Tuesday, August 09, 2011
Edohotep
Cast: John Barrowman, Eva Myles, and Kai Owen
Just how does the world cope with a sudden population explosion, when death has been erased from the human condition? That's what writer/producer Russell T. Davies is raising in "Torchwood: Miracle Day." Now into its mid-season episode, the series explores the problems and fears that governs mans inhumanity to man. Not only are the world's resources being strained but there's also no place to give the people who are supposed to be dead a space to exist. This tale that Davies has created is perhaps his best to date.
This series' roots as a science fiction product may be a shortcoming, but ever since Children of the Earth, an homage to Village of the Damned, this series has grown. It can hardly be regarded as a "Doctor Who" spin-off and the issues it tackles is barely recognized in North American entertainment. When the series star, John Barrowman, is openly homosexual and death of the show's stars can happen anytime, to break into this particular market can certainly be tough.
With "Miracle Day," audiences are treated to a tale that's reminiscent of a zombie outbreak and a survival set circa World War II. The allegory Davies is injecting comes to light with episode five: overcrowding in PhiCorp's medical camps is becoming an issue, and those diseased need to be destroyed. There are these "modules/burn units," and if that doesn't send shivers down one's spine, the reminder of what the Nazis did to those who they thought were imperfect is all that's needed to be said.
Torchwood believes PhiCorp is at the heart of this sudden "Miracle Day." The evidence Jack Harkness (John Barrowmen) and Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) have gathered can potentially bring them down. By episode four, they have some of it, but they need the assistance of another player—someone who may also be close to PhiCorp—before it can happen. But is it too late?
Oswald Danes (Bill Pullman) was a heinous child killer and pedophile; his resurrection (he was supposed to die by lethal injection) is another miracle and what that means to the media, and the people who surround him, is debatable. The mysterious PhiCorp is keeping close tabs. Torchwood is interested too, but in order to get close to him, they have to bypass all the media attention that has been buzzing around him. Danes is soaking that up and Pullman is giving his performance of a lifetime; he's a fitting choice to portray the birth of a tele-evangelist.
To witness his bursts of sudden humanity through through the eyes of the camera is intriguing. To see him slip back to his darker self is just as harrowing. But that is a tale rarely tackled in storytelling. Whenever Danes and PhiCorp comes head to head, the prediction here is that he will become a cult-figure much like Hitler. The rhetoric these two push are the same: both praised a new world, a new order and how their kind deserves a place in history — but at what cost? There is no doubt that the pure, those who haven't succumbed to disease or injury, will be the force that's going to oppose Danes.
Should this be the direction the story is going; Davies will have a product that's going to be talked about for years to come. The key word that the mid-season episode is screaming is, “Revelation.” The spiritual implications have yet to be explored but the globalization of industry and how they threaten natural order is. PhiCorp's corporate reach is still unknown, and the question of who is pulling the strings has yet to be revealed.
The creative direction Davie's has mapped out for this series has been eye opening. What Oswald will become will certainly become the heart of this season's story arc. Is he going to become a new savior? Only the last five episodes will tell.
Overall: 8 out of 10.
The "Torchwood" official website in the United Kingdom:
Torchwood at the BBC
Seas. 1 on DVD:
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Posted in: 2011,BBC,sci-fi,sci-fi television series preview 2011,television,television review,television series
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