S04E08 - Miracle Day: "End of the Road"

[Tropicana]

​

Synopsis:

Jack faces a showdown with a man he thought was long since dead. But while Rex takes extreme action, is it too late to prevent the collapse of society?


Preview:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xkmvtf_torchwood-miracle-day-1-08-end-of-the-road-starz-trailer-preview-teaser_shortfilms


Airdates:

US: Starz Channel, Friday 26 August 2011, 10PM ET
CAN: Space Channel, Saturday 27 August 2011, 9:10PM ET
UK: BBC One, Thursday 01 September 2011, 9PM

 

[Tropicana]

John de Lancie and Nana Visitor -- nice. From the trailer, it looks like we might find some sort of a device that allowed this miracle to happen. But so far, no sign of an alien intervention that caused this, other than the original 3 gentlemen.

 

[EvilSpaceAlien]

I'm getting the feeling that Angelo may not be invloved the Miracle at all, but instead he's been working to take it down or just find Jack. I'm leaning towards this theory because of the three men we saw in ep. 7, and you notice that when they agree to "buy" Jack together, they form a triangle with their hands, and since we've been seeing triangles all over ever since episode 1 or 2, I think it's a fair bet that it's just them alone who are behind it.

 

[Tropicana]

If Angelo have been working towards the goal of taking down the 3 gentlemen, then it would be noble; maybe they have held Angelo for years, hoping one day to use Angelo as bait, since they have been plotting everything down to the letter for this moment.

Equally, if Angelo is so angry with Jack that he struck a deal and is working with the gentlemen; to strip Jack of his immortality that allows him to keep running, so Jack will be forced to settle down and be with Angelo one day.

 

[YoshiKart64]

I really hope that there is some crazy reveal in this episode. As I said in the other thread I feel that what has been uncovered so far has proven to be rather tame compared some of the stuff we've seen in the show before. Plus last series Jack was involved in essentially handing over children to Aliens which caused them to come back; where is the hard hitting stuff like that?

 

[Joelist]

Unfortunately the "reveal" is not only pretty dumb but flies in the face of established continuity for Jack character from both Doctor Who (all Torchwood does that) and the original Torchwood series. So far this thing has been a massive letdown.

 

[YoshiKart64]

Unfortunately the "reveal" is not only pretty dumb but flies in the face of established continuity for Jack character from both Doctor Who (all Torchwood does that) and the original Torchwood series. So far this thing has been a massive letdown.

In what way does it go against what we already know?

Aside from his comment about being a fixed point in time which he didn't know yet. Also should he have even known about Torchwood at that point...

 

[Joelist]

You named one right there - Jack could not have known about Torchwood at that point as per the series he would not have been recruited yet. Plus the fixed point in time is Jack himself, not his blood (being a fixed point in time cannot be transmitted). And you are also right; Jack did not understand why he could not die until the Doctor Who episode Utopia, which occurs well after his run in with Angelo.

So far the Starz version of Torchwood is pretty bad. Most of the actors are sleepwalking (although Eve Myles is doing ok as Gwen), the plot is not well thought out (as much as I did not care for Torchwood at least the stories were well thought out) and with its "britishness" gone the show loses, IMHO, a good deal of its appeal.

 

[Tropicana]

Actually Jack tho maybe from the future but he was thrown back in time to the early 19th Century Cardiff, Wales and was stuck there, where the Torchwood Cardiff branch used him, before conscripting him as a TW member in return for pay and a place to stay (ep: TW - "Fragments"). In hopes one day to find the Doctor (later on, with help from the severed hand from ep: DW - "The Christmas Invasion" as indicator), which he finally did at the ep: DW - "Utopia".

 

[Joelist]

Right, but Fragments occurs later in time than his time with Angelo, so he cannot have known of Torchwood. Likewise he did not know about being a fixed point in time until Utopia, so again his knowing it during his time with Angelo is impossible. Add in that the idea that Jack's blood can have anything at all to do with immortality is ridiculous (Jack is the fixed point, not his blood. It isn't something that can be passed from person to person). This is very poor screenwriting.

Like I said, I didn't care for the BBC Torchwood (way too dark, too soapy and no likeable characters - not even Jack as his Torchwood character is unlike his Doctor Who one). But in that one it at least had coherently thought out stories and that uniquely "british" tone to it that together made it watchable. This "hollywoodized" Torchwood is pretty bad and just feels like the typical cable channel crap - substituting "hot sex" , "vulgarity" and the like for good characters and sound stories.

 

[Tropicana]

Just saw this episode and still no major reveal. It would have been nice if there were some interaction between Jack and Angelo TBH. Overall, I'm happy with this episode, we got a good pace but still no major answers. Just more questions, if there's a S5, I wouldn't be surprised if it's a continuation of this story, unless they really start revealing the answers right now.

 

[Joelist]

With the underperformance on ratings I wouldn't hold my breath on a Season 5.

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

This one came out as more boring but I see your point now. After all I am also watching the episodes in short sucession. After all of them have aired, I guess I can imagine what it felt like to wait a longer time for some minimal story progress as many of the episodes had.
However it does make sense to me, mostly. But Fragments occuring later than this? No, it's the other way.

 

[Joelist]

Yeah, I did get Fragments backwards so at least they aren't guilty on that. The other issues stand however - Jack is the fixed point not his blood and it can't be passed along in any way. Weak plot like I said,

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

Yeah, I did get Fragments backwards so at least they aren't guilty on that. The other issues stand however - Jack is the fixed point not his blood and it can't be passed along in any way. Weak plot like I said,

Is that really the official explanation? that the fixed point is passed through like that? You know I didn't watch the last two episodes yet. But if that is so then yes that is weak indeed.

 

[Joelist]

Alas it is. This whole thing goes to Jack's blood. A fixed point is not inheritable or any such thing.

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

I just watched the final episode as well. The blood thing isn't that simple, you see the blood is useless, until the morphic field comes to play and that thing through the center of earth, even though it wasn't well explained then again what really was explained thoroughly in Torchwood compared to Doctor Who, very few things, most were just mysteries because of course they can't have clear answers that Doctor can have.

But...the blood on itself is part of Jack, it's part of the fixed point somehow I presume. But the whole point is that they fed his blood to the thing and it made the morphic field in its "mirror", but not inherited the real fixed point properties of course, I mean they were just undying, not regenerating etc. I agree, there should have been more explanation to this and it is shoddy writing and it fell flat in the end despite having great moments. The ending was kind of letdown too, it got rather really epic and then it slowed down and the actual ending was left with sort of cliffhanger in the end, so not really happy with that.