“I’ve seen some crazy shit with Torchwood, but now I’m at the limit!”
Be warned: this review contains massive, massive spoilers from the start!
Hmmm. Well, I suppose that worked as an ending, tying up the necessary loose ends: I don’t think we necessarily need chapter and verse on who exactly ordered every attempt to kill or hinder our heroes. But now that I’ve seen the whole thing I’m left underwhelmed by the disappointment of the revelations (it really was nothing more than the Families using Jack’s blood to alter the Blessing, as I’m sure we all guessed) and confirmed in my problems with the pacing of the whole series. Miracle Day has had some great individual scenes, and indeed great individual episodes, and the character development has been impressive. But the whole is much less than the sum of its parts.
It’s interesting to get a collaboration between RTD and Jane Espenson. Gwen’s opening monologue is classic RTD, but otherwise it’s hard to tell which writer is in the driving seat. It’s a well-structured finale, though, full of action but with loads of character as our heroes race to find the Blessing in both Shanghai and Buenos Aires.
There are a couple of early moments with Rex that made me smile: he suggests that he and Jack should go for a drink after everything is over, and even admits he’s never thanked Esther (“But don’t expect me to start now!”- this kind of foreshadows Esther’s death). Both of these hint at something lying beneath the gruff exterior, although you’d need a colossally huge mining operation to get at it.
We’re inevitably going to get a lot of exposition in this episode, so it makes sense to dump it all into the scenes of Exposition Woman expositing at Jilly. Interestingly, Jack is referred to as “The Creator”. It’s probably a good thing he doesn’t hear her saying that.
It’s also striking that Jack chooses to tell Danes that he’s from the spacefaring future, although I find that the attempt to contrast this with the smallness of Danes’ life is a little contrived. But I suppose it sort of works as foreshadowing of his decision to become a suicide bomber. Importantly, this scene helps to ensure this isn’t an heroic act.
Finally, the CIA is about to discover that Charlotte is a mole, but she’s prepared. I was devastated to see Shapiro blown up- John De Lancie is one of the best things about this series! I have to mention the superb performances from Bill Pullman and Jilly Kitzinger, too; both of them superbly deliver a lot of dialogue which could have fallen flat if not delivered well.
The climax begins with a standoff; Rex and Esther are prisoners at the Buenos Aires end of the Blessing, whereas Jack and Gwen have a bit more leverage from being accompanied by a suicide bomber. This gives a nice opportunity to bury a lot of the much-needed exposition in dramatic scenes. We learn that the Families are essentially a bunch of nasty eugenicists and social Darwinists who want to destroy the weak to strengthen the human race, a familiar trope that doesn’t need a lot of fleshing out. Their overall plan is left somewhat vague, though; it feels odd to hear Jilly (great though Lauren Ambrose is here) expressing such enthusiasm for something so ill-defined. And I love the way that Jack’s attempt to explain the phenomenon by quoting things the Doctor has said (“Silurian mythology, Huon particles, Racnoss energy…” is immediately undercut by Gwen getting him to admit he has no idea what it is. And this is one of those occasions where it’s better that we get no explanation.
I’m not sure I dig the solution; why do Jack and Rex both need to sacrifice themselves instead of just pricking their fingers or something? Either way would surely mean very little quantity of blood in proportion to the size of the blessing. Still, it works, the Miracle ends, there’s a mad rush to escape, and Danes blows up himself, the Shanghai access to the Blessing, and exposition woman.
We’re left uncertain whether Esther and Rex are going to survive as they both lie on stretchers. We then immediately cut to Esther’s funeral. She dies and Jilly lives. Together with the dialogue from Gwen that no one should have the power over life and death that the Families claim, I’m reminded of Mr Copper’s speech at the end of Voyage of the Damned, to the effect that survivors are not always the ones we would have chosen.
Only at the very end does Rex realise that Charlotte is the traitor. He chases her, but is shot dead. And then comes back to life, seemingly made immortal by the infusion of Jack’s blood. It’s a fantastic closing moment.
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