Monday, July 18, 2011

Torchwood: Miracle Day - Episode #1

Well, you can tell it's now American.

The first half of this new episode of Torchwood seemed a bit like a tacky, CSI-like thriller. The pace and cutting was faster than before and there were a fair number of explosions. And, again, annoying zoom shoots of the mouths of multiple newsreaders were used near the beginning to highlight the shock of 'Miracle Day'. So thank goodness for the earmuff-wearing baby as Gwen shot at a helicopter outside her window after being reintroduced to Captain Jack!

It was at the point about half way through when Rex, the injured CIA agent, travelled across to Wales when things picked up for me. In fact, if it wasn't for Rex's tough, gruff, get-stuck-in attitude together with his dry wit then all of the American newcomers would've been somewhat bland and forgettable.

By the end of the episode though, I found I was quite enjoying the show. I have no idea how they'll run with the same mystery for another 9 episodes (mind you, other US shows have extended single mysteries over longer seasons in the past) but I reckon it'll be pretty entertaining. And I'll be interested in discovering why Jack is now vulnerable whilst everyone else is unkillable, why he came back to Earth after leaving at the end of the last series, who sent the Torchwood email that seemed to start this thing off and why some group is sending helicopters and suicide bombers to kill Jack and Gwen. Plus, it looks like we'll get to see more of Bill Pullman's creepy character Oswald the child killer.

Let's hope they stop using the "456" designation for almost everything though.

3 comments:

Tim Knight said...

My suspicion, based on no facts whatsoever, is that some alien force has done this whole deal just to get at Jack (hence the flooding of computers with the word 'Torchwood' to flush him out).

S Bates said...

That also crossed my mind. It seems a little grand if it is just a dig at Jack (but also sort of cool).

Tim Knight said...

I'm going for the "kinda cool" angle - reasoning that whoever it is didn't realise (or care) how it would affect the rest of the human race.