Quick Take: Torchwood, "Miracle Day: End of the Road"
A moment of crisis.
Review: Torchwood, "Miracle Day: End of the Road"
(S0408) We're at a moment of crisis, both inside the narrative of the show and outside it.
On the inside, through the cunning use of a null plate, Angelo is able to die in a world without death. This much, Jack conveys to the rest of the team, but what he doesn't tell them is that his kiss was the catalyst of Angelo's death. Is this to say that Jack's mortality is transferable? Or is this to say that a sorry bit of writing connected the kiss with the death, but we viewers should pay it no mind?
This distrust of the writing signifies a much bigger problem with Miracle Day. A show is only allowed the luxury of episodes like we've had these last weeks — episodes void of narrative urgency, no matter how filled they are with character urgency — when the audience trusts that it's all for some deeper purpose. Some shows have taken advantage of this, like Twin Peaks and Battlestar Galactica, only to leave us utterly disappointed by the lack of contiguity in the investment we make as viewers.
To date, Russell T. Davies has never allowed this to happen on Doctor Who or Torchwood, but if it hasn't been utterly apparent this season, there's a lot less RTD and a lot more Jane Espenson than some fans care for. To be sure, Jane has had some excellent episodes this season, though how she utilized the plot outline developed in the writer's room is another question entirely. In truth, this season seems to be unraveling in the same way Caprica was unraveling from the start, under Jane's watchful eye. This might be coincidence entirely.
What's certain is that here, at the "End of the Road," even diehard fans are questioning if this season has been worth watching. What was so exciting about the early episodes—getting to see this Miracle unfold on a global scale — has all but disappeared, and while it's been replaced with more character-oriented action, it hasn't actually been replaced with any more plot. I won't theorize about how the writer's probably did an outline for the season arc early on, but stuck to it too religiously even when they discovered that there wasn't enough story in any given episode, though I will say that complications are not drama.
The ratings continue to drop to the point of ensuring there probably won't be any more Torchwood and I'm really disappointed! I'm disappointed that so many have to question whether the content we've been given is important to the form of the story, or just filler to make it to through 10-episodes.
A lot of critics are insisting that Miracle Day should've been a 5-episode plot. I disagree. There is no story inherently a certain length. That just isn't the way narrative works. The power of the telling is what determines how long a person is willing to listen. Joyce's Ulysses holds a reader's attention for its epic duration with the most mundane of activities. It's so deep that it is read over and over and over again.
Miracle Day is not that. The best we can hope for is that these final two episodes save the season from utter pointlessness and that maybe, some years from now, we'll be lucky enough to get a little more Captain Jack.
Love your coverage of Torchwood all season, Mike !