Miracle Day - eps 3 and 4
Aug. 10th, 2011 04:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcJust back from London - nowhere near the trouble - and on a Sky+ binge. Two Torchwoods now, two Smallvilles later.
Episode 3 was bitty. The two important plot points were that Dane joins with PhiCorp (and it was quite amusing the way his rhetoric shifted from "We should have free drugs! Companies are profiting from our pain!" to "We should have freely available drugs! Companies can profit by helping us!") and the heroes idenfity both Danes and PhiCorps as the villains. But since we already knew these things, the episode didn't really feel like it was going anywhere. On the other hand, it had some really nice character moments and "It's bigger on the inside!"
I enjoyed the US/UK communication difficulties; I knew about gas stations and ATMs, but didn't realise American lemonade was still. (I suppose I knew American home-made lemonade was just lemon juice, sugar and water -- "cloudy" lemonade -- but not that the lemonade sold in cans was the same stuff.) In the UK "-ade" is a standard suffix meaning "fizzy" (limeade, orangeade, cherryade, Lucozade), which means we find Gatorade confusing.
Rex left and came back, which presumably means he's now on the team rather than just being caught up with them, and it looks like Dr Vera is as well.
The Soulless are suitsbly creepy -- I'm sure a later episode will have PhiCorp drugs mind-controlling people or something, to produce an army wearing Soulless masks.
The revelation that Danes is completely unrepentant wasn't a huge surprise, although his actual motivation was. It was also good to see not everyone buys his act, even if I still find his rehabilitation completely implausible. A tie-in to Children of Earth: Jack's knowledge of what someone who sincerely regrets his actions should be like. Also, while previous episodes have mentioned that the Torchwood team was killed, I think this is the first one to mention Ianto by name.
Very nice scene of Jack convincing himself that it was okay to be almost alone if he had Gwen alone with him ... except she isn't, she's got a family. And nice to see them again, however briefly.
Oh, and Jack picks up a guy in a gay bar, thereby apparently shocking people who had never even had an episode of Torchwood described to them before...
Ep 4 opens with a plotthread from the previous week -- Esther's sister. This leads to Triangle Agents persuing her, the first time we've seen actual operatives associated with the rotating triangle that gave Friedkin his orders.
So the team move to LA. And I think RTD said somewhere that a later episode would be in New York. They're really touring the country, aren't they?
Interesting that even the thick-skinned Jilly is creeped out by Danes. Again, how has this man become a national spokesman? But then, I don't understand why anyone would listen to Monroe either; one of those people whose self-righteous certainty makes disagreeing with her almost instinctive. Watching them battle for airtime is like watching the Coalition Government fighting News International -- the satisfaction of one of them going down is tempered by the fact it's a victory for the other. Not that I would wish what happened to Monroe on anyone.
Meanwhile, over at Vera's hospital, we see that the whole concept of medicine continues to break down. While Monroe calls for segregation of the "dead", the DC hospital system is already attempting it, while hospices are closing because, if no-one's dying then what is palative care? So naturally, it's outside this hospital that Monroe and Danes have their showdown. Danes wins, and Monroe gets disappeared by the Triangle.
Apart from that, the bulk of this episode is a caper movie, with Jack breaking into PhiCorp's local HQ. Gwen's Californian accent as they collect the biometrics is hilarious. (Although Jack's reaction should have been "No. Don't ... don't do that.") This is really the first chance for the new team to act as a team, and they do really well ... until Triangle Agent shows up. And I love using the contact-cameras to fool an iris sensor; a logical extrapolation of existing Torchwood tech.
Gwen and Jack get to chat with the Triangle agent. Not that they learn much, since as Gwen bemoans, he's cryptic. It's strongly implied they're the power behind PhiCorp, but then their operative needs to break into PhiCorp HQ. And they're connected to Jack's past, but Jack's got so much past that this doesn't narrow it down. They're definitely connected to PhiCorp somehow, and also to the Miracle, and it was probably them who called Jack back to Earth. Why? Maybe we find out tomorrow.
Episode 3 was bitty. The two important plot points were that Dane joins with PhiCorp (and it was quite amusing the way his rhetoric shifted from "We should have free drugs! Companies are profiting from our pain!" to "We should have freely available drugs! Companies can profit by helping us!") and the heroes idenfity both Danes and PhiCorps as the villains. But since we already knew these things, the episode didn't really feel like it was going anywhere. On the other hand, it had some really nice character moments and "It's bigger on the inside!"
I enjoyed the US/UK communication difficulties; I knew about gas stations and ATMs, but didn't realise American lemonade was still. (I suppose I knew American home-made lemonade was just lemon juice, sugar and water -- "cloudy" lemonade -- but not that the lemonade sold in cans was the same stuff.) In the UK "-ade" is a standard suffix meaning "fizzy" (limeade, orangeade, cherryade, Lucozade), which means we find Gatorade confusing.
Rex left and came back, which presumably means he's now on the team rather than just being caught up with them, and it looks like Dr Vera is as well.
The Soulless are suitsbly creepy -- I'm sure a later episode will have PhiCorp drugs mind-controlling people or something, to produce an army wearing Soulless masks.
The revelation that Danes is completely unrepentant wasn't a huge surprise, although his actual motivation was. It was also good to see not everyone buys his act, even if I still find his rehabilitation completely implausible. A tie-in to Children of Earth: Jack's knowledge of what someone who sincerely regrets his actions should be like. Also, while previous episodes have mentioned that the Torchwood team was killed, I think this is the first one to mention Ianto by name.
Very nice scene of Jack convincing himself that it was okay to be almost alone if he had Gwen alone with him ... except she isn't, she's got a family. And nice to see them again, however briefly.
Oh, and Jack picks up a guy in a gay bar, thereby apparently shocking people who had never even had an episode of Torchwood described to them before...
Ep 4 opens with a plotthread from the previous week -- Esther's sister. This leads to Triangle Agents persuing her, the first time we've seen actual operatives associated with the rotating triangle that gave Friedkin his orders.
So the team move to LA. And I think RTD said somewhere that a later episode would be in New York. They're really touring the country, aren't they?
Interesting that even the thick-skinned Jilly is creeped out by Danes. Again, how has this man become a national spokesman? But then, I don't understand why anyone would listen to Monroe either; one of those people whose self-righteous certainty makes disagreeing with her almost instinctive. Watching them battle for airtime is like watching the Coalition Government fighting News International -- the satisfaction of one of them going down is tempered by the fact it's a victory for the other. Not that I would wish what happened to Monroe on anyone.
Meanwhile, over at Vera's hospital, we see that the whole concept of medicine continues to break down. While Monroe calls for segregation of the "dead", the DC hospital system is already attempting it, while hospices are closing because, if no-one's dying then what is palative care? So naturally, it's outside this hospital that Monroe and Danes have their showdown. Danes wins, and Monroe gets disappeared by the Triangle.
Apart from that, the bulk of this episode is a caper movie, with Jack breaking into PhiCorp's local HQ. Gwen's Californian accent as they collect the biometrics is hilarious. (Although Jack's reaction should have been "No. Don't ... don't do that.") This is really the first chance for the new team to act as a team, and they do really well ... until Triangle Agent shows up. And I love using the contact-cameras to fool an iris sensor; a logical extrapolation of existing Torchwood tech.
Gwen and Jack get to chat with the Triangle agent. Not that they learn much, since as Gwen bemoans, he's cryptic. It's strongly implied they're the power behind PhiCorp, but then their operative needs to break into PhiCorp HQ. And they're connected to Jack's past, but Jack's got so much past that this doesn't narrow it down. They're definitely connected to PhiCorp somehow, and also to the Miracle, and it was probably them who called Jack back to Earth. Why? Maybe we find out tomorrow.
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no subject
Date: 2011-08-10 07:49 pm (UTC)Fizzy sugar drinks in general are "soda" or "pop", and can be more specifically referred to by variety (cola, root beer) or brand (Pepsi, Barq's).
What *is* Lucozade, anyways? All I know is it's some sort of pop.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-10 09:43 pm (UTC)Also nowhere near as good as Irn Bru.