My ramblings on episode three of Miracle Day
Warning: spoilers beneath the cut
Well, episode three was orders of magnitude better than the others so far. And I'm not just saying that because of the naked Jack scene, though that was a bonus.
There were so many more references to past Torchwood, despite the fact that new viewers won't understand them. The following is my interpretation of what we saw, and of course could be totally wrong.
Jack's obsession with Oswald Danes was explained by the fact that he is a child killer, as Jack is, and appeared to have found forgiveness. Jack is understandably desperate for absolution and wants to know how he got to that point. Of course it turns out that Oswald hadn't repented or genuinely wanted forgiveness so Jack didn't learn anything.
I wonder what the new audience will think about the hints that Jack is a child killer.
Then there was the phone call to Gwen. To me this appeared to be prompted by Jack realising that meaningless shags are pointless, and that the only person he has in the universe is Gwen. It was ironic that, after all the times when Gwen appeared to pursue Jack, she finally has someone much more important to her i.e. Anwen, and she not just blows him off but totally forgets about him. It was good that Ianto was mentioned, strangely by Gwen, perhaps trying to stop Jack saying anything to her they might regret.
These scenes were unusual in that RTD almost never refers back to prior events, no matter how traumatic. For instance the total lack of any reaction by Jack to the Year That Never Was or being buried alive for 2000 years.
I liked the way Gwen ordered Jack around and that Rex included Jack in 'ladies'.
The brand new audience is lacking a lot if information so far though, e.g. Jack is over 2000 years old, not 40 something, he was a time agent, he's not gay but omnisexual, he's not an American, but from a distant planet, and he killed his own grandson to save all the children of the earth.
And as for the sex scene. The BBC cut it completely. It skipped from Jack fully dressed with the naked bartender, straight to the laying in bed afterwards with Jack phoning Gwen. No naked Jack at all! I have paid my license fee BBC, I want the complete scene!!! They also cut the Rex/Vera sex scene completely but I wasn't bothered by that.
Thanks to my readers though, I have managed to watch the US version. At least we got to see some more of Jack there, although I would have preferred not to have the Rex/Vera scene inter-cut with it. That was just confusing, and not what I wanted to see.
But I have to admit that, despite what JB said in interviews, the scene was totally gratuitous. The most it did was to tell the new audience that Jack likes men. And he never found that much spare time during a global crisis when he was with Ianto.
(I have just read the interviews with JB again and it appears that he was referring to the scenes in episode 7, as meaningful and very significant to the story. These were confused by journalists with the scene in episode 3, which he has not said were meaningful).
I will be looking forward to any more episodes written by Jane Espenson.
And the trailers for the future episodes, saying that a sacrifice will be required just screams out Jack dying to put things right. I'm assuming that Rex will die when the miracle is fixed, but that doesn't count as the sacrifice. And even RTD wouldn't use Anwen.
Well, episode three was orders of magnitude better than the others so far. And I'm not just saying that because of the naked Jack scene, though that was a bonus.
There were so many more references to past Torchwood, despite the fact that new viewers won't understand them. The following is my interpretation of what we saw, and of course could be totally wrong.
Jack's obsession with Oswald Danes was explained by the fact that he is a child killer, as Jack is, and appeared to have found forgiveness. Jack is understandably desperate for absolution and wants to know how he got to that point. Of course it turns out that Oswald hadn't repented or genuinely wanted forgiveness so Jack didn't learn anything.
I wonder what the new audience will think about the hints that Jack is a child killer.
Then there was the phone call to Gwen. To me this appeared to be prompted by Jack realising that meaningless shags are pointless, and that the only person he has in the universe is Gwen. It was ironic that, after all the times when Gwen appeared to pursue Jack, she finally has someone much more important to her i.e. Anwen, and she not just blows him off but totally forgets about him. It was good that Ianto was mentioned, strangely by Gwen, perhaps trying to stop Jack saying anything to her they might regret.
These scenes were unusual in that RTD almost never refers back to prior events, no matter how traumatic. For instance the total lack of any reaction by Jack to the Year That Never Was or being buried alive for 2000 years.
I liked the way Gwen ordered Jack around and that Rex included Jack in 'ladies'.
The brand new audience is lacking a lot if information so far though, e.g. Jack is over 2000 years old, not 40 something, he was a time agent, he's not gay but omnisexual, he's not an American, but from a distant planet, and he killed his own grandson to save all the children of the earth.
And as for the sex scene. The BBC cut it completely. It skipped from Jack fully dressed with the naked bartender, straight to the laying in bed afterwards with Jack phoning Gwen. No naked Jack at all! I have paid my license fee BBC, I want the complete scene!!! They also cut the Rex/Vera sex scene completely but I wasn't bothered by that.
Thanks to my readers though, I have managed to watch the US version. At least we got to see some more of Jack there, although I would have preferred not to have the Rex/Vera scene inter-cut with it. That was just confusing, and not what I wanted to see.
But I have to admit that, despite what JB said in interviews, the scene was totally gratuitous. The most it did was to tell the new audience that Jack likes men. And he never found that much spare time during a global crisis when he was with Ianto.
(I have just read the interviews with JB again and it appears that he was referring to the scenes in episode 7, as meaningful and very significant to the story. These were confused by journalists with the scene in episode 3, which he has not said were meaningful).
I will be looking forward to any more episodes written by Jane Espenson.
And the trailers for the future episodes, saying that a sacrifice will be required just screams out Jack dying to put things right. I'm assuming that Rex will die when the miracle is fixed, but that doesn't count as the sacrifice. And even RTD wouldn't use Anwen.