Torchwood: Miracle Day: The Middle Men

Woo-hoo! Winston Zeddemore is in it! I don't quite know why that makes me so happy. I guess it is because it is a distraction from this slow-moving, lumbering beast of a story.

But let's look at the content of the episode rather than just the casting. Colin Maloney is a wonderfully ghastly creation - a unpleasant man in complete meltdown who has ceased to be fully in control of his own actions. There is the implication that, deep down, he knows that what he signed up to do is wrong, and when that combines with a sudden collapse in his life and things start to fall apart, he becomes terrifying and lethal. A maniac, out of control, in a vanity golf cart. The only downside to his character is that we never really saw it properly develop. We never saw him move from a minor public official into murderous, monstrous concentration camp director. Had he been introduced into the story earlier (and, as we know, those early episodes could have done with a lot more story and a lot less padding) we might have seen a compelling story arc and how humans can fall into evil. Instead, we end up simply with a rather transparent weak yet evil man. Which is good, but could have been so much better.

There is also the surprisingly intelligent conversation between Gwen and Dr Patel about moral choice in a concentration camp. It is even more striking given this has hardly been the most intellectually challenging of stories so far. It is a bit like coming across a discussion of the categorical imperative in a Colin Baker Doctor Who story. Of course, and rather sadly, it doesn't last for long, and with in minutes Jack is slapping the bum of a waiter. Back to business as usual, then.

The 45 club is another unsettling, but completely logical, extension of the Miracle. What a shame it wasn't introduced earlier, since the way it is treated here is just as a means to kill off a minor character in a world without suicide. Why can't we spend less time with the Torchwood team and more exploring this strange, new world? Are we going to hear about the 45 club again or have they just disappeared from the series, rather like the Soulless? There seems to be an assumption that we should find the antics of the Torchwood team so exciting that we only need brief hints of the world around that team. Unfortunately, the exact opposite is true.

And that's all I've got to say about this episode, really. Once again, I'm left with the frustration that this still isn't really going anywhere. This week, we learned that the camps are really bad. Which we also already knew. We learned that there is a conspiracy behind the Miracle and behind PhiCorp, which we also already knew. We didn't get to see Oswald Danes, or understand the implications of his speech. Oh, but we have found out that there is something called the blessing. But we know fuck all about it really. In short, we still know bugger all about what is going on here. Still. When you strip it down to basics, this episode was yet another exercise in padding.