“You are so never doing that accent again.” Jack and Gwen go undercover in Los Angeles to try to find out Phicorp’s secrets…
A slightly disappointing episode, which moves a lot of pieces around on the chessboard, getting the transatlantic Torchwood team across country to Los Angeles, where they continue to get themselves into trouble. There’s an interesting take on how hitmen would have to work in a world where nobody dies, and some intriguing developments between Gwen and Rhys, as Torchwood starts to get under her skin again.
The episode also features some fleshing out of the various new characters: Oswald Danes and Jilly Kitzinger are a little more open about their mutual contempt, but unite against a threat to Danes’s position as the effective spokesperson for Miracle Day. Facts are revealed about both Rex and Esther’s backgrounds, as we see the lines that each is not prepared to cross.
But where this falls down is in two scenes, one featuring Rex, Gwen and Jack at the end of which, although the set up is cut together very well, you may find yourself screaming at the television for doing something so clichéd; the other is a homage to a Bond movie, suitably updated for the post-Miracle Day world. The final moments of that sequence could have been done in so many other ways: what’s there is still effective in storytelling terms, but is more predictable than perhaps was necessary.
However, with the final scenes re-emphasising the global nature of the situation and the throw-forward the bleakest yet, Miracle Day looks as if it’s back on track next week.
Verdict: The weakest episode so far, but still entertaining. 6/10
Paul Simpson
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