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Torchwood Miracle Day: Rendition

Lynn: "You're the best England's got to offer, then God help you."
Gwen: "I'm Welsh."

This episode just galloped past, but I found it difficult to write about. And I usually love writing about Torchwood. Maybe I'm just not acclimating yet.

De plane! De plane!

I did love the plane scenes. Eve Myles just reminded me in a big way of why I've always been partial to Gwen. After being understandably upset and observing, correctly, how everyone in Jack's orbit ends up screwed, Gwen took charge of saving Jack's life in such a delightful way. Gwen was also the first to state the obvious: that Miracle Day must relate somehow to Jack.

And Jack is dealing with the horrors of mortality pretty well so far. The idea that he has no natural resistance to anything is shuddery. It occurred to me during this episode that if Jack wanted a way out, to finally, actually die, this might be his only opportunity.

It was great to see Dichen Lachman from Dollhouse again. She does evil really, really well. And her fight with Gwen and the Linda Blair head thing was definitely this week's most memorable event. I hope they get her head turned back around and this isn't the only episode she's in.

Maybe I'm having trouble tracking the plot, but why does the CIA want Jack dead?

New Torchwood

Esther is smart and quick on her feet. The way she realized that things were going south and immediately took action made her a bit more interesting. I'm not warming to Rex yet, though, for many reasons: the nasty way he separated Gwen from Rhys and Anwen, the way he keeps insulting Jack, does he have to be such a prick? Okay, being in constant pain and wondering if he's going to die from his wound any minute probably doesn't help. Esther seems to really like Rex. No accounting for tastes, or does he have hidden depths?

Torchwood D.C. is now crowded into a blue mini, fitting considering their British roots. Now all they need is a headquarters and a coffee boy. Not that anyone could replace Ianto. Couldn't they also recruit Dr. Juarez? I like Dr. Juarez.

Miracle Day

After the plane scenes, the best part of this episode was Dr. Juarez crashing the free-for-all medical panels. Such fascinating topics. Changing the rules for triage. Elimination of suicide. No more organ donors. Antibiotics no longer working and infections becoming permanent. And everyone is still aging, anyway. Pain killers for everyone, permanently? Horrible.

This might be a sick question, but what about cremation?

It's hard to tell what's going on with bubbly, manipulative Jilly Kitzinger (Lauren Ambrose from Six Feet Under), but she feels like a bad guy. She's a PR rep for PhiCorp, a drug company that is apparently planning to corner the extremely lucrative future market for pain killers. If it weren't obvious that it has to connect somehow to Jack's immortality, I'd think PhiCorp was behind Miracle Day.

Jack thinks Miracle Day is a morphic event. I have no idea what that means. But the oscillation thingy again made me think of the 456.

Bits and pieces:

-- Jack just identified himself as an American. He's been described as American but I don't think he's ever outright said he was before. Is that because Torchwood is now a part-American production?

-- Danes was a little more interesting this time. Is he using his situation as a golden opportunity to keep himself out of prison by deliberately creating sympathy, or was all that crying on television for real? He did look surprised at how the P.A. reacted to his on air meltdown.

-- The political and religious effects of Miracle Day are interesting. Wouldn't mind hearing more about empty churches and changing beliefs.

-- Liked the Twitter bit about Danes: hashtag, forgive.

-- Rex called Jack "flying ace" and "World War II." Maybe he's just jealous of Jack's cool coat.

-- Rex and Lynn had a relationship.

-- Friedkin was revealed to be a CIA boss as well as a bad guy, as well as the idiot from Jurassic Park. Good casting there.

-- Do CIA analysts really sit around watching television and YouTube all day? Our tax dollars at work.

-- "Chelation" is my word of the day. I'd never heard about that before.

Quotes:

Rex: "Listen, I'm not gay, but I'll let you feel me up if you go get me a vodka."
Danny: "Oh, I'm not gay, either."
Rex: "Okay, then I'll let you go feel her up (gestures at Lynn) if you'll get me a vodka."
What a prince.

Gwen: "You stupid tiny bloody little man."

Jack: "Water? I'm American, too. Can't I contribute to our global hegemony with a nice, frosty cola?"
Points for using the word 'hegemony' in a sentence, Jack.

Danes: "If the devil himself walked this earth, he'd surely be working in PR."
Big hint that Jilly isn't one of the good guys.

Gwen: "Be careful with his coat."
That was so sweet.

Danny: "Be careful! That's my good tie."
Gwen: "And you're definitely not gay."
Danny: "It was one time, okay?"

Three turned-around heads out of four,

Billie
---
Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

8 comments:

  1. I found the episode jarring in places, definitely one of the weakest we had.

    Billie, did you think of Amy when Gwen was talking about fairytales during her scene with Jack? I did briefly.

    Esther, love her but Rex is doing my head in.

    Jilly is interesting too.

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  2. As a big Torchwwod fan this had been a disapointment so far. It's not so much Torchwood but an American series with the characters from Torchwwod in it. And they aren't in it a lot.

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  3. I had issues with this episode. The whole creating a cure for arsenic was just too silly and unbelievable. Rex was somewhat likable in the first episode, but now he's taken a turn for homophobic prick, I no likey. Then there was John Barrowman's ever campy overacting. Don't get me wrong I love John and Captain Jack, but sometimes he can be a little cheesy, and not in a good way.

    Not a very promising followup, but I'm sure it will get better.

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  4. For the Bits and Pieces, when Jack introduced himself to Rose in "The Empty Child", he said: "Captain Jack Harkness, 133 Squadron, Royal Air Force, American volunteer." (Just rewatched that part of the episode.)

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  5. This week's episode and the scenes with Rex have been making me think about Owen. I really disliked Owen and thought he was a waste of space -- until the last few episodes of season two. Owen also made obnoxious and somewhat homophobic remarks. Maybe they're making us dislike Rex for a reason. It's always nice when the writers have a plan.

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  6. When they were wondering where to find a cure for arsenic poisoning, I shouted at my screen: "Someone get me a Victorian mystery, stat!"

    And Rex broke her neck with his bare hands! Maybe he's a vampire.

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  7. Owen also had a threesome with a dude, even kissed him, in the first episode. So the homophobia afterward never really made much sense too me. I was just hoping for a Rex/Jack hookup so his remarks this episode both irked me and crushed my hopes.

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  8. I wasn't that into this episode since the plane scenes were very badly done - the poisoning of Jack was obviously going to be solved after 10 minutes of making potions since he couldn't be dead or crippled in the second episode. Therefore there was very little tension. Lynn basically sat back and did nothing to stop the concoction, or defend herself when Gwen was about to punch her. Danny the air steward - how ridiculous for someone to be that camp and work as cabin crew and be in the closet. Just a completely unbelieveable character.

    This may be less of a flaw in the episode and more to do with my dodgy memory, but why does Rex believe Jack is mortal? Why should Rex think Jack is any different than everyone else?

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