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Torchwood: Miracle Day

Harsin

By Harsin
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Harsin

Harsin

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Torchwood: Miracle Day is a new series from US Cable Network Starz who are in the process of trying the establish themselves as a force on US Cable TV following the surprise success of Spartacus: Blood and Sand. But it's also the fifth series of a BBC spin-off from Doctor Who. Starting a separate thread to the Doctor Who one, as at this point in time it's pretty much an entirely separate entity.

Torchwood: Miracle Day" begins with a day when nobody dies. The result: a population boom, overnight. With all the extra people, resources are finite. It's said that in four month's time, the human race will cease to be viable. But this can't be a natural occurrence - someone's got to be behind it. It's a race against time as C.I.A. agent Rex Matheson investigates a global conspiracy. The answers lie within an old, secret British institute. As Rex keeps asking "What is Torchwood?," he's drawn into a world of adventure, and a threat to change what it means to be human, forever.

Since this is pretty much being billed as a brand new series and the links to Doctor Who and history of the program seem to be being downplayed as much as possible in all publicity materials, then it's likely it might attract a lot of new viewers with no knowledge of the franchise. So here's my potted history of Torchwood (some spoilers for the older series obviously):

In 2005 the BBC brought back Doctor Who, under the control of writer Russell. T. Davies (usually shortened to RTD), to the surprise of everyone it was massive hit and the Beeb promptly asked him to develop a spin-off. In the second series of the new Doctor Who, the Doctor and Billie Piper managed to piss off Queen Victoria and at the end of the episode she set up the Torchwood (get it) Institute to guard against dodgy aliens. Fast forward to the last episode of the series and the modern Torchwood is a massive shadowy government agency who promptly get wiped out in a crossfire between Daleks and Cybermen.

Then in 2006 the BBC introduced a their new sci-fi series Torchwood, billed as a dark stylish X-Files type series being able to tackle themes and subjects Doctor Who couldn't touch due to it's family orientated prime-time Saturday night slot. The remains of Torchwood, located in Cardiff, were now being run by Captain Jack Harkness, a recurring character from the first series of New Who. Unfortunately the general consensus (including mine) was that it was a pretty bad.

How bad?

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Its attempts at being dark and mature were laughable and usually consisted of the worse kind of forced edginess. My favourite example was in the first episode when a member of the team pretty much straight up rapes a woman, it's not treated as particularly bad and as far as I know it's never even referenced again. Oh yeah, the entire team is also bisexual and at it with each other and guest stars like they've wandered off a 1970s 'Confessions of...' film. Actually Charlie Brooker can put it better than I can:

There was a second series, some people said it improved, I disagree.

Then in 2009 for the third series it was decided to make it a mini-series with one long story instead of lots of separate monster of the week ones and BBC took the unusual step of broadcasting the entire thing over five consecutive nights. Also the original Show Runner Chris Chibnall was nowhere to be seen, with RTD back on scripting duties. Everyone was somewhat amazed when it turned out to be alright, no scratch that legitimately good (with the exception of one cringeworthy excuse for an action sequence). It's well worth tracking down and features a cracking performance by Malcom Tucker himself Peter Capaldi.

Which brings us to Miracle Day, it's a co-production between the BBC Worldwide and Starz. The only returning characters from the original series are John Barrowman's Captain Jack Harkness (who has an exceptionally convoluted backstory so wiki him if you want to know more) and Eve Myle's Gwen Cooper (a Cardiff policewoman who was exceptionally allowed to join Torchwood after managing the amazing task of finding and entering their secret underground lair, a feat also accomplished by a random Pizza Delivery Boy about two episodes later). The rest of the cast is new and American and includes Bill 'not Paxton' Pullman. RTD is back on partial scripting duties.

Starz also jumped into bed with the original Torchwood Show Runner and RTD's pal Chris Chibnall. He created Camelot, a sexed up version of the Arthurian legend. By all accounts it's awful and is likely to be cancelled any day now as it cost more than A Game of Thrones to make and is getting lower viewing figures than re-runs of Merlin on BBC America. Let's hope Miracle Day turns out better, eh?

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Eighthours

Eighthours

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I'm looking forward to this, though I have a horrible feeling there will be some very clumsy Americanisms in there. I kinda feel sorry for RTD - at the end of his Writer's Tale book (a must-read, by the way), he was moving to LA in order to establish a big new showrunning career for himself, leaving the world of Doctor Who behind. I guess he found it much harder than he thought, given that he's now running a new version of one of the shows he left behind.

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MikeJones

MikeJones

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Is this going to have a similar format to Torchwood Season 3? ('Children of the Earth' I think it was.) I liked watching a small handful of episodes over a consecutive series of nights, if it goes back to monster of the week nonsense then screw it.

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SqueakyG

SqueakyG

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My favourite example was in the first episode when a member of the team pretty much straight up rapes a woman, it's not treated as particularly bad and as far as I know it's never even referenced again.

I can't explain just how much that soured my opinion of Torchwood right from the start. Episode 1 -- the pilot. The episode that sets out its mission statement to viewers.

Owen (forever more called Rape Monkey) spikes women's drinks with an alien serum that makes people instantly want to have sex. It's flat-out date rape. Women are visibly repelled by him - he gives them the rapejuice - he takes them home for a shag. Pure rape.

No problem for an adult show that explores mature themes and morally-ambiguous characters, right? No problem if Rape Monkey's actions are explored and he faces consequences, right?

Only trouble was that the writer (was it RTD?) genuinely treated it as a light-hearted comedy b-plot. Rape Monkey's only comeuppance was that a dude also gets spiked and wants to shag him... but that's cool, because Owen is bisexual! Like everyone else! So he gets to have a bi threeway with no consequences, and the plotline never comes up again.

I honestly don't understand how a team of professional adult writers could handle a plot that way. It seemed like they honestly didn't know they were writing about daterape. I therefore couldn't trust the show to ever have a moral compass.

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Harsin

Harsin

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I caught a repeat of The Doctor Dances on Watch the other day and it struck me that I really liked the Captain Jack character on his first appearance. As introduced by Steven Moffat he was charming rogue who came from a far future where omnisexuality (men, women, horrible squid creatures... it doesn't matter) was the norm. Unfortunately, every appearance after that he seemed to get worse, becoming a caricature of himself, two episodes after the one I mentioned he was pulling a large Ray Gun out of his arse (literally) to fight Trinny and Susannah robots. Then when Torchwood came along they tried to reboot him as some kind of horny Batman, flicking back and forth between moping about his immortality (the Jack from The Doctor Dances struck me as the sort of person who would be delighted with infinite life) and making innuendos, that John Inman would have turned his nose up at, to any character within 50 feet. I hope Miracle Day brings the character back a bit, he wasn't actually in Children of Earth that much and I wonder if it wasn't actually better for that.

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Flub

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The sex scenes were really, really awful in that first episode too. Embarrassingly bad.

I submit to the court the second episode about the alien that eats orgasms and the sex scene in the nightclub toilet. Just to prove it got worse.

Despite that I did like the first two series of Torchwood but they made some terrible, terrible decisions about tone and it only rarely pulled off a quality episode. Loved Children of Earth though. It had a real Virgin NA feel to the nastyness. It could easily have been the NA Seventh Doctor killing the kid at the end.

Oh and I won't have a word said about Jack's dimensionally transendental arse.

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Pistol

Pistol

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I submit to the court the second episode about the alien that eats orgasms and the sex scene in the nightclub toilet. Just to prove it got worse.

Despite that I did like the first two series of Torchwood but they made some terrible, terrible decisions about tone and it only rarely pulled off a quality episode. Loved Children of Earth though. It had a real Virgin NA feel to the nastyness. It could easily have been the NA Seventh Doctor killing the kid at the end.

Oh and I won't have a word said about Jack's dimensionally transendental arse.

Ah, right - that's the one I was thinking of.

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Pete

Pete

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I quite liked the torchwood season before children of earth, it had it's moments even if it failed to make you give a shit about any of the characters. I never saw season one though, and that rape monkey stuff is rather alarming.

Still I loved children of earth, and the premise for this is very good. Will watch.

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Hexx

Hexx

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Torchwood (in both seasons) had rare moments of brilliance, but they were always the exceptions.

And yes - making Owen a date rapist, and Gwen's affiar/lying/drugging of her husband completely ruined any chance of my ever liking either character...

"Season 3" was a huge step up though - and surprised everyone I think.

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scottcr

scottcr

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Children of Earth was excellent... Genuinely ace sci-fi. I also thought that Torchwood was a really mixed bag. Seemed to either be total shite, or really really good. I remember the one about the folks in the plane who had fallen through time and going back to see their loved ones all old and stuff, genuinely moving and brilliantly written.

The series finale introduced that creepy guy who I reckon they could have made a lot more of.

Series 2 was more consistent and I enjoyed it... Apart from when Martha and Ricky appeared.

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Harsin

Harsin

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The bit with Jack and the bloke who couldn't cope with Cardiff 2006 (can't say I blamed him) in the car was decent, the Amelia Earhart-alike falling for Rape Monkey not so much. In fact why was he considered a sex symbol? He looks like the Cockney missing link. But you have every female in the show gagging to get into his pants. Maybe it was misguided attempt to try and backtrack from the first episode in a "Look he didn't even need the alien rohypnol" way.

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memories

memories

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Can I get a refresh on "rape monkey", I've watched all the Torchwood but the only stuff i can remember from the 1st episode was some glove thing that could bring folk back to life and someone jumping off a carpark roof.

Was that even the first episode?

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Flub

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Can I get a refresh on "rape monkey", I've watched all the Torchwood but the only stuff i can remember from the 1st episode was some glove thing that could bring folk back to life and someone jumping off a carpark roof.

Was that even the first episode?

Yup. Glove, dagger, estrogen in the rain and ratboy getting his rape on were all first episode.

Didn't he have Gwen up against a tree in one episode offering to stick his little rape cock into her special place? Very tasteful that.

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