Quick Take: Torchwood, "Middle Men"
We are driven towards knowing exactly who is behind the Miracle and what they want from us.
Review: Torchwood, "Middle Men"
(S0406) This week, Torchwood answered a lot of questions. We learned conclusively that PhiCore, while making a profit from the Miracle, is not behind it. We learned that whoever is behind it is so capable at working the system that even one of PhiCore's highest ranking employees, Stuart Owens, was unable to decode the trail of legalese and abstraction implemented by, presumably, "the families," even though he was able to follow it.
We learn from Stuart Owens that whoever is pulling the strings, they're doing it with such precision that he was forced to track the "patterns, waves" that someone is enacting "across planet earth with infinite grace," rather than the individual orders themselves. We learn that the Blessing — which is safe to assume is Jack's DNA — is all that "the families" needed to put this plan into motion.
What we don't learn, and what becomes a bigger mystery than ever, is who exactly these families are. Are they humans? Are they aliens? Are they those humanoid lizards living under the earth, waiting for a time to rise? Are they AI?
We're also lead to question again the role "geography" plays in all this. On the one hand, the term suggests the concept of ley lines — intersecting streams of energy that net around the globe. And on the other hand, the term suggests, like the advertisement showing the planet as a bomb explicates, that somehow the planet itself is being weaponized, or else through some measure of incalculable control, initialized.
These revelations and questions alone don't lead us with the feeling that Torchwood has just accelerated its timetable, no. It's the combination of this information with the families' threat to Gwen, that if she doesn't bring Jack right to them, her family is in danger.
This season, we were already told that Gwen cares more about her family than about Jack, but she wouldn't betray him, would she? Probably not. But we know that whether she peels him or not, she's got the whole gang a one-way ticket to the families and now, after six episodes, our mysteries having been given more weight, we are driven towards knowing exactly who is behind the Miracle and what they want from us.
Things are heating up in Torchwood, very cool Mike !