4.03: Miracle Day - Dead of Night

[Lenny]

Torchwood goes on the run and finds a new enemy, but as they launch a raid on PhiCorp headquarters, Jack must confront the mysterious Oswald Danes.

---

Episode one introduced the new audience to Torchwood. Episode two established the stage. Episode three sees a key player emerge from the wings with an obvious motive... but what else?

The current climate is fractured: a cult has risen, doctors have conflicting opinions on what should be done, a drug company is out for massive profits and Danes is rising.

We didn't learn much about the cult, The Soulless, other than that they believe the miracle of unending life has stripped them of their souls. Gwen's acquisition of a mask for Rex indicates that we'll see some sort of inside operation somewhere down the line.

The doctors discussed more measures to help the population, including potential actions to halt a population boom by adding contraceptives to the water. Vasquez is visibly agitated by the lack of progress, which leads her to take up the annoying Jilly's offer to attend a meeting at PhiCorp.

At the same time, Jack and the team infiltrate a PhiCorp warehouse (which sports alien tech, I believe: "It's bigger on the inside") and discover that the company has been stockpiling drugs for years! Jurassic Park guy mentioned that whoever was behind the miracle has been around for decades (puts me in the mind of the Visitors from V) and have positions in high places.

Finally, Oswald Danes shifts into a new role as a figurehead for PhiCorp (although his ties are so far hidden), using his previous statements that the people need free drugs to sway public opinion towards supporting what we know will be a change in legislation (that will appear to the people as another miracle) to allow people to buy whatever prescription drugs they want, without a prescription.

So: PhiCorp is currently at the centre of a tangled web and is heavily implicated. A senator close to the company wants to change legislation, seemingly to boost PhiCorp's profits, and the company looks like it's going to achieve this with the help of Danes.

But why are they prepared? How did they know, and how far in advance, that the miracle was going to take place?

We've seen the puppet (and their puppet, in Danes), but who is the puppeteer? I'm still of the mind that the chaos that will ensue, is of singular purpose - the puppeteer wants Jack, and it may turn out that they'll force the world to give him up, maybe in return for help (again, à la V).

Finally, we've seen what's happening in America, and we've heard what's happening in other parts of the world (N. Korea is gearing up for war, India has made peace with Pakistan and the Chinese are putting contraceptives in the water)... what about the UK?

 

[Dave]

So: PhiCorp is currently at the centre of a tangled web and is heavily implicated. A senator close to the company wants to change legislation, seemingly to boost PhiCorp's profits, and the company looks like it's going to achieve this with the help of Danes.

But why are they prepared? How did they know, and how far in advance, that the miracle was going to take place?

We've seen the puppet (and their puppet, in Danes), but who is the puppeteer? I'm still of the mind that the chaos that will ensue, is of singular purpose - the puppeteer wants Jack, and it may turn out that they'll force the world to give him up, maybe in return for help (again, à la V).

I hope that in this series we finally see what Jack meant when he said, “The 21st century is when it all changes, and you gotta be ready.” However, if this is a way to remove humans from Earth there must be an easier way to do it. And it also seems a complicated way to boost the profits of PhiCorp. Nor do I think they have gone to all this trouble just to capture Jack, especially considering they ordered and almost succeeded in having him killed on the plane.

Do you thing it is significant at all where Jack has been in the last year?

According to Wikipedia (Porter, Lynnette. Tarnished Heroes, Charming Villains and Modern Monsters: Science Fiction in Shades of Gray on 21st Century Television. McFarland. ISBN 078644858X) "He ran away" but a press release for Torchwood Series Four states that Jack is brought back to Earth because of his "unstated love" for Gwen.

He mentioned 'a long way' on the plane, which one assumes meant off-world. We know that his wrist-strap 'salt-monitor' is really a 51st Century multi-purpose device that has a variety of other functions including a personal teleporter and Vortex Manipulator to allow time travel, and is also practically indestructible, so one has to assume he went a long way away indeed.

 

[Lenny]

We definitely know that Jack went off world: at the very end of Children of Earth, he mentions a "cold fusion cruiser, surfing the ion reefs just at the edge of the solar system", which he then "runs away" to (and yes, he does run away, with the line: "Oh yes I can. Just watch me").

I'm not sure it will be that important. If he annoyed someone on his gap year, I can't see them going through the trouble of changing the past however many decades of Earth history to lay such an intricately complex trap for him. Staying with the thought, however, he may indeed have annoyed someone enough for them to set the trap, for his re-appearance seems to have triggered the miracle (at least, I'm assuming that it is centered around Jack somehow - why else would he become mortal? Surely it's easier to stop death, rather than reverse the mortality of billions of people within the same sphere of influence).

In regards to the 21st Century being "when it all changes", you could argue that we've already seen it happen - we've already seen Jack involved in three alien invasions set in the modern day, with the Master and the Toclaphane and the Dalek re-location of Earth in NuWho, and the 456 in Torchwood. If everything changing is first (second, third, fourth... what are we up to now, eighteenth?) contact, then it's definitely happened.

 

[Dave]

This episode finally got down to the story properly and we see the extent of the conspiracy "They're everywhere", "They've been around for 30 years." We also saw the sex (though BBC may have been edited below the belt.) Not sure why we needed to see Jack pick up a barman, except to see that he still could. While Rex, on the other hand did gain some valuable information out of seducing Dr Vera, and even recruited her to spy on Phi Corp for Torchwood. If I could take any one thing in hurry from the Torchwood HQ then it probably would have been the glasses, so no problem there. There has to be more to this than corporate greed though. Public opinion may be a bit fickle, but this week people demonstrate because they have no souls, but by next week they have concentration camps for "dead" people.

 

[PTeppic]

How stupid are people? Everyone stops dying so the one big thing that gets shouted for is prescription-less drugs... which you still have to pay for? Really?!

 

[Dave]

How stupid are people? Everyone stops dying so the one big thing that gets shouted for is prescription-less drugs... which you still have to pay for? Really?!

Actually, I can probably see that happening in the US. In the UK we would demand that the NHS (in other words, Government imposed taxes) paid for free drugs, but in the US (look at their recent attempts at "Obamacare" health care reforms) a vast majority would see that as abhorrent; a socialist plot, if not even communism; anti-capitalist, and excessive interfering by the state. Tea Party supporters against tax increases would instead push for individual choice.

My criticism of the plot would be that they are attempting to add too much (prescription reforms, the soulless movement, internment of "dead" people) without fully developing each one. Maybe they will yet (it is only part 3) but all of these social developments would interact and have feedback effects on each other.

And I still cannot see the reason for all of this simply being so that PhiCorp can make a few bucks. For a start, I'm sure that such fundamental changes in society would produce other money spinning ideas, but more importantly, it is clearly going to see the theories of Thomas Malthus enacted in full.

By the way, 'Morphic Fields' only gets 264,000 results on Google (many of which are for a rock band.)

 

[Moonbat]

By the way, 'Morphic Fields' only gets 264,000 results on Google (many of which are for a rock band.)

That you went to the trouble of googling 'morphic fields' made me chuckle.
I missed last weeks episode, but I don't think I missed too much of importance, I enjoyed the episode. I think the 'bigger on the inside' line was not a reference to alien tech, but just a nod to the Tardis and that the warehouse was just huge underground.
It does seem to have an interesting plot forming, but there are several strands at the moment and maybe they will need to tie them all up at the end.
Jack is lonely, after sleeping with the barman he calls Gwen for a chat to say that they are the only 2 left, but she's more interested in her family, and the CIA agents still don't believe him that he was 'off world' so I think there is more to be revealed.
I like the idea of a 10 part one story series, it gives better depth of character and development of plot than lots of single episode (although I liked them too)

 

[PTeppic]

...whereas Googling suggests that the "real" PhiCorp is in the network security field.