Torchwood Miracle Day blog: 'The New World'

Anticipation for Torchwood: Miracle Day, an American-British co-production, has been at fever pitch for quite a while now, with seemingly endless quotes flying around from John Barrowman and Eve Myles, telling us that Torchwood is exactly the same show that the nation became hooked on with 2009’s Children of Earth. They lied.

What was so brilliant about COE was that it was instantly gripping, with its pacey plot propulsion largely down to the fact that it only had 5 episodes to fill. Miracle Day, on the other hand, has 10 episodes to fill, and it already feels stretched. The opening episode’s pre-credits sequence saw murderer and rapist Oswald Danes (Bill Pullman) surviving the death penalty, and CIA agent Rex (Mekhi Phifer) surviving a skewering. The point being: no one is dying anymore. It’s a good premise, but one that has been made quite clear since the first promotional material was released. I therefore anticipated the developments that this episode had to offer. I waited… and waited… and waited…

And I’m still waiting. The hour-long episode (I say an hour; it ended after 50 minutes and was followed by a 4 minute preview (!) for the rest of the ‘season’), felt like nothing more than a sequence of waffly debates about whether it was a good or a bad thing blah blah blah. It was a blithering, talky mess for most of its duration, lacking exciting twists to get you hooked. And, despite a script that thought it was intelligent, it was undermined by the fact that Gwen’s former police partner, Andy (Tom Price), was the only one to work out that the world was going to get a bit full, or as Gwen (Myles) summarised: “We’re gonna run outa room!” Nicely put, Gwen.

It did take a while for Gwen to return to the fore, though; at the start of the episode, we were shown that she’d retreated to a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere with her husband, Rhys (Kai Owen), and their daughter. (The establishing shots for this location were so unsubtle that there might as well have been a flashing neon sign reading ‘NOWHERE’.) Of course, we all knew that she would become embroiled in the day’s events but, by the time she’d realised that, my attention was wandering.

The only other familiar face (of Boe) was, of course, Captain Jack Harkness (Barrowman). Despite having raved about Torchwood for its first and third series, and for about half of the second, I have always found Jack quite insufferable. Even I found it very difficult to be annoyed by him here, though, as he was on screen so little. The character had been significantly toned down by writer Russell T. Davies, who was perhaps allowing the show’s new American audience to get settled in.

That latter point, however, is also the source of most of the episode’s problems: there was far too much tendering to the American audience, and nowhere near enough to loyal fans. (The opening credits should have acted as a warning when ‘Special guest starring’ (?) came up on screen.) The show now has a glossy look to it that makes it a very impersonal viewing experience, while the much touted inflation of the budget also proved to be a hindrance, with Davies taking the opportunity to add in mindless, unexciting, poorly executed action sequences. The helicopter/car beach chase was particularly embarrassing, seemingly having been lifted from the script for Die Hard 8.1: We’re Really Struggling for Ideas Now.

Torchwood: Miracle Day’s opening episode has therefore left me feeling hugely disappointed. While I’ll still hold out for things to get better, the aforementioned preview didn’t exactly instil hope. One thing is for certain, however: Torchwood isn’t Torchwood anymore.

Torchwood: Miracle Day continues Thursday 9pm BBC1.

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