Torchwood: Miracle Day - Page 2

THUD Review: Dead Of Night

I'm liking the show, and really like the new cast, but I'm really starting to feel they're dragging their heels a little with this.

When Jack gets released onto the streets, the people milling around and reacting to Danes speech seemed to have soulless masks either in their hands or on their faces. I might be misreading the link between them though, or at least jumping the gun a little.

There were Soulless watching Danes on TV, but they don't seem to be reacting to anything.  They just stand around with their creepy masks.  But the fat lady was like "Did you touch him?"  She wasn't a Soulless.  But its clear that Danes is slowly building a cult of personality.

Before this new series started I went back and watched Children of Earth, which I thot was pretty lousey. Slow moving and dull and we didn't get a good look at the main alien bad guys!

Now Miracle Day comes along and it's boreing after the first episode. It's more hospital/crime show than defeating outer space guys, and that's what Jack explains to others when describing Torchwood-- a group created to fight other worldly threats. Right now it seems a drug company is behind this. Whaddaya bet some aliens are behind the drug company. Frankly I liked Jack better when he made occasional Doctor Who appearances than I ever have in any Torchwood programs. I'll stick with my committment to finish this series but i'll have to keep poking myself with something sharp to stay awake.

Children of Earth wasn't slow.  I thought it was a pretty breakneck season and was constantly fascinated with each episode.  I almost wish Miracle Day had the same pace, because Children of Earth didn't let up.  And the 456 were creepy as hell!  I liked how we never actually got a good look at them.

THUD Review of Escape to L.A.

http://www.chud.com/62524/thud-review-torchwood-miracle-day-escape-from-l-a/

I actually really liked this, felt like it actually settled into a groove of sorts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spike Marshall 

THUD Review of Escape to L.A.

 

http://www.chud.com/62524/thud-review-torchwood-miracle-day-escape-from-l-a/

 

I actually really liked this, felt like it actually settled into a groove of sorts.

Really?  I thought the episode was pretty horrible, mostly because of how stupid the Torchwoood team is acting.  I mean, they're compromised because C. Thomas Howell follows them as they drive 3,000 miles across country in a stolen car, only to ambush them at Phicore and give the longest bad-guy speech known to man, and then they go back to their "safe house" which one can only assume CTH told the evil triangle about, like nothing happened.  And all the stuff with personal phonecalls and melodrama during missions... just wow.  I was with Rex when he was like "Why the hell is everyone making personal calls during the mission?"

And Gwen and Captain Jack can take down a god damn helicopter, but let CTH get the drop on them twice?  I mean, when i saw Jack rush to tied-up Gwen and litterally THROW his gun away, I was like "Really, show?  Really?"

And Rex's visit to his dad... what a waste of time that was.  This show is at its worst when it tries to give the characters family issues.  Esther's crazy sister, Rex's crazy dad, and Gwen's homebody hubby and her invalid father... I just really don't care about any of it.  In Children of Earth, we got some interesting stuff about Jack's family, but that was kind-of essential to the plot and make interesting by him being immortal.  This stuff so far is just filler, and bad filler at that.

Though I will say there was a lot of good humor in this episode.  The joke writers are definitely earning their pay.

But the Oswald Danes scene where he plays Jesus to the suffering in the hospital with the reporters outside... that was just a really bizzar scene.  He was giving this big speech inside a building, and all the reporters OUTSIDE the building (including his publicist) were all freaking out over what he was saying.  I finally got that maybe they could see what he was doing inside from a window, but their crazy reactions during his speech were just odd.  And why were the doctors, who were in the building just a few moments before, suddenly on the other side of the barrier behind the press?  That was just a really poorly thought out and shot scene.

At least we now know that Evil Triangle seem to be some type of immortals already, judging from CTH's speech and Evil Triangle Voice's speech to that woman at the end.  (Man, sucks to be her, huh?)

But overall, I thought this episode was really, really weak.  The series seems to have gone downhill since the premier, which was really awesome.  Though next episode looks to be really intense.  I'm hoping they can turn things around.

There were guys filming Danes speech on their Iphones. But yeah the composition of that scene was really weird.

I think I have a tolerance for Torchwood acting retarded, it's just what I kind of expect.

Hey, I thought the premier was awesome.  Set up all the characters, the Miracle, crazy ass Rex, and Torchwood shoots down a helicopter single handed. What's not to like?  Episode two is playing MacGuyver on an Airplane for an entire hour (boring), episode three is just sex and a little plot development, and this last episode was just silly.  So yeah, if I'm the only person who thinks the show has been on a downhill trajectory, then I guess more power to me.

I've watched both seasons of Torchwood on the BBC, and so far this series is better than either of them, but that's not saying much.  However, it's yet to reach the awesomeness of Children of Earth.

And yeah, I saw the iPhone recording during Pullman's speech, but unless he was live-streaming it somehow to an audio channel every single person in front of the hospital could hear, it was kinda out of the realm of believablity that the press would be shitting themselves like they did.

C. Thomas Howd-you-wind-up-lookin-like-that.

So... pyramid... ending with the eye opening. Illuminati?

Wow, this show's decline is just getting retarded.  Seriously, this is getting worse than Series 2 in terms of sheer stupidity.

I love how the Torchwood team needs to go undercover at these overflow camps, so they APPLY FOR JOBS.  No interview process or anything, just a cross-continental job-getting effort.

Juarez getting shot was just plain dumb.  Sure, it had to be the random act of a sexist southern incompetent moron who got promoted from public housing, and who then gets his military guard to help him cover it up.  It couldn't have been something like Phicore discovering she was working for Torchwood and rubbing her out.  Just some random act of violence.  Oh yeah, and it was great how she continued to antagonize him after he shot her the first time.  Brilliant.

I also loved Jack's influence skills with Oswald Danes.  "Hey, help me out, and if you do, I'll agree to KILL YOU."  Geeze, what a great negotiating tactic.  Way to go Jack.

So the overflow's camp's big secret is they have furnaces to get rid of the terminally ill people.  So let's get this straight... whoever was behind the Miracle had some devious plan to keep people from dying just so they can create ovens to KILL THEM?  Wha???

Juarez's death scene was pretty heartbreaking, mostly because I hate to see hot chicks die, especially from burning like that.  But really, couldn't Rex have done more than just pull at the door and say "Damn, it's locked!"

Oh, and Gwen's operation to save her dad... amazing.  Get her father to the truck, and instead of getting him out of there, she alerts the staff to come help her after pushing her dad to have a heart attack.  Remind me again why we're supposed to think Torchwood is some uber leet crack team?

And the social commentary about health care in this episode was REALLY on the nose.  No subtlety here.

I'm about ready to give up on this show.  I guess Children of Earth was a fluke.  :-/

Thud Review, http://www.chud.com/63327/thud-review-torchwood-miracle-day-%E2%80%93-%E2%80%98the-categories-of-life%E2%80%99/

Not to get all 'poor me', which isn't the intent at all, but writing reviews for Miracle Day is becoming increasingly difficult largely because there's really not much movement going on in the central plot, there really aren't any subplots moving towards resolution and aside from a few moments the show isn't as well crafted as something like Lost or Battlestar. I liked the episode a little more than Simon, although I wish I'd hit upon how odd I thought Danes speech was in the way it mixed sociology theory and full on religious mythology, but something, anything, has got to happen next episode to give the show momentum.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Dark Shape 

     Quote:

I'm surprised you're not one of those people who thinks the first two series are better than Children of Earth, considering how counter your opinions on Miracle Day are to the rest of the human populace.  If that means "more power to you," so be it.  The New World was still underwhelming, and the show has improved since.

 

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.  I thought CoE was excellently paced, had a gripping story, and actually had Torchwood acting in a competent manner to combat the alien menace that was threatening the planet, with major developments for all the characters involved.  This season of Torchwood is more like the first two series, where it's all about the team kinda hooking up with each other, dealing with lame personal issues, and kind of stumbling into solving crisis involving alien hardware, along with not-so-subtle moral/political statements from the writers shoehorned in there.  All we need for Miracle Day is some type of Deus Ex Machina involving Jack's immortality, and we'll officially be back at square one.

I just think the decline in writing quality for the show is very glaring, and its getting worse.  It really fluxuates between moments of real brilliance and sheer, utter stupidity, which makes watching the show much harder, since you can see the potential, but you can also see the showmakers fail to grasp it.

Yes.  Hell YES.  THAT'S what I've been struggling with on this show.  I've only seen this year's eps, so I don't have any prior experience with any of these characters.  Other than Pullman and the redhead PR chick, I find myself letting go of every person on the show.  I get that they're trying to go for a "team X-Files" thing, but there's not really anything other than the concept there.  And Simon's comment about the showrunner makes perfect sense to me.  It's really like they can't quite get a handle on things.

I have about three more eps in me.  If things don't kick in I'm going to bail.  

That's me finished with this series.  An interesting start and some good concepts but it is just dragging itself along now.  The most recent episode was just dull and that's a killer for me.  As others have echoed above, torchwood seems to be totally incompetent.  No real movement forward until the end although Jack's talk with the guy from Phicore opened up the conspiracy, imo, this information should have been revealed episodes ago.

If I wasn't reviewing the show I'd have probably bailed out by this point.

THUD Review; http://www.chud.com/64014/thud-review-torchwood-miracle-day-%E2%80%93-%E2%80%98the-middle-men%E2%80%99/

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spike Marshall 

If I wasn't reviewing the show I'd have probably bailed out by this point.

 

I bailed on your behalf.  All traces have been removed from my DVR.

Totally agree with the negative comments and Spike's review. Complete filler of an episode.

We learned one important thing about the camps last week. They are a government response to the crisis but not actually connected to the cause of the crisis in any way.

And as Jack said at the end of the episode "Torchwood wasn't set up to fight politicians". Once they realized what was going on, the whole story purpose of the camps is finished. It's an investigative dead end. A ten minute wacky escape from the two camps and we are done. No dicking around shouting at doctors, no 'being the most suspicious intern ever', no moralizing to the video camera. Out and on with the plot.

I had high hopes for Ernie Hudson, but it looks like that part of the story has been done too. I'd have felt happier about the next episode if he'd revealed what he'd learned about China, but instead he did nothing of use.

I'm going to stick with it, because I'm over halfway, but there is no way this is going to end in a satisfactory fashion.

Yeah I really enjoyed the episode. I've got a few grumbles with the overall narrative, but this is perhaps the most positive review I've written thus far. I'm in the middle of the 1st Draft now, so hopefully it should be online this evening.

Review is up,

http://www.chud.com/64787/thud-review-torchwood-miracle-day-%E2%80%93-%E2%80%98immortal-sins%E2%80%99/

I think the three guys that bought Jack, and are apparently behind everything that's going on, are the aliens behind attempting to sabotage Roosevelt so the Nazis will win WWII.  The attempted end games are very similar (creating a world where there is a legal framework to decide where huge groups of people can be killed off by the government), and the 'Handsome Man' who talked to Jilly Kitzinger a couple episodes back had a decidedly Aryan look to him.

So the last two episodes of Torchwood have been a bit of a mixed blessing.  Mixed in the sense that we're finally starting to get some answers, but we're also having to suffer through really dumb plot developments.

So Jack gets his exposition dump from Ernie Hudson, the COO of Phicorp, who's excuse is that the company is so big, that people can wrangle stuff that even the guys at the top don't know about?  Okay, I can suspend my disbelief that maybe a huge public company can secretly stockpile pain meds for years without anybody knowing anything about it.  But its a bit of a stretch.

I'm glad they wrapped up the horrible "Country Bumpkin Civil Servant tries to kill everyone in Torchwood" subplot.  I mean, the way Rex gets captured is pretty retarded.  He covertly makes his way out of the facility dressed as a soldier, and when someone asks him who he is, he can't come up with a viable story?  And Esther is a horrible covert agent, and her being saved by the Deus Ex Soldier guy who suddenly decides its okay to stop his boss from killing someone was another stretch.  The whole "Rex Getting Tortured" thing by getting STABBED IN THE HEART with a BALLPOINT PEN was kinda dumb.  I mean, sure, he can't die, but if your heart stops beating and blood stops flowing to your brain, you become a vegetable, don't you?  Oh well.  I like how just when it seems Rex is healing something happens to re-aggrivate his wound.

So Gwen then blows up some factory somewhere (I'm guessing it a Phicore building?  I kinda stopped paying attention by this point.).  And she decides to return to America to rejoin the fight.  But then she gets to America and discovers her family has been kidnapped and she has to deliver Jack to the Bad Guys.  Good cliffhanger, even if Eve Myle's acting was kinda over the top.

So now, we get the "Gay Love Affair" episode with Jack romancing some Italian dude in the 1920s.  Seriously, its nice that we live in a day and age where society is tolerant enough to do stuff like this, but I think Rex's observation of "Do you just turn everyone around you gay?" is quickly becoming quite accurate.  Jack's preference for men is just getting annoying.  It would be nice to see him mix it up every once and a while.  Back in his Dr. Who days, he'd chase anything that moved, which was really funny.  Now he's all about the dudes, which I think kinda takes away from his character.

I was also surprised at how unfriendly this episode was to people unfamiliar with Torchwood.  They had a Dr. Who reference, a callback to Jack's immortality, and parasite aliens, without any real set up or background about it.  I think if I hadn't been watching the series for as long as I had, I'd have been a bit confused.

Also, I was surprised at Gwen's single-minded commitment to handing Jack over to be killed.  I mean, the contact lenses don't have audio, so couldn't she just have told the group what was happening and try to fix it instead of tazing Jack and taking him off to his doom?  For some reason Gwen seems to blame Jack for everything that bad that happens to her, but she's the one who wanted to be part of Torchwood and wouldn't take no for an answer.  In fact, throughout this season, she's fluctuated between being Ms. Gung-ho bad ass and "woe-is-me" victim constantly.  Its kind of annoying.

And the whole thing with Jack getting killed by the Little Italy Mob was almost laugh worthy.  "Look!  This guy can't die!  Let's keep killing him for fun!  Ha ha ha ha ha!"  Interesting how the super Catholic Italians in New York saw a man get resurrected and instantly thought "DEMON!" and not "SAVIOR!  The Second Coming!"  Well, at least we get to see where the notion of the Miracle originated.  The mysterious Triangle thing makes a bit of sense now too.  It is interesting how it seems to always come back to Jack and his immortality.  In Series 1, he defeats the big death monster by allowing it to OD on killing him.  In Children of Earth, they keep trying to kill him to get rid of him because he was alive the last time Earth dealt with the 456.  Now, it seems his blood held some type of secret to never dying.

Again, Rex makes the most astute observation on the show, about how he's sick of Torchwood acting like a bunch of amateurs.  Seriously, he seems to be the only sane guy in the unit.  And teh bad guys showing up without more backup was kinda silly too, especially considering they're the one who picked the hand-off location.  And the reveal at the end that Jack's ex-gay Italian lover form the 20's was behind this wasn't that big of a shock.

Honestly, this show walks a fine line from being interesting and full-out retarded, and its hard for me to decide whether I enjoy watching it at this point or if I'm just sticking with it because there's nothing better to watch on a Friday night.

And have you noticed the Oswald Danes subplot has been completely absent for the last two episodes, and the show's arguably been better off for it?  Interesting.

Simon, if you don't pay attention to the show then please don't spout out nonsense. OK, where to begin with your "complaints."

1. You can hear everything around you while you wear the contacts this has been established in COE and a number of times in this series. That s how they got the British PM in COE and who they communicate with each other in the the past Miracle Day episodes.

2. Gwen blew up the incinerators to stop them from burning the people.

3. Companies can be so huge that even the COO has no idea whats going on. See the Murdoch's families and allies defense of the telephone hacking thing. Even though I am sure they knew about it, it can happen and has happened.

4. The head doctor was more torturing Rex than anything else. Rex and Esther are not CIA spies, one deals with probability and the other seems to be a glorified bully. Rex spouting off how they don't act like professionals is also a bit of an inside joke since Rex tends to screw things up more than Jack or Gwen.

5. Gwen and Jack's car scene was some of the best writing of the series. This was Gwen's Time lord Victorious speech and we finally get to see Jack speech saying he is willing to do whatever it takes for him to be mortal even though he is a fixed point in time.

6. If you have no idea Torchwood is connected to Doctor Who or aliens then GTFO. Day one, they talk about Torchwood dealing with aliens, so we finally get an alien. The Doctor is a huge part of Jack's past as well as Torchwood. There would be no Torchwood without the Doctor. If people don't know this its on them not on the writing staff. You can get the past episodes on Nextflix or for a $1 on Amazon, look it up.

7. The Italian was gay before he meet Jack. When Jack notices he has been in fights, we get his big speech about how he came from a small town in Italy and had to fight for his life due to the fact he was gay.

8. Oswald being gone has more to do with the flashback episode and them dealing with the camps which needed that amount of time. I like his character and I do think his storyline is going to be the tipping point. 

9. The reveal that the Italian is alive is not that big of a shock, but then again did anyone see this coming prior to this episode? No. The shock is going to be who were those three guys that bought Jake and what the endgame for all of this is.

10. The show is not over. God, I am so sick of all this Miracle Day bashing when its not even done. Its like the praise Game of Thrones is getting for being this amazing story when it goes to hell by book 4 and its not even done. We don't know how this is going to end. We figure there will be a big fight or at least a showdown with the three guys or Oswald or the Italian. Yet, RTD could swerves us all like he did with COE. I have to say that while I did FF through the gay sex last week, I took enough away to know what is going on in this episode. So far it has been great to at least good which is all it needs to be.

Crap is crap. If the final 2 episodes are amazing and wonderful, then that means 20 percent of the season wasn't a mediocre disappointment.

I'm pretty sure I pay attention.  Let me see if I can address your points...
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by lotjx 

Simon, if you don't pay attention to the show then please don't spout out nonsense. OK, where to begin with your "complaints."

 

1. You can hear everything around you while you wear the contacts this has been established in COE and a number of times in this series. That s how they got the British PM in COE and who they communicate with each other in the the past Miracle Day episodes.

 

I'm pretty sure you can't get audio from the contact lenses, which is why they need the lip reading software while watching the live video stream.

 

2. Gwen blew up the incinerators to stop them from burning the people.

 

Okay, I wasn't sure on that part.  I hope she waited until they carted out all the people who were being kept in those incinerators before blowing them up.

 

3. Companies can be so huge that even the COO has no idea whats going on. See the Murdoch's families and allies defense of the telephone hacking thing. Even though I am sure they knew about it, it can happen and has happened.

 

What you just said makes no sense.  You're "sure" they knew about it, but they're too big to know about it?  Which is it?  If you wanna use the Murdoch thing as an example, let's run with it.  So let's say the heads of the company knew nothing about it.  Yet, there were parts of the company that did.  In Torchwood, it seems that outside influences can magically control a company's acquisitions, distribution, and production pipeline without anyone every knowing about it.  The Murdoch thing was more of a "company culture" issue, not a massive resource distribution issue.  I'm willing to suspend disbelief on this issue, but its just kinda hokey how they presented it in the show.

 

4. The head doctor was more torturing Rex than anything else. Rex and Esther are not CIA spies, one deals with probability and the other seems to be a glorified bully. Rex spouting off how they don't act like professionals is also a bit of an inside joke since Rex tends to screw things up more than Jack or Gwen.

 

Are we watching the same show?  What head doctor was torturing Rex?  The only torture Rex recieved was from Hilbilly Gov'ment Worker after getting a pen shoved into his heart.  Rex is a CIA spy, and Esther is a CIA analyst.  Yet, even analysts have a certain level of training at the CIA, and Esther wanted to become an agent, so you'd think she'd know a thing or two.  And when has Rex screwed up more than Jack or Gwen?  Gwen's horrible attempt to rescue her father and Jack's lame attempts to bully Oswald Danes were complete failures.  Not to mention Jack and Gwen both were almost killed by a hitman and Rex had to swoop in to save them.  He's really the only competent guy on that team.

 

5. Gwen and Jack's car scene was some of the best writing of the series. This was Gwen's Time lord Victorious speech and we finally get to see Jack speech saying he is willing to do whatever it takes for him to be mortal even though he is a fixed point in time.

 

I guess that's a matter of opinion, because I didn't find that scene to be all that good, since I felt it was out of character for Gwen to be doing what she did in the first place.

 

6. If you have no idea Torchwood is connected to Doctor Who or aliens then GTFO. Day one, they talk about Torchwood dealing with aliens, so we finally get an alien. The Doctor is a huge part of Jack's past as well as Torchwood. There would be no Torchwood without the Doctor. If people don't know this its on them not on the writing staff. You can get the past episodes on Nextflix or for a $1 on Amazon, look it up.

 

I'm well aware of Torchwood's connection to Doctor Who.  But I'm willing to bet there are lots of viewers who aren't, who've never watched Doctor Who or the original series of Torchwood, and the introduction to the Doctor and Aliens could have been handled far better than it was.  My complaint is that this series of Torchwood is supposed to be accessible to new viewers, and i don't feel it is.  So chill out.

 

7. The Italian was gay before he meet Jack. When Jack notices he has been in fights, we get his big speech about how he came from a small town in Italy and had to fight for his life due to the fact he was gay.

 

I understand he was gay before he met Jack.  i just think its a bit ridiculous that Jack constantly finds gay companions.  In the Dr. Who series, Jack was more of an omnisexual who'd basically bang anything - male, female, human, alien - it didn't matter.  That gave him a certain level of charm and humor.  Now, its like he's just straight up gay, which I think is kind of boring.

 

8. Oswald being gone has more to do with the flashback episode and them dealing with the camps which needed that amount of time. I like his character and I do think his storyline is going to be the tipping point. 

 

I've found his story to be kinda pointless so far, but maybe they'll pull a twist and show that he's somehow directly related to the miracle.  One can hope.  But I thought the last two episodes were stronger without having to deal with his subplot.

 

9. The reveal that the Italian is alive is not that big of a shock, but then again did anyone see this coming prior to this episode? No. The shock is going to be who were those three guys that bought Jake and what the endgame for all of this is.

 

I'm not sure its going to be a shock, its definitely a mystery.  The woman at the end of the episode is the granddaughter of one of those guys, that was made clear already.  I'm just saying, the show has been handling these shocks and reveals kinda poorly.

 

10. The show is not over. God, I am so sick of all this Miracle Day bashing when its not even done. Its like the praise Game of Thrones is getting for being this amazing story when it goes to hell by book 4 and its not even done. We don't know how this is going to end. We figure there will be a big fight or at least a showdown with the three guys or Oswald or the Italian. Yet, RTD could swerves us all like he did with COE. I have to say that while I did FF through the gay sex last week, I took enough away to know what is going on in this episode. So far it has been great to at least good which is all it needs to be.

 

LoL, I'm a huge fan of Game of Thrones and I don't think it goes to hell at book 4, so I guess this is just a matter of personal preference.  I loved Children of Earth and I was hoping Miracle Day would surpass it in terms of storytelling, but from the episodes I've seen so far, Miracle Day is a pretty shitty series, with poor writing and poor character motivation, but a decent enough core concept to keep it interesting.

So you can disagree with me, but try and keep things civil, m'kay?  :-)

THUD Review,

http://www.chud.com/65391/thud-review-torchwood-miracle-day-%E2%80%93-%E2%80%98end-of-the-road%E2%80%99/

At least I can stop using the term antagonists and conspirators now.

I agree with you on your Moffatt/Davies point.  I was loving Torchwood until I saw last night's Dr Who and now it feels like a poor man's substitute.  I'm really hoping RTD does not take a leaf from his old Who days and wrap the whole thing neatly up with Time Travel.

I'm of the opinion that that Moffat vs. RTD discussions should be classified as internet hate crimes but watching Torchwood and Doctor Who in close succession really brings the comparisons up.  Davies is bungling a pretty standard conspiracy story, while Moffat has, in my opinion, quite elegantly wrapped up one of the most complex plot lines in any recent show. 

I'm actually one of the bigger RTD defenders around, I always liked his careening, melodramatic, plotting. It's just that without the goofy elements of Doctor Who his plotting feels almost skeletal and haphazard. You can make asinine plotting work if you've devoted an entire episode just to make 'THE MASTER RACE' pun work, but if you're trying to tell a grounded story then you need to be more careful with your construction.

Don't get me wrong I loved the Tennant/Davies era of Who and I am very grateful for him bringing it back, he just seems a little lost outside of Dr Who.

So apparently there were hundreds of complaints to the BBC over pointless sex scenes in last weeks episode, mind you this was on the Daily Mails website, so it's to be expected, but it does bring up a gripe of mine withe the current portrayal of Captain Jack.  As I understand it part of the concept of the character was that humans were so few and far between in his time they weren't picky, however RTD seems intent on just portraying him as a sex crazed gay 40 year old in Torchwood. 

I just wish he would give it a rest as sometimes (like that episode) it comes at the expense of the plot.

I'm kind of pissed off about the all the gay sex too. But only because I want to see more of that Alexa Havins girl. Come on, Jack is supposed to be pansexual isn't he? Surely he can find some time for a roll in the hay with agent Cries-And-Freaks-Out-A-Lot. 

Okay, so Torchwood continues its "one step forward, two steps back" momentum as we gear up for the final two episodes.  Honestly, I have to wonder about the producers and writers of this show, since most of the time I'm rolling my eyes at the incredible amounts of pointless exposition, ridiculous plot twists, and extremely poor character reactions to events.  I mean, I want to like this show, I really do, but they're making it so very hard.

First, let's talk about Rex's brilliant ambush of his former boss.  First of all, at what point did he get the contact lenses off of Gwen?  Or do they have more than one pair of those contacts?  And if he did get them off of Gwen, did they not think to ask what he needed them for?  And how did Rex know that by luring in the bad guys from the CIA, he'd be able to get a recorded confession just as the good guy CIA agents appear?  And how did the TV in Angelo's room suddenly pick up the signal from the contact lenses?  And since when did you get audio from the contact lenses without the lip reading software?  And why would Rex decide that the right time to lure in the rogue CIA cell was when they went to the house of a man who potentially could tell them the answers to the conspiracy surrounding the Miracle???

Then there's how "The Family" can just make people want to kill themselves.  Like that Asian dude who threw himself off a building.  Now, Wayne Knight blows himself up, along with two others.  I love how the CIA completely missed the fact that this guy was running around with a bomb strapped to him as they were taking him into custody.  I also love how the character just goes out into a situation he was fully expecting to be triumphant in strapped with a huge bomb, and even though he didn't want to arm it, he did anyway, with no real reason or explanation behind why.

Angelo suddenly dying was a nice twist, until you got the floor grate of doom explanation.  I mean, its nice how they were able to tie it into previous Torchwood seasons, but it really felt like it was something completely out of the blue to try and tie Jack's Morphic Field theory back into the show.

The whole thing with Esther's sister volunteering to be a Category 1 was interesting, at least until she said she volunteered her kids for it too.  I mean, can anyone seriously believe a woman in a psychiactric institution would be allowed to sign her kids up to be killed by the government?  Really?  REALLY???  You can just sign up any minors to be burned alive nowadays?  Good to know.

Gwen being deported back to England for being a bitch... nice way to get rid of her I guess.  Other than the fact that she just got back from England.  It honestly feels like the writers just don't know what to do with Gwen in this show.  She really hasn't done anything of importance this entire season.  And the way she was acting with people who were threatening to kill (or seriously maim) her was extremely odd.  She was practically daring them to shoot her.  Very out of character for Gwen if you ask me.  At this point she's just acting completely erratic.  Also - anyone else think it was wierd that her mom told her to go after the bad guys who kidnapped them, even though those "bad guys" turned out to be Angelo and his granddaughter, and they were currently at the "bad guy's" house chilling out over his deathbed?  So far it seems The Family has been pretty content to not really do anything about Torchwood (not surprising considering how retarded they act 90% of the time).

And Jack getting shot... I guess CIA guards just shoot first and ask questions later now.  No warning to "freeze" or anything, even though it just appeared as though some people were walking out of the house.  When I saw Jack get shot, I was like "Really?  You just shoot anyone who comes out of the house?"  I guess they needed to do something to get Jack into a near-death state for the cliffhanger, but at this point I don't really care, because you know Jack is never gonna die.  it just seemed like lazy writing.  And why the heck was Gwen crying on the plane home?  She seemed sad for some reason, even though she was going back to her family and leaving behind Jack and all the stuff she hates about being in Torchwood.  Ugh.  Someone please help me make sense of this show!

Oh, and we get a NEW CIA mole.  (This show has more moles than any season of 24, which says a lot, considering how many moles 24 always had)  And we get the return of Oswald Danes, this time with a hooker who seems to be okay having sex with a pedophile, but wouldn't care to have a drink with him.  Oh, and Jilly's promotion within the family... because she got duped by a CIA agent, and lost Oswald after getting her ass kicked by him just screams "this girl is competent, get her promoted!"

At this point I'm just watching for the same reason I watched all of Camelot and The Killing - I've already invested too much time to quit.  I hope the last 2 episodes are totally awesome, but I'm afraid we'll be getting more of the same.

    I've lost interest in Miracle Day, but I keep watching just to see how it turns out.

   I like the character of Captain Jack. I just think he works better on Doctor Who.

I completely failed to mention in my review how much I loved them abandoing the Steven Hawking voice for speech from the video-contact lenses. Because apparently we needed the gravitas of Wayne Knight's voice in that sequence.

So....The Blessing....the integral part of the villains plot, the thing that is threatening the entire world and is drawing Captain Jack to his death is a massive, planet-sized, stone vagina.

Yeah...

Yeah, I was really into the episode. To the point where I actually leaned forward when the camera panned around Jilly to show us the 'Blessing'. I think the main meta-plot at this point is a dead end, but the actual episode on it's own merits was a ton of fun with some surprisingly sharp writing and Danes really got to let loose. It was nice seeing him be actually creepy.

Hopefully my THUD review will be up this evening, just third drafting the thing now after the cacophany of spelling and grammar mistakes these last few weeks.

Review, http://www.chud.com/65950/thud-review-torchwood-miracle-day-the-gathering/

which makes me sound sourer on the episode than I probably was. Gotta try and work out how not to be such a grumpy guss when it comes to these.