Torchwood Miracle Day, episode 5

[carmen_lj]

Miracle Day, episode 5, I did not like.

It was stupid and unpleasant. It's been fairly consistently stupid the whole way through and I didn't mind much cause I was quite entertained. And episode four was pretty anvil-y but, y'know, RTD, so not exactly unexpected tralalala isn't Gwen great? But for the BIJJILLIONTH TIME RTD has decided to go on about how humanity is pretty much shit and he's doing it in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY as he did stupidly and with a hefty dose of racism in Turn Left and that he did really well actually in Children of Earth and now he's just...I don't know. The anvils, the anvils are crushing me. It's like he's knocking on the inside of my telly screen yelling "do you see what I'm doing here? Do you get it? DO YOU?!!" and, yes, yes I do and you've already done this rather a lot and you did it REALLY WELL LAST TIME so why are we getting the exact same theme told in pretty much the same way YET AGAIN? But with everyone being extra stupid and/or evil?

Also, I could really do without all the body horror for the women's not!deaths while dudes get shot and heart attacks.

So my enthusiasm for the series is kind of dead. Oh well.

Comments

[elisi]

It was stupid and unpleasant.
*nods* I was almost physically recoiling from the screen. Just so unnecessary. :(

It's like he's knocking on the inside of my telly screen yelling "do you see what I'm doing here? Do you get it?" and, yes, yes I do and you've already done this rather a lot and you did it REALLY WELL LAST TIME so why are we getting the exact same theme told in pretty much the same way YET AGAIN?
Word. If you only have one story to tell, you need to stop at some point...

[calapine.livejournal.com]

*nods* I was almost physically recoiling from the screen. Just so unnecessary. :(

If you're going to tackle that sort of theme, you need a smarter script, a more compelling script and here it felt like it had nothing to say for itself beyond "look how shit humanity can be" and was just there for shock value. And the most frustrating thing for me was he's shown he can write about that sort of thing well. In COE, those scenes around the Cabinet table I thought were a brilliantly chilling parallel of the Wannsee Conference.

Word. If you only have one story to tell, you need to stop at some point...

I would also accept Have A Better Script or Examine A Different Facet or Don't Have Everyone Be Evil and/or A Right Eejit.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I was thinking it might be a reasonably pleasant redux of Children of Earth for a while, but then I forgot, even in a world where no one can die this show will find ways to kill off the woman of colour. Meh.

[doctor-vendetta.livejournal.com]

Vera was the smartest person in the whole history of the show (except for her taste in men, but what can you do?) I was very annoyed and upset. I understand the need for a dramatic character death at this narrative point, just would have preferred one of the less well realised ones to bite it, and for the series of events leading up to it to be less stupid.

Also it was just plain nasty.

[fyrdrakken]

Fairly smart until she suffered a critical intelligence failure in shouting at the camp director about how she was going to get him fired and prosecuted, while in his camp all alone except for him and one of his underlings. Under those circumstances, far better to have nodded and pretended to agree with his reasoning -- perhaps even complimented him for his efficiency, or for coping with such unreasonable circumstances -- until safely away from the camp, or at least surrounded by plenty of witnesses (and preferably rolling TV cameras as well).

EtA: But, yes, a very stupid series of events leading up to her death. A major flaw in RTD plotting, that his villains would be utterly stymied if the protagonists showed even the slightest ability to predict likely consequences.

[kbk]

Yeah, Gwen's line - in the preview, I think? - about the camps being like concentration camps, and they are so like that it's clearly the basis of the idea, and, really, that's just wrong and upsetting in so many ways that I don't know where to start. Using actual human tragedy to add emotional resonance to your frankly mediocre sciffy? Ugh.

And I should have been prepared for them to kill my favourite character, because they've always done it before, and yet I wasn't. Especially given the horror.

How long is the series, again?

[fyrdrakken]

Elsewhere on the friends list, the episode reviews have generally been along the lines of, "Dear God, what is this shit?!" only less positive. I think a week or two back I stopped and tallied up how many shows I watch are currently airing new episodes, and realized I'm only getting about five hours of new TV a week (unless I find an interesting documentary on some learning channel, or unless a movie I'd vaguely wanted to see pops up on cable). That's really not enough for all the knitting I'm trying to get done -- and I haven't even started Xmas knitting yet.

So I don't have a lot of options. But at least it gives me background noise while I'm putting rows onto a sweater sleeve, so my hour isn't entirely wasted by it.

[mb2u]

Before this started, I worried that there was too much time and too little story to fill it all out. But that is only part of the problem. As others have said, we're being beaten over the head by RTD and we've finally said to him "Stop it, we get the idea!" There's an interesting, even compelling story under the pile of poo, and if he'd hacked this down to a three or four hour miniseries, it'd been brilliant. As it is now? I quit.

[tallaudrey.livejournal.com]

Some days he makes Wagner look subtle.

[tau_sigma]

Ohgod, yes. It frustrates me SO MUCH because I'd like to see a really interesting exploration of what would happen, and the problems, and things you wouldn't even think of, and he's done that a little, but it could be so much better! And this episode was pretty much full of gratuitous 'look how awful things are' scenes. Argh.

I wasn't even upset or horrified at Juarez's death, either, which shows my complete lack of investment in the whole thing - I was just annoyed.

[alawston.livejournal.com]

Torchwood's always had a deeply unpleasant streak which I've done my best to ignore, but Miracle Day is just becoming vile. I can no longer ignore its nastier excesses by concentrating on the irony of a gritty adult sci-fi drama starring light entertainment and musical theatre star John Barrowman. I've just moved flat and have no TV signal or internet at home until I sort out some sort of bundle thing. I'm not likely to rush this process just so I can watch another hour of John Barrowman making gay jokes in the middle of a lead pipe subtle Holocaust analogy.