Torchwood: Miracle Day (Part Nine)

“We need you to write history.”

Two months have passed (“Day 61 of the Great Depression”), and much has happened. This episode feels very different, in fact; the action has largely moved back to Wales, and there’s a real sense that we’re reaching the endgame, with lots and lots of revelations. John Fay does an excellent job of keeping the characterisation on track as we whizz through it all.

The opening scene, with Gwen robbing a pharmacy, has lots of unintended consequences with the recent riots down south, while the use of pizzas echoes Torchwood’s beginnings in Everything Changes, a long time ago now. It’s also quite arresting that Gwen’s dad is being given diamorphine (pure heroin) by his ex-police officer daughter.

Meanwhile, Esther and Jack are holed up somewhere up in Scotland while Jack recovers from his wounds. Once again, Esther shows that she is competent despite her doubts. It’s hard to escape from the realities of what the world has become, though; I’m not sure how Esther is supporting Jack and herself, but Rhys is forced to consider taking a job which is essentially the transport of concentration camp inmates to the gas chambers, just to make ends meet. This series has done an excellent job of showing us how a whole society can eventually come to accept such things.

Surprisingly, it seems that no one at the CIA has noticed Rex’s obvious complicity in last week’s escape. Perhaps Shapiro knows, and is taking advantage of the situation? He’s certainly a lot more pensive and philosophical that he was last episode, even passive in his willingness to allow Rex to pretty much do as he wants.

Rex is certainly on top of things, though, unearthing a 1935 pulp magazine story which is clearly based on Jack’s experiences in 1928. The writer’s entire family seem to have vanished, but the earlier murder of a family member means that DNA traces must exist. Unfortunately, it’s Charlotte who takes charge of this, and she’s an agent of the Families. Unsurprisingly, she finds nothing. There’s only so long this sort of thing can go on before she gets caught.

Things are coming to a head for Jilly, too, as her promotion is shown to consist of a new identity, a one-way ticket to Shanghai and a trip to the “Blessing”. We’re getting a lot of exposition here, not that I’m complaining. An action sequence of some kind is pretty much obligatory at this point, so we have the Gestapo narrowly failing to find Gwen’s dad.

One thing I certainly wasn’t expecting was to see Oswald Danes walking into Gwen’s home. He’s not exactly made welcome, but he has the psychopath’s ability to manipulate. Once Jack and Esther arrive, we get to see what he has to say. At first, all this stuff about “Harry Bosco” doesn’t seem to amount to much, but the simple concept of deliberate mistranslation turns out to be the key to everything. I like this; everything hinges on language, which is all a bit metatextual.

The scene between Jilly and the geeky bloke is fascinating; is he a member of the Families? He certainly seems to know a lot about them, and gets one fascinating line: “One family took politics, one family took finance, one family took media.” It’s implied, though, that this neat division of labour is all in the past.

It all kicks off in the last few minutes. Gwen’s dad is carted off to the death camps, but it suddenly becomes clear that the “Blessing”, whatever it is, runs right through the centre of the Earth between Shanghai and Buenos Aires. Somebody should give Rhys a gold star for his geography homework.

So, the team splits and heads to those two cities. Rex seems to have very little trouble getting permission from Shapiro to “go off-grid”; to me, this heavily implies that Shapiro knows exactly what he’s doing, and is far more in control than he appears. But he and Esther, as soon as they arrive in Argentina, are somehow betrayed by Charlotte. Jack, Gwen and Danes(!), in Shanghai, meanwhile, find Jack’s health beginning to deteriorate at an inconvenient time; is he dying?

Jilly’s trip to see the Blessing is dragged out by all sorts of suspense. We even get a strangely Moffat-esque line about “something in the corner of your eye that you can’t quite see.” What we see, though, is very abstract and odd. We still have no clear idea what it is. But what people see is subjective. And Jilly’s revelation is that “I’m right.” What does this mean? No doubt we’ll find out in the last episode.

Meanwhile, it turns out that Jack’s serious health problems might not be as inconvenient as they appear at first, as his blood seems to roll towards the blessing…

Torchwood: Children of Earth (Day Four)

“…And if we can’t identify the lowest achieving ten per cent of this country’s children, then what are the school league tables for?”

I love the comically stereotypical Scottish incidental music in the flashback this episode. There aren’t many laughs in this not-entirely-cheery hour of telly, but this made me chuckle.

Of course, Children of Earth continues to be superlative. John Fay has done a particularly good job; this episode has an awful lot of heavy lifting to do in getting the plot from A to B and yet there are some sublime set pieces, one in particular. Yes. That one.

Back to the, er, flashback, we get some very interesting dialogue invoking sacrifices of virgins to the “ancient gods”. If you’ll indulge me indulging my inner pretentious git once more, this reminds me of Iphigenia, sacrificed by her father so that he can sail to Troy. I suppose this makes Jack a sort of Agamemnon, and therefore a kind of Greek tragic hero. Gosh. Could this be foreshadowing some kind of similar sacrifice, perchance? Interestingly (my inner pretentious git has buggered off now), this also harks back to Jack’s decision at the end of Small Worlds.

Meanwhile, Frobisher is talking to the 456 again, and one of the people watching from the camera is played by Nick Briggs. We finally get to see inside the tank, although we still don’t see much, which again makes what we do see all the more effective. And the sight of the child is not something quickly forgotten. This is the fate which awaits one in ten of the world’s children.

Oh, and the 456 drops the UK right in it. Earlier in the series the possibility of exposure was a major source of dramatic tension; it’s a sign of just how much the stakes have been raised that this longer seems important beyond again establishing how slimy the Prime Minister is.

We get a scene with Jack and Ianto early on, establishing the now worsening hairline cracks in their relationship. Ianto is now realising that their relationship is but a momentary blip for the immortal Jack, who will have forgotten him centuries hence. Like all of Jack’s relationships, theirs is inherently doomed. One way or another, they would never have survived this series as a couple. But that’s drama for you; it thrives on conflict, not “happy ever after”.

Oh, and we finally learn the name of Jack’s daughter: Alice.

But the meat of the episode is, of course, the debate round the cabinet table. It’s a bleak yet believable dramatisation of how those in power would react. The terrible euphemism of referring to children as “units”, the horrible inevitability of the final decision, and worst of all the moral cowardice of a Prime Minister who insists on all of the hard choices being made by others make up one of the finest scenes I’ve ever seen in all of television. Appallingly, the only person who says aloud what “everyone else is thinking”, and urges the extermination of the underclass, is in fact the least despicable of the all; at least she has the courage of her convictions. The others just sit silently and try to half persuade themselves that they haven’t really dipped their hands in the blood. Cowards. But all too believable. Even worse, in a way, is the attitude that of course their own offspring will be spared.

Of course, there’s one person around the table who’s right at the other end of the moral spectrum. Poor Lois. So brave. So utterly doomed. Cush Jumbo is brilliant here.

Then things are moving fast. Torchwood’s makeshift HQ is apparently rumbled, but it’s all part of the plan. Except that, clever as the execution may be, it’s ultimately not a very good one. Just straightforwardly confronting the enemy may be old-fashioned and honourable, but it was never going to work. Jack is overreacting here; it’s the guilt from 1965. That time he sacrificed twelve children, this time he’s sacrificed the hundreds of inhabitants of the building. Including Ianto.

Ianto’s death is unbelievably heartbreaking. Not because it’s a cruel end to a potentially loving relationship, but because it isn’t. Their final words to each other are defined by the earlier scene, in which Ianto realises that Jack’s immortality means he will never mean as much to Jack as Jack means to him and their relationship cannot last much longer. The exchange of “I love you, I…” / “Don’t!” says it all. Ianto dies knowing Jack never loves him and will eventually forget him.

Still, perhaps things might cheer up a bit next episode?

Torchwood: Children of Earth (Day Two)

“If you’re the bad guys, why doesn’t it say that on your file? And, if you’re the good guys, who am I working for?”

RTD hands over to John Fay, whose dialogue (polished by RTD though it must be) doesn’t quite sparkle as much. This is still brilliant, though, much as it doesn’t actually advance the plot very far. It’s about the character moments, and the fun and fascination of seeing our heroes regroup from their lowest point until they’re ready to fight back.

We start with Ianto and Gwen, dirty, shocked, with the whole world suddenly against them. These scenes are brilliantly shot by Euros Lyn, and give a real sense of paranoia. We’re then quickly reminded that Frobisher, who is generally presented to us with sympathy, is the one who has ordered this cold-blooded assassination. And here’s the sinister Dekker again, revealing that the 456 have asked the British government to built something without telling them what it is. Things are going all A for Andromeda.

There’s comedy too, of course, not least with Tom Price being great, as usual, as PC Andy. I love his “I mean, we’re not going in there all guns blazing, are we?” followed by the clicking of the guns!

Gwen- and Rhys- are on the run, the enemy has eyes everywhere, and as both of their accounts have been frozen they can’t even withdraw any money. Everything between the two of them is great. They’re a fantastic couple, and I love Rhys’s lines. And that it’s his knowledge of the haulage industry that allows them to get down to That London. Better still is Gwen’s revelation that she’s pregnant. You just have to love the pair of them.

Ianto’s interaction with his family is great, too; it’s fab how everyone just rallies round. I love the army of chavs which distracts the government surveillance agents so that Ianto’s sister (what’s her actual name, he asked, knowing he’ll be googling it within minutes?) can sneak away to meet Ianto.

Oh, and there’s a scene early on where Ianto sees a copy of The Times. The wonders of the pause button tell me that it’s “Wednesday September 2009”. Aren’t all these present day Whoniverse stories supposed to be set one year in the future, then? Has someone much cleverer than me been keeping count to see if it all fits or not? Am I the only one sad enough to think about this? Don’t answer that! The pause button also shows Gwen’s date of birth at one point. She’s a year younger than me. I feel old.

There’s more ominous-sounding emphasis of the 456 only contacting the UK. And also more evidence of what an utter **** the prime minister is. His comments to Frobisher are toe-curling: All I’ve done is put you on the front line. That’s what the front line’s for, John. First to fall.”

And then… “We are coming… tomorrow!” it’s all going to kick off.

Questions about Jack that we’ve all wondered are answered here as the remaining bits of him gradually, painfully and horribly heal to become a living body. And his fate is horrible- encased inside a concrete block, fated to die painfully of asphyxiation again and again, a fate worthy of Dante’s Inferno, for all eternity. Or the rest of the episode, anyway.

Lois makes her fateful choice in meeting Gwen and Rhys, explaining to them that the Government really does want them dead, and literally committing treason on only her second day at work. This is a very big decision and a very big deal; the Official Secrets Act is a very serious thing. I can’t remember how this ends for her but, unfortunately, I suspect she’s going down. A shame, because she’s a good person who’s doing the right thing for the right reasons. I love that she approaches the whole thing like a PA!

Gwen and Ianto’s rescue mission, wrapping up the episode, fails as we knew it must, only for Ianto to save the day with a forklift truck. The gang are all back together, and next episode seems likely to be eventful…