Quick Take: Torchwood: Miracle Day, "Rendition"
This episode was more about the world and less about its heroes.
Review: Torchwood: Miracle Day, "Rendition"
(S0402) I’ve noticed it. You’ve noticed it. Aunt Cathy, who only sees the previews in between repeats of The Bounty Hunter, knows it. We’re only two episodes in and we can already tell that Torchwood is very different this season. It’s like the very essence of the show has transformed in some substantial way, even as the surface remains the same.
Maybe there’s precedent for this transfiguration. The first season of Torchwood, with its Weevils, robots, dinosaurs, and mad science were like the pulp science fiction of the '30s and '40s. The increased sophistication of the second season lead us into the inquisitive Golden Age of sci-fi in the '50s and '60s with deeper arcs and quite frankly, better writing. Season Three, Children of Earth, was very reminiscent of the hyper-political, dystopian works of the '70s and '80s, perhaps anticipating the thoroughly modern feel of Miracle Day.
Torchwood seems to be becoming more literary with time. On the one hand, I’m excited by the increased depth and invitation for audience participation. On the other hand, I’m terrified that at a certain point, this motion will ultimately end the show.
Only a day has passed since the first episode, no more than a week from Miracle Day, but already the concept is invading the morphic field of humanity like the nightmare that it is. While the first episode focused on the knee-jerk reactions of the world population, this episode has begun to look at the long term consequences of the miracle more urgently.
Scientists and doctors are gathering in make-shift teams in an effort to deal with this global crisis. Some welcome it as a radical form of the singularity (the technological turning point beyond which we cannot predict); others pray it will all just go back to normal. Dr. Vera Juarez (the least of the new cast members) wears her practical intellect well, first by changing hospital protocol to fit the nature of the emergency, then by becoming de facto leader of her think-tank. Despite her usefulness to the plot, she’s still little more than a way to convey all the strange and gory set-up we’ll need in the coming episodes.
Meanwhile, public opinion of Oswald Danes shot through the roof when he made a gut-wrenching apology to the world. And here I though he was irredeemable! You know, I could’ve watching Bill Pullman moan and croak “I’m sorry!” for another half hour. That guy has some talent.
In addition to leading Oswald further down the road of saviorhood, the scene also leads us to meet Jilly Kitzinger, a PR rep who’s to recruit both Oswald and Vera. My fear is that the writers tipped their hand a little too much with this lady-in-red. Oswald refuses her service, insinuating that little Jilly is the devil in disguise. At the time, it seems like a trite observation by a man who was just summoned by Oprah. But when Jilly approaches Vera on behalf of PhyCore, a pharmaceutical company, we know something is up.
The company specializes in pain management, which we already know is just what the doctor ordered. With people suffering horrible injuries, but not dying from them, a lot more pain-killers are needed to allow the population to function in any sense of the word. What’s more, Vera takes Jilly’s card. The devil has her foot in the door.
What does this say about Jilly and PhyCore? Certainly this company stands to make a killing, but are they the people behind it? You know it. I know it. Aunt Cathy knows it. The pharmaceutical industry is not above foul play. Just take a look at the great swine flu scare of 2009, and the mass quantities of vaccine sold around the world. The more suspicious among us concern themselves with the knowledge that the very same companies that make the drugs are in possession of the deadly viruses they work on.
For an episode that’s raised such well-trod topics of subculture like the singularity and Sheldrake’s morphic fields, it wouldn’t surprise me if we were being invited to experience the horror of a pharmaceutical company gone mad.
Finally, there’s the issue of what’s going on with our main characters, and though Jack nearly died while being transported to the states, it feels like this episode was more about the world and less about its heroes. Wayne Knight (Newman on Seinfeld) and Dichen Lachlan (Sierra on Dollhouse) join the cast as CIA agents intent on wiping Torchwood out. While Dichen (her character is currently nameless) gets to work on poisoning Jack, Mr. Freatkin is busy flushing out Esther and Rex. Things don’t go as planned, Jack, Gwen, Rex, and Esther now on the run, but with the breaking on Dichen’s neck, we can be certain that these are faces of Torchwood’s enemies.
When Torchwood started so many years ago with a dinosaur eating a cyborg, I would never have guessed that the most interesting thing about an episode would be the endless discussion of a single, compelling idea, and yet here we are, the adventures of Captain Jack and friends the least of our concerns as viewers. Will this new configuration ultimately prove as successful as it feels? Might this be the face and shape of TV as we inch deeper into the coming decade?
Until next time...
