Crikey it's been a while since I posted on here! Here's my review of Tomb of the Cybermen which I wrote today to kick this off a bit!

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‎"50 pounds to the first person to open those doors"

Those who remember the days of video-craving that the documentary "Cheque Lies and Videotape" depicts would probably not be surprised to be offered £50 back then if they could open their door and produce "Tomb of the Cybermen". The 1980s were rife with rumours about this particular story still existing, fuelled by the audio soundtrack doing the fan rounds that sounded like it was off a badly tracked video recording! Enter 1991 and some naughty fans (ahem) tried a social experiment about how a rumour of how Season Five had been recovered and would be released one story at a time starting off with Tomb the following year ... only to have it announced that Tomb had been recovered and would be out that following year ...

I think one of the problems with Tomb was that is ended up being an extremely hyped story. Those who had been fortunate to see it on broadcast raved about how great it was, the novelisation was a reasonable effort by Davis, and the soundtrack was atmospheric so we were all geared up for it's release when announced. I remember sitting there at the Tombwatch premiere (now sadly removed from the Special Edition version) and still wondering if this was really real until after those titles ended and the action began (curiously I don't remember the opening scene with Victoria's introduction only from the Telos landscape but it must have been shown!). The anticipation of the audience was electric and it was great to watch ...

That first time. When I came to rewatch it on the video it seemed more lacking in some ways. Suddenly scenes seemed to be much slower, and the Cybermen didn't really seem to actually do anything. Quite boring really, in comparison to The Moonbase before it, and certainly not as good as Evil of the Daleks and The Web Of Fear looked. Fan attitudes were variable too, and of course emphasis shifted to wanting another "undoubted classic" to be recovered - Fury From The Deep. [this has of course not occured - yet - but would we lose our reverence for that too if seen again in all it's onscreen 'glory'?]

But that was the 20th Century. It's now some two decades since those heady days and we have a new fresh remastered DVD version to enjoy. And, as with many of the earlier stories (The Web Planet excepted), these adventures have a lot going for them. The atmosphere perceived on the old soundtrack *is* there on screen, the Cybermen *are* menacing even in their minimal participation in the tale, and the acting is very competent. I still wouldn't rate it a "classic", but it is a strong tale.

"I love to see the experts at work, don't you?"

The Doctor of Production Block Four is witty, intelligent, perceptive, and at times downright dangerous. This had been highlighted in the previous serial Evil of the Daleks as he manipulates his companion to achieve his (benevolent of course) aims [long before the 7th Doctor did so to some fan complaints!], and continues here as he deftly manipulates Parry's team into, well, doing his dirty work for him! A little hint here, a flick of a switch there, and they all progress further into the Tomb's mysterious depths. As he says, they couldn't leave as soon as "Cybermen" are mentioned, but then again if he hadn't have surrepticiously assisted then would there ever have been a threat (or indeed the death of most of the team by the end).

Similarly, the Block Four Jamie is still an intelligent of out-of-his-league Scots lad, perceptive enough to realise the Doctor's line about skirt lengths to reassure Victoria. Victoria herself demonstrates her own strengths: a particular exchange comes to mind when, as Hopper head into the caverns she remarks "Who'd be a woman?" and he responds "How would you know?", but later she gets to give him a cutting response in ""its comforting to know they we've got your superior stength to call on should we need it"!

The main cast excel throughout. Even though she's the new girl, Debbie Watling seems to settle in with the Pat'n'Frazer duo quickly, and they display a genuine affection to each other throughout the serial. As for the supporting cast, generally the acting is okay, if the accents are a little 'eccentric' at times. Also, a little consistency in pronunciation would be handy, e.g. Telos and Teelos, CYBERman and CyberMAN! (Ah well, Matthew Sweet doesn't do much better in the Cybermen documentary on disk two so should we worry?!).

Of particular note is Roy Stewart, who does wonders with Toberman considering the character is mainly treated as "the heavy" and gets about three lines in the entire story(!) - it seems at times that the Doctor is using subtle manipulation upon him (opening the Tomb doors, the Kaftan death aftermath), but there's a certain nuance that suggests there's more to him than meets the eye - quite literally later on with his cyber-arm! And let's not forget it's his sacrifice that wins the day (even if it was him opening the doors that caused the kerfuffle in the first place!).

Of the others, Shirley Cooklin and George Pastell play the Logician fanatics Kaftan and Klieg well, though their character's motivations seems a little woolly at times (why does Kaftan play with the cyberchamber controls, and why is Klieg's logic over the Cybermen's intentions so completely flawed?!?!). The others are unfortunately less memorable, though they have their moments.

"Symbolic logic"

Logic, in theory, is a matter of taking a particular pattern of event and being able to realiably predict what will occur next in that sequence, A will go to B will go to C etc. Here, we have the interesting discourse between the Doctor and the Cybercontroller over the latter knowing all about the former, and then he deducing what the latter was up to. It's quite a revelation to find out that the trap was for him, with the Cyber race logically concluding he'd eventually come to Telos and release them. Was the Doctor really so unwitting? If this was the 7th Doctor, of course, then we'd know it was all a collosal "chess game" of manipulation to achieve the desired result - but here it seems the 2nd was just as good at the game ... or was he? Things could have gone badly wrong if it hadn't been for his companions ... or did he know they would pull through for him? A debate for another time, perhaps!

In principle logic should have no alignment, but Tomb's event do suggest that it is more likely to lead you down the dark path than stay neutral. Being the opener for this series, it's quite poignant that the subject of logic returns in the finale with Zoe's slavish consideration of it in The Wheel in Space - and of course the Doctor's gentle mockery of her over that - how to be wrong with authority indeed!

But where does logic state you should let your enemy get into a recharger, activate it yourself and then wonder why a fully fit version then proceeds to trample over your apparent plan ...

"Now I know you are mad, I just wanted to make sure"

Of course in a production made "as-live" a number of mistakes can creep through. There are lines that would make the First Doctor proud: "curiously lacking in curiousity" and "open that opening mechanism" come to mind. The usual array of boom mike shadows and inadvertent crew in shot crop up (you can see someone inside the closed hatch at one point, though the production notes pointed that out to me!).

The "cyber-chatter" could be a little grating at times, too, making it difficult to understand what they are saying at times.

"Keeping my eyes open and my mouth shut"

It seems sometimes characters can hear the TARDIS arriving and other times they can't - guess it depends on what serves the story best!

The Cybermen look great in the story, even towering above the massive Toberman. I guess casting shorter actors/actresses helped immensely with that, but it is still awe-inspiring, especially with some of the camera angles employed by Morris Barry.

I don't know about you, but I feel the old classic Cybermen used to have some great quotable lines; you could imagine the chants around playgrounds as kids try out their monotone reproductions of "Now You Belong To Us", "We Will Survive" and "You Will Be Like Us" - no namby pamby "DELETE" going on here!

Why was the Cybercontroller doing a Brucie pose when his tomb was opened. And just what was the pow-wow between Parry and the other Cybermen about before they went to release the Controller?

What do sleeping Cybermen dream about? Would they be able to?

It's interesting that the Doctor has an entry on cybermats in his 500 Year Diary - when did he find that out being he only encountered them in The Tenth Planet (or did he? The First Doctor did know that the mysterious planet was Mondas ...). It's also a shame that the diary didn't continue beyond this block ... but then it won't be long before the sonic screwdriver arrived and things wouldn't be the same again!

"Archaeologist written all over him"

To conclude, overall the story does stand up well, more so to me now than it did upon it's recovery. Maybe that's because I'm 20 years older and appreciate the subtleties and nuances more than I did back then.

The story has some eminently quotable lines, too; as well as the ones mentioned throughout the review, there are also the lovely moments between the Doctor and Victoria to enjoy, too The bit when they talk about family memories is wonderful: "I have to really want to to bring them back in front of my eyes. the rest of the time they sleep in my mind and I forget". Similarly, when talking about their adventure: "our lives are different to anybody else's - that's the exciting thing, nobody in the universe can do what we're doing".

The Doctor's final comments are interesting, too; when asked about if this is the end of the Cybermen he cautiously adds: "on the other hand, I never like to make predictions" - but didn't he state that it was the final end of the Daleks just a story before? Considering their return later on perhaps he should have considered what he would say about the metal giants a little later (grin).

The final scene was cut, of course: as the TARDIS dematerialises and the lonely cybermat makes its way across the rocky surface, it is suddenly picked up, examined, and commented upon: "hello, sweetie ..."

The results are in for the BARB timeshifted figures for Torchwood: Miracle Day's finale, The Blood Line, which gives us the overall view of how the series fared this summer:

                           Starz          UK Broadcast           BBC iPlayer
                          Premiere    Overnight/Timeshift  Interim***/Final****
The New World             1.506m *         4.8m/6.59m           0.84m/1.07m
Rendition                 1.4m  **         4.4m/5.75m           0.65m/0.88m
Dead of Night             1.018m           4.2m/5.49m          <0.47m/0.83m
Escape to L.A.            0.935m           4.0m/5.19m           0.78m/0.83m
The Categories of Life    1.024m           4.1m/5.17m           0.71m/0.79m
The Middle Men            0.804m           3.4m/4.60m           0.61m/0.72m
Immortal Sins             0.917m           3.4m/4.48m           0.49m/0.68m
End of the Road           1.172m           3.5m/4.64m                 0.61m
The Gathering             1.024m           3.5m/4.63m                 0.59m
The Blood Line            0.950m           3.9m/5.13m                 0.55m

*    - Starz reported 2.7m viewers for the full week/Live+3 DVR data
**   - This is a weekend figure, with 609,000 viewers for the 10:00pm broadcast
***  - Interim figures from July(1-3) and August(4-7)
**** - All episodes were available on iPlayer until 22nd September

That gives the series in the UK a final average of 5.167m, which isn't exceptional but around average for dramas in this time period (as I mentioned in my previous article on ratings, this is seven days coverage including catching up on recordings). Most episodes put on an additional million viewers on the original night's viewing, which did dip quite drastically when Celebrity Big Brother returned to Channel 5 at the time The Middle Men was broadcast.

The BBC iPlayer results indicate a good half a million chose to watch the series that way, too; it might seem like a steady decline, but as all episodes were up until the 22nd September the earlier ones had more "airtime" of course!


Is this enough for another series? Actually it probably doesn't matter as it is really down to Starz and Russell T Davies as to whether another is made; by all accounts Starz were happy with their ratings for the show, but time is running out for a decision on next year, though (and Starz CEO Chris Albrecht didn't think it would happen straight away anyhow). So it could just be a matter if and when RTD has an idea for a new series and the time to write it.

Just for comparison, Children of Earth in the same timeslot across the week on BBC1/BBCHD in 2009 had an average of 6.604m. Series One on BBC3 on Sunday evenings in 2006 achieved 1.422m, and Series Two on BBC2/BBC3 in 2008 achieved 3.78m.

There seems to be a battle brewing between fans and the media over ratings, highlighted this evening on Twitter when Doctor Who Magazine engaged in an argument with critic Kevin O'Sullivan over how important overnights are versus the consolidated ratings. It went like this:

CameronYardeJunior: @TVKev @DWMtweets In the overnights it did but it won in the official ratings.
Kevin O'Sullivan: @CameronYardeJnr @DWMtweets The official ratings are a distortion. The overnights reflect a programme's true popularity.
DWM: Oh Kevin, you silly man. But we have the consolation that the Doctor will still be on TV long after people stop reading your drivel.
Kevin: @DWMtweets You people are so strange. It's only a TV show. And it's not doing very well.
DWM: @TVKev Being 'strange' is better than being a bad journalist and a liar, in our book. But you live in your little world, we'll live in ours.
Kevin: @theboylatch Those Doctor Who guys are like a cult. Scary.
DWM: @TVKev Be fair mate, we're a magazine about Doctor Who, you're a tabloid. We're about fun sci-fi, you're about lies, tits and phone-hacking.
DWM: Tabloid hacks are a bit easy to wind up, aren't they...? ;)

And so on, with lots of to-ing and thro-ing between the various camps (and that can be read either way!). But what is all this fuss about?

Well, put simply British television ratings are recorded by BARB for the industry, and they provide statistics to broadcasters, journalists, etc. on how programmes fare. You can find all the gory details on their website, but essentially:

Viewing estimates are obtained from a panel of television owning private homes representing the viewing behaviour of the 26 million TV households within the UK. The panel is selected to be representative of each ITV and BBC region, with pre-determined sample sizes. Each home represents, on average, about 5,000 of the UK population.

Now, there are two data sets that are commonly examined; firstly the "overnights" which reflect how people watch television on a daily basis:

Throughout the day the meter system stores all viewing undertaken by the entire household. Every night between 2am and 6am the data is automatically downloaded from every panel home (a process known as ‘polling’). The data is processed to incorporate numerous weighting and grossing variables before being released to the industry as "overnight" minute-by-minute television viewing data at 9.30 each morning. This includes any recorded material played back on the same day as the original transmission, referred to as "VOSDAL" (Viewing-On-Same-Day-As-Live). Broadcasters, amongst others, use overnight data to provide them with an initial idea of how the previous day’s programmes and advertising have performed.

Then there's the report that reflects how people have caught up with the programme since broadcast over the last seven day period:

PVR, DVDR and VCR playback and catch-up VOD viewing via TV set-top boxes is reported if it takes place within 7 days of the original broadcast. This viewing (known as timeshift viewing) is then added to the live data to produce the final, minute-by-minute consolidated audience, available 8 days after the original transmission date. Consolidated data is the ‘BARB Gold Standard’ that is used by the industry to report and trade on.

Right, so that's how it works, so what is the big deal?

Essentially up until recent times the overnights were the dominant indicator of how many people watched a television programme; however, in the last decade there has been a shift in audience perspective as, with the introduction of PVRs (Sky, V+, Freeview+ etc.), the emphasis has changed so that 'modern' people organise their television viewing around their lifestyle rather than the 'old days' when their lifestyle was based around television - you no longer have to be there to watch it otherwise you'd miss it!

What this has meant in real terms is that the overnight figures have steadily declined whereas the weekly figures are remaining more stable - in Doctor Who terms, people may be out at the pub, cinema, etc. on Saturday nights, and so watch on Sunday afternoon instead! These people haven't missed the show, they're just watching when convenient to them - however, the overnight figures do not include them so it seems like a show has less viewers - hence the weekly timeshift figures have become the dominant method of measuring how a programme has performed.

Of course, overnights are still important - they do show who is watching television "live" (within the BARB timeframe) on the day, which is a good indicator on who sat down to tune into a particular show statistically. Of course, combining different programmes at different times of the day into a single "viewing chart" is actually meaningless, except to show perhaps an abnormal event (like a football match, Royal wedding, X-Factor idiot performance, etc.), what is more important is the audience share at the time.

And here we hit the crux of the recent tirade, in that Doctor Who has been knocked off its traditional top spot by All Star Family Fortunes for two weeks in a row, something the media have been bandering about as indicating a decline in Doctor Who viewing. People like Kevin O'Sullivan look at a published chart and go "oh look it's down" - they don't look at other contributing issues, or indeed "Factors" (ahem). Drilling into the data shows that the audiences increase in anticipation for the ITV1 juggernaut and this shears the average into the previous show's favour. So, yes, it looks like Family Fortunes is more popular on the night.

Which it is, of course. That's the way of viewers and we have to live with that.

Now, by the time the weekly figures come out we have a different story, as these show that many more people choose to watch Doctor Who at a later, more convenient time. Which of course makes perfect sense - why would you want to risk your enjoyment of Doctor Who by keeping your eye on the clock in case it overruns and you miss seeing some pratt sing bad karaoke? You wouldn't, of course, you'd record Doctor Who and watch it later. Why not the other way? Good point - but in my view one is a show to sit down, watch, savour, maybe rewind and watch a scene again, and the other is on ITV (tee hee). More seriously, shows like Family Fortunes and X-Factor are "now" shows and don't really have a lifespan beyond their broadcast, whereas shows like Doctor Who do have an extended lifetime far beyond that initial television outing. This can be easily summarised with the last full figures:

Overnights     Timeshifted
The God Complex              5.2m            6.77m
All Star Family Fortunes     5.3m            5.39m

The other thing to consider is advertising revenue - commercial channels are reliant on these to a great extent (adverts, sponsorship, etc.) and likewise the advertisers want to know that the money they spend is going to be seen by the public. Here, the overnights are important as people watching live are more likely to be watching the ads too - as everyone in the video age knows, being able to fast-forward through the ads is a godsend! A show doing badly in the overnights is going to suffer, advertising-wise (we are lucky it isn't quite as cut-throat here in the UK as in US television, but it's still a threat to show's existence). So it matters to ITV, etc. how well their shows perform.

But we are extremely lucky in that we have the BBC, funded completely differently via the license fee and so not subject to advertising whims. It doesn't matter if a show isn't "top dog" on the night as it has no impact on it's success in that respect - the weekly reach will give a better indicator of how a show has done against its opposition. The BBC's remit is to provide balanced entertainment and so it's how a show is received that is more important (the A.I. figures that you hear about, which reflect audience views on enjoyment of a show etc.). Plus, with the advent of the BBC iPlayer, audiences have another way to watch programmes which are not currently included in the BARB statistics (and for Doctor Who these are consistently high, too) - ITV do have their own version which also isn't counted in BARB (but then again I don't know of anyone who willingly sits through those enforced adverts so do they get much revenue that way for it to be truly viable?).


Okay, so you're probably wondering what the point of this post was, now. Well, it is really to say that it is down to the interpretation of statistics at the end of the day. Neither are really wrong, both schools of thought are right in their own way. And arguing from two different perspectives is never going to achieve anything (except fisticuffs and possible slander accusations!).

In terms of Doctor Who, the overall ratings are remaining consistently good and the show is still one of the highest performing programmes on British television - it is still only really beaten by soaps and reality TV shows, there is little competition from most other drama!

And that is why we have nothing to worry about!

A series finale generally takes two forms: the purpose of the first type is to wrap up the threads that make up the ongoing plot of that series; the second is to set up the cliffhanger of an ongoing series. In both cases, the aim is to reach a climax, with the former consolidating into the resolution, whilst the latter building up to leave you with the big reveal "to be continued" ...

So where does Miracle Day fit? The answer is a little unsatisfactory in both camps.

One storyline's solution was inevitable since day one of course - it was clear the Miracle would be resolved and everybody would return to mortality; however, it wasn't so clear how that resolution would be achieved, even by episode nine, and about all we could be certain of was that Jack would be involved in some way. Ultimately this was indeed the case, the Miracle is reversed and everything is back to as normal as it could be.

However, then we have another few minutes to spare, where we discover that the whole Miracle is a "trial run" and the Family are simply off to run their "Plan B". To me, this simply had the effect of cheapening the ten week run, cheapening the deaths of Vera and Esther, and generally ending up with the feeling that the whole plot was a waste of time.

But hey, this has suddenly moved us into cliffhanger territory, and lo and behold we get it in the form of Rex Matheson joining the immortality club courtesy of him actually having a useful purpose for once in the series, as Jack's blood bank earlier in the episode!

Before I go any further, let me just point out that though I found the resolution of Miracle Day generally disappointing, when watching I was perfectly gripped by the climax build-up, the way it was executed, and the ending truly was a WTF moment, so the episode accomplished its task as televisual entertainment in that respect!

Let's get my biggest gripe out of the way first - just why was Esther killed off? In Children of Earth, Ianto's death was an integral part of the storyline as Jack sees the person closest to him die, with him totally impotent to stop it from happening. But, whilst it is arguably an important part of the plot for Miracle Day to have Vera 'die' (and thus bring to light the true meaning of Category One - not that this mattered by the time we reached last week's episode), with Esther it was simply an arbitrary shooting by a secondary character, had no impact on the conclusion of the Blessing plot at all, and being she did survive after the Miracle ended, there was no actual need to kill her off at all! The funeral scene didn't actually bring anything more to the story, and Rex's discovery of Charlotte's duplicity could have been set anywhere. Instead, it just feels like killing a character off for the sake of it. Some reviewers have commented that this is "the Torchwood way" and that it wouldn't be the show if a main character wasn't killed off ... I don't agree at all - deaths happen, yes, but they should be intrinsic to the plot - there is a difference between someone dying in a noble way and simply being written out lazily like here.

That aside, all of the characters came to life in this episode in a way I wish they'd done so in previous episodes. Rex finally proved why he was in such an important position in the CIA, and the plan concocted by him and Esther to hide Jack's blood within him was inspired (though let's not dwell too much on the actual mechanics of transfusion and why the directors of 28 Days Later abandoned such a plan in that film!). The Family members we saw on screen seemed confident, competent and convinced in their plans, at least until the above revelation ended their grand scheme, and Jilly's mad enthusiasm for their cause and what she sees as salvation was captivating, and after my misgivings over her character in earlier weeks, I am actually happy she did survive the explosion in the end to come back another day.

And then we have Oswald. For a moment there I thought there was going to be a revelation about who/what Susie Cabina really was and why he had to catch and kill her - i.e. a secret that a tortured man had to hide even to his (original) death and had only just found a man from the future that he could confide in. But no, he was exactly how he had been portrayed, a thoroughly despicable child killer with no sense of remorse, and Jack took him down a peg when he said about the universe: "I wish you could see that Oswald ... cause then you'll know how small you've made your life". This later made for a strange juxtaposition between what Oswald might consider 'heroism' in his sacrifice at the end and his seeming wish for redemption through that act, versus his warped sense of purpose in wanted to continue his 'passion' for the hunt of Susie and her ilk echoing on as he is finally engulfed in mortality.

Then the Cooper clan and their loss of Geraint was sensitively handled, with Rhys for once coming across as a sympathetic person and not the "noisy hulk" he normally comes across as. And I was pleased to see Andy Davidson having his role to play, and also that his seemingly prophetic words at the start - "she'll be the death of me" - didn't come to fruition after all - phew!

The "she" of the last sentence was of course Gwen, and once again the interplay between her and Jack as their friendship is put to the limit was portrayed brilliantly by Eve and John; the foreshadowing of this was laid down in Immortal Sins, and seeing Gwen taking the responsibility of what would effectively be the death of her friend was one of the best scenes of the episode, if not the series. And as for that 'death' ... in some ways it would have been a brave move to have actually killed Jack outright, turning this act into a noble sacrifice to save the world (another "Doctor" trait he's picked up over the centuries - could you imagine the young dashing conman from The Empty Child doing such a thing?), but then again I would like to see further adventures with the mysterious time agent (like actually exploring why he has a two-year gap in his memories!) so I'm not so fussed about it!

Reading through the above, you're probably hard-pressed to work out why I wasn't so enamoured of the ending (Esther notwithstanding). Well, it isn't the characterisations that I had a problem with, it's more the actual plot threads and pointlessness of a number of them. Take, for instance, the big fuss in End of the Road as to how the Null Field panels from the Hub seemed to be so important to the resolution of Miracle Day, given their influence in the death of Angelo. Jack taking the alpha plate was seemingly signposted as vital to the resolution - but that's the last we hear of it! I thought the Soulless were to be important in some way (maybe as Oswald's followers) but they were just a one-episode wonder - in fact there are so many of these 'dead-end' signals in the show it could almost have been ten separate episodes with a common thread to lead to the finale (like "Bad Wolf") rather than an integrated progressive storyline leading to the resolution.

And the Blessing itself is still something that almost broke my suspension of disbelief in the series. As a concept it was an interesting idea, but this was basically a re-hash of the Gaia principle (though I suspect the CGI renderers took the idea of "Mother Earth" a little too literally in their representation of the Blessing on screen, ahem!), and the sci-fi trapping of a hole through the diameter of the Earth was written off with a simple "we don't know" when Jilly asks the question we're all wondering at home - where's the lava?!! Jack makes a comment about it being it being "the gap in between" and then off into a load of Doctor Who Silurian/Racnoss pseudo-explanation that Gwen quite rightly says "you don't bloody know, do you?". A clever thing might have been to make this related to the rift in Cardiff and making the end point Campbell Island (that's no worse than Shanghai and Buenos Aires, if a little less glamorous!) and that would have tied in nicely with the Null Field, but alas it was not to be. So we end up with a strange natural phenomenon that was dug up, fed with Jack's immortal blood until it went doo-lally, but fixed with something around just 16 pints of Jack's now mortal blood!

Not wishing to end on a low note, there were other highlights to the episode, like the lovely scene with the shop owner in Shanghai comforting Gwen after she found the Blessing, Oswald calling Gwen magnificent, Gwen and Jilly's fight in the lift, and of course that brilliant moment when Shapiro discovers who the traitor in their midst really is - his singular response is one that almost steals the episode for itself!


All-in-all, this is a series that I haven't actually disliked, but just haven't been able to totally enjoy either. It's had some really good moments, but also some downright boring ones, too (I'll look at the overall series itself in a future post). For The Blood Line itself, though it has some really frustrating plot elements, overall I enjoyed it on viewing and feel this is one of the strongest episodes of the series.

And as the finale, quite right too!


Okay, I confess, I am still frustrated at Esther's wasted opportunity to have further adventures with Jack!!!

With just one episode to go one might expect that the various plot strands would coalesce into a coherent direction leading to a grand finale ... but at the end of The Gathering I'm still not entirely sure what it is all about ...

The Blessing: is it a creation constructed by the Three Families from Jack's essence, a naturally occurring part of the planet that has been discovered and harnessed, a living entity that has been manipulated, or something else entirely? It certainly felt like a nod to Douglas Adams and the Total Perspective Vortex! (Not to mention appearing as a euphemism for Mother Earth?!!)

Why do the Families want Jilly to "write history"? There's already been one reference to such an idea - with the Trickster Brigade subplot from Immortal Sins of altering events in the Second World War - so maybe it's attempt number two (though again what has this to do with Jack, unless he's just the catalyst).

Why was Oswald built up by the Families, just to seemingly be dropped right in it at the turn of a hat (well punch) last week? This week he revealed just how manipulative he can be in the way he handled the Cooper household, so is there a further revelation yet to come? He did have that meeting which hasn't been clarified yet in Dead of Night, after all.

Anyway, I imagine this is all going to resolved in The Blood Line ...

As for the episode itself, like last week it was an unfathomably intriguing and engrossing fifty minutes of television in spite of the lack of momentum exhibited, though some scenes again seemed a bit drawn out (and again only a couple of principal settings). There was a genuine level of fear and frustration over the ruthless and strangely unemotional investigation of Finch, but I really hope that Geraint's fate is resolved positively as otherwise that whole liberation and concealment is just another plot cul-de-sac that has been used simply to exploit the audience's emotions.

Character-wise, it must certainly have preyed on Gwen's mind, otherwise why on earth would she have been so stupid as to pull off her face mask during her ram-raid of the pharmacy? Yes, I know this is to demonstrate that it is her there, but I suspect us viewers would be able to work that out easily enough as she spoke to the passerby and she could easily have dumped the mask as she jogged away afterwards.

Rex was in "intelligent" mode again today, though it seemed to me that Charlotte was blatantly behaving suspiciously - I honestly thought the business with the digital version of the short story was a deliberate trap by Rex as he'd compare versions to see if it was tampered with, but I guess I was giving him too much credit there!

Oswald and Esther continue to be the the focal interest in the show for me. Though I fully expected Bill Pullman to feature strongly, I never suspected that Alexa Havins would be the shining light in the series (I would have placed more money on that being Lauren Ambrose in the lead-up). As I've said previously, I really hope that she outlives Miracle Day - though we're used to the minimal survival rate of popular characters in Torchwood. (My hopes of her and Jack partnering up are still simmering away!)

All-in-all, this episode continues the trend of the better episodes for me, so I have high hopes for the finale. But ... a hole running the diameter of the Earth between Shanghai and Buenos Aires, possibly the biggest piece of hokum this series has ever produced?!!!

Into week eight, and with two weeks to go are we any closer to the answers as to what the Miracle is, why it has happened, and how it is going to be resolved? Well, not quite. It seems that last week finally kick-started the story proper with Jack's influence on Angelo and the observation of the three Families of Jack's immortality leading them to investigate, experiment, and ultimately implement the Miracle. However, whether they want immortality themselves or are actually using it to bring humanity to its knees as the financial heart of the world collapses through the lack of death is still to be answered - the latter is certainly strongly intimated, but then again we've had so many red herrings this could be just another!

Maybe it's because things are starting to lead to some sort of finale, but I actually felt this episode moved quite quickly and was surprised when the 54 minutes were up. Though there were effectively just two major settings (the house and CIA operations) this didn't stall the episode like in Rendition or The Middle Men, and I eagerly awaited each revelation as they were tantalisingly dangled.

Still, questions remain. Quite why the Torchwood tech liberated from the remains of the Hub is important remains elusive - as Jack said in the wrong hands it could destroy the timeline, but that actually explain why Angelo had it installed, or indeed why he happened to die just as Jack was there. For a while I thought it meant that Jack's kiss had the power to bring death in yet another twist, but that didn't seem likely as otherwise Brad back in Dead of Night wouldn't have been happy, protection or not! Did Jack short-circuit something? I have vague hopes it'll be properly explained later.

It was nice to see Angelo's story resolved too, and it wasn't a bitter twisted character after all, as the end of Immortal Sins implied - though Nana Visitor brought the embittered grand-daughter to life ... well until she was blown to bits of course, courtesy of Friedkin's allegiance to the Familues (bye bye Wayne Knight, another nice, brief celebrity role). The scene where Jack talks to Angelo about Ianto was touching, too, and didn't feel uncomfortably shoe-horned into the story (unlike the similar almost guilty mention in Dead of Night).

This week's celebrity turn was in the form of Q - I mean John De Lancie - and suddenly there's a breath of fresh air in the series; I suspect it might have been the disregard he had to all and sundry around him, and general air of disdain of explanations - he must have been trying to follow the tortuous script of the previous weeks too! Suddenly a sense of authority in investigating the Miracle has arrived ... or has it? In a series that shows us that there are so many "Family members" lurking in positions of power etc. he might not be as 'pure' as he seems. Still, he has the respect of Esther and Rex so maybe he is how he seems.

Speaking of which, how does someone who's apparently clever enough to set a trap for Friedkin then turn out to be Mr Thicko when it comes to accepting that nobody outside the null field generated by Jack can hear them talk, especially after witnessing all the tech that Torchwood has brought to bear throughout his time with them. I really can't understand how Rex got anywhere near his position in the CIA, maybe it is really is Esther who has helped his career progress.

Oh Esther, bright, astute (usually!) Esther, I do hope you survive through to the end of the series. Am I the only one who hopes that she ends up joining Jack on his adventures after this is all resolved? The 'intimate' moments between them (subtly suggested in The Categories of Life and in her caring about him tonight must be leading somewhere, surely?

And hoorah, the return of Mr "Category Zero" to the storyline, having been notably missing for a couple of episodes. I actually felt some sympathy for Oswald in his thwarted attempts to try and experience a 'normal' relationship but have that firmly rebutted as the personality that existed pre-Miracle Day is thrown back in his face. I was also quite pleased he made his escape ... to meet up with Jack again, no doubt. I did like the idea of how the government were addressing the loopholes back in The New World that Danes exploited, though of course does this mean that the whole world will now have a Death Penalty?

And Jilly's been promoted and is off to Shanghai ... for some reason the image of Davros's offer to Tasembeker from Revelation of the Daleks came to mind at this point - do hope she knows what she's doing!

All-in-all, this was a much more enjoyable episode, which bodes well for the last 20% of the story - shame the preceeeding 70% of Miracle Day took so long to get here - the last thing we need is next week's The Gathering to stall yet again! Fingers crossed.

Blimey.

It is quite something when a series with so many known parameters and constituent elements can still be juggled together and delivered in a fresh manner. And yet Steven Moffat once again manages to do just that in Let's Kill Hitler!

For instance, regeneration. Back in The Christmas Invasion we learn that Time Lords are in a state of flux during the first fifteen hours where-in their bodies can 'regenerate' any damage. Then, in Journey's End the Doctor reveals that residual regenerative energy can be siphoned off into an appropriate vessel. For Let's Kill Hitler, Moffat skillfully revisits those ideas in the form of River, at one point reveling in her ability to shake off a hail of bullets, and then ultimately channeling her own energy into the Doctor to save him.

Then, for River herself, the signposts were pretty easy to read that the little girl from Day of the Moon was going to be her, cemented in A Good Man Goes To War with her being conceived in the time vortex within the TARDIS; but then not only does Moffat play a neat trick by having us first think it is River in the red corvette at the start only to see Mels instead, reveal her as a childhood friend of Amy and Rory, only then to further reveal it really was River after all! (why didn't I pick up on the name "Mels" straight away?!!!). Not only that, Moffat also gently guides us into preparation for the possibility of a black Doctor!

The stuff with Hitler was amusing, especially as the eponymous character is actually only a comedy sideline - though he did of course play a pivotal role in "killing" Mels, which is quite ironic considering it was her suggestion to go kill him! And of course nobody knew the Teseracta crew were also there for similar reasons!

As usual with Doctor Who, it is so easy to be taken along for the ride from beginning to end, and the cracks in the plot are easily plastered up by the sheer pace and display put on. One crack in particular that stuck out for me was quite how Mels ended up where she was. We see the young Melody regenerate into her at the end of Day of the Moon ... but this was in 1969(ish) and River says she only changed this once, so how did a young black girl get from New York City to Leadworth, not to mention being "born" at least couple of decades before her parents? Time Lords (should we call her that?) may age differently from humans, but then she seemed to match up with them rather well. Mind you, this could be a previously unknown facet of Time Lord physiology that they can control how they age (possibly borne out by an aside by River on getting younger tonight?).

But that's a minor niggle in amongst the gems, especially in the acting. The interplay between Matt Smith as the Doctor, and Nina Toussaint-White/Alex Kingston as Melody was great fun, and I should also mention Caitlin Blackwood being as enchanting as ever as both the young, innocent Amelia and the TARDIS's voice interface - "fish fingers and custard" was worthy of a great cheer!

I must admit I didn't find sub-plot of the crew on the Teselecta as interesting as what was revolving 'outside'. The antibodies almost felt like a contrived "alien of the week" was needed to menace our regulars, and the crew's mission to punish those who have committed heinous crimes might have been laudable except that it was (a) torture, and (b) they didn't seem to care that much about others they happened to steal identities off to reach their goal either. Still, I don't think we've seen the last of them ...

On the other hand River goes from strength to strength. The wibbly wobbly timey wimey way in which we've encountered her has been one of the most fun elements of recent series, and now we have her arising phoenix-like into the Doctor's life for the first time (her perception). And full credit to the consummate ability of Alex Kingston to bring River 'to life' as someone totally ignorant of who she will become to the Doctor (and us) yet the little quirks of her personality we know and love literally evolving as the episode progresses. There are still some big gaps in her life though, but these quite possibly will feature in future storylines! And I'm looking forward to them!

Back to intriguing ideas, as well as the question of Time Lord's "ethnicity" neatly answered this episode, there's also the moment when River ploughs all her remaining lives into the Doctor - have we just seen Moffat's masterplan for the Doctor to continue on beyond his thirteenth incarnation subtly put into motion ... (or did she really use up 504 lives if you accept the Death of the Doctor comment of course!)

I'll leave you with an even more subtle idea, which maybe even Moffat hasn't considered (not that I believe that for one moment, nothing he writes is throwaway!); this series has effectively revealed with River that it is possible to 'reboot' the Time Lords (well, Time Lord-like beings) as a more innocent race to once again inhabit the universe ...

So here we are in 1927 New York, which means that Jack's infiltration mission with the Night Travellers in the 1920s must have come to an end - this is plausible I guess, in that the only date we have for that setting in series two's From Out Of The Rain was 1925 and that isn't tied directly to Jack. However, I was surprised how his American accent caused little concern for someone arriving in America on a UK passport (which was authentic in that the style came into use in 1920 ... though I couldn't tell if it was a 1927 "Northern Ireland" or earlier "Ireland" version!).

But why is he wearing his modern day coat? The story implied that this is Jack v1, i.e. the one who originally joined Torchwood in the late 19th Century, but with that coat here did he actually go back in his timeline yet again in some future Miracle Day revelation? Or am I now desperately looking for some plot rationalisation over how he came to be dressed that way?

Once again we have an episode that says a lot but doesn't do much. About all we learned from the episode was that Jack had a relationship with Angelo, and that back in 'our time' it seems Angelo is still about and wants Jack dead - or is that by the other three instead, who wanted 'ownership' over Jack in 1928 (and who happened to clasp hands in the now familiar triangular symbol/logo the Miracle protagonists use on their phones etc. - an important plot clue?).

Unlike Gwen's monologue in Children of Earth, Jack's mention of the Doctor seems a bit forced in the script, and the reference to the Trickster Brigade is all well and good but serves nothing to the plot whatsoever, another bit of plot padding to keep the episode from stalling. Then again, for all I know the Trickster himself will be revealed in Episode Ten!!! (Actually, when all the talk of WWII and altered timelines came up I thought for one moment that this was going to tie in with Let's Kill Hitler and that's what Ed Russell's comments about timing of the broadcast was really about!)

However, whilst the plot itself might be shaky, character-wise the episode performed well with an interesting exploration of Jack's view of the ephemeral nature of his relationships with us mortals; as mentioned above, though, it isn't clear if this is pre- or post- Ianto Jack - if he had only been on Earth for some 40 years so far would he have had that many relationships? Still, as other reviewers have observed, this series does seem to be concentrating on Jack's male exploits (and possibly some slash-fiction asperations on the part of the writer who handled both these encounters this series?!!). Not that this matters to the story per se, but it does feel neglectful of the character's inception as an omnisexual 51st Century guy (something that River seems to have taken up the reigns of in Doctor Who, judging by her anecdotes!).

Speaking of which: okay BBC, so what standards are being applied for scene censorhsip in Torchwood? Episode three sees a brief scene cut from transmission for its sexual content, but episode seven sees a much longer, explicit scene broadcast at an earlier time than the previous excised one, plus what seems to be male anatomy on show! So why bother trimming episode three at all? (unless there was a problem with Vera and Rex?!?!).

Also, the scenes with Jack and Angelo inter-played well with what looked to be a bitter parting between Jack and Gwen in the car as their own relationship descended into distrust and seemingly ready to annihilate each other to protect their lives. These were again great scenes, but it was all so neatly forgiven and forgotten at the episode's climax that the whole emotional impact was somewhat undermined.

(Who am I trying to kid: we are now more than 3/4 way through and there is so much that doesn't seem relevant to the Miracle (or maybe it is) that the plot is ducking and diving to the extent that it isn't making a blind bit of sense to me which direction it is actually trying to go in!)

Still, yay for Esther for lighting up the screen for those few moments she had this week, and for being the one who sussed it all out yet again, saving everybody in the process. The true heroine of the series!


Anyway to summarise, we had some great character scenes (with good acting from John Barrowman and an even better performance from Daniele Favilli!), but little to further the overall plot; I know sometimes it is good to take a breather from the action (a problem with some Who episodes is that you don't get a chance to breathe) but not for several episodes in the same series!


(and, having had Nana Visitor for a minute in this episode, let's hope "Next Time" John De Lancie gets a bit more screen time, not to mention a meatier role ... but episode eight and another previously unheard of new character pops up?!!).

The Middle Men would seem to be an apt name for this episode, which falls in the middle of the run so far; however it could also be used to describe what can only be termed a middling episode, too - if we've seen episodes that seem to tread water, this one comes across as simply giving up and putting its feet on the shallow bottom for a rest.

After last week's ending and subsequent "Next Time", I was expecting rather more; however, we ended up with 50 minutes (this is the shortest one shown on BBC1 so far) wherein, erm, Gwen spends practically all her time in one place, Esther and Rex spend practically all of their time in one place, Jack (the alleged star of the show) spends practically none of his time on-screen at all, and Oswald obviously realised what was coming and so had a snooze off-screen completely!

Okay so what did happen? We had Maloney trying to cover up the effective murder of Vera and then torturing Rex. I assume we're watching someone who is rapidly losing the plot (in which case I totally sympathise!). We had Gwen shouting her mouth off at a doctor in such a way that I fully expected her to get arrested rather than allowed to roam the camp as she pleases, even though last week she'd pretty much blown her cover. Jack had about the only bit of plot movement in his meeting with Owens - yay for Ernie Hudson - but only insomuch as it shows episode four was a wasted runaround. (Actually I got distracted more by remembering that this was filmed when John Barrowman had his birthday!). Speaking of Owens, the whole 45 Club thing just seemed to be a set-up for a pre-titles "joke" - sheesh!

This took 50 minutes.

It's not that Torchwood is bad, it's just that it is soooo slow, and this verges on boring, and that is a killer for me. My fiancee regularly despairs at some of the shows I stick with on television when she gave up on them ages before, and we both agree that we're only watching it for the "Torchwood" name, not through the story itself. We keep on thinking next week's will be better, but we're running out of those! (read her review of The Middle Men here)

Indeed, the "Next Time" is often the best part, as it does make me feel like it will be better and I should watch (which is a trailer's function, of course). But it's like watching Doctor Who DVDs where you know the story that is "Coming Soon" is shite but you still go "oooh" when you see it!

Damn it, Children of Earth really set the bench too high; Miracle Day does hold together better than Series One and does have consistent characters - though I'm starting to wonder about Gwen's integrity ...

Category Three: live and kicking.
Category Two: injured but in a non "fatal" condition
Category One: injured beyond medical assistance, catatonic, effectively "dead"

If these were categories of Miracle Day, then its feels that finally the series is lurching out of Category One and back into some semblance of life. Far more happened in this one episode than has happened in the previous three, and to be honest we could have "operated" on those hours and come out with something a lot more sprightly - at this point in Children of Earth we were almost permanently kept out of breath keeping up with the pace of story telling in pure Category Three throughout!

As I've mentioned before, I think this is way too drawn out for ten episodes, and could easily have been condensed. But, if you have to fill 500 minutes of television ...

It wasn't running, but at least it was past a crawl. We had Gwen and Rhys breaking into Area 51 - I mean Cowbridge Overflow Camp on our side of the pond, whilst Rex, Esther and Vera make similar inroads in America (one up for the Welsh contingent needing less people grin). During which we discover that people are being sorted into those that have some chance to survive and others that are considered "finished" and are burnt up in a non-too-subtle comparison with what was happening during the Second World War. It was a nice revelation (sorry Oswald!), though heavily signposted along the way - but its a shame the producers have Gwen explicitly mention concentration camps in case the audience could not work this out themselves - hmm!

I must admit I was genuinely shocked by Vera's demise. In previous posts I've said I was ambivalent to her character, but I guess I found I was rooting for her as her fate became clearer. But then this is Torchwood, people die (young), and her death is in keeping with the "grittier" stance of this spin-off. But she was a redundant character anyway, so in some ways it was just a way of not having to juggle the character with the others.

However, Jack did bugger all! In fact it almost seems as if the writers are saying "look you don't need Captain Jack Harkness in Torchwood any longer", with all the 'action' moving to the other characters and he just putting his feet up at home to watch television, or just winding Oswald up - the latter again having the greater share of screen time and probably justifying his actor's salary! Jilly's existance is still 50/50 though.

Technically the show ran very well, though Murray Gold's music continues to be a bit of a distraction - something a lot of US shows suffer from of course as it seems to be that producers need continual generic lift music to accompany drama. It's okay in general, but its presence leads to a loss of intensity when a scene really needs it as you've already tuned it into the background.

All this does come across a bit negative, but actually I did quite enjoy the episode and felt myself pulled into the drama a little, which is a good thing. BUT it should have been doing this all the way through!!!

Mind you: STOP CUTTING NEWS REPORTS INTO JARRING IMAGES OF FACES/MOUTHS CONSTANTLY ZOOMING AND PANNING - IT'S LIKE YOU'RE ABOUT TO PASS OUT OR SOMETHING!!!

Oh, and what was it with the trailer with Gwen talking to camera? That really does seem like an acknowledgement of how CoE worked so well, now!


(in the style of episode exposition, for those who didn't realise, the Cowbridge overflow camp and Area 51 in Doctor Who's Day of the Moon were filmed in the same hangar in St Athan!)