Torchwood - Series 4 Recap

The biggest problem with “Miracle Day” is structure. Don’t get me wrong, for the most part I enjoyed the season, I liked many of the elements and twists, and the characters...but there are too many characters, and groups, and plotlines that get started up and go nowhere. I mean Danes is hyper interesting but gets shoved into the background of many episodes, then early on there are things like “The Soulless” which ends up never being talked about and seen of again. Later the “45 Club” is mentioned, but not really explored. We get characters who come and go, plots that start up and end up unresolved, and questions that are thought provoking that get dropped without a second thought. Its a shame, because I think that if Davies was paying the kind of attention and focus he paid during his reign on Doctor Who, or even just Children of Earth, in terms of rewrites...then this season might’ve been far more focused and enjoyable all around.

This season wasn’t as fun as Series 2, and it lacked the sharp, tight, level of quality writing that Children of Earth had...luckily it never fell so far as to be bad as the first season, but even so it still feels mostly average throughout. The sense of how much time is passing between episodes usually remained unclear, and the sense of urgency that CoE had is gone. Miracle Day feels like a mess, and it is a mess. I found plenty to like and enjoy in this mess, and I think it was a far better mess than what Torchwood was in its first terrible season, but it is a mess nonetheless.

I think Children of Earth should still have been the end of the show. For some reason Torchwood had to prove itself in that third season (despite pretty good ratings in both the US and UK), and despite having critical acclaim and ratings that topped all before it...BBC still hesitated in bringing it back. Only when Starz stepped in for a co-production did this season even get off the ground. It took 2 years!

So here’s Miracle Day, a mixed bag of a season with too much to say and not enough focus to really say it. If your lenient like I am, you will find something to enjoy, but I can see why most critics have lost interest and the ratings are taking a dip (BBC ratings aren’t reaching the same levels as CoE, and the fact that Starz is not a basic channel in the US mean its ratings aren’t ever going to be as high as they might of been on even BBC America).

I think this may be the final season of Torchwood. It had a good run, with two great seasons after a bad start, but now comes this humdrum end. With the critics losing the love, and the ratings not being what they were...and Russell T Davies announcing that he is done with Sci-Fi for the foreseeable future (he left Who, SJA is ending following Sladen’s passing, and he is not returning to Torchwood whether or not it gets picked up for another season), I’d say there are enough strikes against the show to say it probably won’t have the same level of people mourning its passing as there were after Children of Earth.

I said after Children of Earth I wouldn’t be sad if the show didn’t come back, and I think having seen this I was right. I still didn’t hate Miracle Day, but I see plenty of problems that could’ve been fixed, but I think this season at least proved that Torchwood has very little left to say.

Despite finding things to like each episode, I found myself waiting for the end too often, and that is a shame. It wasn’t like Children of Earth where I wanted it to end so I see how it all played out, it was like I was just trying to get this over with....and the conclusion wasn’t satisfying enough to really make it all worth it.

So there it is. I think that Torchwood SHOULD be done. I don’t really know if it will be, but I think there are legitimate reasons on both sides as to whether it will ever return or not.

NEXT TIME: Time Runs Out