Torchwood: Miracle Day, Episode One: A review.
"How bad can the new series of Torchwood be?" was the question I posed to myself. Certainly it couldn't be as much of a crushing disappointment as the awful current series of Doctor Who, so far comprised of either ludicrous premises, such as that of The Doctor's Wife, or else episodes like A Good Man Goes To War, an episode astonishing in its pointlessness. Given that the chief non-reason Steven Moffat gave for splitting the series in two was to highlight how much of a game- changer the latest big big biggy big cliffhanger was, it's safe to say that one thing I wasn't expecting was forty- five minutes which end with the main characters in exactly the same situation they were in at the start. River's true identity not having anything to do with anything, now that I was expecting.
Actually, of course, it was impossible for Torchwood to be that much of a disappointment, or any kind of disappointment at all, given that my expectations with regards to Torchwood reside permanently at rock- bottom level, memories of the admittedly very good Children of Earth neatly balanced out by the fact that, well, Miracle Day is an American co-production, and Americans don't really tend to make good television.
So, how bad can the new series of Torchwood be? Well, the answer, based on Episode One, looks like: it's okay, neither great nor terrible, but falling somewhere in the 'good' side of that grey area of blandness.
You see, despite all the world- building and set- up that went into Episode One, it still felt as if it was dragging on for about twice as long as it really should, and I don't think this story can substain itself for ten episodes. Children of Earth indicated that five or six episodes was just about the right length to build up enough tension before drawing the story to a graceful conclusion. An overlong story, especially a overlong action story, the premise of which is that nobody will die, is looking like a prospective serious flaw.
But, overall, Episode One (yeah, it's called The New World, but I doubt anyone cares) provided a decent enough start to build on. None of our supposed protagonists are remotely likeable, but by Series Four I think we should all be used to that now. Are they interesting, though?
Well, once again, not really. Rex and Esther come across as ciphers, there to fill their allotted role in reintroducing the audience to Captain Jack, and little else. Yes, I suppose you could bleat on about how Esther is "inquisitive" and "investigative" and all the rest, but so what? That's been the basic groundwork of every female character in the Doctor Who franchise since the very beginning. It takes more than that to make a character, and the show is yet to give me more than that.
Rex comes across as rather annoying, for the most part, wailing and whining about his situation to anyone who'll listen, an attitude slightly unusual to a British audience used to the "stiff upper lip" school of contemplating death. Near the end, however, he becomes something of an antagonist, which is at least interesting.
Rex and Esther are tracking down Torchwood, after an unknown force transmitted the name of the organisation across the world. Eventually this leads them to the only two survivors of the team, Captain Jack Harkness, played as always by the actually-not-that-bad John Barrowman, and... sigh.
Why is Gwen still in this? Since the very beginning, she's been an irritating Mary Sue, and, lo and behold, she still is. She's shoved in front of the cameras, interrupting the plot, as if the audience is actually supposed to still care about her. She's still horrible to her long- suffering husband, still has an unhealthy obsession with guns, and is still played by Eve Myles, whose acting skills have never been up to much, but who has stood out even more ever since the equally wooden Burn Gorman and Naoko Mori left the show.
This leaves John Barrowman to do most of the legwork as far as acting is concerned, and he's pretty good at it, having perfected the balance between pseudo-Doctor and character in his own right. He even manages to convey the patently absurd twist that he is now mortal with some degree of credibility.
The guest cast, such as it is at this point, are unremarkable, with the exception of Bill Pullman, who delivers a performance as a convicted child murderer of such proportions of ham that I almost ate him for my Sunday dinner. I read a review which claimed that Pullman "underplays him nicely," but I fail to see much subtlety in a speech which sounds as if every word is literally being vomited out.
So, slightly incredibly for a Russell T Davies story, it falls to the plot to carry the episode. As I said earlier, it's overstretched, but with such a fantastical premise, this could easily have gone much worse, and the scenes where something is happening (i.e. Gwen isn't there) are actually well paced.
RTD proved himself capable of putting together a decent thriller in Children of Earth, and hopefully, away from any corrupting influence from his Doctor Who days, he may be able to repeat the trick here.
Finally, just because I can't resist a few caustic potshots, some closing thoughts:
Problem Number One: The ending sequence. Apart from Rex suddenly appearing to randomly get better just in time for a fight, we've also got the "baby scene," in which Gwen cheerfully claps some earmuffs on her baby daughter's head, then gets to blasting away at people with a big gun and making thing gratuitously explode, all with the baby tucked under one arm like a sack of potatoes or something. That's not funny, or impressive, that's just awful.
Problem Number Two: Why did Jack just wander off after the assassin's head was removed? If you're going to go that far, why not go further, and get Bald Barack Obama to take the next logical step, and remove the brain? And, if you're still getting readings of brain activity, hit it with a sledgehammer or something? Surely people shot in the head aren't going to survive without a brain? And if they are, show us. It's still unclear exactly how this immortality thing works.
Problem Number Three: There's a very odd sequence early on, which is, as written, one of RTD's favourite methods of inconsequential padding: the montage of newsreaders from across the world talking about the same thing, to indicate what a big deal this is. I suppose we have to be grateful for the lack of a random celebrity cameo (Remember Paul O'Grady? Anne Widdecombe? McFly, for God's sake?), but what was up with the direction? For those that didn't see it, the director decided that the best thing to do with this scene is induce epileptic attacks in the audience by constantly flickering between the standard TV-screen mid-shot of the newsreaders and an insanely random close up of their eyes. I shouldn't even need to point out the problems with something like this, but suffice to say it's not as artistic as the director seems to think it is, and it's a serious threat to suspension of disbelief.
Problem Number Four: Murray Gold is still doing the music. Wave goodbye to any hope of establishing any real sense of drama. Incidentally (pun not intended), I was watching the 1986 story The Mysterious Planet the other day, and was blown away by how brilliant the music was. I was really caught up in the plight of four people in terrible 80s costumes running past some trees. Murray Gold's cheap and irritating quasi- anthems are just lame by comparison.
I'll try to post my thoughts on each episode every week, but we all know how good I am at sticking to schedule. However, unlike Doctor Who, I'm actually vaguely interested in where this is going, so we'll see...
Actually, of course, it was impossible for Torchwood to be that much of a disappointment, or any kind of disappointment at all, given that my expectations with regards to Torchwood reside permanently at rock- bottom level, memories of the admittedly very good Children of Earth neatly balanced out by the fact that, well, Miracle Day is an American co-production, and Americans don't really tend to make good television.
So, how bad can the new series of Torchwood be? Well, the answer, based on Episode One, looks like: it's okay, neither great nor terrible, but falling somewhere in the 'good' side of that grey area of blandness.
You see, despite all the world- building and set- up that went into Episode One, it still felt as if it was dragging on for about twice as long as it really should, and I don't think this story can substain itself for ten episodes. Children of Earth indicated that five or six episodes was just about the right length to build up enough tension before drawing the story to a graceful conclusion. An overlong story, especially a overlong action story, the premise of which is that nobody will die, is looking like a prospective serious flaw.
But, overall, Episode One (yeah, it's called The New World, but I doubt anyone cares) provided a decent enough start to build on. None of our supposed protagonists are remotely likeable, but by Series Four I think we should all be used to that now. Are they interesting, though?
Well, once again, not really. Rex and Esther come across as ciphers, there to fill their allotted role in reintroducing the audience to Captain Jack, and little else. Yes, I suppose you could bleat on about how Esther is "inquisitive" and "investigative" and all the rest, but so what? That's been the basic groundwork of every female character in the Doctor Who franchise since the very beginning. It takes more than that to make a character, and the show is yet to give me more than that.
Rex comes across as rather annoying, for the most part, wailing and whining about his situation to anyone who'll listen, an attitude slightly unusual to a British audience used to the "stiff upper lip" school of contemplating death. Near the end, however, he becomes something of an antagonist, which is at least interesting.
Rex and Esther are tracking down Torchwood, after an unknown force transmitted the name of the organisation across the world. Eventually this leads them to the only two survivors of the team, Captain Jack Harkness, played as always by the actually-not-that-bad John Barrowman, and... sigh.
Why is Gwen still in this? Since the very beginning, she's been an irritating Mary Sue, and, lo and behold, she still is. She's shoved in front of the cameras, interrupting the plot, as if the audience is actually supposed to still care about her. She's still horrible to her long- suffering husband, still has an unhealthy obsession with guns, and is still played by Eve Myles, whose acting skills have never been up to much, but who has stood out even more ever since the equally wooden Burn Gorman and Naoko Mori left the show.
This leaves John Barrowman to do most of the legwork as far as acting is concerned, and he's pretty good at it, having perfected the balance between pseudo-Doctor and character in his own right. He even manages to convey the patently absurd twist that he is now mortal with some degree of credibility.
The guest cast, such as it is at this point, are unremarkable, with the exception of Bill Pullman, who delivers a performance as a convicted child murderer of such proportions of ham that I almost ate him for my Sunday dinner. I read a review which claimed that Pullman "underplays him nicely," but I fail to see much subtlety in a speech which sounds as if every word is literally being vomited out.
So, slightly incredibly for a Russell T Davies story, it falls to the plot to carry the episode. As I said earlier, it's overstretched, but with such a fantastical premise, this could easily have gone much worse, and the scenes where something is happening (i.e. Gwen isn't there) are actually well paced.
RTD proved himself capable of putting together a decent thriller in Children of Earth, and hopefully, away from any corrupting influence from his Doctor Who days, he may be able to repeat the trick here.
Finally, just because I can't resist a few caustic potshots, some closing thoughts:
Problem Number One: The ending sequence. Apart from Rex suddenly appearing to randomly get better just in time for a fight, we've also got the "baby scene," in which Gwen cheerfully claps some earmuffs on her baby daughter's head, then gets to blasting away at people with a big gun and making thing gratuitously explode, all with the baby tucked under one arm like a sack of potatoes or something. That's not funny, or impressive, that's just awful.
Problem Number Two: Why did Jack just wander off after the assassin's head was removed? If you're going to go that far, why not go further, and get Bald Barack Obama to take the next logical step, and remove the brain? And, if you're still getting readings of brain activity, hit it with a sledgehammer or something? Surely people shot in the head aren't going to survive without a brain? And if they are, show us. It's still unclear exactly how this immortality thing works.
Problem Number Three: There's a very odd sequence early on, which is, as written, one of RTD's favourite methods of inconsequential padding: the montage of newsreaders from across the world talking about the same thing, to indicate what a big deal this is. I suppose we have to be grateful for the lack of a random celebrity cameo (Remember Paul O'Grady? Anne Widdecombe? McFly, for God's sake?), but what was up with the direction? For those that didn't see it, the director decided that the best thing to do with this scene is induce epileptic attacks in the audience by constantly flickering between the standard TV-screen mid-shot of the newsreaders and an insanely random close up of their eyes. I shouldn't even need to point out the problems with something like this, but suffice to say it's not as artistic as the director seems to think it is, and it's a serious threat to suspension of disbelief.
Problem Number Four: Murray Gold is still doing the music. Wave goodbye to any hope of establishing any real sense of drama. Incidentally (pun not intended), I was watching the 1986 story The Mysterious Planet the other day, and was blown away by how brilliant the music was. I was really caught up in the plight of four people in terrible 80s costumes running past some trees. Murray Gold's cheap and irritating quasi- anthems are just lame by comparison.
I'll try to post my thoughts on each episode every week, but we all know how good I am at sticking to schedule. However, unlike Doctor Who, I'm actually vaguely interested in where this is going, so we'll see...