Dan's 10 Disappointing TV Shows of 2011

Let's get one thing straight: this isn't a list of the Top 10 Worst TV Shows of 2011, although many of the following programmes would definitely appear on one. I just think it's too easy to throw together 10 terrible television shows, but the truth is I don't tend to watch the really awful stuff for longer than a few episodes.

Instead, my list is about the TV shows that were just about good enough to keep you watching, or you felt obliged to stick with out of loyalty to the brand, genre, or talent involved.... but were nevertheless very disappointing. Fact is, I watched all the episodes of everything on this list, so on some level you could say they were a success, but that's not to say I enjoyed most of what I saw.

I hope that explains my thinking behind some of the picks you don't agree with here, or are perhaps surprised by. The same overall rules apply as before, especially regarding how shows that premiered in 2010 can be counted if they broadcast 50% of their episodes in 2011.

And now, here are my most Disappointing TV Shows of this year...

10. American Horror Story

(Season 1) I grew to strangely enjoy this show, as you "enjoy" picking at a thick scab. From the creative minds of Ryan Murphy and Bryan Falchuk (Nip/Tuck, Glee), this was a "haunted house" movie stretched to 12 episodes, about the dysfunctional Harmon family moving into a Los Angeles home full of frightening ghosts from the building's notorious past. It contained some neat ideas (like how some ghosts are so corporeal they interact with the living as "real people"), and Jessica Lange's performance was brilliant as bonkers neighbour Constance. But the problem with AHS is that it had no sense of self-discipline, the story felt half-improved, some of the actors didn't have the right approach to the material (especially Connie Britton), and a great deal of its better ideas were stolen from movies. (The show even used music from Psycho and Bram Stoker's Dracula!) Okay, it was by design and thus intended to be a loving confection of tropes, but for me it came across as desperate. (random reviews) FX / FX UK

9. The Killing

(Season 1) There are far worse shows around, but The Killing is on this list because of how disappointing it became. What's extraordinary is that it had the best pilot of 2011, by some margin, and I was engrossed for the first five weeks. Based on the Danish original (which is required viewing for Guardian readers here in the UK), all American showrunner Veena Sud had to do was Americanise where appropriate and condense the 20-episode foreign season into half that time Instead, she flushed away many people's goodwill by revealing a "twist" that meant half the season had been a colossal waste of our time, and then gave us a finale that didn't bother answering the "Who Killed Rosie Larsen?" question. That would have been defensible, had we not been led to believe there would be an answer this year, as most people only kept watching past episode 7 for an answer that never came. A crying shame, because the production on The Killing was exemplary, with a brilliant atmosphere (perpetual rain, overcast skies) and thrumming soundtrack. But they should have kept their eyes on the story and were wrong to mislead the audience to this extent. (review archive) AMC / CHANNEL 4

8. Chuck

(Season 4) The little show that would have been cancelled halfway through season 2, at any other time in NBC's history. It's managed to scratch out five seasons, but the fourth is where it started to lose much of its curious appeal. This is primarily because its story arcs didn't work for me, especially the annoying "search for Chuck's long-lost mom" storyline that soaked up so much time. As "Mama Bartowski", Linda Hamilton (Terminator 2) reminded us why her career tanked in the mid-'90s, bringing zero humour and scant charisma to an underwritten role. She was simply there because of her association with a geeky franchise, allowing the writers to do some cute Terminator in-jokes. Ex-007 Timothy Dalton fared better as a scene-chewing Russian super-villain, but even he outstayed his welcome. A poor year of a show that probably deserved the axe this summer, although the current fifth season has been much better... (review archive) NBC / SKY LIVING

7. Glee

(Season 2) If we're honest, Glee started to lose itself as early as mid-season 1 after its winter hiatus, but season 2 is where I lost patience. Overstuffed with (mostly weak) pop songs, it became clear the three writer-producers had little idea what to do with their talented cast. Beyond the storyline with Kurt and his move to the Dalton Academy, it was a case of random romantic match-ups (which were on/off more times than a light switch) and far too many celebrity guest stars. Gwyneth Paltrow had a brilliant first appearance (singing Cee Lo Green's "Forget You"), but bringing her back twice didn't work. The season also gave us too many "themed episodes", from Britney Spears to Rocky Horror. What was once a joyful show that made you giggle and hum along to cheery music became a one-trick pony you wanted to see put down. The most annoying thing is that I'm still watching Glee today, halfway through the even worse third season. I really have no excuse, beyond masochism and an unhealthy fascination with dancer Heather Morris. (random reviews FOX / E4

6. Episodes

(Season 1) A satire on TV production, specifically when hit British comedies get remade into terrible US remakes, Episodes was a leaden and unfunny misfire on most levels. There were performances from Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig (as a British screenwriting couple trying to keep their principles in the face of adversity), with a fairly amusing turn from Friends' Matt Le Blanc playing "himself", but it simply wasn't enjoyable to watch all the way through. It limped along after a poor start, with perhaps two episodes that actually rose to an acceptable quality level, which isn't enough. Given the talent involved and subject-matter that felt like it could have something to say about Anglo-American cultural differences, Episodes was one of this year's bigger disappointments to me. A comedy that had its handful of targets in mind, and bludgeoned them over and over, week after week... (review archive) BBC2 / SHOWTIME

5. Dexter

(Season 6) It's a huge shame to see Dexter appear on this ignoble list, as a few short years ago it was a regular in my Best Shows list, but season 6 was the year when the wheels finally came off Showtime's top-rated series. There have been warning signs for awhile now, notably during the ragged fifth season, but this year was a particularly bad run. Despite the potential of delving into a religious theme, the writers lost sight of what made the show so great in its heyday, and countless mistakes amassed throughout its run. The greatest sin being a twist tardily revealed weeks after most fans had guessed it, and a peculiar decision to have Deb suddenly find her adopted brother sexually attractive. Throw in the show's continuing problems in giving its extended cast anything worthwhile to do (just kill a few already!), and the misjudged casting of Colin Hanks as the season's villain (who's no Jimmy Smits, let alone a John Lithgow), and Dexter simply ran aground under a weight of shit. The only hope is knowing the show now has an end-date of 2013, so the writers can work towards a definite conclusion. Trouble is, can its current writing staff pull something off that fans will enjoy? (review archive) SHOWTIME

4. Primeval

(Series 4 & 5) This year we had a double-dose of Primeval, because digital partner Watch showed series 5 months after ITV finished series 4, as they were filmed back-to-back. It was an unexpected return of a show ITV axed because of costs, with two new regular characters along for the ride, but this was a very inauspicious year. Primeval has rarely been good, but it can be fun if you accept its flaws and formulas. I just don't think it has anything left to offer anyone, because the new characters were a washout (especially tedious Irish "action man" Matt), and the fifth series in particular was a big waste of time until a half-decent finale. It's a show that has moments to enjoy, but it's reached a point where I'm struggling to stay interested on a character or storytelling level—or even in a superficial "ooh, dinosaurs" way, to be frank. (review archive) ITV1 / WATCH / BBC AMERICA

3. Outcasts

It had a familiar yet appealing premise, an ambitious production filming in South Africa, with some good actors involved, but Outcasts failed to live up to expectations. SF nerds took great delight in tearing the show's setup apart, and none of the characters left any impression (apart from the excellent Liam Cunningham). It didn't help that Jamie Bamber's character was killed off in the first episode, or that so much of the story and twists felt analogous to things we've seen done better in Lost, Battlestar Galactica and Solaris recently. I have an appetite for intelligent SF mysteries with a measured pace and emphasis on character, but Outcasts just wasn't any fun and almost crawled through its hours. However, it did inspire this blog's busiest article in many years! (review archive) BBC1 / BBC AMERICA

2. Life's Too Short

(Series 1) The sitcom that appears to prove The Office's Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant are creatively bankrupt, Life's Too Short distilled everything they've done before (a mockumentary format poking fun at a disabled character, with meta-jokes and celebrity cameos) but did nothing new or interesting with those ingredients. For half the seven episodes, it didn't even feel like a Warwick Davis-starring sitcom, as so much was an excuse to shoehorn in Gervais, Merchant and a guest-star-of-the-week. Things improved slightly for the last three episodes, once the storyline with Warwick's divorce became a bigger focus, but my goodwill was exhausted by then. It just wasn't insightful or clever, as everything here had been done better in Extras, and poor Warwick was forced to play himself-doing-a-David-Brent impersonation. A sore disappointment from two writers who used to demand only the best, but are now happy to devise stupid shows for their friends (see also Karl Pilkington's An Idiot Abroad). (review archive) BBC2

1. Torchwood: Miracle Day

While there were concerns about "Americanizing" Torchwood when Russell T. Davies announced those plans, I don't think any fan anticipated the debacle that Miracle Day became. It still had its creator at the helm, who managed to recruit a writing staff of people who'd worked on some impressive shows (Buffy, House, Battlestar Galactica, X Files, Breaking Bad), and it wisely refused to tone down the sex/violence. In fact, quite a few people believed this could be the making of Torchwood because it had more money to play with, had a very ambitious high-concept story (everyone on the planet suddenly stops dying for an unexplained reason), and was reprising its very successful Children Of Earth miniseries format.

Unfortunately, Miracle Day fell flat on its face after a decent start. Once the novelty of its idea had worn off by episode 4, it became clear just how irritating the new American characters were (especially belligerent dickhead Rex Matheson), they made the godawful mistake of trying to make audiences sympathise with a child-killing paedophile (then had no idea what to do with Bill Pullman's slimy character halfway through), dandy hero Jack Harkness had nothing to do until two-thirds into the story, Gwen Cooper was as irksomely forthright as ever, there were no aliens, and the ultimate explanation for the titular "miracle" was extremely silly and vaguely explained. I can't think of any other show that so spectacularly flopped after such a previous high (although Children Of Earth is somewhat overrated). It even made committed fans fall out of love with the show! I don't think anyone would care if Torchwood never came back now, as Miracle Day appeared to kill a promising franchise. How ironic. (review archive) STARZ/ BBC1

TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY – "The Blood Line"

Miracle Day's finale wasn't good enough to change opinions of this miniseries as a whole, but I thought the conclusion hung together well and answered things in a reasonably intelligent way. It was obvious Russell T. Davies and Jane Espenson struggled to give Oswald (Bill Pullman) something worthwhile to do (I wonder if they regret ever bothering with that character in the first place), but otherwise the mystery was solved and The Miracle reversed in an entertaining fashion. I'm sure many people will think otherwise, but if this had been the sixth episode conclusion of a series that didn't waste time on Oswald Danes (and the various other mid-season filler), I think I would have quite enjoyed Miracle Day...

The finale saw a two-pronged attack on the three Families and their plan to create a fascist oligarchy: Rex (Mekhi Phifer) and Esther (Alexa Havins) in Buenos Aires, with the support of the CIA to find the subterranean Blessing pit; and Jack (John Barrowman), Gwen (Eve Myles) and Oswald doing likewise from Shanghai. The explanation for the Blessing was effectively handled, being cryptically inexplicable (it simply existing since the Earth was formed, dictating the length of mortality with a "morphic field"), but in a way that wasn't frustrating. It felt plausible that the Families had effectively reprogrammed the Blessing by feeding it some of Jack's immortal blood, even if that doesn't really make much sense when you think about it. But this is Torchwood, not an Arthur C. Clarke novel, and on those terms it worked fine.

The climax was surprisingly enjoyable and tense, too, with Jack and Rex realizing they can restore normalcy to the world by sacrificing themselves to the Blessing from opposite sides of the world. The added complication of Esther being shot (certain to die if they end the Miracle) worked very nicely, as a huge amount of pressure flourished in these scenes. For a second I even thought Torchwood was going to be extremely brave and go through with its plan to kill off both Jack and Rex (surely ending Torchwood if the former died), but it didn't quite go that far... with Jack's immortality returning and Rex surviving his gunshot.

Still, the denouement set up some surprisingly fun ideas for a potential return of the show: Jilly Kitzinger (Lauren Ambrose), having escaped from the destroyed Shanghai pit unscathed, was again recruited by the Families to participate in "Plan B" (whatever that may be), which means the show has found itself an enemy organization to use in future stories; and the surprise reveal that Rex has somehow been turned immortal by the Blessing.

Even the subplots worked rather nicely this week. The CIA having to find a mole in their outfit was enjoyable, especially as traitorous Charlotte Willis (Marina Benedict) got to enact some moments very reminiscent of 24. The scene where CIA boss Shapiro (John de Lancie) was blown up by Charlotte's handbag bomb, the second he uncovered her real identity ("Charlotte? Oh fuck.") was excellent, and I'm actually saddened de Lancie's character has been written out. He was only around for a few episodes, but injected some much-needed comedy and eccentricity into the mix. The death of Gwen's father was also quite poignant, despite the fact the characters always held Geraint Cooper (William Thomas) in greater esteem than the audience ever did. Mr Cooper was someone to bring the Miracle closer to home, to personalize it, and he achieved that limited aim.

Miracle Day itself wasn't a success, let's hammer than point home once again. It got far more wrong than it got right, and can ultimately be seen as a very imprecise and weird miniseries. Jack wasn't a big part of events until the second half of the series, Gwen was more irritating than ever before, Phifer was terribly miscast, there was only enough relevant plot to fill half its 10-episode order, the character of Oswald Danes was a nasty misjudgement (even his death scene was awful, as he delighted in the belief he's going to Hell to continue abusing the children he believes are there), I didn't buy into Jilly's quick ascension within the Families, and the storyline was hurt by having to keep flitting between the US and UK. The only things that worked were the high-concept intrigue of the premise (what if nobody on the planet could die?), a few creative examples of how global immortality would affect society, and the eventual explanation for the Miracle itself was preposterous in a good way.

Do you think Torchwood deserves to come back? If it does, should it continue as an Anglo-American co-production, or get back to its BBC roots? Whoever makes another series, should the miniseries concept be retired, unless they have an idea that definitely fills a 10-hour drama? It's been so long since Torchwood was telling episodic stories that a return to the original format, with Jack and Rex as immortal brother-in-arms fighting aliens and whatnot, carries more appeal than expected. The better episodes of Miracle Day were the more standalone ones, too, perhaps confirming the writers had a problem serializing the concept. With rumours suggesting Russell T. Davies is moving on to write a new US cable drama, maybe Torchwood would actually benefit from having someone else steering the ship, with Davies input reduced to that of a producer.

Asides

• While it was slightly annoying the show chickened out of killing Rex and Jack, at least Esther died. Not that I hate Esther (she was actually one of the better elements of the show), but it would have been unforgivable if everyone made it through alive.
• So, Miracle Day was just "phase one" of a greater plan The Families have, and they have a "Plan B" in mind to get what they want. There's no point trying to guess, but I must admit I'm glad Torchwood has kept the Families around as a lurking threat.
• Can we have some aliens next time, please? Ancient underground bum-cracks with a thirst for blood isn't quite the same.

written by Russell T. Davies & Jane Espenson (story by Russell T. Davies) / directed by Billy Gierhart / 9 September 2011 / Starz

TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY - "The Gathering"

The penultimate episode had its share of unbelievable, ridiculous and stupid moments, but smarter use of its ensemble and a few big reveals went some way toward making this a minor highlight of the miniseries. Maybe it also helps that John Fay (one of only two British writers working on Miracle Day, the other being Russell T. Davies) helped in some indefinable way, because this didn't seem quite so ham-fisted. In particular, the scenes set in Wales with Gwen (Eve Myles) as a Robin Hood figure, stealing expensive medicine for the local community, restored some of the show's eccentric edge that's mostly been lost in favour of dull Americanised procedural.

Um, let's forget how stupid it is that Esther (Alexa Havins) decided to travel to Scotland with the injured Captain Jack (John Barrowman) for no discernible reason; or that paedophile murderer Oswald Danes (Bill Pullman) managed to also hop on a plane to the UK, find where Gwen lives, and pose as a pizza delivery man to get inside her house unchallenged. Both were such horrifically terrible creative decisions that "The Gathering" had to work extra hard to win me over, but it just about managed to, probably because Miracle Day's taught me it's best to overlook the bad and focus on the good. No matter how diluted and clumsy that goodness may be.

We were finally given answers about The Blessing, even if I'm still not sure why PR maven Jilly Kitzinger (Lauren Ambrose) is required to help The Miracle's architects "rewrite history". There was a lot of talk about the media mistranslating Chinese to put a different spin on world events, but as far as I know Jilly's not fluent in Mandarin or any other Chinese dialects.

Still, The Blessing itself was a suitably eerie and unexpected sight: a gigantic underground fissure that bisects the planet from Buenos Aires to Shanghai (hence PhiCorp's logo of a circle with a line through it). This pink subterranean crack is later revealed to literally attract Jack's blood like iron filings to a magnet, but I'm not sure what connects Jack and this cavernous phenomena. Is it an alien intelligence that craves only the blood of immortals? If so, how has it survived pre-Miracle Day? I'm also not sure how The Blessing brought about worldwide immortality, or The Families (upgraded from city mobsters to clans who control the world's politics, finances and media) are involved in this. A part of me would like to think the Families are themselves beholden to occupying aliens (perhaps the passive young man who met with Jilly?) who helped them get to this position of power, but we'll have to see.

So yes, there was actually a fair bit to chew on this week in terms of Miracle Day's mythology. But even without all those clues to the overall mystery, a few other things worked better this week. Having Rex separated from Torchwood at the CIA (bonding with boss Shapiro and beginning to suspect there's a 24-style mole where he works) seemed to work in the show's favour, because it allowed the story to move to three distinct storylines and gave Rex opportunities to demonstrate his detective skills. The only downside was how his investigation was all done in-between episodes, so was more of an information-dump than anything else.

And the subplot with Gwen trying to keep her sick father hidden from the authorities (who want to take him away to be incinerated as a "Category 1") was also effectively handled, if slightly too drawn out. The sequence where the police searched Gwen's basement, where her dad was hidden behind a false wall with his nursemaid wife, was one of the show's better moments of tension—perhaps because it was grounded by simple, relatable emotions of a daughter trying to stop her father being effectively murdered by the state.

Overall, "The Gathering" was good, if not quite as propulsive and engrossing as you want from the penultimate episode of a ten-part miniseries. A lot of Miracle Day's storyline has tangled in my head, so I have no clear theory about how The Families, Angelo Colasanto, The Blessing, and Miracle Day all connect, but if next week's finale can give us good, believable answers it will be a huge relief. However, it seems likely that Jilly and Oswald are just characters the writers never had a firm grasp on, as there's feeling of desperation in how the plot's bringing those two into the main story to justify their existence. I mean, will it ever be explained why Oswald was being sponsored by PhiCorp to give life-affirming speeches in sell-out arenas?

Asides

• One line of dialogue revealed that this episode is taking place two months after last week's episode, so why couldn't we get a "Two Months Later" legend on-screen? That was also a real cop-out. Apparently there was a legend, but I missed it!
• This wasn't made clear in the episode, but the credits state that the middle-aged woman who made contact with Jilly and showed her The Blessing was "The Mother Colasanto". So are we to assume she was Angelo's daughter, the sister of Olivia who died last week? As it's been pointed out in the comments, she must be Angelo's wife and Olivia's mother.
• Any theories on how Miracle Day will end? It's safe to assume that death will be restored to the planet, but will Rex die of his chest injury? Will it be revealed that The Blessing is of alien origin? Are The Families working for alien masters? What is Jilly's role in all this? Will Oswald Danes redeem himself somehow? Why is Jack's blood attracted to The Blessing? Are the people who are being cremated having their ashes fed to The Blessing? Will Rhys ever stop being the most annoying person the planet?

written by John Fay / directed by Guy Ferland / 2 September 2011 / Starz

TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY - "The End Of The Road"

Last week's episode had its detractors, but I thought "Immortal Sins" was the best installment of Miracle Day so far, if only because it ignored most of the regular story and focused on a flashback with Captain Jack (John Barrowman) and his Italian lover Angelo in 1920's New York. I was therefore quite keen to see "The End Of The Road", hoping it would continue this uptick in quality, but it was alarming how many scenes produced unintentional laughter or simply didn't work. Here we had to endure more of Gwen's (Eve Myles) ridiculously stroppy behaviour, Jack killing his elderly ex-boyfriend by kissing him (well, that's what it looked like), child killer Oswald Danes (Bill Pullman) dad-dancing in his hotel room, the irrelevant return of Esther's (Alexa Havins) screw-up sister, and Jack once again injured and lying on the backseat of a car...

I don't think Russell T. Davies is good at investigative storylines, as this episode again involved a huge amount of information-dumping from characters who've only just been introduced. Team Torchwood don't really solve mysteries through deduction and skill, they just blunder around follow their guts, eventually chancing upon people who tell them what they need to know. This week, Olivia Colasanto (Nana Visitor) took them to see her ailing father Angelo; Jack's old boyfriend, now bedridden after a life spent trying to reproduce Jack's immortality so they could be together. Quite why Angelo thought it would be a brilliant idea to capture and threaten Gwen's family in order to get Jack to see him is anybody's guess. Their split wasn't especially acrimonious. I'm sure Jack would have called round for a visit if Angelo's daughter had just phoned him with an invite. Confusingly, Angelo wasn't in any fit state to communicate with Jack, anyway, and I'm not sure why Olivia was so disdainful of her dad's old flame either.

Regardless of the ludicrous amount of exposition throughout this episode, at least we now have a handle on what may have caused Miracle Day: heartbroken Angelo assumedly partnered with the three Families (who siphoned Jack's blood while he was being tortured, killed and resurrected), and with their help succeeded in creating immortality—but far too late for it to be of any use to an old man. It's still unknown why the whole planet was turned immortal, but I'm guessing it was intentional so the Families could profit through their stake in the pharmaceutical company PhiCorp.

The Oswald storyline continued after a two-week break, but is now just a colossal failure I just wish it would go away. The show made the unforgivable mistake of making this character a paedophile, which means it was immediately impossible to believe in his transformation from Death Row inmate to global folk hero. This episode tried to humanize Oswald slightly, by having him request a prostitute he could go on a date with (showing he's trying to change and better himself), but that scene didn't work because I couldn’t believe a prostitute would be so upset about the fact a child-killer wants to pay her not to have sex with him. And the reveal that Oswald's manager Kitzinger's (Lauren Ambrose) been aware the government are readying a "Category Zero" status (to deal with criminals like Oswald who escaped justice thanks to The Miracle, by forcing them into ovens to be burned), felt very sudden and inexplicable. Equally so the fact The Families are so interested in Kitzinger she's been recruited by them outright, after dissolving her partnership with Oswald when he got violent with her. Why do these people need a headstrong PR girl on their side?

It was fun to see Star Trek's John de Lancie as CIA boss Allen Shapiro appear on the show, putting his fine comic timing to good use with a few quips at the expense of both Gwen and Jack ("what is it with you, Red Baron? You got Snoopy up your ass?"), and the return of Wayne Knight as Brian Friedkin to confirm he's working for The Families was appreciated. At least there's some attempt to tie up the whole season now, despite the fact Miracle Day has felt half-improvised week to week. Every time the show presents us with the supposed mastermind behind Miracle Day, they're proven to be either an oblivious underling (PhiCorp) or get killed within two episodes (Olivia, Angelo), which has become rather tedious.

Overall, we're finally approaching the end of Miracle Day and I'll be glad to see the back of it. There's just something about the writing and performances that's become increasingly irritating, with weird lines of dialogue and silly moments that don't feel natural. If I'm being honest, I have a funny feeling the explanation for The Miracle could be something that's not entirely horrible (provided you can swallow the inevitable pseudo-science behind it), but the way this story's been told leaves a lot to be desired. So many mistakes, so many wasted opportunities, so many laughable sequences, so many god-awful new characters. There just hasn't been enough good stuff to latch onto and pull you through the mire.

written by Jane Espenson & Ryan Scott / directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton / 26 August 2011 / Starz

TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY – "Immortal Sins"

A resurgence of something resembling the Torchwood fans expected from the misfiring Miracle Day, if still not perfect because of some rather awkwardly-placed flashbacks and a twist everyone could see coming. But by totally ignoring the Miracle Day event, forgetting about child-killer Oswald Danes (for the second week), and keeping new characters Rex (Mekhi Phifer) and Esther (Alexa Havins) on the sidelines, "Immortals Sins" was easily the best episode yet. And one that proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Torchwood has floundered this year because everything Miracle Day-related has been a washout. It's a fantastic premise; but one that makes for a better discussion than it does a television drama.

This week, Gwen (Eve Myles) was forced into kidnapping Jack (John Barrowman) by whomever's controlling her high-tech contact lenses and threatening the lives of her family in Wales. A large chunk of the episode was a simple two-hander between those characters on a nighttime drive to a rendezvous point, punctuated by flashbacks to New York in 1927 where Jack's an émigré being processed at Ellis Island. It's there he meets a dashing Italian called Angelo Colassanto (Daniele Favilli) who tried to steal his fake visa, only to strike up a friendship that quickly turns sexual as they move into an apartment together. Jack's the wise older man, who opens Angelo's eyes to the promise of this New World while being key to his sexual awakening, but who can't quite convince the devout Catholic that what they're doing isn't sinful. Angelo prays for forgiveness every time they have sex, and eventually becomes convinced Jack's the Devil incarnate after witnessing his lover's death and resurrection while working as bootleggers for the mob.

There was just a lot more going on in this episode than usual, and even if it didn't all work perfectly it was a rich oasis of story and character in the narrative desert of Miracle Day. It was a particular relief to have a story so focused on Captain Jack, who's been criminally wasted in his own show for half the season. John Barrowman's hardly the greatest actor in the world, and I find Jack's flippancy and double entendres more embarrassing/uncomfortable than funny, but "Immortal Sins" gave Barrowman halfway decent material to work with. His seduction of the closeted Angelo was handled nicely, and overall you could believe these two men had a strong bond, but that Jack's maverick attitude (born of his immortality) means a relationship is such a struggle to maintain. In fact, Angelo became more interesting in one hour than Rex has in six.

For those wishing Miracle Day had more explicit sci-fi elements to it, the return of Jack's immortality would have been appreciated. A sequence where Jack was hung up and repeatedly murdered by people who think they've caught El Diablo in their basement was gruesomely memorable), and the presence of a giant mind-altering alien parasite in a crate of ice was a fun touch.

We even had a few big clues about Miracle Day's explanation, with three rival Mafia Don's apparently agreeing to utilize Jack's immortality for their own ends—meaning those men must be "The Families" mentioned by the assassin in "Escape To L.A". They even shook hands in a manner that formed a triangle, which explains the rotating triangle logo we've seen a few times. And as The Families were smuggling alien parasites in the '20s, isn't it feasible they found technology that could turn mortality on its head? Jack's torturers also took lots of his blood, so maybe that's been used to somehow turn everyone immortal? And with the last scene reveal that Gwen's puppetmaster Angelo, I'm assuming Jack's old boyfriend ascended to a position of authority as a gangster and then spent decades trying to find Jack? But why create Miracle Day? It can't have been an accident if The Families had PhiCorp stockpile painkillers a year in advance. And when we meet Angelo, will he be a wrinkled centenarian or an immortal?

Overall, "Immortal Sins" was a surprisingly very good episode. It delivered tangible clues and made you think more about Miracle Day's origin and purpose. It's arrived far too late in this disappointing season, but I'm hoping the final three episodes will maintain this quality so the story ends well. If they can just give us a plausible explanation for everything, that would go some way to restoring Torchwood's reputation. It still wouldn't be enough for me to change my mind about this year's output as a whole, but it definitely wouldn't hurt.

Asides

• The biggest reference yet to Doctor Who came here, with Jack talking about his friend "The Doctor" and how he'd travel with a companion.
• I liked the reveal that Esther and Rex had realized Gwen was being coerced by an outside force. It also made those two characters look genuinely capable and intelligence for once, which was appreciated.
• Fun to see Nana Visitor here; best-known as Major Kira Nerys from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Continuing the trend of Miracle Day to cast genre faces, from Jurassic Park's Wayne Knight and Dollhouse's Dichen Lachman, to Ghostbusters' Ernie Hudson. I hear we have Star Trek's John de Lancie to come. My guess is he'll be a villain.

written by Jane Espenson / directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton / 19 August 2011 / Starz

TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY – "The Middle Men"

Why does dimwit CIA analyst Esther Drummond use her real name while undercover? How does wanted fugitive Gwen Cooper manage to keep making trans-Atlantic flights without being caught? Why isn't Jack Harkness, the ostensible star of this show, getting more than about seven minutes of relevant screen time most weeks? Those are the burning questions in my mind after this week's episode, having replaced "who's behind Miracle Day?"

It's become very clear that Torchwood: Miracle Day has failed in its lofty ambitions, although I don't subscribe to a popular online theory that this miniseries has flopped because it doesn't feature aliens (so far). To me, Torchwood wasn't exclusively about aliens. The majority of pre-Children Of Earth episodes revolved around other forms of paranormal activity, so the world's population becoming immortal fits into that quite snugly. No, the problem is that this idea doesn't justify 10 hours of television, and the new American characters are both impossible to care about and, frankly, hog the limelight from the more interesting Gwen and Jack.

The latter has been treated especially poorly by almost every script, which is akin to writing six Doctor Who episodes and finding a way for The Doctor to only appear in a handful of scenes every week while his companions do all the work. This week, Jack's role was to stage a ridiculously fake kidnapping of a PhiCorp secretary, so he could use her as leverage with her boss Stuart Owens (Ernie Hudson), whom she's having an affair with. However, it turns out Owens is just as puzzled by Miracle Day as everyone else, and equally determined to explain it. His current theory being that PhiCorp is just one piece of the jigsaw, and the architects of The Miracle have spent years surreptitiously getting the planet to this point. Oh, and it may have something to do with "The Blessing", whatever that is.

Most of this week's story concerned the Overflow Camps in both San Pedro and Swansea. Gwen (Eve Myles) tried to get her "Category 1" father removed from the facility with the help of husband Rhys (Kai Owen), before he's sent to be burned alive; while Rex (Mekhi Phifer) tried to smuggle his video-taped evidence of the camp's ovens to the outside world, only to be captured by director Colin Maloney (Marc Vann), who wanted to ensure evidence of Vera Juarez's incineration didn't leak out.

There were a few scenes I enjoyed this week, like Esther's fight with Maloney and her subsequent breakdown over "killing" him with Rex. Alexa Havins' character may be a naïve moron, but I think she's a decent actress doing her best with iffy material. At least Esther's rite of passage is the kind of development you can see happening and enjoy, compared to boisterous Rex's slow realization that these Torchwood people aren't so bad after all.

It's just a pity so many scenes don't work or just feel  silly, both in how they're acted and constructed. For example: Maloney's twitchy accomplice whose guilt was written all over his face, or Gwen literally jumping back in horror at the message "Bring Us Jack" typed on her high-tech contact lenses by, we assume, the people behind Miracle Day. Or how about Rhys not even flinching when two armed guards were shooting at him as he drove a lorry through a security gate? A few cheesy or unconvincing moments I can handle in a show like this, but Miracle Day is riddled with them, and they seriously drag the show down. Miracle Day often comes across as amateur hour. How ironic that the UK-made show, often criticized by Americans for its cheap and cheesy feel, has compounded that problem now it's made with US co-operation.

Overall, "The Middle Men" did little to dissuade anyone that Torchwood: Miracle Day has been a big failure. It's making so many unnecessary mistakes that you can't quite believe it. Who writes six episodes of Torchwood and gives Jack Harkness the least active or interesting role in them? I'm sure some viewers appreciated having a break from the Oswald Danes storyline this week, and there were some nice ideas about state-sanctioned concentration camps floating around, but I can't see this miniseries turning around anytime soon. Still, now that PhiCorp don't appear to be our Big Bad, maybe a certain portion of fans will get their wish and "The Blessing" can be revealed as extra-terrestrial in nature. And we can also wonder what Owens' colleague in Shanghai saw that made him jump off a skyscraper. My guess: next week's script.

Asides

• Do all Americans pronounce "badminton" as "bad-minton"?
• Are you seriously suggesting a global network of concentration camps where governments were incinerating people, without anybody knowing, wouldn't cause huge outrage? The President of the USA didn't even apologize for what was going on? I mean, does anybody swallow that?

written by John Shiban / directed by Guy Ferland / 12 August 2011 / Starz

TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY - "The Categories Of Life"

I wonder if this miniseries would have been better received if it wasn't connected to Torchwood, and was instead just a speculative SF special commissioned by Starz. You could easily replace Captain Jack (John Barrowman) and Gwen (Eve Myles) with equivalent American characters, as so little of Miracle Day relies on things that are unique to the Torchwood universe. Even Jack's signature immortality has been reversed as a result of the story's miracle itself, together with most of his personality when American writers are behind the script. I'm going to try and watch the remainder of this miniseries by divorcing myself from the expectations of the Torchwood brand, just to see if that helps...

"The Categories Of Life" was the usual tangle of good ideas spoiled by implausible execution and annoying contrivances. But the fact it took some significant steps forward with the story, while giving us a pretty dark "final solution" to the endemic of undying people, worked greatly in its favour. It even managed to turn sourpuss Vera Juarez (Arlene Tur) into a moderately less pointless character, before killing her off.

This week, despite being a wanted international fugitive, Gwen both risked and manage to travel back to Wales to help Rhys (Kai Owen) rescue her sick dad from one of the many PhiCorp sponsored "overflow camps" that have sprung up around the world. Governments are now passing a law that says life can be re-categorized into three separate groups—apparently symbolized by the red, white and blue of the US flag. There's Category 1, where you're "fatally" injured or sick and beyond help; Category 2, where you're hurt and would ordinarily die, but can continue living after treatment; and Category 3, where you're fine and dandy. Those in Category 1 are in the greatest danger, as Torchwood come to realize such patients are taken to secret campsite "modules" for processing—which it's revealed means being incinerated alive, in a chilling echo of Nazi concentration camp ovens.

I've actually wondered how Miracle Day would get around the problem that reducing a body to ash must bring certain death, so it seems "the miracle" does have its limits after all. Now the question is: if PhiCorp are burning the people who should actually be dead, aren't they just providing a cruel mass cremation service to the world? It's still hard to see what's in this for them. But incinerating the should-be-dead is apparently enough to justify the cost of setting up all these global camps, even if they're not doing a good job of caring for the people who end up inside them—as Vera discovered abandoned patients who aren't being fed, all sleeping in cramped conditions next to unwashed laundry. Oh, and a pen-pushing racist misogynist called Colin (Marc Vann).

The Oswald Danes (Bill Pullman) story plodded on, but it's still difficult to comprehend why any of it matters. PR whizz Jilly (Lauren Ambrose) has helped organized a Miracle Rally for Oswald to give a key speech at, which requires he read a prepared PhiCorp speech that must include the word "revelation". But why's that? Is "revelation" a codeword for something to happen? Is it perhaps a sign to the people pulling Jilly's strings that Oswald's fully malleable? Jilly herself doesn't seem to know what's going on, as she was approached by a man who praised her and mentioned she's been "noticed"? I assume the people who've noticed her are Miracle Day's architects (the group symbolized by a rotating triangle logo), which suggest she's not working for them already? If so, is everything she's doing on behalf of PhiCorp is a separate issue to the white-triangle group? Oh, who knows, but we need some focus on this matter very soon.

I was intrigued by the possibility that Jack might talk Oswald into working for Torchwood, by giving him a different speech that would denounce PhiCorp as the people behind Miracle Day, in exchange for helping him die, but that didn't come to pass. That would have been a very unexpected twist, but it seems the writers would prefer to go down the Oswald-as-Messiah route... so he finally gave his approved speech about mankind's ascendancy to "angels", like a lapdog. Pullman's performance again oscillating from enjoyably creepy to outright laughable and weird. It often feels like he's not sure how to treat any of this material; with tongue-in-cheek humour or deadly serious? He's fallen somewhere in the middle.

Overall, "The Categories Of Life" wasn't a totally successful turnaround for Miracle Day, as there are still messy areas and ridiculous moments, but some things seem to be developing at last. It's just unforgivable that Captain Jack's almost surplus to requirement. While Rex (Mekhi Phifer), Esther (Alexa Havins), Gwen, and Vera went undercover in two overflow camps, poor Jack was stuck in Los Angeles and only given one notable scene with Oswald at the Miracle Rally stadium? That's an unforgivable, tragic waste of the show's lead character who, at least until Miracle Day, was the beating heart of Torchwood... now reduced to a bit-part player.

What did you make of episode 5? Was there some improvement, or are you on the brink of giving up? Maybe you stopped watching weeks ago?

written by Jane Espenson / directed by Guy Ferland / 5 August 2011 / Starz

TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY – "Escape To L.A"

The best episode of Miracle Day so far, by some distance, thanks to overdue back-story to humanize Rex (Mekhi Phifer) and Esther (Alexa Havins), and tangible development about exactly who, or what, is behind the Miracle Day phenomenon itself. Buoyed by an entertaining moment of espionage for the Torchwood crew in the second half, "Escape To L.A" was breezy and decent fun, showing signs of improvement I hope will continue into the remainder of this miniseries.

Oswald Danes (Bill Pullman) remains a real headache for the show, which is a shame because the core idea behind his arc has some merit. I just don't see why they decided to make him a paedophile (the least forgivable crime in human society), when having a serial-killer instead become an unexpected figurehead for tolerance in this New World Order would have worked equally well. Nevertheless, the idea to give Oswald a rival in Ellis Hartley Monroe (Mare Winningham), a mayor who's pushing a"Dead Is Dead" campaign that wants to brush the world's problem under the carpet by segregating the "dead" from the living was an intriguing development. It's just a shame the details don't feel very plausible, with Oswald victorious in this political war by giving a supposedly rousing speech to a makeshift hospital of sick people. (Incidentally, why would anyone ask a convicted paedophile to take care of a small abandoned baby girl?)

Team Torchwood are beginning to form a tetchy dynamic now, too. I was pleased to see Rex becoming less annoying, although his understandable frustration with the amateurism of Torchwood dragged his character back to being unlikable towards the end. This was also the hour where we learned something about the show's new characters: Rex is estranged from his vagrant father and trying to heal their relationship because he's starting to suspect he'll die when the "miracle" ends; and Esther has a sister called Sarah (Candace Brown) who's incapable of looking after her two kids, meaning Esther had to call social services to have them taken into protection. Both stories didn't take up much time and weren't hugely compelling—although Phifer gave a decent performance in the scene with his cantankerous dad and Esther felt more human. Considering the difficulties of fleshing out characters when there's an urgency to a story being told, I've seen it done a lot worse.

One thing that's becoming more of a noticeable issue is how extraneous and, frankly, boring Captain Jack (John Barrowman) has been on the show so far. Has removing his immortality neutered the dashing hero of the previous three series? It certainly seems that way. Here, Barrowman's given a few awkward speeches and a key role in an operation to steal information from PhiCorp's servers with Gwen (Eve Myles), but other than that he's almost surplus to requirement. Very little about Miracle Day is working because of what Captain Jack's bringing to the table, in terms of knowledge, expertise or attitude. It's perhaps one of the reasons Miracle Day hasn't gone down so well with fans. And why is the show still making cutesy references to the fact Jack's lived thousands of years? If you're new to the show (and this Starz miniseries was partly designed to introduce Torchwood to newcomers), it must feel very strange.

Overall, most of "Escape From L.A" worked well enough and it was a more capable hour than we've had so far. It's still not especially gripping, but at least we've been given big clues about what's going on: the unseen villains (their "organisation" symbolized by a rotating triangle) are referred to as "The Families" at one point, so are there three alien families behind this? They've also given Oswald Danes this platform intentionally, and must therefore have infiltrated PhiCorp to do that, so there's a feeling this episode has started to draw a few of the subplots together. We'll have to see if Miracle Day manages to resolve the story in a satisfying way, and I'm still not convinced it can, but I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt for now.

Asides

• Love the scene with Monroe being crushed in a car compactor, ending up trapped alive inside a metal cube, with just her eye blinking. That's quite a horrific fate to be given, and a more imaginative twist on the common scene of someone immortal being buried alive in a coffin.
• Does anyone care about Gwen's family? I know Rhys (Kai Owen) has his fans, but every time Gwen has to dash off to call her husband while on a mission my attention wanders. And putting her sickly father in jeopardy doesn't feel like a good move, considering all that's happening in Wales. Are we going to see Gwen fly back to Wales for an episode of two to save him? If so, maybe this subplot only exists to stretch the miniseries out? I have a feeling Miracle Day doesn't need 10 hours, and we'll see more padding in the future, like episode 2's plane journey shenanigans.

written by Jim Gray & John Shiban / directed by Billy Gierhart / 29 July 2011 / Starz

Comic-Con 2011 panels: DEXTER, FRINGE, SPARTACUS, TORCHWOOD, TRUE BLOOD & THE WALKING DEAD

San Diego Comic-Con is winding down for another year. I'm sure most of you have been watching and reading the coverage online in some capacity, but I thought I'd embed a few videos of various panels that are relevant to DMD's own coverage. Below are the panels for Dexter, Fringe, Spartacus, True Blood, Torchwood and The Walking Dead. Most were filmed using the "wobbly-cam" that's all the rage, so the quality's not great, but I commend Starz for ensuring their Spartacus panel was professionally recorded in its entirety. (You can click through the subsequent "parts" of each video via YouTube.)

A few more panels may be added soon, when they become available. But in the meantime: enjoy!

TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY - "Dead Of Night"

From the overrated pen of Buffy's Jane Espenson, "Dead Of Night" was of mixed success and, owing to the fact this is a miniseries, I have less to say that's not just reiterating points from previous reviews. I still find Gwen (Eve Myles) so annoying she makes my teeth itch, because she's written as confident and sassy but it's all done so cartoonishly, and none of that attitude flows naturally from Myles. Rex (Mekhi Phifer) continues to be a belligerent dickhead, Esther's (Alexa Havins) written so thinly she elicits no reaction, and Captain Jack (John Barrowman) currently seems lost in the crush—and, frankly, more interested in shagging the local barman than saving the world. (Or if you're watching the BBC airing a week later, just flirting with a local barman?)

In some ways this episode is where the story truly started to take shape, but that shape doesn't feel like anything remarkable. The Torchwood team discovered a warehouse containing millions of painkillers stockpiled by a pharmaceutical company called PhiCorp, who assumedly knew about Miracle Day a year in advance and have planned to make a fortune by selling an immortal world their medicines. The CIA, personified by Rex's butterball boss Friedkin (Wayne Knight), are also in the pockets of whomever's pulling the strings. But right now the prime suspect must be red-lipped PR woman Jilly Kitzinger (awesome Lauren Ambrose), who invited Dr Vera Juarez (terrible Arlene Tur) to a PhiCorp presentation, while also managing to get child killer Oswald Danes (Bill Pullman) on her client list, with plans to manage his sudden and wholly implausible celebrity status with the support of PhiCorp.

Along the way the video-camera contact lenses from an old Torchwood episode make an appearance, Espenson's script laboured the point that Americans and Brits use different words for things (although I must admit I never knew lemonade isn't fizzy in the States), a cult called the "Soulless" has started walking around town in frowning face-masks (um, it looks good for the trailers), Rex slept with Dr Vera (possibly because he needs someone to get a recurring blood stain out of his shirts), and there was Miracle Day's first gay sex scene—together with a gay joke playing on the double-meaning of the word "impaled". Fnar, fnar. And don't you dare criticize said joke or you'll be labelled homophobic, rather than having an evolved sense of humour.

In the episode's favour, at least it managed to get Oswald Danes into the same storyline as Torchwood's random investigations, and Oswald's speech to Jack about "painting" bruises on the 12-year-old girl he raped and killed was an effective piece of writing. We also now have a potential villain in PhiCorp, but if they're the definite culprits of Miracle Day I think they've been revealed too early in the show's run. Or are they just one part of a bigger plan, seeing as their painkillers are being given to the public without a lucrative prescription charge? Is it possible there's something in those drugs someone wants the entire human race to ingest en masse? And if so, is it encouraging that Torchwood's lifting a storyline from the first season of V's remake?

Overall, "Dead Of Night" didn't really work for me because the juiciness of the Miracle Day concept is beginning to wear off, and it feels like the explanation's edging into predictable "evil company" territory. But it's early days still, so I hope PhiCorp is just a dead-end, or will lead the investigation into a more imaginative realm. But really, given the size and scale of Miracle Day, the explanation's got to involve either aliens or futuristic technology. What else could it possibly be? I'll be mightily impressed if Russell T. Davies can avoid anything obvious for a cogent explanation, but given the show's abject failure to even make Oswald Danes' forgiveness and public worship feel plausible, I have serious doubts.

written by Jane Espenson / directed by Billy Gierhart / 22 July 2011 / Starz

TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY – "Rendition"

Miracle Day's premiere divided fans, as most tried to reconcile its "Americanisation", but I was entertained throughout and didn't feel Torchwood was any less ridiculous than it's been on the BBC. How quickly forget that Cyberwoman fighting a pterodactyl, eh? I also think the previous miniseries, Children On Earth, is being remembered as a shining beacon of British sci-fi, when in reality it was just a proficient Quatermass knockoff blessed with an effective alien and Peter Capaldi scene-stealing. Miracle Day continues with "Rendition", written by Doris Egan, whose work on House means she's best placed to write an hour with an emphasis on medicine...

This episode was definitely a weaker hour compared to the premiere, but just about managed to pull through thanks to some spirited sequences and intriguing insights into the implications of a medical world without death. Dr Vera Juarez (Arlene Tur) came to realize that diseases that ordinarily feast on the body of the person they kill, before dying themselves, are now free to rampantly spread; and the system of how to treat patients has been reversed, with the seriously injured left to wait (as there's no chance of them dying), while people with minor injuries are given top priority.

These are just a few examples of the fascinating ideas floating around Miracle Day, often delivered in mere throwaway lines (like how the Hindu belief in reincarnation has been thrown into chaos). And then the whole situation worsened with scientific proof that people are still aging normally. So even if the world could somehow find a way to cope with this colossal population boom, everyone on the planet is doomed to become everlasting, shriveled cadavers. Living fossils, a living hell.

What was a little puzzling is how long this episode kept Jack (John Barrowman) and Gwen (Eve Myles) on the backburner, as they were flown back to the USA by CIA Agent Rex Matheson (Mekhi Phifer). For a big chunk of time, the show's three leads were all contained aboard a passenger jet, which meant supporting characters like Esther Drummond (Alexa Havins), Juarez and Oswald Danes (Bill Pullman) had to pick up the slack. The results were mixed, although it was interesting to discover that Esther's boss Brian Friedkin (Wayne Knight) is perhaps involved in the mystery—as he ordered operative Lyn (Dollhouse's Dichmen Lachman) to poison Jack with arsenic after hearing he's mortal. Is Friedkin involved in whatever Miracle Day is? It would appear so. Was Jack targeted because of who he is (a time-traveller from the future capable of solving the crisis), or what he is (a mortal man whose biology may hold the key to reversing the problem facing everyone else)?

Pullman was great as Oswald Danes last week, but I wasn't too convinced by his heartfelt breakdown on live TV when asked to comment on his murder of a 12-year-old girl. It all felt phony to me, not helped by the wooden guest-star playing the TV host, and I'm not convinced Oswald's tearful apology was emotionally transcendent enough to trigger the beginnings of mass public forgiveness, as seems to be where we're headed. However, it was intriguing to see Oswald approached by a flame-haired PR lady called Jilly Kitzinger (Six Feet Under's Lauren Ambrose) with an offer to represent him, who then later appeared to Juarez with an offer to provide much-needed painkillers to the nation. Is Kitzinger simply a con artist with her fingers in a few pies, or does she have a plan that simply must involve both Oswald and Juarez?

Perhaps the best moments of this episode was seeing Gwen, Rex and the cabin crew try to save Jack's life after his poisoning, by making an antidote using chemicals that can be found on an airplane. This is where Egan's training on House came in handy, as it felt very plausible that you can counteract the effects of arsenic using de-greaser, fuel from a laptop battery, silver, etc. And I like how the roles have now reversed between Gwen and Jack, as he's now the person who can be put in mortal danger and needs her help. The show definitely works best whenever Jack and Gwen are bouncing off each other, as they know their characters inside-out and have a readymade chemistry (whereas everyone else is feeling their way still), although I do wish Eve Myles would calm down. I get that Gwen's a feisty and confident person who's very bossy, but Myles often tips over into petulant hysterics with her performance.

I'm also concerned about the character of Rex right now. He wasn't introduced as a particularly likeable person last week, and he actually became even worse in this episode—taking obvious delight in separating Gwen from her husband and child! It seems a very strange way to be writing that character, even if the intention was to absolve him by the episode's end after he helped Jack and Gwen escape after being warned by Esther that getting Torchwood onto US soil was all a setup. Hopefully now Rex will become more of a team-player than he's been so far, which will hopefully endear us more to Phifer's swaggering performance.

Overall, "Rendition" wasn't great and it marked a slip in quality from last week's rollercoaster opener, but it just about kept itself afloat thanks to a few dramatic sequences/visuals. The fact I'm genuinely interested to see how they're going to explain everything also works in its favour, but I remain unconvinced they can stretch this idea out for another eight weeks.

written by Doris Egan / directed by Billy Gierhart / 15 July 2011 / Starz

TV Ratings: TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY (BBC1)

The UK premiere of Torchwood: Miracle Day lured 4.83m viewers to BBC1 at 9pm last night, down 1m on the premiere of Children Of Earth in 2009. Of course, Children was a world premiere of that particular miniseries, whereas Miracle has been controversially delayed in reaching the UK after Starz aired it in the US last Friday. So it's more than likely the 1m drop-off is partly because of torrent downloads this past week, and the fact this isn't being stripped across the whole week (so the need to watch episode 1 on the day of transmission, or risk falling behind, isn't so strong.)

Over in the US last Friday, Miracle Day's world premiere attracted 819,000 viewers for Starz at 10pm and 687,000 for the 11pm repeat, resulting in a total of 1.51 million viewers. This a fraction below the premiere of Camelot (1.57m), a show that Starz cancelled after one season—but not purely because of ratings and demographics, so this doesn't mean Miracle Day's doomed, too. Anything in the 1.5m range is a big hit for a premium cable channel like Starz.

Incidentally, Channel 4's The Killing was direct competition for Torchwood in the UK last night, and the crime drama remake dropped to 1.5m viewers—losing 670,000 viewers from its two-part premiere. Some of the loss may be attributed to people giving Torchwood preference, with 311k watching The Killing an hour later on Channel 4+1. So the loss of audience for the show probably isn't that bad, when you factor in the presence of a big Thursday night rival.

Review: TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY – "The New World"

Russell T. Davies just about manages to transfer Torchwood to America without repeating the mistakes of the 1996 Doctor Who TV Movie, although it's touch and go in places. Miracle Day is a ten-part reversal of Children Of Men's premise, where death itself becomes an impossibility and the world faces a four-month countdown to catastrophe as the population booms. It's the fourth series of the Who spin-off, but broadly accessible to newcomers by virtue of having so many American characters themselves unaware of Torchwood's existence and history. This premiere is largely successful at what it aims to achieve, blessed with a simple but stimulating idea to explore, although there occasions when British fans may be rolling their eyes at some cheesy/nonsensical moments (such as a brief phone conversation that somehow lasts a car journey from London to Cardiff), but in general "The New World" was effective and entertaining set-up.

In the months since the Children Of Earth miniseries concluded, Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) has taken the baffling decision to live a reclusive lifestyle in a beachfront cottage with husband Rhys (Kai Owen) and their baby, but is inevitably pulled back into action to help investigate the so-called "Miracle Day". The phenomenon in question being the sudden, inexplicable inability of humans to die, demonstrated by the unsuccessful lethal injection of convicted paedophile Oswald Danes (Bill Pullman), and CIA Agent Rex Matheson (Mekhi Phifer) surviving being impaled by steel rods in a car accident. Curiously, at times this episode felt more like the story of inquisitive CIA Watch analyst Esther Drummond (Alexa Havins), given how Rex spends the majority of the episode in a hospital bed, dashing hero Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) doesn't appear until almost halfway through, and Gwen dances on the sidelines for awhile.

The concerns of most fans will be in seeing how well Davies has managed to transfer Torchwood's tone and personality to a (mostly) American context, and the answer is fairly well, but not comfortably. It's too early to tell if the show's risqué attitude has survived the Atlantic crossing, but this certainly wasn't an episode that sacrificed Torchwood's ideals and instead bombarded us with action set-pieces. In fact, beyond a climactic helicopter chase on a Welsh beach (involving a bazooka), the spectacle is restrained and the "Americanisation" only noticeable through the predominantly US casting and the quality of production standards—that even having a British director in Bharat Nalluri can't tune-out. And why should anyone want to? The show is slicker in some ways, but just as unintentionally amusing whenever it presents Gwen as a leather-clad bad-ass. In a strange way, the occasional clumsiness of "The new World" is a welcome reminder this is still the show we know and love (with caveats).

The new characters aren't very interesting just yet, and I'm particularly concerned about Mekhi Phifer, who spends most of this hour giving a performance similar to watching a young Danny Glover go through heroine withdrawal. Given the fact he's supposed to be the show's big new American lead, it's noticeable how poorly he's introduced and utilized, as Davies is clearly more comfortable writing for Jack and Gwen than any of his invented newcomers. The only unqualified success is Bill Pullman as creepy Oswald Danes; a character who's hypnotically repellent and gets the best dialogue to chew on. I'm already broadly aware of where his character's headed over the weeks, and I look forward to seeing how he develops from this intriguing introduction.

Perhaps the best aspect of "The New World" was simply having time to ruminate on the repercussions of a world without death. In one startling sequence, doctors gather around the body of a bombing victim who's now little more than a burned, mangled splat on a table—yet still alive to blink and groan at the living horror he's going through. Even when his head's severed from his body by snipping through what's left of his neck, the man's suffering persists. It was a horrific and unsettling moment, but simply the most visual example of the problems and abominations that will become commonplace. I'm sure Miracle Day will have great fun speculating about a world where there are suddenly billions of immortal people, many of whom will become trapped in a circumstance where they're begging for death to become an option again.

Overall, "The New World" worked because the high concept is so rich and fascinating, and it's good fun to see Cap'n Jack and Gwen back on our-screens after a few years away (even if the latter remains markedly irritating), but I'm not sure this idea will be able to sustain nine more hours. Children Of Earth didn't even justify five, and despite the fact Miracle Day's a global problem teeming with new characters, something tells me the mid-season episodes could be a problem to get through. The fact Russell T. Davies' plotting is by far his weakest skill, and so few of his episodes conclude plausibly, also has me concerned Miracle Day won't reward a ten-week commitment. However, on the strength of this opener, ignoring some of its sillier moments, I'm interested to see exactly where the story's headed.

written by Russell T. Davies / directed by Bharat Nalluri / 8 July 2011 / Starz