Mexican Cooking?
Torchwood Miracle Day: Categories of Life
“Torchwood’s gone, ok? It’s just a name these days.”
Oh Mekhi, how unknowingly spot on you are.
So it turns out that Miracle Day’s bad guys are, well, the Nazis. Or at least, a decent impersonation of them – a Bremner rather than a Culshaw, at any rate.
Except, as is common fare with Torchwood, this realisation that the bad guys are really bad is done in such a ham-fisted manner that it almost undermines the points about society and healthcare Russell and his Scooby Gang are trying to write.
I presume it’s Davies. While this episode had Jane Espenson’s byline on it, the clunking, preaching commentary from Gwen as she visited Barry Island… sorry, Cowbridge Overflow Camp, about private companies running the NHS had the distinct taste of a Rusty polish.
It also doesn’t help that the writing is so clunkingly awful. So much of Miracle Day seems to have been written purely to provide Harry Hill with feed lines on TV Burp. Especially Esther.
“Do you think I’m useless?”
Cut to studio: “Yes.”
Categories of Life saw the international espionage equivalent of Misfits breaking into not one but two ‘Overflow’ camps where the sick and not-dead-yet are being taken and triaged into three categories – should be dead, could be dead, and not dead. Gwen snuck into Wales’ facility to rescue her dad, while Team America went undercover at San Pedro to try and work out what the categories mean – and what the mysterious ‘modules’ installed in them are for.
Now, the whole ‘what happens to society if medicine breaks down’ issue is one that deserves real thought and consideration, and Miracle Day is trying to do that. Unfortunately, as often is the case with the show, it does so in such a half-arsed way that the show feels like it has less to say than your average episode of Holby City.
Thing is, heartless – sorry, Gwen’s Dad – though it may sound, what exactly would be the practical solution? The category ones are dead or near-as-damnit. Yes, thanks to Miracle Day they may still be alive, but largely in a vegetative state with no hope of recovery. For a show that made great play about the population impact of having nobody die, the characters are suddenly a bit squeemish about methods of controling said population explosion.
We’re supposed to be horrified at the revelation that Phicorp’s solution to the problem are concentration camps and a mass cremation, and thus heavy implication that the enemy Captain Jack and co are dealing with is yer good ol’ fashioned Nazis.
But what we’ve also seen so far, in the two camps the show has exposed, is one incompetent manager abusing the rules to deal with a rival and one patient who actually wasn’t really at immediate risk of dying until Gwen went blundering in.
Incidentally, I’m guessing Stephen Tobolowsky or John Malkovitch weren’t available to play Colin the evil San Pedro administrator, which is why they managed to find the Primark equivalent of both performers in the one actor.
You can tell Colin is supposed to be evil, by the way. Not only is he racist and sexist, not only does he mistreat patients, not only shoot his rivals then bake them for 20 minutes at gas mark 30… he likes Phil Collins. He must truly be a monster.
Yes, baking his rivals. Poor Vera Juarez, after being largely a peripheral figure in the action so far, joins Torchwood with a fist bump and ends up doing a Spooks. We’re supposed to care, because she’s one of the good guys and Rex has been pumping her for the last… well, couple of days. But of course, we don’t really, because like everyone in this show there’s been no real effort at making her a character, only a catalyst.
Meanwhile, as the rest of Torchwood were investigating the hidden depths of Phicorp’s triage system, Captain Jack was… well, actually, what was Jack doing? Being further sidelined in what was his own show.
There better be some damned good redemption for old Captain Cock by the time we get to episode ten. Most of Miracle Day so far has been about emasculating him – not just by removing his immortality and indestructibility, but by slowly pushing him to the fringes of the show he’s supposed to the headline star of. Even Jack’s captaincy was stripped from him with Rex questioning its legitimacy while introducing Vera to his new chums.
All Jack gets to do now is mope about the new Torchwood apartment, be gay (not even bi any more, it seems) and occasionally lurk about in the shadows and rafters. He’s like a camp version of the Crow in an army greatcoat – all we need to see him do now is rappel down into a fight wielding a baseball bat and take on Hulk Hogan.
It doesn’t help, admittedly, that when he’s not managing Team Torchwood’s Skype account he’s paired off with Bill Pullman and his interesting performance – this week trying to persuade Pullman to expose Phicorp in exchange for Jack promising to kill him.
If Mekhi Phifer veers dangerously close to playing Rex as Tracey Jordan from 30 Rock, Pullman seems to be channeling the full Dennis Hopper, switching between utter bafflement at the source material, and gnaw-the-scenery over the top-ness. This utter lack of consistency makes it hard to get a grasp on exactly what Oswald is meant to be.
The implication, particularly in his good speech/bad speech is that he’s being positioned as a new world leader by Phicorp, presumably with the implication that a world happy to rally behind a messianic arch-skimmo is less likely to be fussed by the giant tandoori ovens currently baking the comatose remains of their loved ones.
It’s a nice touch, though, that the celebs at the Miracle Rally don’t want to associate with Danes though – presumably including Phil Collins, still haunted by his memories of talking Nonce Sense.
And what are we to make of Jilly Kitzinger’s encounter with the mysterious Blond Hunk (hey, it’s about the level of naming we’re getting with the unnamed characters so far, going by the credits for Excited Teenager, Pushy Woman and Handsome Man)? She’s been manipulating Oswald for the benefit of Phicorp, but is she blissfully unaware of what Phicorp are up to as well? The implication behind the whole you’ve been noticed is that she’s on the periphery of all this, rather than being an important player.
Which seems odd – if Oswald’s role is so vital, would you outsource it to the PR industry equivalent of Donna Noble? And if so, did she have to bid for the contract? I’ve seen some dodgy pitch documents in my time, but hers must have been something special…
Davies, Gardner, Espenson et al made great play when Miracle Day was launched of insisting it was just a continuation of the BBC series rather than a reboot and they were right – it’s the perfect extension of a series that has never remotely managed any consistency in tone, performance, content or even taste. When Rex describes Torchwood as now just being a code word to bring everyone together, he could easily be talking about the show itself as the characters.
Now, who fancies some barbecue?
