Torchwood started life as the "adult oriented" spin off of Doctor Who. What this initially meant was Doctor Who type chasing aliens stories but with gory violence, bad language and explicit sex scenes. This isn't what I had in mind for an "adult oriented" series and it just made it juvenile to my mind. However, it did improve as the series progressed and there were a few really decent bits of adult Sci-Fi - particularly the episode Out of Time which sees the consequences of three people who, having fallen through time from the early 1950's, find themselves struggling to cope with the future shock of modern Britain. The second series followed a similar pattern but with the tone and the writing being much more consistent and confident.
The third series of Torchwood took a different format: Children of Earth - one story told over 5 consecutive nights. For me, this was Sci-Fi gold with elements of classic British dystopian drama such as The Midwich Cuckoos and Quatermass but with intriguing modern elements. The synopsis was quite simple - aliens wanting to harvest the Earth's children for their own nefarious uses - but it was the exploration of how those in authority would deal with the crisis that was most intriguing and made this a very adult orientated concept - and not just of the post-watershed variety. Given this, I was looking forward to Miracle Day - so why am I disappointed with it?
The forth series of Torchwood was primarily not a BBC Cymru production - they may have had their name on the titles but it was mainly the American Starz network that were funding the production and pulling the strings. Russell T Davies may have penned the first (and by far the best) episode of this run but I felt his black humour, which had accompanied much of the earlier series, was missing. What was left felt like generic US Sci-Fi: a thin plot line padded out with irrelevant diversions to fill out the 10 hourly episodes. It's a pity, because the basic storyline, that one day people stop dying, should have provided plenty of opportunity to explore the consequences for mankind. On occasion it did, but then only fleetingly and often the more interesting story lines - for example the holocaust style death camps - were dealt with very superficially and did not explore the consequences for the lead characters. Only the sub-plot involving Gwen trying to protect her terminally ill father gave much opportunity to engage with the audience and, even then, I felt that Eve Myles had very little in the script to work with.
The American side of the cast were OK. Lauren Ambrose makes for a great villainess and I enjoyed Mekhi Phifer's CIA agent - particularly his love-hate relationship with Jack. Alexa Havins and Arlene Tur were a bit bland - again, a lack of scripting rather than any fault of the actors. Bill Pullman's child killer was intriguing as he was very against type for the actor but I didn't know what the writers wanted to do with him after the initial horror of his failed execution. I think the problem with many of the extended cast is that their characters were completely unnecessary for the plot and the eventual explanation of the origin of the "Miracle" and the resolution of the story felt like a huge cop out. Whereas the idea behind Children of Earth was very simple this one required a suspension of disbelief too far and would probably have been better left to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
If there is to be another series of Torchwood I think it would be better to return to single episodes as the first two series had - or to leave one writer in overall control as Russell T Davies was for the third series. I don't think Miracle Day was a complete disaster but I do think it could have been much better.
I've enjoyed Miracle Day although it's been a struggle waiting 10 weeks for the conclusion.
ReplyDeleteGwen's family live in my cousin's street in Mumbles. I don't believe they have a cellar though.
They do have this habit of killing off major characters which I find irritating though - right from the woman in the very first episode of series 1 through the brilliant Ianto to most of the cast of Miracle Day including Q from Star Trek who I've always liked.
Favourite line was on the plane when FBI woman said, "Is that the best the English have to offer?" to which Gwen punches her hard in the face and says, "I'm Welsh!"
Bill Pullman was brave and did an excellent job playing a Paedo and, although never actually likeable, Oswald was believeable and an interesting character.
Over all, they've left it neatly open for another series and I will certainly watch it.