Articles "This goes all the way through... to the other side. So I figure, there's a bloke, somewhere around... New Zealand, standing on a bridge like this one, looking back down at us. All the way down. There's a hole in the world. Feels like we ought to have known."

Published on September 13th, 2011 | by Sharp-O

2

Torchwood: Miracle Day Finale and Season Overview

At the behest of my editor, I’ve been drafted to make one last Torchwood update, just to round out the series and considering that this season of Torchwood was so torturous at times that I actually gave up caring what happened week to week, it’s amazing that the season finale managed to pull off a pretty suspenseful and interesting finale.

A quick catch-up. The Miracle/The Blessing appears to be a crack running through the centre of the world, another pole if you will with one end in Buenos Aires while the other is in Shanghai. It’s apparently been there since the dawn of the human race and is not extraterrestrial, if anything it’s “very terrestrial.” Gwen, Jack and Oswald Danes head to Shanghai while Rex and Esther head to Buenos Aires. This culminates in a long stand-off while most of the plot elements are tied up and questions are answered.

As a whole, this season rates very poorly, despite strong performances and an interesting concept. I feel that the main problem lies in it’s length. Children of Earth worked so effectively because it was such a condensed story. Five episodes over five nights. Short, sweet, quick.

Miracle Day is a plot that was stretched so thin that it felt like the last tendon holding a severed forearm to the rest of the body. So much of the plot could have been trimmed down and airing it more than once a week would have helped the pacing so much. Seriously, we didn’t need three episodes of Overflow Camp shenanigans, that could have been tied up in two episodes as a B Story instead of the focus for three. The stuff with Angelo could have been slowly introduced early in the season instead of an exposition dump that takes up most of an episode and blatantly reveals the twist at the end of the episode to the audience.

The characters of Rex and Esther slowly warmed to me over the course of the series and they definitely feel a part of Torchwood now. Rex especially, with his constant berating and teasing of Jack, but they also work together pretty effectively in the season finale ‘The Blood Line’. I’m not going to spoil the episode because I think it’s a fairly good with some surprising twists and fun characterisation. Let’s face it, how many of us were expecting to root for Oswald Danes?

While the series as a whole should be considered Category 1, ‘The Blood Line’ shows how good Torchwood can be and gives us enough plot developments to warrant another season. Whether or not we’ll get one is under much debate and whether or not it’ll be good even more so. Whether you liked the series or not, you should at least give the finale a chance.

Tags: , , , , , ,


About the Author