for the new series.

 

I think that trailer looks amazing.  Much more expensive looking than the earlier series.  Can't wait to see Capt Jack and Gwen kick ass.  And good God does Eve Myles look hot.  I'm going to be crushing on her big time this summer.  The combination of last line and the music cue was classic.

I did not like season 1.  But after hearing how great Children of Men is, I must ask...can I just skip season 2 and watch that?  Would I be fine just looking up a wiki of what happened?

You don't even need the Wiki. As long as you know who the characters are, you'll be fine.

Just know that Owen and the Japanese girl are dead and you're good.

 

I have a soft spot for the original series, but COE was leaps ahead of the first two seasons. Switching from the monster of the week format to one threadline definitely raised the show.

Gotta say that the way Owen went out has to be one of the most fucked up ways I've ever seen a character killed (?) off. It actually makes me shiver every time I think about it (which is not all that often, but still).

I have a soft spot for the original series as well.  I just found it consistently entertaining, even with the silly episodes.  And many episodes were damn good.  COE, of course, was incredible (Capaldi!!).  I find it intriguing that it seems that Supernatural is more loved here than Torchwood.  Hm.  I'm usually in a fight with Supernatural and its diehard defenders.

Why not?  That's exactly what I did.  Everything worked out great.

 

The entire lead up to that is great, the re-take on the zombie mythos and the idea of him essentially being immortal but also never recovering from wounds was the kind of great idea that Torchwood consistently muddled with its execution.

 

Season 2 is vastly better than Season 1, whilst Children of Earth is probably one of the best things RTD has created.

 

 

I miss Toshiko mightily.

I miss lesbian Toshiko, but beyond that, not really.

 

And the way they dealt with Owen was quite ingenious taken alone, but he really just became a slightly twisted version of Jack.

You know what, having watched the trailer I'm kind of looking forward to it.

The preview after the season finale of Camelot was crazy.  This show look slike it could be much more fucked up than Children of Earth ever aspired to be.

 

Its almost like an epic version of "Death Becomes Her," where people don't die, but their wounds never really heal.

 

Can't wait.

NPR did an empassioned shoutout for Torchwood today on Fresh Air. The reviewer said he had seen the first 3 or 4 episodes and that the show deserved viewers.

 

Yeah, I was kinda surprised that the show started off relatively slow compared to the opening of Children of Earth, but it was still pretty solid, setting the stage for things nicely.

 

All the references to the "456" were interesting.  You'd think the whole world would know about Torchwood because of their role in that dabacle.  Or at least the US government would have a good knowledge about what they were.  I wonder if they will make any more references to the 456 in this series?  I mean, that was a pretty big global event, and answered the question of whether alien life existed beyond Earth.

 

The new team is shaping up nicely.  I like the parallels between what happened to Esther and how Gwen found her way into Torchwood at the beginning.  And Rex was really funny as soon as he got out of the hospital bed and started chewing painkillers constantly.  His grumbling about Wales was priceless.

 

The impacts of a world without death were really interesting to me.  The idea that you have about 2 million extra people every two days and within four months the Earth's food supply is exhausted is pretty scary stuff.  The bit about the miracle only effecting humans was interesting too, since animals and insects can still die.  And I don't know about you guys, but if I was any type of soldier or mercenary, as soon as people stop dying I'd take a leave of absence.  Blowing yourself up just doesn't have the payoff it once did, lol.

 

I can't wait for episode two.  I hope the show really ramps things up like Children of Men did.  How many episodes are in this season anyway?

Was expecting it to be snappier but it was still a pretty good time. Still love Jack, Gwen and Rhys but was surprised by how much I didn't immediately hate the new people.
 

Yeah, I came by to say the same thing. He was kind of bore whilst in bed but once he got moving he really livened the whole show up. I loved the exchange about Requisition 15:

"Why do you need that?"

"You do know what a Requisition 15 is?"

"A license to carry a gun on a plane."

"Well I guess I'm going to carry a gun on a plane!"

 

And Pullman was all but choking on the scenery during his talk with the Mayor's stooge. So good.

Yeah. The one gripe I had is there's no way Pullman's character would be released from jail that fast.  There would be legal preceedings up the wa-zoo about whether this guy could get released from jail, particularly since he's a murdering pedophile.  I mean, sure, this is a show where aliens do wierd things to the Earth all the time, but still, they present the way the world's systems work as uber-realistic, so this is one part that didn't ring true to me.  I think it would have been more interesting if his release was temporary dependent on the outcome of the legal battle over whether his sentence was really carried out.  But whatevs.  Its a small gripe.

I was prepared for the worst but, surprisingly, I really liked it! I wasn't too sure at first but, by half way through the episode, I was quite gripped. I'm really liking the two new American characters (I wasn't too keen on Rex at first but once he became a painkiller-swallowing, grumbling zombie CIA agent, I started liking him) and Bill Pullman's character is delightfully creepy. Gwen Cooper seems a lot more likeable than she was previously (I wasn't a big fan of her in the first two seasons but she began to improve during Children Of Earth and was much better here too) and had a pretty kick-ass action scene. There were enough references to the previous seasons (particularly Jack's choice of fake name at one point) to keep me happy and American Rex's grumbling attitude toward Wales (and the Severn Bridge, in particular) made me laugh. Oh and there was one scene which proved that death is not the worst thing that can happen to someone, which I actually found quite horrifying (the guy on the autopsy table). When the episode ended and I watched the preview for the next episode, i thought "It's a shame I can't watch that one now too" which proves that the show did a good job at hooking me.

Special Make-up and Effects by Nicotero and Berger!  

Rex is the worst CIA agent ever.  Does he even understand the concept of 'covert?' 

Did they address whether Rex is able to heal or are we gonna have another situation like Owen where his body is dead and he just keeps racking up wounds?  I mean, is it possible he could go through the whole season with a gaping hole in his chest?  Cause I kinda dig the pill-popping, batshit crazy, foreign-country hating Rex.  lol

THUD Review

 

http://www.chud.com/59791/thud-review-torchwood-miracle-day-%E2%80%93-%E2%80%98the-new-world%E2%80%99/

 

I really liked it, particularly the second half. I actually could have done with Gwen and Jack getting less screentime and getting to know the new team members a little more.

I definitely think Gwen coulda had less screen time.  But I woulda liked to have seen more of Captain Jack.  Maybe a bit more about his backstory and how he seemed to be alive a really long time.  My buddy who'd never seen Torchwood before didn't quite get that Jack was supposed to be immortal, and they didn't really explain his presence in the 20s and 30s.

 

I think that was the point. In my opinion, it was written so that new viewers probably wouldn't realise the significance of Jack's injury until his conversation with Gwen at the end whereas fans of the previous seasons would understand Jack's comment to Esther earlier in the episode.
 

 

My wife has a huge crush on Captain Jack, so I've politely tolerated this show for years. Children of Earth (please stop calling it Children of Men) was pretty good, and I thought this was of the same quality. Pullman's hamminess made me giggle, and the blonde character seems to exist solely to deliver exposition to the audience, but the premise is so intriguing that I look forward to seeing where Davies goes with it.

That neck breaking thing was so freakin' creepy.  That's one way to deal with an ex, I suppose.

 

The conspiracy deepened this week, thought its still kinda unclear what exactly its all about.  I'm just waiting for Captain Jack to walk into the CIA and be all like "Newman!"

 

The stuff with the doctors was really interesting, I thought.  The way they had to change their instincts about how to treat patients, and then the stuff about people still aging and sick people becoming germ incubators was probably more chilling to me than any of the other stuff we've seen so far.  This "Miracle" is truly a curse, and we haven't even seen the worst of it yet.

 

Jack's theory about the event (I forget what he called it) where one island of monkey's learn how to use a tool and instantaneously another island of monkeys learn the same thing was interesting.  Though, I must say, the Kelation thing wasn't very realistic.  I've been through Kelation before and it takes some time for that stuff to work through your system.  Not sure about the science behind that, but it was an interesting dilema.

 

Liked how the whole new Torchwood team, complete with the Doctor lady, came together at the airport.  The whole thing about using the Mini as an escape vehicle was great.  Hopefully the next episode will get more into the meat of the story, instead of basically sticking us on an airplane for the full hour, lol.

Chud Review

 

http://www.chud.com/60870/thud-review-torchwood-miracle-day-%E2%80%93-%E2%80%98rendition%E2%80%99/

Bit late here but just watched the first eppisode.  Overall i liked it, love the CIA agent and Pullman just ozzes sleeze, looks like we have some good stuff to look forward to.

 

Also loving the reviews, keep up the good work Spike.

Really, really liked the second episode.

 

I thought pretty much everything worked to some degree, which is kind of a miracle(heh). The whole doctor think-tank bit for instance should have been an insufferable bore but somehow it was just as entertaining as the rest. Not even sure why, maybe because they just got into it without trying to make every doctor there a fully fleshed out character or probably because the writers actually put some thought into the ramifications of the miracle. The extremely ill/injured turning into super-virus factories was something that never even dawned on me.

 

Lauren Ambrose was awesome, especially her last scene with the lady doc, love Dichen Lachman(hope she comes back somehow), not-gay Danny and all the humor worked for me, and there is no better Eve Myles than manic Eve Myles. The episode was something of homerun, I think.

Ep 3 was a welcome improvement for me.  We instantly get the Torchwood team doing espionage stuff with their alien tech* and actually making progress, solving parts of the mystery, and generally justifying why the bad guys want them dead.  Unfortunately, we have 7 episodes to go.  So, this necessitated them to waste time by getting into pissy arguments and falling into bed together.  Incredibly stupid considering everything at stake.  I also don't get how some nationally reviled rapist murderer becomes forgiven and worshipped by the masses just because he talks on TV.  Illogical cynicism.  But, what the hell, at least I got intrigue, action, and some more interesting concepts regarding the end of human death.  I'm hoping future episodes will focus more on these aspects.

 

*Not to nitpick, but where the hell did they get it all?  Have they established there's secret Torchwood tech stashes globally?

I keep waiting for the show to hit a lull but it is still chugging along nicely for me. And they seemed to have plotted this thing out with an eye for absolutely no wheel spinning. The continuing repercussions of the Miracle that they keep bringing up every episode, no more attempted murder, no more miscarriages, really helps with the feeling of things spiraling out of control.

Rex continues to be a lovably abrasive type of hero, his instantaneous You now you now have to spy on Phicorp for me! routine after just sleeping with Vera was great. The inter-cutting love scenes will certainly receive some stupid heat for Jack's half, but I thought they worked quite well. This also led to the biggest laugh of the episode for me, right when Rex and Vera start she rolls on top of him and my eyes naturally fall on her derriere and then a beat later...frame filling man ass, So good.

  And then they follow it up with that really well done scene of a tipsy Jack telling Gwen that they still have and only need each other and she hangs up to see her family. Then there where the nods to past stuff which is always welcome to me, Ianto getting named dropped and “Bigger on the inside than the outside.” being the two that made me smile. Well, the Ianto one made me sad-smile.

  I still think Lauren Ambrose's Jillian Kitzinger is like a secret weapon here. She brings the right level of ever so slight zaniness to her performance that is wonderful. Her “No, I know. I know. I know, I know, I know. I said 'They're working hard in there, they don't need me getting in the way.' But my boss was like 'Jillian.' He gave me that look, so...” from the previous episode is a marvel.

I thought Ambrose was awful last week, overacting all over the place like the twitching spawn of Roger and Jessica Rabbit.  But she was okay this week.

I actually disliked this episode compared to the others.  I know that RTD is a vocal athiest, but Dr. Juarez's quips about "I used to be a Catholic, but then I got better" were pretty insulting if you ask me.  I mean, i'm not religious or anything, but I always think its tacky when an entire faith is openly mocked, and the doctor who was anti-abortion anti-contraception was made out to be a complete doofus.  I did think the whole "Aborted fetuses are continuing to live" was one of the most horrifying things I've heard from this series.  If ever there was a pro-life argument in this show's world, it's that!  But the idea that governments were resorting to drastic methods of population control was interesting too.  And then there's the idea that diseases would be spreading like wildfire due to airports because carriers aren't dying from them was interesting as well.  I think the medical ramifications of the Miracle so far have been the most interesting thing about this show.

 

I was a little disappointed that the main bad now seems to be your typical "evil big pharmacutical" company.  I mean, it makes sense as to who would stand to profit from a world without death where pain management is of paramount importance, but it just seems a tad cliche to me.

 

I was also surprised that we essentially saw the Torchwood team up and running at full speed already.  I would have thought that there would be some transitioning into "Okay, we're all now Torchwood and we gotta work together" stuff, but they just seem to jump into it as the episode starts and they don't really let up.  I'm also surprised at the callbacks to former seasons.  I thought this episode would have been more difficult for people who hadn't seen the previous seasons to follow in terms of Jack and Gwen and Torchwood's history.

 

I also didn't like the hook up between Rex and Juarez.  It just seemed insincere to me.  I mean, up to now there'd been no real sexual chemistry between them.  I think Rex made a few off-color remarks to her on the phone in the previous episode, but she never really seemed to respond to it other than to go along jokingly.  Up to now, Rex has just been berating her into giving him pain killers.  Then, he breaks into her apartment and waits for her in the dark, before passing out and then threatens to blackmail her.  Huh?  Is this what works on the ladies?  Really?  I'd have liked to have seen some legitimate chemestry before this coupling.

 

Didn't much care for the Captain Jack man sex scenes, but hey, this is Torchwood, I knew it was coming.  I always thought the most interesting thing about Captain Jack is that he was omnisexual and would basically fuck anything, but he really seems to prefer men for some reason.  I think it would be more interesting to see him stray from his norm.  But the scene about using condoms was interesting too, since STDs can now last forever.  lol.  His drunken call to Gwen afterwards was a great moment too, and the way she made it obvious that her family was more important than Torchwood was good too.

 

Though I must say, Jack is getting pretty sloppy.  His little showdown with Oswald Danes was good, but I don't think Jack handled it well.  However, I do find it interesting that Jack's instinct is that Danes has a key roll to play in the cause of the Miracle.  But I also find it difficult to believe that so many people are becoming enraptured of Danes so quickly.  But now that he has a corporation behind him and a PR staff, I guess I could buy it.  But its just happening too fast.

 

And what's the deal with Rex's wound?  Half the time he seems fine, then the next half he's complaining about needing meds and then passing out from his injury.  I guess it can be said that he's lucid on the painkillers and can function normally when doped up, but still, that wound of his is pretty fresh.  Even with all the painkillers, he should have a hard time getting around still.

 

Here's hoping the next episode is better than this one.

Re Rex's meds, when they found the stuff in the warehouse he does say that the painkillers were none narcotic so you could function normally when you were on them.  That's them addressing the concerns about him sometimes complaining about the pain.