Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

"You're the first king we haven't eaten."

This is a psychologically brilliant and delightfully weird film, as you'd expect from the creative team of Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers. It's an odd commercial proposition at first glance, though; it doesn't seem particularly kid-friendly for a film based on a children's book. Still, apparently it did well. And is, incidentally, brilliant.

The creatures are, primarily at least, based on prosthetics rather than CGI, which is in itself a triumph. And both the direction and the cinematography are both highly accomplished and rather subtle, making this film look, stylistically, a bit like an art house flick.

But the real triumph is the characterisation of the creatures, which is quietly very dark and more than a little Lord of the Flies. None of them are happy. At least one of them, Judith, is clinically depressed. They are childlike, in a way, but the contrast with Max's innocent enthusiasm is stark. They pay a heavy price for their wildness.

Even the island they live on is slowly turning to desert; entropy. This links thematically to the lesson at school, earlier in the film, where Max is taught about how the world will inevitable end. What, then, is the point? 

There's political allegory, too. Max is appointed king on the basis of his imaginative claims, but, inevitably, the reality is that, like all politicians, he governs in prose.

This is an extraordinary and unexpectedly deep film, and well worth seeing. Just don't expect a typical Hollywood kids' film.

Torchwood: Miracle Day (Part Ten)

“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.

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: Miracle Day (Part Eight)

“You’re telling me the whole world got screwed because two gay guys had a hissy fit?”

Right. That’s it. That opening spiel with the white background and the numbers going upwards is getting well annoying, and it’s a relief that I’m only going to have to see it twice more. It’s also becoming clear as we reach the end just how uneven and oddly paced the series have been- surely the gradual revelation of the plot could have been paced better? Still, at least we have John de Lancie to add a bit of fun.

The team are taken by Nana Visitor to see Angelo, now a centenarian vegetable, and to receive the necessary exposition. There are some old pics of Jack on the mantelpiece, including one from the ‘70s with a moustache; although Angelo has married, become very wealthy and fathered children, he hasn’t forgotten Jack.

This isn’t purely for personal reasons, of course. Angelo has been watching Jack partly to learn whatever he can from Jack’s immortality. So have others, including those three men we saw in flashback last episode.  The three families of Ablemarch, Costerdane and Frines have been watching Jack for eighty-three years, constantly watching his resurrections, since 1928. They seem to have been collecting his blood. And, in 1998, a message was intercepted, referring to the “blessing”…

Suddenly, they’re all raided and arrested by a CIA team lead by none other than Newman. Except, this doesn’t seem to be entirely official. Newman seems nervous about the imminent arrival of others, and his sadistic behaviour towards Rex isn’t exactly that of someone who expects to explain himself to a superior.

The “official” CIA arrive, led by the brilliant John de Lancie as Shapiro, the CIA’s big boss. It turns out that Rex has deliberately allowed himself to be caught by Newman so he can set a trap; he’s wearing contact lenses, and Newman’s revealing comments to him are being relayed on every screen in the area for everyone to see.

The introduction of Shapiro gives the series a much-needed shot of adrenaline; De Lancie is perfectly cast, and Jane Espenson and Ryan Scott keep him well-supplied with great dialogue. And it feels as though we’ve reached a point where big revelations are going to keep coming. It seems that Newman is an agent of the Families; he gets to recite the mantra (“They are everywhere. They are always. They are no one.”), before blowing up the car he’s in, along with Nana Visitor.

Jack gets a few moments alone with Angelo, and is tactless enough to mention Ianto(!). But then, unexpectedly, Angelo dies, becoming the first person to do so since Miracle Day. It’s a bit of a mystery what causes this; we’re going to get some revelations shortly about what lies underneath the bed, but I reckon it’s Jack’s breath what did it. Surely the presence of the world’s only mortal man can’t be a coincidence?

Shapiro certainly suspects something along those lines, and insists that no one leaves. Other things are going on in the wider world, too, although frankly I’d rather not be reminded of the EU’s slow-burn financial crisis in my escapist drama!

The scene switches to Dallas, where we return to the sublime Bill Pullman and the wonderful Lauren Ambrose after far too long. Jilly Kitzinger is continuing to give Danes a load of very detailed instructions so he can further advance her employers’ agenda, but Danes is showing an increasing tendency to generally act like a rebellious teenager. Then, he changes the subject with a simple “Get me a girl”. Apparently, she has to be of “legal age”. Is this supposed to tell us something beyond the fact that we as viewers would not accept things being otherwise?

Jilly is approached by a very self-confident young wannabe “intern”, Shawnie Yamaguchi. We’re told, pretty much immediately, that she’s a CIA spy. I felt rather stupid for not having guessed that.

Bad things are happening. Esther’s sister, whom she reported to social services a while ago, intends to volunteer herself and her two children as Category One. Gwen’s dad is completely buggered- he’s in a bad way, but they can’t call a doctor without outing him as Category One. And the world economy continues to implode (We can smoke our way into the next Great Depression!”), as there are runs on the banks.

Esther spots something odd about the raised platform under Angelo’s bed, but Jack seems oddly reluctant for him to mention this to Shapiro. He’s eventually forced to mention that it’s a kind of localised “morphic field”, whatever that is.

Oswald manages to freak out his prostitute by insisting on sort of date, with conversation and dinner, rather than the sort of depraved activities one might expect. I’m not sure how realistic this is, frankly; it seems rather too neat. Surely a worldly-wise courtesan who sleeps with senators and so must be known for her intelligent conversation would either be willing to do this or (most likely by far) not be willing to have anything to do with someone like Danes at all?

Danes ends up in a massive row with Jilly I which he is violent towards her. Enraged, she lets slip that he is to be designated as “Category Zero” and sent to the ovens to carry out the judicial killing.

Back in Nevada, Jack utilises the bizarre properties of the morphic field to speak privately with Jack and Esther. He makes it clear that this is alien technology, once in the possession of Torchwood, with which humanity cannot be trusted. Esther is convinced instantly. Rex takes more persuasion, but ultimately it is agreed that they will attempt an escape.

Jilly, meanwhile, is approached by a mysterious, yet clearly important, chap. Warning her that she’s being watched by a CIA spy, he casually shoots Shawnie. Both of them seem to take this in their stride.  She is then offered a promotion within the “Family business”, and immediately accepts. We are then immediately shown that one of the CIA agents we’ve followed throughout the series, a friend of Rex and Esther’s whose name I didn’t catch, is working for the Family too. Their tentacles seem to be everywhere.

In Nevada, the escape begins; the plan is for Jack to escape, with Rex and Esther staying to bluff things out. But things go wrong. Jack, who is now mortal, is shot, and needs Esther to go with him. Rex has blood on his clothes. Gwen has been deported. And Esther is left alone in a stolen car with a possibly dying Jack as the radio delivers alarming news of financial Armageddon. We are reminded of her earlier crises of confidence as she panics. Where can she go? What can she do?

Torchwood: Miracle Day (Part Five)

“Who’s with Anwen?”

“No one. I left her with petrol and a cigarette lighter.”

That opening text thing is starting to get annoying, but never mind. This episode is superb; tense, fast-moving and really pushing the overall story into another stage, with some unexpected shocks.

Vera Juarez is told that the medical panels are over; their conclusions are to be used for establishing legislation defining the three “categories of life”, an ominous phrase. Vera is sufficiently appalled to immediately phone a rather smug Rex. This has to be stopped, and she demands to be involved.

After an off-screen journey right across America, Vera arrives in Venice and meets the team. This is a good opportunity for exposition, and that’s exactly what we get: category one means you’re so badly injured or sick that you’re unable to function yet unable to die; category three means you’re pretty much healthy; and category two is anything that lies in-between, a particularly murky and subjective category. And yet anyone defined as category one or two is sent to one of these mysterious camps. Oddly enough, this all seems to be a result of the medical panels in Washington DC, but seems to have been implemented throughout much of the world, including Europe. Er, not sure about that.

Gwen is off back to Wales to rescue her dad, and her scenes with Rhys are some of the few moments of humour in this uncharacteristically sombre script from Jane Espenson. She has an important mission to undertake, as her mother reminds her in no uncertain terms. The conspiracy runs deep; Phicorp, a private company, is apparently taking over the entire NHS!!!

The scene between Esther and Jack is a nice little character moment. Esther is still struggling with her confidence, as we also see in the following scene, but we also later see her carrying out her mission perfectly effectively. The subsequent discussion is fascinating, too; as Rex points out, there’s no objective way of deciding which category he belongs to. It’s an arbitrary decision, to be made by those with the power to do so. As Vera says, no one should have that much power.

It seems that every camp is equipped with “modules”, which are hidden from view in every photograph. The group quickly plan to infiltrate one, with Rex being taken away in an ambulance complete with hidden recording equipment. I love Jack’s parting words to him!

Oswald Danes, meanwhile, is to speak at a sinister-sounding “Miracle Rally”. Bill Pullman and Lauren Ambrose again show themselves to be the two best actors in this series as Oswald and Jilly Kitzinger argue over the contents of his speech.

Rex discovers the camps, inside, are cold and dark, and that there doesn’t seem to be enough room for the apparent demand. Meanwhile, Vera, posing as a kind of inspector, infiltrates the camp where Rex is being held, where she encounters the rather arrogant and unpleasant Colin Maloney, with his sneer and his golf buggy. And she becomes increasingly horrified by the conditions she finds.

Gwen, in parallel scenes, finds her dad at a similar camp in South Wales. A lot of care has been taken to make this look very different from its counterpart in California- the lighting is much darker, and the camera is certainly much more hyperactive. The atmosphere is unbelievably tense as Gwen and Rhys try to get Gwen’s trusting dad out of the camp. But catastrophe happens from an unexpected quarter; the stress gives Geraint another heart attack. Escape is now simply impossible and Geraint, now no longer conscious, is reclassified to category one. As we shall see, this is going to have horrible consequences.

Vera shows her inexperience with this kind of undercover work as the increasingly awful conditions she uncovers lead her to lose her cool and start a shouting match with Maloney. Tragically, she threatens to have him arrested and prosecuted, showing a touching faith in the authorities which will very shortly turn out to have been horrifyingly misplaced. Maloney, who has consistently exhibited psychopathic tendencies, responds by shooting her, several times. This is a massive shock, but it’s not the first time that a member (sort of) of Torchwood has been unexpectedly and cruelly killed in action. If the word “killed” is appropriate, that is. Things look ominous, though; after a messy cover-up, Vera is quickly put into a module, with the “category ones”.

Jack has been spending this time following Danes, and we get a scene in which he urges him to instead read a speech of his own devising, exposing Phicorp. Sadly, though, pairing John Barrowman with an actor of Pullman’s calibre doesn’t exactly make him look good. He’s a competent actor, although his range is limited, but he doesn’t really belong in this exalted company. Certainly, Pullman brings off the speech magnificently. Danes delivers the message intended by Phicorp, but in his own way.

We end with the shocking revelation that the “modules” are ovens, and that the camps are extermination camps. It’s the Holocaust all over again, on a massive scale. Suddenly Torchwood is dealing with some very, very big themes.

Torchwood: Miracle Day (Part Four)

“We are everywhere. We are always. We are no one.”

A rather serious episode this time, which seems to feeds us a few pointers about the general shape of what is going without actually revealing much. That’s clever. For the moment I’m enjoying being teased like this, but it looks as though next episode things will start to shift gear.

This one’s by Jim Gray and John Shiban. I don’t know anything about Jim Gray but Shiban has apparently written a lot of episodes for The X-Files which makes sense, given the tone this week. Jane Espenson it ain’t.

We heard about Esther’s sister, Sarah, last episode, and this time around we get to see her, all shut up in a boarded-up house with her two children. This is a disturbing scene, and among other things it shows us that Esther is far outside her comfort zone. The situation with her sister is a sort of synecdoche (sorry; I’m a pretentious git, I know, and I’m wondering if I still use the word correctly!) for Esther’s difficulties in adapting to the new and very stressful situation she finds herself in, not only having to deal with the new world reality but with a fugitive experience which is far from her experience. As we’ve seen, Esther is an extremely competent and resourceful person, but now she is adrift from the world she knew. Understandably, she makes mistakes, making a snap decision to report her sister to social services- with uncontrollable consequences- and allowing herself to be tailed by a mysterious hostile agent by making the elementary mistake of visiting a lone family member. Rex may not show much sympathy when this eventually comes close to compromising the mission, but Esther is very much the audience identification character. I suspect it’ll be interesting to use her as a yardstick for the whole series.

Anyway… Venice Beach! I’ve been there! It’s nice to have somewhere a bit nicer to look at than Washington D.C. at night. Just because it’s nice and sunny doesn’t mean there isn’t plot stuff going on, though. For a start there’s this “Dead Is Dead” business, pushed by one Ellis Hartley Monroe. Jilly Kitzinger calls her a “darling of the Tea Party,” which presumably indicates she’s based on some combination of Sarah Palin and the even more disturbing Michele Bachman. I’m sure I recognise the actress from somewhere. Anyone know what else she’s been in? She’s chilling, anyway. Her plans for putting the “dead” in camps have obvious parallels, and another parallel is drawn out by Rex’s discomfort with her talk of “segregation”.

Torchwood have a place to live, Gwen wants Rhys to get her dad out of hospital, and Gwen has been spotted by the same bloke who saw Esther earlier. All of these plot beats happen so quickly that you just know they’ll be back to bite our heroes later.

With a base of operations later, the team do a spot of rather impressive research while Jack regales us with allusions to George Eliot and Middlemarch. (I was born in Nuneaton, y’know.) Jilly’s making plans too. She isn’t completely amoral; she’s as disgusted by Oswald Danes as anyone but she’s professional enough to do her job. Although Danes is rendered slightly less evil by comparison once Piers Morgan is mentioned.

Esther, showing how competent she is when operating within her comfort zone, establishes that Server 113 is what they need to discover more, and she’s the prime mover in formulating the plan. There’s some alpha male squabbling between Jack and Rex on who should lead the mission, but this time Rex backs down rather more easily. He’s clearly more subdued than he has been. And he’s affected enough to pay a visit to his estranged father, something which means what he later says to Esther is rather hypocritical.

I love the rather clever scene in which Gwen and Jack obtain Nicholas Frumkin’s voice pattern, fingerprints and eye print, even if another person later on isn’t so nice. Gwen’s American accent actually sounded ok-ish to my British ears, but I loved her embarrassment (“Hot diggity!”). This contrasts with the later scene, of course, in which Frumkin loses a hand and an eye, but “no one dies”.

Vera Juarez, meanwhile, acts as our eyes and ears as we see how horrible things are getting in the hospitals, and how something like the camps can come about. Monroe is gaining ground, much to Danes’ horror. “The moment I lose my platform, I get thrown back to the mob”, he says, in a pithy little summation of his basic motivation. He’s led to hijack Monroe’s television news conference by very visible entering the hospital and swearing to help his fellow “dead” people. “I have risen with unending life”, he says, and speaks of “rapture”. Gosh, you don’t suppose there’s a certain allusion being made here, do you? It seems to work, though. Monroe (“Get a hold of Fox”) is instantly eclipsed and, no longer of use to her mysterious masters, is drugged unconscious. Those who live by the sword…

Unfortunately, the plan to switch the servers has been compromised ever since Esther started to be followed, and Gwen and Jack are finally caught and tied up by this mysterious bloke who’s been skulking about all episode. Incidentally, there are a lot of women being tied up in this episode, aren’t there? He’s an assassin, rather frustrated by the recent turn of events, and quite the psycho. He’s about to reveal something about the identity of the big bad when Rex, inevitably, arrives and shoots him in the throat.

Monroe’s fate is truly horrible; left inside a car as it’s crushed. The moment where the camera looks inside the tangled mass of metal to find a living, moving eye is horribly evocative. And the ending is ominous, too; Gwen’s dad has been taken to a camp, and it’s too late to stop it happening…

Torchwood: Miracle Day (Part Three)

“You’re a member of Torchwood now, whether you like it or not.”

This is the first time since I started this blog that I’ll be reviewing an episode written by Jane Espenson (here’s a hint as to where things are headed after I finish reviewing Blake’s 7; there’ll be many, many more episodes by her!). As you’d expect, the characterisation and the dialogue just sparkle. This is where we get past the set-up and into the actual story, and it’s looking exciting. Of course, I have no idea where any of this is going. But that’s all part of the fun.

We start with a scene which looks towards how things are going to develop- Oswald Danes, again being interviewed on television, modestly declines the title of “expert” but nonetheless goes on to opine on the necessity of “free drugs” for all. We then look back to the last episode as Rex confronts Newman- er, Friedkin, threatening him rather sadistically. We learn that Newman has been paid for “decades” by some mysterious agency, but the only thing he knows about them is a phone number which turns out to be untraceable. All of this is a rather smooth operation by the “new” Torchwood team.

Gwen comes across the massed ranks of the “Soulless”, with their rather fetching masks, in central Washington, and quietly shows her competence in arranging for the practical needs of their little underground group. I love the throwaway comment about Jack’s bank account having loads of money because it’s been gathering interest since 1906! There’s some witty and amusing stuff about transatlantic translation difficulty. I love Gwen’s line about the flat lemonade!

A bit of skirmishing between Jack and Rex about which one of them is the alpha male (to be continued) is interrupted by a mini-crisis of confidence on the part of Esther; she’s used to being behind a desk, and has no experience of dealing with anything like this. But we’ve already seen (especially at the end of last episode) how resourceful she is. It’s nice to see the character getting properly fleshed out.

The team finally follow the clues to a massive warehouse, which turns out to be “bigger on the inside!” The warehouse belongs to Phicorp, which is apparently a massive multinational pharmaceutical company. And the place is full of a newly developed painkiller, one which has no narcotic side effects. It’s here in such large numbers that Phicorp must have been expecting the “Miracle” for at least a year. The plot most definitely thickens. I’m loving this.

Meanwhile, Dr Juarez and Jilly Kitzinger, during one of those serendipitous outside conversations that makes me sort of miss my smoking days, more or less accepts an invitation to a “meeting”, about which much more later. Rex, meanwhile, gets a valuable lesson in how absolutely none of his CIA contacts can be trusted any more. We then get another confrontation between him and Jack over who has the biggest cock, after which Rex buggers off. He might be the alpha male type, but he’s still had a very stressful few days and could probably do with a bit of time to process things. Also, a bit of sex would probably help. Conveniently, that’s very much on the cards as he visits Dr Juarez. Rex is not exactly a paragon of chivalry here, but the two of them end up in bed together and Rex plants in her mind the idea of acting as Torchwood’s “spy” at the Phicorp meeting. She immediately refuses and throws him out but, as we’ll see, her own tenacious nature makes the offer impossible to resist.

Jack, stopping off at a gay club, gets some action of his own in scenes which the BBC has rather obviously and clumsily edited. He insists on using a condom with particular vehemence, an interesting reminder of his new-found mortality. His semi-drunken post-coital phone call shows up the character’s extreme loneliness, though. He has no real connection with the bloke he’s just copped off with, and needs to speak to Gwen for some real emotional reassurance. But Gwen, as soon as Esther manages to connect her to her husband and daughter, just abandons the phone call halfway through.

Oswald Danes, after a bit of police brutality which shows us how unpleasant it must be to be him, conveniently meets up with the very interesting and rather attractive (I like bad girls!) Jilly Kitzinger for a trip to Dallas. They’re not the only people going to that meeting, though; Gwen still has those famed Torchwood contact lenses, and Dr Juarez has decided to help Rex after all. Gwen immediately spots Danes and Kitzinger, and it’s obvious that this is no “meeting”. A presentation soon starts, and a congressman starts pushing the idea of legislation to abolish the need for prescriptions for drugs. It’s immediately obvious who stands to benefit from this.

Gwen has a narrow escape from Kitzinger’s room, but amongst the others watching there are other problems. For one thing, Jack has disappeared. For another, Friedkin’s phone rings, and the ensuing scene is played in near-total silence, with no incidental music, and we hear nothing but Rex’s side of the conversation.

Jack, it turns out, has gone to confront Danes, at gunpoint. Jack, of course, knows what it is to murder a child and to crave forgiveness, and immediately sees the falseness of Danes’’ supposed repentance. Bill Pullman is again magnificent here, taking pleasure in goading Jack with the pleasure he takes in his crime. “She flaunted it,” he claims, and insists it was the best moment of his life. But it also seems he has a death wish; he longs for execution.

This is a trap, though; Phicorp agents seize Jack, destroy his recording of the conversation, and give him a good kicking before throwing him out. Danes appears on television again, ending the episode as it began. He comes out rather strongly in favour of private heath companies, i.e. Phicorp, and spouts some rather scarily right-wing stuff about private companies rather than “Government” (a big, abstract, capitalised proper noun with no definite article, of course). What’s in it for him…?

That was bloody good- witty, entertaining, and the story is unfolding nicely with just the right number of mysteries developing.

Torchwood: Miracle Day (Part Two)

“The next six hours are gonna be filled by boredom, followed by monotony…”

Last episode, inevitably, had a lot of introductions and exposition to get through. However well these things are done (RTD does them very well indeed), such episodes are too easily dismissed if allowances are not made for the complicated job such episodes have to do. Fortunately no such allowances are needed here- we’ve only reached the second episode but the series is flying. This instalment is exciting, action-packed, witty and dammed entertaining. I’ve not seen anything written by Doris Egan before (although my good friend Wikipedia informs me that she has worked on stuff like House and Smallville), but on this evidence I’m bloody impressed.

We start with Jack and Gwen being, er, rendited(?) by Rex, representative of a foreign power which is riding roughshod over our national sovereignty. Grr. Annoyingly, though, Rex is not only very cool indeed but has managed to up the coolness quotient considerably from last episode.

It’s a Rhys-lite episode as Rex sends him off back home (no doubt so he can brood Welshly and come up with some sort of plan in a later episode). But from here on the episode, although admirably balancing light and dark in its tone, is where we start to burrow into what will no doubt end up as a massive CIA conspiracy. We finally get to meet the mysterious Mr Friedkin, and he’s… Newman from Seinfeld (Wayne Knight). I find it impossible to judge his performance- it’s unfair, I know, but he’s an actor I associate very strongly with one part and it’s hard to accept him playing anyone else. Hopefully that’ll fade.

We get one quiet moment between Gwen and Jack, establishing their close relationship (which does not go unnoticed by Rex) and, importantly, acknowledging that Jack’s been travelling and hinting that there’s something he needs to atone for. It’s not dwelt upon so as to alienate new viewers, but it’s important that the enormity of what he’s done is acknowledged. Still, aside from that it’s all action-cum-thriller fun. And I suspect Jacks point about morphic fields will prove important.

The conspiracy begins to show itself in both story threads as both Esther and Rex find themselves excluded from the world on which they’ve relied, and forced to adopt the unfamiliar role of outsider- although I suspect this would be easier for Rex than for Esther, who seems very much an establishment person. The exchange about her always maintaining a neutral viewpoint and having to eventually pick sides is, I suspect, commenting on her character arc.

Oswald Danes, meanwhile, gets some interesting development, again played superbly by Bill Murray. His deeply felt regret, live on television, seems all the more genuine because of its suddenness. Danes seems genuinely relieved to be able to say these things; before, he was “scared”. This is an acting masterclass, it really is. There’s so much riding on Pullman’s performance, and he really delivers.

The subsequent scene in the lift, with gorgeous yet sinister PR lady Jilly Kittinger, is brilliantly written and performed, and I’m not just saying that because the scene confirms all my prejudices about PR! Pullman is brilliant, again.

Dr. Juarez gets a much meatier role this week, showing herself to be a truly awesome individual. Not only does she completely rearrange the way her own hospital deals with the new reality, but she decides to gatecrash a high level panel, only to find that they’re desperate for as many doctors as they can get. Also, of course, she’s still in touch with Rex. Again, I’m sure this will prove important to the plot.

There are some fascinating and terrifying ideas thrown about here; the sick, without dying, are simply incubators for bacteria. This being so, antibiotics will last for mere months as resistances develop faster. Worse, people still age. Everyone ultimately faces horrible physical suffering- the classical allusion is entirely appropriate.

But the main stuff happening in this episode is on the plane, where Oswald has Jack and Gwen tied to chairs with only himself, a sinister CIA lady, a stewardess and a definitely-not-gay steward (a bit excessive on the staffing front?) for company. Of course, we know that sinister CIA lady is going to try and kill the now mortal Jack- the fact that it’s so blatantly obvious is why it’s so fun- and the ensuing hi-jinks surrounding the poisoning are hilarious and great. I love the way Dr Juarez makes sensible use of the array of medical talent available to her, the slapstick, that punch by Gwen (“I’m Welsh!”), and Eve Myles’ general awesomeness.

Esther, until now a tenacious but essentially loyal CIA agent, finds herself ruthlessly cut off for Knowing Too Much, and makes a magnificent escape, flirting her way through the final checkpoint on her way to the end of the episode. Dr Juarez, more sinisterly, finds herself talking to Jilly Kittinger while having a ciggy, and doesn’t entirely reject her suggestion. That’s what I’ve missed about smoking these last six-and-a-half years- the social element of having one outside…

Jilly Kitzinger represents Phicorp, who are clearly either a big bad or a red herring. They manufacture painkillers, and stand to benefit materially from the new situation. We now have a fair few intriguing plot threads bubbling away nicely.

We get a carefully choreographed climax, with Esther phoning Rex to warn him as the plane lands; they’re after him too. Both Esther and Rex are now persona non grata. There’s nothing for it but to join forces with Gwen and Jack and fight their way out.

Oh, and I love Gwen’s comments on US immigration! Lovely people, the Americans, very hospitable, open and friendly. I have to make an exception of their immigration officers, though, who in my experience are a bunch of humourless bastards who seem to have declared war against their own country’s tourist industry…!