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TARDIS Guide

Overview

First aired

Friday, August 26, 2011

Production Code

108

Directed by

Gwyneth Horder-Payton

Runtime

55 minutes

Time Travel

Present

Tropes (Potential Spoilers!)

LGBTQA+

Story Arc (Potential Spoilers!)

Miracle Day

Location (Potential Spoilers!)

England, Langley, Wales

UK Viewers

4.64 million

Synopsis

Jack Harkness showdowns with a man he thought long dead, but will the outcome be beneficial? Rex Matheson takes extreme action, but is it too late to prevent the collapse of society?

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Reviews

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3 reviews

This review contains spoilers!

An odd episode. It's both simultaneously slow paced and revelatory. Plenty happens, and yet it also feels like plenty doesn't.

 

I loved how Rex, for instance, tricks Wayne Knight's CIA boss Brian Friedkin. That was a very cleverly written piece of script that managed to trick me into thinking Torchwood had actually been captured by the CIA!

 

A similarly lovely moment is Jack reminiscing about Ianto to the critically ill Angelo. A touching piece of continuity for sure, and one of John Barrowman's best performances as Jack.

 

However the fact that it pretty much entirely takes place in one singular location makes the plot feel very slow and meandering. Sometimes setting a story in one place can work well dramatically (see The Girl Who Waited), but here there doesn't seem to be any dramatic purpose behind it.

 

Still, good to learn a little more about what is causing the 'miracle', and I'm curious to learn more about 'category zero'. What dark means do they do to get rid of people like Oswald Danes, I wonder?

 

The ending scene with Jack is also a fantastic cliffhanger. It's very hard to place that character in any sort of peril where you feel he could be in danger, but the genius of Miracle Day means a cliffhanger like this where Jack really could be in trouble is so much more effective than it would be in a normal series of Doctor Who or Torchwood, where Jack still has his immortality.


WhoPotterVian

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Eh, it's alright. End of the Road is a solid example of Miracle Day's worst problem - it is a five-episode story stretched out into ten episodes. It's just so clear to me that Miracle Day has about five solid episodes (and about that many ideas worth exploring) and the whole thing ends up being bogged down by being twice as long as it needs to be. This episode reveals a lot and sets us up for the end game of the story, but even that feels like we're only getting wisps of what is to come, and this, along with a handful of other episodes, comes down to basically just a bit of a waste of time, overall. I definitely started checking out of the story during this episode after a while - it's not very exciting.

Still, our characters are good and there's just enough energy to the series at this point I didn't exactly find it hard to keep going. Bill Pullman's character really stands out as this complex figure that helps make Miracle Day feel a little special against the rest of the Torchwood show, for example, but I also really like Esther and Rex. They're all just really well performed and interesting characters I am always keen to learn more about, and wish they had a life beyond Miracle Day. The show wasn't engrossing me at this point, but it wasn't nearly bad enough to make me give up entirely. Miracle Day still looks cool and there are enough memorable sets and locations that it at least is a pleasant enough viewing experience.


dema1020

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This review contains spoilers!

“I’m going to take you to the man who knows the answer to these various mysteries.” “Oh no! He is dead!” One agency is watching another, who is spying on another. Contrived and boring American TV that had none of its own character. The only characters of interest are the ones that pre-date this series. The US contingent are just not familiar enough or invested enough with what they’re producing. What a mess.


15thDoctor

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Transcript Needs checking

[Colasanto Residence, Nevada, USA]

(They all get out of the SUV. Olivia speaks to the guards at the main door.)

OLIVIA: They're with me. They've agreed to leave their weapons behind.
REX: But Esther's gonna stay outside.
OLIVIA: Why? What for?
REX: She's gonna keep an open relay to a hard drive back in Los Angeles. If we go through those doors and disappear, then we have a record. Okay? So, tell your goons to leave her alone.
JACK: Come on. Angelo's inside.

(They go into the hall.)

OLIVIA: He talked about you all the time, Jack. His immortal man in old New York. He never forgot.
REX: You telling me the whole world got screwed because two gay guys had a hissy fit?
GWEN: Rex, get back in your cave.
REX: Come on, give me a break.
OLIVIA: You inspired him. You proved immortality was possible. And he devoted the rest of his life to finding out how to live forever.
JACK: And he did it? He's still alive? He's still young?
OLIVIA: Oh yes, he's still alive. Angelo Colasanto is still very much alive, but he's not young.


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