And in the end, it's all about the blood

Lauren Ambrose in "The Blood Line," the season finale of Torchwood: Miracle Day. Photo courtesy of doctorwhotv.co.uk.

Torchwood: Miracle Day is now over, and just in time; I never thought I would say this, but if the show had continued into the start of the fall TV season, I would have been forced to jettison it in favor of something with a coherent plot and decent pacing. (On that note, The Vampire Diaries returns in less than a week! Hooray!) The season finale was, unlike various episodes throughout the season, not terrible (I'm looking at you, "The Middle Men") but it wasn't great either. After so much build-up I was expecting to find out more about the three Families and their motivations, or at least to find out that they had motivations that ranged beyond a generic let's-take-over-the-world plan. I was also hoping to see more of Lauren Ambrose's Jilly, a woman whose transition from bubbly publicist to fascism would have been extremely interesting if it hadn't happened so abruptly.

But let's start with the good. Eve Myles' Gwen was really the star of this episode, and she got to do more in this one episode than in the preceding nine put together. Her speech at the beginning about her father was reminiscent of the Gwen speech that opened the final episode of Children of Earth - and by "reminiscent" I mean "Russell T. Davies did the exact same thing he did in the last series" - but Myles gives a great speech, and this one really helped illuminate her personal motivations. Gwen's emotional phone call to Rhys was another highlight, as was her determination to kill Jack so he wouldn't have to commit suicide. All in all, it was a fantastic episode for Gwen, who even got to change out of her usual action clothes and into a great-looking dress for Esther's funeral.

Speaking of which, Esther died. Since Esther has generally been about as boring as drying paint for most of the series, I wasn't particularly upset at her death. I was expecting more resolution to the story about her sister and nieces, but I guess something good happened with that, as they were all alive for her funeral. It speaks to the general unimportance of her character that her death isn't big or heroic; she's shot in an attempt to keep Rex from ending the Miracle, which underlines her role as a person who helps define Rex, rather than an independent character. Although the idea she had to switch Rex's blood with Jack's was pretty clever, so I guess she wasn't completely useless.

Speaking of which, the solution to the Miracle - the introduction of Jack's special immortal blood to either side of the magic Earth vagina also known as the Blessing (and if you didn't think that's what it looked like, you have an admirably clean mind) was nifty and also frustratingly vague. I've mentioned this before,  but the idea of Jack's blood being special does not seem to fit with the established explanation for Jack's immortality. The explanation of the Miracle was equally vague - apparently, since the Blessing thought it was under attack, it decided to give a gift to humanity by making everyone immortal - although I did really enjoy the way Jack rattled off a few Doctor Who events (the Silurians, the Racnoss) as possible explanations before Gwen pointed out that he had no idea what he was talking about. It was a nice way to remind everyone that this show takes place in the Whoniverse.

I also enjoyed the twist at the end in which Rex becomes immortal, just like Jack (although once again, I'm not entirely sure how Jack's blood made him immortal, since it took the full strength of the TARDIS matrix to do the same to Jack). I really disliked Rex throughout the first half of the series, but by the end he had begun to grow on me. I'd like to see him learn to cope with immortality in future seasons, and having an immortal friend for Jack might lead to some interesting developments for his character.

This being Miracle Day, however, there were quite a few problems that distracted from the main plot. The Charlotte-is-a-mole plotline was glossed over throughout most of the episode, making the resolution of that story seem like an afterthought. The Families also came across as cartoonish rather than menacing, and the reintroduction of the blue-eyed frat boy at the end implied that they might come back, which... let's not bring them back. Please? If you're going to bring back anyone, bring back the 456. They were some scary bastards.

The biggest problem with the episode - as well as the season as a whole - was Oswald Danes. It was never entirely clear what purpose his character served, and the writers never seemed to know what to do with him. In one episode they would try to make him a broken man trying to make something of his life, while in the next he would return to being a monster. It seems clear that, in the finale, Oswald was supposed to have something of a subversive redemption arc, but the grating contrast between the classic redemption storyline and his final rant about chasing down the girl he molested in hell was too jarring to be subversive. Oswald's character has always suffered from the fact that he is completely unsympathetic; the man raped and murdered a little girl, and that fact hung over everything he did in the series. His arc showed some promise in the beginning, at the very least as a commentary on the state of the media, but that never went anywhere, and in the end all the audience was left with was a bad taste in our mouths.

Stray Thoughts:

• The caricature of the old, superstitious Chinese woman really rubbed me the wrong way.
• The scene of Rhys finding Gwen's father to say goodbye was lovely, as was the image of P.C. Andy Davidson sitting by the side of the dying girl with no family. Can there be more Andy next season? Please?
• And while we're at it, more Rhys would also be appreciated.
• The shots of Jack and Rex spurting blood into the Blessing contained some special effects that looked more appropriate for an Evil Dead movie than Torchwood.
• Speaking of that scene, how long to do you think it will take some film studies major to write a paper about the significance of two men giving up their blood to the mystical Earth Vagina?
• Torchwood might not be back for a while, so let's just hope that Jack returns to Doctor Who soon. Maybe Rex could come with him?
• Gwen looked fabulous at Esther's funeral, but could Jack not have put on a black coat for the occasion?
• For more about the giant problem that was Oswald Danes, check out the excellent recaps over at the A.V. Club and io9.

Vampire Diaries Promo: Sex, Blood and Birthday Cake

As regular readers of this blog may remember, I absolutely love The Vampire Diaries. The show returns in only one short week and, as if I wasn't excited enough, the TV gods provided me with this promo that has left me salivating in excitement (although that may also be the prominently featured cake):

The main message of the trailer - other than the fact that, on closer inspection, that cake does not look delicious - is that this season is all about Elena. I love that because, as I may have mentioned before, Nina Dobrev is one of my favorite actors working in television right now, and her Elena Gilbert gets tougher and more badass every episode. More Elena is never a bad thing.

The teaser also promises lots more Klaus in the upcoming season. Joseph Morgan is pretty damn fantastic - and he is looking fine in that old-school tux, complete with tails - and I can't wait to see he and the newly bad Stefan (Paul Wesley) leave a trail of murder and mayhem in their wake. Neither can Wesley, who told Ryan Seacrest, "I think it's always more fun to play a bad boy," and promised more "bad Stefan" this season.

I am also loving the promise of a darker, more twisted love triangle between Elena, Stefan and Damon (Ian Somerhalder) this year. That shot of Stefan pulling Elena's hair hints that their relationship is quickly going to get less romantic and more obsessive as Stefan embraces his dark side (EW's Mandy Bierly is predicting a storyline that parallels Buffy's Angelus, and I would be all for that), leaving the door open for Damon to romance her. Dobrev and Somerhalder have great chemistry (which could explain rumors that the two are a couple in real life) and with Stefan out of the picture, Damon could finally have a chance.

I had only a few, minor quibbles with the promo. Much of the supporting cast was left out; I wanted a tease of what was happening with Caroline and Matt, or how Jeremy is dealing with the ghosts of Anna and Vicky. Also, more Alaric, please; the poor man spent most of last season babysitting Jenna, so let's get him a good storyline where he gets to hunt vampires, stat. I'm sure that these characters will be addressed in the season premiere - after all, it centers on Elena's birthday, and Caroline has never been one to stay away from a party - but it would have been nice to see even a glimpse of them in the trailer.

Who else is excited for the new season of The Vampire Diaries? Do you want to see bad Stefan as much as I do? And can someone please get Elena a real cake? The poor girl has been through enough.

Community Season Three Promo: Do I sense a 'Glee' parody in the works?

The first promo for Community's third season is here, and things are looking just as crazy (and hilarious) as ever. Check out the short version of the promo below; a longer version can be found on Community's Facebook page.

I'm really excited about all the John Goodman goodness present here. It certainly looks like Dan Harmon and the writers are using the man's bulk and voice to great comedic effect, and it will be great to see him square off against Dean Pelton (Jim Rash, who got promoted to series regular this year!). I wish we could have seen a little Michael K. Williams (The Wire's Omar, for those of you who aren't awesome enough to know that), but I'll take what I can get at this point.

I'm also really hoping that the elaborate musical number teased in the longer trailer indicates a full-length Glee parody. I've enjoyed the good-natured Glee mockery we've seen in several episodes up to this point, including the first paintball episode, the flashback episode, and Jeff's memorable exclamation of, "I hate Glee! I don't understand the appeal at all!" I'm excited to see what the show can do with a full-on parody.

The five scariest Doctor Who baddies (and no, the Daleks aren't included)

Doctor Who returns this Saturday for the second half of its sixth season, and I really couldn't be more excited. One of the reasons I'm so excited is that the fantastic trailer promises the return of two of my favorite Who villains, the Weeping Angels and the recently introduced Silence. So, in honor of the series' return, take a look at this list of the five scariest villains to grace Doctor Who's screens in the rebooted series. And no, this list won't contain any Daleks or Cybermen; I have to agree with Steven Moffat when he says that the Daleks have become "the most reliably defeatable enemies in the universe."

5. The mysterious presence
As seen in: "Midnight"

Photo courtesy of postmodernbarney.com.

"Midnight" is a classic bottle episode of Doctor Who. This follow-up to the large-scale two-parter "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" has a premise as simple as it is terrifying: the Doctor, along with other assorted vacationers, is taking a trip to see a sapphire waterfall on a diamond planet called Midnight when their vehicle breaks down and a mysterious presence takes over the mind of one of the passengers. They can't leave, because the sunlight on Midnight is so strong it would take them out in seconds and because the planet has no air. The Doctor is left trying to figure out why previously normal passenger Sky is suddenly repeating everything he says as he tries to mediate between the passengers who want to throw her to her death and those who don't. When Sky begins speaking the Doctor's words before he can, the hero suddenly becomes the object of fear. The baddie in "Midnight" doesn't even have a name, which makes the chaos it sows on the ship all the more frightening.

4. The Family
As seen in: "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood"

Photo courtesy of bbc.co.uk.

I may have mentioned before how much I absolutely love these two episodes of Doctor Who for the way the story delves into the meaning of humanity, the importance of love, and the burdens of being the Doctor. One thing I generally leave out, however, is the villainous Family of Blood who instigate the entire plot by chasing the Doctor until he is forced to disguise himself as human. The Family are a terrifying, bloodthirsty pack of hunters whose menace lies in their cold implacability; the Doctor knows that they will never, ever stop hunting him. The fact that one of the Family, Sister, takes over the body of an innocent girl with a balloon adds to the menace by playing on fears of evil children that can be seen in so many horror movies. The real reason the Family is so frightening, however, is their effect on the Doctor. He disguises himself not because he is afraid they will kill him, but because of the rage and terror that underlies his ultimate punishment of these hunters. Any villain who can turn the peaceful Doctor into a vengeful god is a force to be reckoned with.

3. The Master
As seen in: "Utopia"/"The Sound of Drums"/"Last of the Time Lords" and "The End of Time"

Photo courtesy of scifimania.com.

The Master is one of the few original Doctor Who villains to appear in the rebooted series, and he's the only one who actually stays menacing this time around. Much of the credit goes to John Simm, who plays the Master as a deranged god, an all-powerful Time Lord whose mind has been twisted to the point of insanity. His name says it all; he wants to control the world, the universe, time itself. We find out during "The End of Time" that the Master's madness is the result of the other Time Lords manipulation, but his ultimate redemption doesn't make his unhinged brutality any less unsettling. Just look at the way his wife, Lucy Saxon, cowers blank-eyed before him in "Last of the Time Lords," fresh bruises adorning her face, and try to question the terror the man inspires.

2. The Weeping Angels
As seen in: "Blink" and "The Time of Angels"/"Flesh and Stone"

Photo courtesy of geekalerts.com.

"Blink," the first Doctor Who episode to feature the Weeping Angels, is a magnificent piece of suspense filmmaking. When I went to the Home Depot several days after watching it and saw some angel-shaped figurines in the garden section, I stared at those things so long without blinking that I thought my eyeballs would dry up and fall out of my head. That's the thing that's so scary about the Angels; the only way to keep them away from you is to ignore all your natural instincts and physiological responses and stare at the thing you fear for as long as you can. The Angels are terrifying precisely because you can't run from them. You have to have a staring contest with your fear, with little chance of winning, and what could be scarier than that?

1. The Silence
As seen in: "The Impossible Astronaut"/"The Day of the Moon"

Photo courtesy of reprog.wordpress.com.

There is something scarier than having to stare, unblinking, at what you fear most, and that's being unable to remember what it is that you're so afraid of. The reason the Silence are, to me, the scariest villains in Who history, despite being the newest, is the knowledge that they are everywhere and you will never know, because even if you discover their existence you'll forget within seconds. If I see the Master or a Weeping Angel or the Family, I know to run, or to stay and fight. If I see the Silence, however, I will immediately forget about their existence. The thing that is so absolutely, oppressively frightening about these creatures is the idea that they are controlling every facet of your life and your world, and that there is no way you will ever stop them, because you won't even know what they're doing. And that is the one thing that is scarier than the Weeping Angels.

Apple's five greatest pop-culture moments

The reaction to yesterday's announcement that Steve Jobs is stepping down as CEO of Apple Inc. has been mixed, to say the least. Some people have heralded this development as a victory for freedom and democracy, while skittish traders' worries about the company's future led a drop in stock prices. Whether you love Jobs or hate him, it can't be denied that Apple would never have become the instantly recognizable, globally dominant brand it is today without Job's perfectionist involvement. So today, let's mark the end of an era by cataloguing Apple Inc.'s greatest moments in pop culture.

"1984"

The ad that started it all, Apple's famous "1984" ad ran during the 1984 (ha!) superbowl and introduced the world to Macintosh personal computers. The Ridley Scott-directed spot featured an atheletic iconoclast (Apple, of course) disrupting her homogenous, dystopian society by throwing a hammer at a figure who looks suspiciously like George Orwell's Big Brother. (The resemblance was not lost on Orwell's estate, who sent Apple a cease-and-desist letter that prevented the commercial from airing again.) Ironically enough, the company that once cast itself as the brave instigator of a rebellion now has it's own army of mindlessly devoted drones.

Legally Blonde

Photo courtesy of net-practice.com.

Sixteen years after "1984," Apple still held only a small percentage of the personal computer market, which was dominated by Microsoft. So, in 2001's Legally Blonde, the bright orange iBook purchased by Reese Witherspoon's Elle stands out among her classmates' uniformly drab laptops. At this point, Apple still represented an individualist spirit even as the company was seeping into the public consciousness due to exposure in other places. For example...

Sex and the City

Photo courtesy of onesforwheeler.blogspot.com.

Over the course of six seasons, Carrie Bradshaw may have changed clothes, shoes, handbags and boyfriends at a dizzying pace, but she was always faithful to her Mac laptop. The models may have changed, but the computer Carrie used to record her musings on life, love and sex alwlays bore a glowing Apple logo. Suddenly, a generation of single, stylish aspiring writers wanted Macs on which to compose the "great American novel" while sipping some complicated Starbucks drink.

"Get a Mac"

The uniquitous Mac/PC commercials that ran from 2006 to 2010 were simple, recognizable, and funny. They continued Apple's portrayal of itself as a young, hip, original alternatuve to stodgy OCs. The problem was that, by this point in time, Apple was experiencing explosive growth due to the iPod (and later the iPhone), and their claims to a unique, underdog status were starting to grate. Plus, anyone who knows anything knows that John Hodgeman is way cooler than Justin Long.

White earbuds

If Eric Northman has them, they must be cool. Photo courtesy of alexskarsgard.org.

The iPod may have revolutionized the way people listen to music, but it was the white earbuds that accompanied the players that became an instantly recognizable symbol. Seeing those bright white buds peeking out of someone's ears meant that person was young, smart and cool enough to be an Apple customer. (They also indicated that their person liked their music to sound tinny and unbalanced, as those of us who actually care about audio quality ditched the white buds in favor of headphones that actually work.) Those earbuds marked Apple's transition from a maker of computers for geeks to a worldwide phenomenon. When Apple Inc. eventually takes over the planet, and everyone has a link to iTunes in their brain, just remember: it was the earbuds that started it.

How not to end a TV Series

Matthew Fox as Jack in the final shot of the Lost finale. Photo courtesy of ew.com.

The AV Club just ran a very interesting article that dealt with the problems inherent in sustaining the momentum of fantasy series like A Song of Ice and Fire and The Wheel of Time, as well as the tricky proposition of ending such a series. The article is a response both to fan criticism of the glacis pace at which George R.R. Martin is producing ASOIAF and Neil Gaiman's reaction to that criticism, which came in the form of an essay called "George R.R. Martin is not your bitch."

The situation in which Martin currently finds himself is one familiar to many authors and fans of long-running fantasy series. It also happens to be extremely relevant to fans of serialized, mythology-heavy TV shows with unsatisfying ending, like Battlestar Galactica (which I just finished watching) and Lost (the finale of which I can finally talk about without vomiting from rage). There are a number of parallels between these two shows and various literary fantasy series, and I think these parallels can help explain why the finales of Lost and BSG were so explosively bad.

One of the problems that author Zack Handler brings up in the AV club piece is the issue of a series ending up much longer than originally planned because of a writer's tendency to "get lost inside his work." This was a huge issue at various points during Lost's run, most notably during the pointless Hydra station arc in season three and "Stranger in a Strange Land," a.k.a. that episode where Bai Ling gives Jack his tattoos and the audience takes a nap.

These particular irrelevancies remind me of So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish, the fourth book in Douglas Adams' other wise fantastic Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. The book isn't as bad as "Stranger in a Strange Land," but it is just as pointless. Most of the characters we've come to adore - Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox and Marvin the Paranoid Android - are completely absent, and in their place we get Arthur and his new girlfriend Fenchurch having sex on the wing of an airplane. The one or two relevant facts we learn could have been introduced in the next book, perhaps at the moment when we learn that, between the two volumes, Fenchurch has died, rendering So Long even more pointless than it already appeared.

The previous problem was not necessarily the fault of the Lost writers - at that point in the series' run the show had no end date, so Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse were actually trying to stall the plot. Lost's biggest problem was the finale, which Cuse and Lindelof can blame on no one but themselves (just as Ron Moore is solely responsible for the clusterfuck that was the BSG finale). The flaws of these two finales are eerily similar, and they boil down to two fundamental issues: an attempt by the writers to wrap up every individual character arc at the expense of the larger issues, and a solution to the show's ongoing mysteries that throws the complexity of the series out the window in favor of a sudden descent into religion-fueled, pseudo-philosophical mysticism.

I should probably mention here that I don't have a problem with the religious aspects of these shows, which were present from the beginning. I do, however, have a problem with grafting a simplified religious ending onto a complex, multifaceted TV series and pretending that it explains everything. In particular, both finales contained an ultimate message of faith trumping science and reason. I've talked about BSG's anti-intellectual streak before, but it bears repeating that the ultimate "faith is good, science is bad" conclusion is a disservice to the four seasons that BSG spent exploring the complexities of faith, the dangers of dogmatism and the horrors of conflict driven by religion, instead replacing these issues with an inane warning to be afraid of dancing robots.

The Lost finale did exactly the same thing a year later, which I can only explain using the following imaginary conversation:

LINDELOF: Hey Carlton, did you check out that BSG finale?

CUSE: Yeah! I loved how they discarded the complexity of the whole series and boiled everything down to a simple pro-faith, anti-technology message!

LINDELOF: I know! We should totally do the same thing.

CUSE: Awesome idea! And while we're at it, let's ruin Jacob's evocative cork metaphor by putting a literal fucking cork in the island!

LINDELOF: We are going to win so many awards for this.

What I'm trying to say here is that Cuse and Lindelof resolved one of the most interesting conflicts on the show - the tension between science and faith, as personified by Jack and Locke - by giving Jack a religious conversion, just as BSG did with Gaius Baltar. This not only cheapened six seasons of rich dialogue about the nature of science and faith, it spat in the face of viewers who feel science to be useful and who, for whatever reason, don't happen to be among the faithful.

I wouldn't have had such a problem with the religious aspects of these finales, however, if they had actually helped to explain the shows' larger mysteries. Instead, the writers ignored the mysteries in favor of resolving every character's arc. I'm certainly not saying they should have completely ignored the character arcs - it was nice to see Sawyer and Juliet's sideways-world reunion and Helo and Athena's happy new life with Hera - but all the focus on these arcs meant there was no time to answer the many other questions raised over the series' runs. I for one would have liked to find out more about the Island's electromagnetic properties, or the importance of the Opera House beyond having Gaius and Caprica carry Hera all of three feet into the CIC.

Admittedly, it was always going to be absurd to expect the writers to answer every question and please every fan. Hell, even the final book of the classic fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia suffered from the same problems discussed above. Narnia is actually worse in some ways, particularly the fashion in which C.S. Lewis condemns Susan because she was a teenage girl interested in - god forbid! - boys and makeup. (If you haven't thought through the implications Susan's fate before, I highly recommend Gaiman's short story "The Problem of Susan," although you probably shouldn't read it if you don't want to hate Lewis). Ending a mythologically complex series is hard, and very few people have ever managed to do it successfully. I'm still angry about the resolution of Lost, but I can understand the kind of pressure Cuse and Lindelof were under. I just wish they had worried less about placating the fans, and more about crafting an ending as groundbreaking as the series that led to it.

In conclusion: pray for Fringe, because trust me, they're going to need it.

So, the last five episodes of "Miracle Day" were irrelevant?

Jack and Angelo on the run. Photo courtesy of digitalspy.com.

"Immortal Sins," the most recent episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day was awesome. Maybe not Children of Earth awesome, but in the context of the current, lackluster season, it was a breath of fresh air. The episode focused almost solely on Gwen and Jack with an absolute minimum of Rex and Esther, it featured some classic Russell T. Davies boundary-pushing, man-on-man action, and it actually advanced the plot in a meaningful way. The only problem was that the plot development rendered the previous five episodes - everything since the season premiere - completely irrelevant.

But let's star with the good. (Warning: SPOILERS ahead if you havent's seen "Immortal Sins".) The renewed focus on Jack and Gwen and their always-complicated relationship was excellent, allowing for some lovely emotional moments and a nice dose of character development. Eve Myles did a great job with the tricky beat where she described how she "got off" on her work with Torchwood, how it had hardened and made the deaths of Tosh, Owen and Ianto seem somewhow worth it. It was an excellent, dark spin on the way she described Torchwood in the opening episode of Children of Earth; if "the whole wide world is bigger," then the value of the people who inhabit that world begins to lessen.

Both Myles and Barrowman also did a great job selling the scene where they both vow to sacrifice each other in order to save what's most important: Gwen's daughter and Jack's life, respectively. Myles made Gwen's desperation palpable, but I was most impressed - not to mention disturbed - by Jack's coldness and absolute selfishness. If you've never watched Doctor Who you've never seen a mortal Jack before, a Jack who actually has something to lose. Even for those of us who remember mortal Jack, this new callousness is shocking. I wonder if Gwen and Jack's relationship can ever recover.

The real developments of the night - the ones that create so many problems with the previous five episodes - happen during flashbacks to the 1920s. Over the course of the episodes we see Jack meet, seduce, freak out and ultimately get betrayed by Angelo Colasanto (Daniele Favilli), a young Italian immigrant who, we learn at the end of the episode, is still alive and has information about the Miracle, presumably because he's behind it.

This is a pretty fantastic plot development, because it ties the Miracle directly to Jack. The fact that Angelo obviously has something to do with it, along with a conspicuous shot of a women holding a bottle of Jack's blood, seems to imply that Angelo and his allies (which hopefully include Phicirp, just to keep that story from being completely pointless) managed to synthesize something from the blood that keeps people from dying. I'm not sure that I buy that being a fixed point in time and space - something I always equated to Earth in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series being like a bubble in wallpaper that always comes back no matter how many times you push it down - is something you can find in blood, but I'm willing to go with it for the sake of the story.

(Speaking of being a fixed point in time and space, I think it's a continuity error when Jack describes himself to Angelo using those words. According to the Doctor Who timeline, Jack becomes immortal in "The Parting of the Ways," when TARDIS-possessed Rose brings him back to life. He then gets left behind, finds his way to Earth in an attempt to find the Doctor but accidentally lands in the 1800s, where he joins Torchwood and waits for the Doctor. Jack doesn't find out why he's immortal - the fixed point thing - until "Utopia," which takes place in the early 2000s, between the first and second seasons of Torchwood, which means that he couldn't have possibly explained his immortality to Angelo in 1928. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that scene breaks continuity, which someone should have been watching out for. Anyway, back to the point...)

The problem with the revelation about Angelo, fascinating as it is, is that it invalidates every episode since the premiere. Why did we spend so much time with Phicorp and the overflow camps when it really got us no closer to the solution to the Miracle? This is the first episode in a while that's actually left me eager to watch next week, but it's also frustrating to know that so much of the season has been a waste of time. Clearly, Davies needs to stick to either episodic television or five-episode, Children of Earth-style arcs.

Stray Thoughts:

• Jack's new willingness to protect his own life at all costs provides a terrible answer to a burning question from Children of Earth - why did Jack take Ianto into Thames House, knowing what he did about the 456? It's starting to look like he either didn't care at all, or didn't care enough.
• On the other hand, his description of the short-lived Firebird was gorgeous, and the idea of a creature that only lives for a moment is a resonant one for an immortal.
• Rex and Esther actually did something useful this week!
• No Jilly and Oswald for the second episode in a row. Are they just as irrelevant as everything else? (I'm going to say yes.)
• Yay for the return of PC Andy Davidson! I love him.
• "You're Welsh. You wouldn't notice if all the vowels were missing."