As I said in last week’s “Torchwood: Miracle Day” review, I’m too swamped with Comic-Con to give a proper write-up to tonight’s episode, but I have a few quick thoughts coming up just as soon as I sit at my desk and read blogs for a living…
First of all, if you watched Russell T. Davies’ run on “Doctor Who,” you know that the man has very strong feelings against the power and influence of large corporations, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that “Dead of Night” suggests that the power behind the miracle (or, at least, a major accomplice to it) is a pharmaceutical conglomerate. I have my own ambivalent feelings about conglomerates, but Davies tends to demonize his enemies to the point that it often winds up backfiring for me.
Second, we spend a lot of time on the US and UK members of the new Torchwood getting to know each other, find common language (along with the inevitable gag about someone driving on the wrong side of the road), etc. And along the way, Rex gets softened up a bit (but not entirely; see the comment that leads Dr. Juarez to kick him out of bed), but not in a way that makes me especially interested in forgiving his earlier characterization as an unrepentant jackass.
Third, I continue to find myself more interested in the scenes dealing with the unexpected side effects of the miracle – no more miscarriages or murder, outbreaks of old diseases like cholera – than in seeing Torchwood try to get to the bottom of things.
And fourth, the world may be in a major crisis, but Jack and Rex both have time to go out and get lucky. Given how mad many “Torchwood” fans still are about Ianto (in some reviews of this series, the comments are filled with nothing but objections from Ianto lovers), I’ll be curious to see how people respond to Jack’s one-night stand with the bartender. More importantly, relationship-wise, I’m glad that while Davies and the writers have to keep playing the card of Jack being attracted to Gwen, they’re also smart enough to recognize that, while she might be interested in him under other circumstances, Rhys and the baby are whom she really cares about.
Also? “Bigger on the inside than the outside.” Always nice to get a little nod to the series’ origins, even if the move to Starz/America has all but erased any remaining “Doctor Who” links.
What did everybody else think?