Torchwood: Miracle Day: Difference between revisions

** Jack also invokes the names of several alien races featured in both ''[[Doctor Who]]'' and ''[[The Sarah Jane Adventures]]''.

* [[Camera Sniper]]: Gwen is in Venice Beach, and we see that someone's watching her through the shutter of the camera they're using to photograph her. The shot even pulls back to show the person with the long range lens.

* [[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/Recap/NS/S4/E11 Turn Left|Brigade]].

** And, of course, the Doctor.

* [[Corrupt Bureaucrat]]: Colin Maloney, the administrator of the Los Angeles overflow camp.

** 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".

*** 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.

* [[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.

* [[Idiot Ball]]: Esther, {{spoiler|whilst being chased by the CIA, goes to visit her sister. Since her sister is now a paranoid shut-in and has boarded all her windows up, she phones child services, saying that they are in danger. She is then shocked to find out the children have been taken into foster care. Visiting her sister also leads a hitman to their new hideout, nearly getting Jack and Gwen killed/would-be-killed}}. She later redeems herself, in spades.

** For a trained CIA agent, Rex sure does spend a ''lot'' of time freely giving information to the villains. Including at one point explaining his plans for the Overflow Camp footage ''to the guy in charge '''while said guy had him tied up and was clearly emotionally unhinged'''.''

* [[If You Know What I Mean]]: Jack Harkness, as usual.

* [[It Got Worse]]: Pretty much every episode, though all stemming from the same source. It's more accurate to say that the situation hasn't actually changed, just their understanding of how horrifically bad it really is. {{spoiler|Then they instituted the Category system, and things ''genuinely'' got a lot worse}}.

* [[A Nazi by Any Other Name]]: Basically what every government in the world utilizing overflow camps becomes {{spoiler|since Category 1 inmates are sent into 'the module', death chambers where they are incinerated alive}}.

** Gwen calls one of the camp doctors out on this, going so far as to tell her not to call herself a doctor anymore, because she doesn't deserve it.

** 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.

* [[Required Secondary Powers]]: Horrifically averted. The consequences of immortality without any sort of healing factor are made gruesomely clear early on.

** It's also established that people continue to age as normal. Even if you manage to avoid all injury and disease for the rest of your life, would it still be worth living by the time you're 1000 years old and considerably more frail than the oldest living human has ever been?

* [[Simple Score of Sadness]]: A certain primarily piano-based piece is used for just about every "sad" scene in the series.

* [[Society of Immortals]]

* [[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.

* [[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.