It’s Massive Review Week! There are a few small news stories I saw, but they can wait til next week. This week, I have a preview for next week’s Doctor Who, a review for last week’s Doctor Who, and three Torchwood reviews that should get us all ready for the Torchwood: Miracle Day finale on Friday.
Just occurred to me…you guys are reading this column on Saturday (I am writing it on Wednesday and Thursday)…so you have already seen the Miracle Day finale. DON’T SPOIL IT FOR ME!!
The Girl Who Waited Preview
BBC posted up a great trailer for next week’s episode of Doctor Who:
Looks like this week is Amy’s turn to be a bad ass. This should be another great episode of Doctor Who; I typically always enjoy the Doctor-lite episodes. Blink, Twilight, and Turn Left are some of the best episodes in the series.
Doctor Who: Series 6, Episode 9 – “Night Terrors” Review
Summary: (thanks to Wikipedia) The Doctor decides to make a “house call” after his psychic paper receives a message from George, a frightened 8-year-old child, asking his help in getting rid of the monsters in his bedroom. On arrival at a council estate on present-day Earth, the Doctor, Amy, and Rory split up to try to locate the child.
The Doctor, taking the guise of a social services worker, finds the right flat, and meets George’s father, Alex, while his mother Claire is working a night shift. Through Alex’s photo album, the Doctor learns that George has been frightened all his life, fearing many of the sounds and people around the flat and is helped to cope by various habits, including metaphorically placing his fears within his wardrobe.
Meanwhile, Amy and Rory, while taking the lift down, suddenly find themselves in what appears to be an eighteenth-century house, but shortly discover most of the furnishings are wooden props. Other residents of the estate appear in the house, but are caught by life-sized peg dolls that laugh and sing like children, and transform the residents into more dolls. Amy and Rory witness one transformation and try to flee, but Amy is caught and becomes a doll herself, joining the others in chasing Rory.
The Doctor, suspecting that the wardrobe is containing the evil that George fears, opens it to find its contents are simply clothes and toys, including a doll house. The Doctor suddenly recalls from Alex’s photo album that Claire did not appear pregnant in the weeks leading up to George’s supposed birth, causing Alex to remember the fact that Claire was unable to have children.
The Doctor asserts that George is a Tenza child, an empathic alien who took on the form of Alex and Claire’s desired child through a perception filter, and has the ability to literally lock away his fears within the wardrobe. George begins to panic from this revelation and the Doctor and Alex are pulled into the wardrobe, joining Rory in the dollhouse.
As the dolls descend on the three, the Doctor calls out to George to face his fears; George is able to open the wardrobe and appears in the dollhouse, but the dolls turn to advance on him. The Doctor realizes that George is still frightened that Alex and Claire plan to send him away, having mistakenly interpreted a conversation they had earlier that night; Alex rushes through the dolls to embrace George as his son. They all soon find themselves back at the estate, restored to normal. Claire returns the next morning to find George no longer scared while Alex and the Doctor make him breakfast. After being thanked, the Doctor rejoins his companions to set off for their next adventure.
Commentary: I love the new opening for Doctor Who for BBC America. The intro by Amy is just brilliant. Shame there doesn’t seem to be any video of it on Youtube, I really was hoping to share it in this column.
Night Terrors was decent, but not one of my favorite episodes of Doctor Who. As cool and creepy as the Peg Dolls were, it often felt like a lot of the scenes with Amy and Rory in the dollhouse were just to find something for the characters to do. Everything else in the dollhouse seemed to make sense; they were all things that scared George (the elevator, the mean landlord, the old lady with the wheezing breath). But Amy and Rory were just “wrong place, wrong time.”
And making George an alien sort of softened the impact. I loved the idea that the Doctor was drawn someplace by a child’s terror. George being a Tenza sort of felt tacked on.
That said, there were a lot of brilliant moments in this one. The Doctor, Rory, and Amy walking through the apartments trying to find George had some very funny moments, especially Amy’s encounter with the creepy twins. As I say many times in this column, children are creepy.
Matt Smith really has a great way with children. His scenes with George reminded me of his brilliant scenes with Amelia Pond in his first season. I honestly don’t think this episode would have been nearly as good with any other actor playing the Doctor. I still hear some people complain that Matt Smith is not David Tennant, but I truly think he has added many brilliant dimensions to the character of The Doctor, and I hope he stays around for a long time.
Torchwood: Miracle Day – Episode 7 – “Immortal Sins” Review
Summary: (TARDIS Index File) Gwen drives Jack across America to bring him to the people holding her family.
Flashbacks are seen to Jack’s past. In 1920s New York, he is awaiting his visa at Ellis Island, when Angelo Colasanto steals his visa. Jack confronts him, retrieves his visa, and visits Angelo in his cell. They talk, and Jack uses technology to create a visa for Angelo.
Angelo is freed. Jack and he quickly enter a relationship. At one point, they are retrieving an alien from a base when Jack is shot dead, and Angelo captured and imprisoned. Jack returns to America after Angelo is released. Angelo, believing Jack dead, is terrified by Jack’s immortality.
Angelo takes Jack to the Butcher shop beneath their room, where people arrive who are terrified of Jack and sadistically attack him with knives, guns and meat hooks to kill him and collect his blood, despite Jack’s protests that they are making a mistake. Three men visit Jack. They seem to know something about his immortality. Angelo overwhelmed with horror and guilt, eventually lets Jack go. Jack quickly recovers and flees with Angelo to a rooftop, where he explains his immortality before jumping off to his “death”. When Angelo reaches the bottom of the building Jack has gone.
As Gwen and Jack arrive, Rex and Esther have contacted Andy Davidson in Wales. He has freed Gwen’s family. They train snipers on the three people who want Jack. Jack states that he has won, but they say that Jack will come with them anyway. They have the information about the Miracle he wants. Angelo is still alive, and has something to do with the Miracle.
Commentary: You know, I should probably get annoyed at all the flashback sequences in Torchwood over the years. Seems like everything needs to be tied to some mysterious moment in Jack’s past that no one knows about. BUT, it’s hard to get annoyed because these episodes are always terrific. Angelo and Jack’s back story might have been the highlight of Miracle Day so far, and that is saying quite a bit.
I was amused when I thought The Families were the Mafia! But it looks like they got away from that. Guess no one wanted to let the Italians rule the world.
I did think that the way they resolved the whole Jack and Gwen standoff felt a little cheap, especially with all the buildup. I am still not sure exactly how Rex was able to reach out to Andy, and to know that Gwen’s family was being held at the house. Of course, I am also not sure exactly what the plan Angelo’s granddaughter had here. If they had just mentioned Angelo up front, Jack would have gone with much less headaches.
Jack and Gwen’s talk in the car was great. John Barrowman and Eve Myles truly have brilliant chemistry, and those scenes really helped put all four seasons of Torchwood in some perspective.
Nice to see Nana Visitor, though she was only in two episodes. I have always been very fond of her. I will admit that I thought it was a little odd to see her without the Bajoran nose wrinkles. And this is despite the fact I have met her twice in the last two years at Star Trek Conventions.
Torchwood: Miracle Day – Episode 8 – “End of the Road” Review
Summary: (Thanks to Wiki) The Torchwood team arrives at the Colasanto estate led by Olivia Colasanto, Angelo’s granddaughter. At the estate, Jack finds Angelo, now an old man and in a coma, having lived that long trying to find out about the secrets of immortality. Olivia reveals that the ones responsible for the Miracle are called “The Families”, the three mob bosses who bought Jack when he was captured in 1928 and were able to create the miracle, in some manner related to his blood. Jack explains that his immortality doesn’t work like that, but the Miracle is real, and a lot of his blood was taken while he was imprisoned. Angelo initially tried to join the alliance with The Families due to their common goal, but Angelo was rejected because they frowned on his homosexuality.
While Olivia explains this, a CIA team led by Brian Friedkin captures everyone in the mansion. Friedkin is trying to cover up The Families and his treason. Rex explains that he set Friedkin up, so that he could expose him to the CIA at large. Using the I-5 contact lenses, he transmits Friedkin gloating straight onto a monitor in front of their superior, Allen Shapiro. With their names cleared, Jack and Gwen decide to work with the CIA in order to find the whereabouts of The Families, and stop the Miracle. But one of their only leads is destroyed when Friedkin kills himself with a bomb along with Olivia.
Jack then takes some time to say goodbye to his former lover, as alarms go off around him announcing that Angelo’s just died. In annoyance he turns off the machines, until he realizes that unlike everyone else on the planet, the rules for the miracle do not apply to Angelo either; as he dies in front of Jack.
In Dallas, Texas, Oswald asks Jilly to get him a prostitute on a whim, claiming he wants something normal in this new world. Jilly gets a new intern, unaware that she is a CIA agent. When the prostitute arrives at Oswald’s room, she is surprised to learn that Oswald just wants to have dinner with her. She rejects his offer and tells him that as a celebrity, he is worshiped, but as a man, he’s still hated for what he did and soon will become a “Category 0”.
Demanding answers, Jilly reveals that there is a new law that is being worked on that will classify criminals like Oswald as Category 0s and send them to the modules. Angered that PhiCorp used him for their plans and intended to abandon him once they were done with him, Oswald batters Jilly and runs away.
Later, Jilly is met by a representative of The Families, who shoots the CIA mole. The mole’s identity was revealed by another Family agent (and presumably member) within the CIA, Charlotte Wills, who happens to be a former teammate of Esther and Rex. After a one-question job interview, he takes Jilly to meet The Families.
Esther gets in contact with her sister, who’s currently in a secure mental facility, and finds out to her horror that her sister wants to volunteer herself and her children to become “Category 1”. In desperation, Esther ignores Jack’s pleading not to reveal a critical detail she noticed about Angelo’s room (the floor). After removing the floor panelling, a mysterious device is discovered. After Shapiro orders Gwen to be deported, Jack explains it’s a null field transmitter, which interferes with the morphic field he previously postulated was behind the Miracle. Although he claims to be broadly unfamiliar with the technology, he is forced to help disable it so it can be taken to Langley.
Jack modifies the Null Field to target sound, so he can converse with Rex and Esther without being overheard. Jack explains the reason for his reticence: he is trying to protect humanity from technology they should not have access to, due to the damage to the timeline. He also explains that the tech is alien, and that it came from the Torchwood Hub. It was buried in the ruins as shown in the third series, but Angelo had people salvage the transmitter, preparing for the miracle.
It’s suggested that Jack is mortal because Angelo used the device to target him as well through his blood. Jack begs Rex and Esther to help him escape, to help save the shining future he’s seen. He takes a critical piece of the technology so nobody can replicate it. On the way out, an agent shoots Jack and sees Esther helping. Rex knocks the agent unconscious, and Esther drives a wounded Jack away.
The episode closes with Esther begging Jack to reply, as she drives not knowing where to go, while at the same time Gwen is on the plane leaving the US for the UK.
Commentary: If Torchwood comes back for another season, John De Lancie needs to come back too. Shapiro truly took over the scene every time he spoke. When he called Jack “the Red Baron” and asked “do you have Snoopy up your ass?” I had to pause the show I was laughing so hard.
Jack has the kiss of death!! Another Italian reference!
It almost seemed like Miracle Day’s tone took a drastic change this episode, and I got the impression that if it comes back next year, we’ll be seeing closer ties between the CIA and Torchwood. That might actually be a good thing. Children of Earth and Miracle Day had such cynical views of the world, and it was nice to see some government agents who weren’t total assholes or morons.
I also loved the confrontation between Oswald Danes and Jilly. The lack of Oswald the last two episodes was a bit odd. I thought he would end up being another forgotten story thread, but they really managed to tie it all back in nicely, helping move everything towards the conclusion. Jilly being brought up to the big time should definitely be interesting.
The end was a hell of a surprise. I really thought it was likely they were going to kill off Jack! The setup of that moment was perfect!
Torchwood: Miracle Day – Episode 9 – “The Gathering” Review
Summary: (TARDIS Index File) Esther and Jack are on the run in Scotland. While in Scotland, Esther has been taking blood from Jack since they suspect it is significant to the Miracle, the families, and the Blessing.
Jack’s own blood bank is stored in a metal briefcase in the event it becomes useful. Eventually, when Oswald Danes travels to Gwen Cooper’s home in Cardiff with information about a man behind the Miracle, the team reconvene in the Cooper residence.
Torchwood discover that Jilly Kitzinger was hired by PhiCorp to rewrite the English translations of foreign news clips, including a man in Shanghai who is actually saying he was saved by the Blessing.
Esther notes blood banks were burnt down shortly before the Miracle in two of the most populous cities in the world: Shanghai and Buenos Aires. Rhys, examining a globe, realizes that they are the exact opposite points on the Earth.
Meanwhile, police authorities under reinstated Category legislation have the authority to enter homes if residents are under suspicion of harbouring Category Ones. Considered legally dead, any Category Ones are taken into custody and held until such a time that they can be incinerated in the ovens. Gwen’s father has been hidden behind some wood paneling in the basement.
When an inspector returns a second time with a new thermal imaging application on his smart phone, he removes Gwen’s father. Gwen begs them to leave him alone, but nothing can be done. She reminds Jack and the others that all she wants is to stop the Miracle and have this authoritarian disaster end.
Rhys’ discovery of two geographic points running across the centre of the Earth reflects the logo of PhiCorp – a circle with a line running through it. They decide to split up and investigate: Rex and Esther travel to Buenos Aires; Jack, Gwen, and Oswald (who knows too much information to be released and who is at risk of being murdered by Rhys if he stays in the Cooper residence) are smuggled by gun runners into Shanghai. As Jack puts it, Torchwood has now gone global.
Meanwhile, Jilly Kitzinger is given an entirely new identity by the families as “Lucy Statten Meredith”, effectively ceasing to exist under her former identity, and is promoted to a position in Shanghai. Meeting an unidentified member of the families, she is complimented on her storytelling skills and informed that she was hired to essentially write world history for the families. She is taken to the Blessing, which is revealed to be a massive crack or fissure running through the centre of the planet Earth.
In Shanghai, Gwen discovers that Jack has not recovered from his gunshot wound and is, in fact, fairing worse after travelling. Undressing the bandages, Gwen assesses his wound and a drop of blood falls to the floor of the apartment they are staying in. Oswald notices it begins travelling across the floor, as if magnetized by an invisible force, and Gwen speculates Jack’s blood is being drawn to the Blessing – Jack is connected to the phenomenon of the Blessing.
Commentary: I really don’t want to be course, but I can’t be the only person who thought the Blessing looked like a giant vagina, right?
And I am really not sure why there was two months between the last episode and this one. It really felt unnecessary. Yeah, the Depression has been going on for 61 days, but it was never really clear why that was important. Again, too much going on in this show with nowhere near enough resolution. And with one episode to go, I suspect most of these hanging plot threads are just going to be left that way.
It was great to see Rex back in his element. Rex is a great character, and especially after reading the tie-in novel “The Men Who Sold The World,” I have a great love for Rex. I honestly don’t know if he will survive the final episode (let’s face it Torchwood loves to kill characters), but it would be a real mistake if they did.
This was mostly a set-up episode getting all the pieces in place for the last episode. Jack even sort of mentions that in character when he says, “This is Torchwood’s biggest adventure, on opposite sides of the world.” A little too blatant, but I am real pumped up for next week.
I especially loved seeing Jack’s blood being drawn to “the Blessing” like a magnet. That was a really cool scene.
Okay, I really need to stop letting my episode back log build up. Writing four reviews is exhausting, and that’s not even counting the three full reviews I am doing for DC Relaunch.
BTW, some weirdo on Youtube seems to be trying to boost his or her numbers views on a simple moon landing video by claiming it’s Doctor Who related.
The video does seem to skip for a few seconds, and I did feel a weird sense of nausea after watching the video…and err….why did I do this to my hands??
Okay…I am out of here before any other weirdness happens to me. See you next time.
