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Torchwood: Miracle Day: Difference between revisions
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''Torchwood: Miracle Day'' is the fourth series of ''[[Torchwood]]'', which began airing on Starz on July 8, 2011. It's a ten-part miniseries, similar to ''[[Torchwood: Children of Earth|Children of Earth]]'' in tone. The storyline is a [[BBC]] America / Starz co-production that's set in both Britain and America. Covering the equivalent screen time of 20 episodes of the original ''Doctor Who'' series, this makes it the longest single storyline in the history of the franchise. <ref>''Doctor Who's'' record is either 12 or 14 half-hour episodes, depending on if you count ''The Trial of a Time Lord'' as four stories or one.</ref>
''Miracle Day'' takes place some time after the traumatic events of ''Children of Earth''. People on Earth have very suddenly [[The Ageless|stopped dying]], mystifying experts and straining the Earth's resources. This is [[Played for Drama]], as every single realistic result of unending death is explored: people trapped in explosions remain conscious and in horrifying agony forever, both normal hospital procedures and the entire legal system need to be revised within days, the normal 50% in-utero mortality rate of severely disfigured fetuses is no longer in effect, and the undeath is soon found to be [[Age Without Youth]].
Captain Jack Harkness ([[John Barrowman]]) and Gwen Cooper ([[Eve Myles]]), the last members of the Torchwood team, reunite. They're forced to go to America, where they are helped by CIA secret agents Rex Matheson ([[8 Mile|Mekhi Phifer]]) and Esther Drummond (Alexa Havins), as well as others sympathetic to their cause. Things quickly get complicated when Jack realises that he's been stripped of his own immortality and healing powers in the process.
The series is [[Darker and Edgier]], [[Bloodier and Gorier]] and [[Hotter and Sexier]] than ''Torchwood'' had ever been before. Although it still retains its [[Camp]] elements, ''Miracle Day'' is largely serious, with a strong focus on [[Medical Horror]] and [[Body Horror]].
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=== Tropes in ''Miracle Day'' ===
* [[Actor Allusion]]: Matheson is gleeful at the beginning over someone named "Reynolds" retiring due to his wife's sickness. Mekhi Phifer played Ben Reynolds in ''[[Lie to Me (TV series)|Lie to Me]]''.
* [[Age Without Youth]]: And the myth of Tithonus is explicitly mentioned. The human race has a ''very'' unpleasant future ahead of it.
* [[And I Must Scream]]: Goes hand in hand with [[Fate Worse Than Death]] below. In a world where people can't die, paralyzing injuries just got a whole lot worse.
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* [[Chekhov's Gunman]]: In the first couple of episodes, we meet a few of Esther's CIA Watch coworkers. In Episode 8, {{spoiler|one of them is revealed to be a [[The Mole|mole]] for the Families}}.
* [[The Conspiracy]]: The surface is still barely scratched by episode 6
* [[Continuity Nod]]: The brainworm in the episode 7 flashback is one of the [[The Sarah Jane Adventures|Trickster's]] [[Doctor Who
** UNIT, the Silurians and the Racnoss also get mentioned at one point or another.
** And, of course, the Doctor.
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** Stuart Owens, a Phicorp bigwig, is notable for being rather helpful and non-antagonistic despite qualifying for this. As he puts it, "I'm not a bad man. I'm not a good man, either. I'm a... ''[[True Neutral|middle]]'' [[Title Drop|man.]]"
* [[Crapsack World]]: Following in the footsteps of "Children of Earth".
* [[Crawl]]: One of [[Show Runner]] Russell T Davies' trademarks. There's a lot of fake news reports, and they all have tickers with one-line stories about the effect of the Miracle.
* [[Death Takes a Holiday]]: The premise
* [[Determinator]]: Rex, who spends virtually the entire season with a lethal penetrating wound to his chest.
* [[Disney Villain Death]]: {{spoiler|One of the Family leaders is thrown into the heart of the Blessing once death comes back. Nobody knows whether that kills you or not, but it's probably not comfortable either way.}}
* [[Doomed Moral Victor|Doomed Immoral Victor]]: {{spoiler|Oswald Danes blows himself up to bury the Blessing and kill a Family leader. He still reckons he's going to Hell for his crimes, but views this as a victory because Hell is full of bad little girls...}}
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** {{spoiler|Ellis Hartley Monroe gets sent through a car crusher. We get a quick shot of her inside the wreckage.}} [[And I Must Scream|She'll be there a very long time]].
** Lyn, a rogue CIA agent in episode 2, gets her neck snapped in such a way that her head is rotated 180 degrees on her body, yet she remains conscious.
** Everyone who is Category 1 gets {{spoiler|burned alive}}. One can only hope such a fate is the exception to the rule.
** In a flashback, {{spoiler|pre-Miracle Jack is mistaken for either being Satan or the Messiah, and is repeatedly killed in a variety of ways so people can watch him come back to life.}}
* [[Flat What]]: Everyone's reaction to {{spoiler|Rex being immortal}} at the end of the last episode.
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*** Category 0 {{spoiler|is brazenly unconstitutional. Even though Danes is guilty of a ''very'' nasty crime, the Constitution of the United States of America prohibits making an act illegal before the law was put into power, which means he can't be categorized and sentenced under this new law for an offense he committed before the law was passed. Also, putting folks into the ovens conscious would almost assuredly qualify as cruel and unusual punishment.}}
** Technically, the emergency mandate is not an ex post facto law as he was previously sentenced to death and the law is merely changing the administration of his punishment. However, the show's misuse of force majeure which is not even invoked in American criminal law should be taken to task.
*** It should be noted that it's strongly implied that the Families are influencing events from the background. It's not unreasonable to suggest they might have been behind the passage of the draconian legislation featured in the episode.
* [[Healing Factor]]: While Jack becomes mortal after the world turns immortal, it comes into play in "Immortal Sins"' flashbacks. {{spoiler|It returns to him at the end; and Rex gains it too}}.
* [[Hypocrite]]: Rex bites Esther's head off for {{spoiler|visiting her sister's house and being made by a hitman}} when he {{spoiler|visited his dad while they're in Venice Beach and could have compromised them as well had Esther not already done so.}} Since nobody knows what Rex did, he can continue acting smug towards Esther without her realizing his hypocrisy. Also, to be fair, Rex is trained in that sort of thing and Ester isn't.
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** Not to mention the Families' justifications for taking over the world.
** There's also the fact that they literally break into people's homes to see if they are hiding any Category 1s. This is eerily reminiscent of Nazis breaking into people's homes looking for Jews.
* [[Nebulous Criminal Conspiracy]]: At first the CIA get in the way, then it looks like the evil pharmaceutical PhiCorp. Only when Jack confronts the COO of PhiCorp, Stuart Owens, it turns out that Owens was actually investigating the Miracle himself and trying to find out which part of his company was involved. He traced it to countless dummy corporations and shadowy business interests, and concluded that PhiCorp was just a small part of a much bigger machine; in effect, "the system" was the enemy, and the people behind the Miracle were masters of manipulating it.
** It's never made clear how {{spoiler|three wealthy families were able to attain that much power in the world beyond spending decades insinuating themselves into the top political/financial/media (one family for each) positions and families in the world and working together on trying to become immortal . They're not even mentioned to be using any alien technology.}}.
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* [[Soundtrack Dissonance]]: The [[Lou Reed]] song "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYEC4TZsy-Y Perfect Day]" plays in the teaser trailer over footage of the Earth turning into a bomb.
* [[Stuff Blowing Up]]
* [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute]]: The current Torchwood team consists of Jack, Gwen, a cocky male [[The Lancer|Lancer]] with a fatal hole in his chest whose main purpose seems to be annoying Jack, and a pretty, non-confrontational female [[The Smart Guy|Smart Guy]] whose main purpose seems to be sitting at a computer desk. Remind me, Owen and Tosh did ''die'', right? The only cosmetic difference is that Rex is the [[Token Minority]].
* [[Sudden Principled Stand]]: By Cpl. Coltrane.
* [[Taking You with Me]]: {{spoiler|Oswald}}.
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* [[UST]]: Davies says that Captain Jack's "unstated love for Gwen Cooper" brings him back to Earth. Rex [[Lampshade Hanging|comments on it]] in "Rendition"; Gwen denies it, but Rex doesn't buy that.
** It's pretty well stated in "Immortal Sins" that [[Anguished Declaration of Love|Jack and Gwen love each other]], but that there are things (the safety of Gwen's daughter, Jack's mortality) that, if threatened, they would kill each other for.
* [[What Happened to the Mouse?]]:
** A minor plot-line surrounding a new cult that developed after the Miracle, the Soulless, seemingly vanished after the third episode. Though, Sarah, Esther's sister, in "End of the Road" appears to be a believer.
** It would seem likely the Soulless were the starters of the 45 floor club, taking the first chance they could get to end their lives by being made Category 1.
* [[Who Wants to Live Forever?]]: The world's scientists quickly find out that humanity's new immortality only applies to death itself. Injury, disease, aging, pain, and all those other trappings of life are still in full effect. No matter what happens, no matter how debilitating, [[Fate Worse Than Death|you simply DO NOT DIE]].
* [[Zombie Apocalypse]]: The show is focused on problems caused by the living dead, and solutions to those problems. [[Genre Blindness]] on this issue was probably enforced to preserve drama and avoid giving viewers an obvious way out of moral dilemmas.
** [[Not Using the Z Word|Category Ones]] may not chase you, but it's pointed out that living-dead can be a source of plague just as easily as the conventionally dead in other types of natural disasters.
** A prominent character insists a close relative is [[Not a Zombie|still alive]] in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
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