Miracle Day - are we facing another CoE slap in the face?

[blucougar]

Spoilers behind the cut

For anyone who has seen the "preview to episode 10" that is available when you purchase Torchwood: Miracle Day through a season pass, you'll know that John Barrowman says that there will be a death in the final episode and that we will be shocked.

Frankly, I don't care if they kill off Rex, Esther, Oswald... and I think I'll cope if they kill off Rhys. I know I'll be shocked if Jack is killed off, although it's been said that Jack will be in the anniversary series of Doctor Who, so it's hopeful that he will be returned to his immortal state, and continue on his happy way to becoming a giant head in a jar.

I live in hope, slim though it might be, that the shock death will be Gwen. I say that unapologetically. RTD and Julie Gardner insisted right from the beginning of Torchwood that no character (barring Jack) was safe, and that Torchwood operatives died young. They've killed off Tosh, Owen and Ianto. To leave Gwen untouched would be hypocritical at the very least.

I really do hope the character dies, because if that happens then we can be sure that if Torchwood is resurrected for a new season, then it will be a completely fresh show with a complete set of new characters.

Yes, I know I am a bitch, but I hate Gwen. I thought maybe she had taken a turn for the better at the start of this season, but sadly she just degenerated into her usual, sanctimonious and irritating self.

Unfortunately, I worry that RTD has another slap in the face of CoE proportions planned for those of us who have been brave enough to stick with the show.

There is one episode left. Jack was shot at the end of episode 8 and appears to be slowly bleeding to death. We have been promised a death that will shock us. All I can say is that if that death is Jack's, then Torchwood is officially dead in the water, and there will never be another series. I may never even watch another episode of Doctor Who, unless Moffatt is prepared to go against RTD and bring Jack back.

I am sorry, but Eve Myles cannot carry a show like Torchwood on her own. Without Captain Jack, there is no Torchwood. End of story.

Comments

[idamus]

Disaster it might have been, but I didn't want the Doctor to come to the rescue, I can see that in his own series, I liked how these ordinary people (and one immortal from the future) tried to make a difference, I also very, very rarely read fanfic where the Doctor fixes things, Torchwood is not Doctor Who

[badly_knitted]

No, Torchwood isn't Doctor Who, but it is supposed to exist in the same universe. By making the plot global, it begs the question of why no one even tried to contact the Doctor, who has shown up to rescue earth from far lesser threats. If the threat had been more localised, say only Britain in danger, then yes, the Doctor might have thought Torchwood could handle it and stayed away, but he doesn't have a high enough opinion of the apes who inhabit the planet to leave such a devastating threat to be dealt with by earth itself.

Then there's the fact that UNIT apparently made no attempt to tackle the threat. Isn't that what they exist to do? Protect earth from alien threats? Even if the Doctor didn't show up, UNIT should have been fighting back, but instead...

And I'm not saying that I myself wanted to see the Doctor come riding in to save the day, just that there's not even any real explanation of why he didn't or couldn't even though fans were bound to ask "Why?"

I've long thought that the whole idea would have worked better if the global threat had been season 2's Sleepers. They could have crippled earth's communications so an S.O.S. couldn't be sent to the Doctor and the destruction of the Hub would have actually made sense. Maybe something in Beth's body activated and blew the Hub sky high. Anything would have made more sense than planting a bomb in Jack and hoping he'd get back to his secret base before exploding.

I also would have enjoyed it more if the ordinary people and the immortal hadn't been made to look so downright incompetent most of the time. It beggars belief that Torchwood didn't have any backup Hub in case their base was compromised, no off-site stash of weapons and equipment for emergencies, no pre-established false identities they could use, etc. etc. It looked like amateur hour.

[theorclair]

Exactly. If they are in the same universe there's no logic to the story line. It wasn't a matter of wanting the Doctor to show up as much as there was no reason he couldn't.

And mind you, it's established in "Journey's End" that Tosh is a master at planning for unexpected things, which makes the whole plot from day one onward make no sense. If she prepared something for a Dalek invasion she'd surely have come up with something for explosives in the Hub.

[badly_knitted]

That's been my problem with CoE from the start - the moment you start thinking about the 'plot', the whole thing just collapses. It's like getting hold of a loose thread, pulling it and watching everything unravel.

The Hub would surely have had some sort of detector beyond the alien ultrasound scanner thing that would have registered the bomb in Jack! Tosh built enough safeguards and alarms into the Hub systems!

CoE was one of the reasons I chose not to watch MD - I'd been burnt once, I didn't wanto to watch something as dark, depressing, bleak, pointless and nonsensical again. From everything I've heard, it was a good decision on my part. I wasted 5 hours on CoE, I'm glad I haven't wasted twice that on something I can't even recognise as the Torchwood I used to enjoy so much.