Quick Take: Torchwood, "Miracle Day: The Blood Line"
Rex will live again, but will Torchwood?
Quick Take: Torchwood, "Miracle Day: The Blood Line"
(S0410) The finale of Miracle Day had just one problem. It was a big problem certainly, but was it not for that singular problem, this episode would have been awesome. The problem is that the finale of Miracle Day sucked.
Now, I won't say that the episode didn't have its strong points. It did. Jilly's justification for why she was on team evil. Gwen's opening monologue about her father. Oswald's intention to rape Jilly for all eternity in hell. Jack's willingness to die. Rex's willingness to save Esther instead of the world. Q with a goatee. These were all brilliant moments crafted by two writers skilled at writing brilliant moments.
But that single problem still looms.
These storytellers broke the oldest rule in the book. You don't bait and switch the audience if you're not planning on giving them something better than what they expected. And you sure as hell don't do it twice.
First, the show promised that we'd be treated to literary sci-fi on TV. We thought we were going to see the world descend into anarchy with diverse political and philosophical factions battling for supremacy. We thought we were getting something wholly new and completely Torchwood. We thought this because of the ad campaigns (that Soulless mask, the planet-bomb), the opening summary of every episode ("Population: up, up, up"), and the first few episodes that imply the whole world matters.
And slowly, gradually, we found out that Miracle Day wasn't any of those things. It was just another action-adventure. "You thought this was Umberto Eco? You fool!" the show chided, "This is Hollywood." It was at about this point that the characters got to LA, actually.
Around then, masses of faithful viewers were like "WTF? Torchwood rotted. X(" Most critics, myself included, were skeptical, but optimistic. But that couldn't last. After episodes of the writers relentlessly chiseling away our suspension of disbelief, we were left looking towards the last episode, hoping that it was all so fuzzy because the wool was over our eyes.
And then the last episode came, proving that great swathes of the season were not required to tell the story the writers ended up telling. We didn't need to know anything about the world-at-large. We didn't need to know anything about burning bodies. We didn't need Gwen's family. We didn't need martial law. We didn't need Angelo. We didn't need a null plate. We didn't need Oswald. We didn't need Jilly. We didn't need Vera. We didn't need 9 whole episodes of the season. We didn't need Newman or Sierra or Kira or Q.
The writers promised a story that required a whole season to tell—and it could have!—but they didn't tell that story. They told a 44-minute story in 440 minutes.
To be fair, most shows don't need as much time as they take. Lost could've done without two seasons of flashbacks. Deep Space 9 could've done without most of season 1 and 2. Babylon 5 could've done without most of season 5. Scratch the last 10 episodes of Battlestar Galactica and you've got a masterwork. Scratch the first 5 episodes of Dollhouse, and you've got a mesmerist masterpiece. This is the problem with the medium. This is the problem with filming episodes before you finish writing and airing episodes before you finish filming. This is the problem with not knowing how much time you have to tell a story.
But Miracle Day didn't have those problems! It was always going to be 10 episodes long and it was finished long before we saw a trailer. Couldn't they have done any better?
Ultimately, they could only have done as well as they did and most of us couldn't have done it any better. Was Miracle Day terrible? No. It was actually pretty great. But it was far from we expected after Children of Earth.
I'm afraid we won't be seeing Torchwood any time soon. I'm afraid most people wouldn't want to. But I'm afraid and I'm angry because I still care. And you know, if I heard today, even in the midst of all this complaining, that I'd get more Torchwood if I forgave them every misgiving I've voiced, I would do it for even just a single moment more, hopeful of the kaleidoscopic mix of creativity and potency that Torchwood still represents.
LA the corrupter again, argh! ;-)
Seriously mike, great job covering torchwood all season and keeping the doctor who-verse alive and kicking on tvga !
This season was so disappointing that part of me wishes that the show would die a merciful death.
But if it doesn't, here are my 5 wishes for any future series:
http://theoncominghope.blogspot.com/2011/09/5-things-i-like-to-see-on-next.html
the problem isn't that it was just another action-adventure, it was a TERRIBLE action-adventure. It thought it was a clever character drama, which...no.