Michael Gray

   
As much as I tried to like Season 4 of Torchwood — AKA Miracle Day — the show just wouldn’t make it easy for me. Children of Earth was a neat experiment and with only five episodes I didn’t mind the changes it made. But with ten episodes in this new season, even with an interesting concept it just seemed to drag on and on. It left me aching for old times, back when the show was actually good.

Dear Russell T Davies,

Please bring back the old Torchwood.

Love Michael.

Anyhow, enough reminiscing and on with the list. Warning: No. 5 is a pretty significant spoiler.

1. Where are the aliens?

Not a single darn tootin’ Weevil. Instead we get these multinational companies and an ancient bloodline.

This is a spin-off to Doctor Who for Christ’s sake! Where are the aliens? Sure most of the Doctor’s enemies are taken, but that’s no reason you couldn’t create some new beast or intelligent life form. The 456 were pretty scary for something confined to a box.

Well done with the no dying thing, but at least bring in something for us to fear and stare at.

2. Too many Americans.

Seeing as the majority of the show takes place in America that should be no surprise.

But I miss the old cast, I really do. I’m still not sure why the writers killed off every member of the Torchwood team apart from Jack and Gwen. Gwen is now the only English of the lot, and she’s not even really English, she’s Welsh. Lovable Rhys makes the odd appearance, but I’m afraid that’s not enough to fix the show.

I’m not being racist, well… No, it’s just these two newcomers just don’t gel with “Torchwood” or whatever’s left of the gang. For one Rex is too commanding. I mean we already have Jack and Gwen taking the charge. And Esther is on the other end of the scale. She replaces Tosh as the geeky computer girl, but she’s too weepy and innocent. Sure she changes as the season moves forward, but I just couldn’t see her as anything but “the weak one”.

3. Ridiculous conspiracies.

And just how are they communicating with these silly little triangles? Is it subliminal? Some sort of code? To me they seem like the perfect way to loudly declare that you work for a secret organisation. That or you belong in a mental hospital.

The mystery never paid off, it was strange to begin with and simply fizzled away. As much as I hoped it would, it didn’t draw back to any of the previous Torchwood characters or mythologies.

Seasons 1 and 2 of Torchwood did flirt with serial narrative but for the most part, like its older brother Doctor Who, it was a series. A police procedural with aliens, like The X-Files and Fringe (more or less). We had a home base, and crimes of alien origin.

Miracle day isn’t a roller coaster ride, it’s a log flume that has a few splashes, but ultimately moves at a snail’s pace.

4. Oswald Danes… Huh?

What was the point of this character? In the end he wasn’t even needed. Sure a child rapist and murderer isn’t the easiest character to root for, but he seemed to have a storyline entirely separate to the main narrative.

We’re introduced to Oswald in the very first episode and have to endure him throughout for no other reason than to stir controversy in those around him.

Let’s not forget his PR representative, Jilly Kitzinger, who also didn’t achieve a single damn thing.

5. And of course, the blessing itself.

A giant vagina running through the centre of the earth?

Enough said.