Torchwood - Flogging A Dead Horse

I think I know how next weeks, Torchwood Miracle Day will go...

It will start with Captain Jack flogging a dead horse, but, as we know, the horse can't die. So we'll have lots of news broadcasts, in lots of languages, telling us that the horse can't die. Then there will be a long turgid pause while someone from ER and someone from Six Feet Under give us theories on why the horse can't die. At that moment we will cross to Wales, where Gwen and that bloke who's her husband will repeat exactly what we've just seen, this is done so all concerned can still feel Wales is part of the Torchwood universe. Back in the USA we'll get a few minutes of Bill Pullman evangelically sermonising on God's hand in why the flogged horse can't die. Then just as your finger wavers over the fast forward button, about to x6 it, a whole bundle of Mission Impossible, 24 and Flash Forward is thrown in to speed up the plot. As tosh levels start to rise again, some actor from some other American show will turn up and you will spend the next ten minutes wondering what you've seen him in. Boredom will be back on the menu as we see computer screen after computer screen but no forward momentum. By the end of the show, Jack will still be flogging the dead horse, in that sodding WWII coat of his and the 'next week' segment will seem eerily familiar.

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Torchwood - American Style.

You know when the candidates in the Apprentice are axed and they have faces like a bag of spanners then on the Fired show, they miraculously look like film stars. Well that's the feeling I got watching Torchwood: Miracle Day. Gone is the parochial approach, where Cardiff was the white hot centre of the universe. American money has arrived and everything has a sharper sheen. Well apart from the script, Russell T Davies is still dishing out the bold statements every other sentence. But I read Jane Espenson is coming on board, so at least we'll have some snappy, urgent dialogue down the line. But just not yet.

The problem with Torchwood, like the Harry Potter films, is that they think we all know what happened last time out. I haven't a clue, so that took a while. But, that apart, it wasn't a bad opener . I mean, what other Torchwood starts with Bill Pullman being executed? It's usually a Cardiff flat with an alien in the airing cupboard. Throw in explosions, beach helicopter chases and Mekhi Phifer, from ER, tear arsing around like Jack Bauer and you can certainly see production values have been upped. The first episode alone must be BBC Four's budget for two years.

The plot is not bad, everyone immortal except for Captain Jack should have some legs to it. If Flash Forward can do twenty odd, this can certainly do ten. But what will the repercussions be? I always have a problem with all those alien invasions in Doctor Who, humanity should be traumatised for decades on the back of just one Cyberman invasion. But the bouncebackability from no death, no matter how long it lasts, surely would rumble for a century.

But at least we can look forward to Torchwood now, getting excited by what new American guest star will turn up, what special effects we will be dazzled by. Wouldn't it be good if American money could help some other BBC dramas? Think of the jolt it would give Holby City and New Tricks. Perhaps we would all watch them then.

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