Torchwood Miracle Day Part Two
I don't know if Russell T Davies has written the whole of this new series of Torchwood. But his style runs right through it like maggots through a corpse. And heaven knows I've missed it!
His story-writing is either incredibly brave or incredibly desperate. In tonight's episode there was a severed arm twitching on a table, totally alive and feeling away from whoever's body it was cut from. And that was one of the least remarkable things on display.
The whole business with Captain Jack being poisoned could have been awful. The fact that Rex happened to have a hotline to an army of doctors should have come across as a bare-faced coincidence, but I thought it was a really exciting idea. Of course all of the smartest medical practitioners in the world are in one room, they're dealing with the most bizarre event in history! It's a typical Russell T Davies scene. The logic behind it might be flawed and exactly the sort of thing they tell amateur writers to never ever do, but the genius of Russell is to keep the drama so bold and entertaining that these qualms seem like complaining about technical flaws in the canvas of a great painting. Or, more appropriately, complaining that the spaceships in Star Wars shouldn't make any noise as they go by.
From the writing point of view, what's been most impressive is the extrapolation of the basic idea. With ten episodes to play with, every nuance of undying life can be explored. Tonight we had the threat of germs becoming resistant to antibiotics at a vastly increased rate and, more viscerally, a woman with a broken neck looking back Exorcist-style as Gwen, Jack, Rex and Esther escaped in a blue Mini. Seriously! This would happen in no other TV show!
Actually, I'm wrong with that last paragraph. The best thing about Miracle Day has been Bill Pullman as Oswald Danes. The concept of a child-abuser starting to attract sympathy after surviving his death sentence is a massively emotive moral minefield to explore. The story hasn't really commented on Oswald yet. There's no over-riding view that we're being lead to take of the character, except to feel extremely creeped-out. Yet as the mysterious lady in red said, his performance on the chatshow was astonishing. Is it possible to forgive, or even to feel sympathy for a character like Oswald Danes? I'm sure the series is going to throw even more disturbing questions at us as things progress.
One other thing I love about this series is the casting. It's like all the best B and C list movie actors that I remember from other cult roles have been corralled into one show. I'm sure Russell must know about Lone Starr, Dennis Nedry plus coming soon Winston Zeddemore and Q. Supporting characters who weren't given much to do, but managed to steal the show in whatever they were in. It's a cult movie and TV smorgasbord!
The pace of this episode was a fair bit slower than last week, but that was fine. There's a lot of characters running about and there's all the introduction and setting up that needs doing.
It would be a shame if Russell only did Torchwood for the next few years, even though I'm thoroughly enjoying it. He suggested in his 60 Second interview for Metro that he'd prefer to write some domestic dramas. It's been a long, long time since he started on the Doctor Who road. There must be a wealth of kitchen-sink drama ideas lurking away in his gloriously mis-wired brain!
His story-writing is either incredibly brave or incredibly desperate. In tonight's episode there was a severed arm twitching on a table, totally alive and feeling away from whoever's body it was cut from. And that was one of the least remarkable things on display.
The whole business with Captain Jack being poisoned could have been awful. The fact that Rex happened to have a hotline to an army of doctors should have come across as a bare-faced coincidence, but I thought it was a really exciting idea. Of course all of the smartest medical practitioners in the world are in one room, they're dealing with the most bizarre event in history! It's a typical Russell T Davies scene. The logic behind it might be flawed and exactly the sort of thing they tell amateur writers to never ever do, but the genius of Russell is to keep the drama so bold and entertaining that these qualms seem like complaining about technical flaws in the canvas of a great painting. Or, more appropriately, complaining that the spaceships in Star Wars shouldn't make any noise as they go by.
From the writing point of view, what's been most impressive is the extrapolation of the basic idea. With ten episodes to play with, every nuance of undying life can be explored. Tonight we had the threat of germs becoming resistant to antibiotics at a vastly increased rate and, more viscerally, a woman with a broken neck looking back Exorcist-style as Gwen, Jack, Rex and Esther escaped in a blue Mini. Seriously! This would happen in no other TV show!
Actually, I'm wrong with that last paragraph. The best thing about Miracle Day has been Bill Pullman as Oswald Danes. The concept of a child-abuser starting to attract sympathy after surviving his death sentence is a massively emotive moral minefield to explore. The story hasn't really commented on Oswald yet. There's no over-riding view that we're being lead to take of the character, except to feel extremely creeped-out. Yet as the mysterious lady in red said, his performance on the chatshow was astonishing. Is it possible to forgive, or even to feel sympathy for a character like Oswald Danes? I'm sure the series is going to throw even more disturbing questions at us as things progress.
One other thing I love about this series is the casting. It's like all the best B and C list movie actors that I remember from other cult roles have been corralled into one show. I'm sure Russell must know about Lone Starr, Dennis Nedry plus coming soon Winston Zeddemore and Q. Supporting characters who weren't given much to do, but managed to steal the show in whatever they were in. It's a cult movie and TV smorgasbord!
The pace of this episode was a fair bit slower than last week, but that was fine. There's a lot of characters running about and there's all the introduction and setting up that needs doing.
It would be a shame if Russell only did Torchwood for the next few years, even though I'm thoroughly enjoying it. He suggested in his 60 Second interview for Metro that he'd prefer to write some domestic dramas. It's been a long, long time since he started on the Doctor Who road. There must be a wealth of kitchen-sink drama ideas lurking away in his gloriously mis-wired brain!